The Renaissance 101

This is a post that came from another blog of mine which recently went private. I have written here before a very brief introduction to the Italian Renaissance, and this is simply an extended version of that. I find the Renaissaance absolutely delish, as I'm sure you will! Who can resist Medicis, humanism, Michelangelo and so much more???

I'm going back to my roots as a history student and teacher and blogger of historical fiction to bring you the first of a series of posts on the Italian Renaissance. I'd like to just state for the record that if you found yourself here by googling the term "italian renaissance" by all means use these posts as background information and although I am a qualified teacher of the subject I am not a published author so you probably shouldn't source me in your bibliography. Most of the info comes from my own brain but if I'm referring to someone else's ideas, etc, I'll source it for you, with a link where possible.

And this work of mine is copyrighted 2010 so please don't cut and paste this info into your papers as that's just plagiarism and really not cool. Plus my own musings will probably come into it, as will any side comments and totally biased opinions I may have that you may not necessarily share. So go the hard yards, do the research and write the darn thing yourself!
If you have any questions though or want ideas on books or other sources please email me. Oh, one more thing - if it's the French Renaissance you're looking for this blog here is really great.

So let's begin.

The Italian Renaissance is generally considered to begin in the late 14th century (after the Black Death) and end during the middle 16th century (around the beginning of the Reformation). It refers to a time of great cultural and social change as European society moved out of the Middle Ages and into a new era of enlightenment and change. The term renaissance is a French one meaning reborn. In Italian the term is il rinascimento.

The Italian artists and writers of the late 14th century Giotto, Boccaccio, Petrarch and Dante are considered amongst the forerunners of the enlightened souls who were at the birth of the Renaissance. Although these men came from different places it was the city of Florence where they found patronage and acceptance.

Florence is often called "the cradle of the Renaissance" because it was the city that most strongly supported the development of new ideas and encouraged the looking back to antiquity. Fundamentally, the Renaissance examined the literary works of the ancient Greeks and Romans, works that had long lay doramnt in the minds of the medieval Europeans. These works included Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Homer, Cicero, Pliny, Plutarch, amongst others. These ancient writers were revived and revered by the new emerging writers of the 14th century and hailed as literary and artistic inspiration. Much of the works written, painted, sculpted and otherwise created during the Renaissance take their inspiration not only from the writings of ancient Greeks and Romans but also from Greek and Roman mythology.

Some of the most prominent artists during the Italian Renaissance include Michelangelo Buonarotti famous, amongst other things for his painting of the Sistine Chapel (and the glorious Creation of Adam scene) The Sistine Chapel (ceiling) - Michelangelo Buonarotti - 1508-1512

and his giant statue David;

Sandro Botticelli of La Primavera and The Birth of Venus fame The Birth of Venus - Sandro Botticelli - c1485-87

Donatello, Masaccio, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippo and Filippino Lippi and Giovanni Bellini.

The architect Filippo Brunelleschi is the genius behind the dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, a creation that astounded artists, humanists and mathematicians alike. His development of linear perspective was crucial to Renaissance architecture. And truly, he was the only one who could get that enormous dome to stay put on top of the church. A competition was run and his design was chosen as the winning one - it was like the X Factor of the 15th century!


One of the most significant and influential figures of the Renaissance is of course, the world-famous, incomparable, omnipotent, Leonardo da Vinci. Artist, sculptor, writer, engineer, inventor, mathematician, physicist, and more, da Vinci took the notion of a renaissance man to a whole other level. His level of genius and the contributions he made not only to Florentine society (in fact despite being trained there very little of his working life was spent in Florence) but to Italian society as a whole are staggering. It is, however for the following work that Leonardo da Vince is so fondly remembered:

Mona Lisa - Leonardo da Vinci - 1503-1519

The notion of humanism is an important one in understanding the Renaissance but what exactly is it? That's a pretty loaded question that really requires a post all on its own (maybe one day, I've already got a ton of other renaissance-based posts planned). Basically, in a nutshell I suppose, humanism puts man at the centre of his (or her) own universe. Riding on the back of the Middle Ages and the Black Death where God and the Church were all, that the afterlife was the key to living this life, the people involved in the movement of humanism during the renaissance decided to start living their lives for themselves. Man is the measure of all things. An idea that man (and I use this term here in place of human - although women weren't necessarily an integral cog in the whole humanism/renaissance wheel they did play their part. But that is definitely another post for another time) could live his life as he wanted to, to enjoy the here and now and not necessarily focus on the afterlife as an end reward. They became active participants in the world around them, making contributions to society and being responsible for their actions.
Humanism also plays its part in the development of art during the renaissance. The book European Art of the Fifteenth Century explains "the humanists rediscover the values of moderation, reason and a sense of proportion."

One of the men most highly regarded as being a benefactor of humanism is Lorenzo de Medici.

Lorenzo de Medici - Andrea del Verrocchio, 1480

Lorenzo il magnifico was the grandson of Cosimo de Medici, a Florentine banker who was considered the grandfather of the renaissance. Lorenzo himself, however, is the one accredited with patronage and support of some of the city's finest artists, writers and humanists. As Francesco Guicciardini stated: "'if Florence was to have a tyrant she could never have found a better or more delightful one." (From, Hibbert, C. The House of The Medici: Its Rise and Fallp 157).
Lorenzo not only patronised and commissioned works he also supported the overseas expeditions that searched for the lost texts of the classical Greeks. Important historical occurences such as the fall of Constantinople in 1458 saw a huge influx of Greek humanists from Turkey into Italy and mainland Europe, some bringing with them books, artefacts and other important artefacts that brought the classics to the forefront of the renaissance mind.

The Black Death 101

The Black Death 101

Source: history.howstuffworks.com


Where are our dear friends now? Where are the beloved faces? Where are the affectionate words, the relaxed and enjoyable conversations? What lightning bolts devoured them? What earthquake topped them? There was a crowd of us, now we are almost alone. We should make new friends, but how, when the human race is almost wiped out; and why, when it looks to me as if the end of the world is at hand?

Petrarch wrote these words in 1350, two years after the outbreak of the Black Death or the Black Plague as it is also called. This term is a relatively new one and refers to the horrible outbreak of plague that ripped through European and Islamic society in the 14th century. It also returned in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries as well, although not as bad as that initial outbreak.

It is believed that the plague began in Asia and travelled along the trade routes of Asia Minor, the Middle East and into Europe and England. The major trade route that connected India to Persia would have been the likely source of it reaching the Middle East and the Mediterranean. It moved through Egypt, North Africa and came into Europe through Messina, in Sicily. This is where we have our first primary accounts of it reaching Italy in 1347.

Source: tea.state.tx.us

As students of the history, we are fortunate to have been left behind a variety of primary sources in regards to the plague. Not only Italian writers such as Petrarch and Boccacio (famous for his plague-inspired Decameron) but also Islamic scholars such as Ibn Khalund, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalari and Ibn Battuta. From France we have the writings of Jean de Venette and Jean Froissart.

These different writers refer to the plague in a number of ways. The term Black Death, as mentioned, is a new one and the plague was often referred to as: the great pestilence, the great death, the universal plague, the plague of the kindred, the great plague and so on.

The Black Death was generally believed to have been a strain of the bubonic plague, borne by the fleas on black rats, but this notion has been disreputed in recent times. Unlike the Black Death the bubonic plague is characterised by the swelling of the lymph glands. Michael Platiensis (1347) gives us an account of what the symptoms and process of the plague was like.

In their bones they bore so virulent a disease that anyone who only spoke to them was seized by a mortal illness and in no manner could evade death. The infection spread to everyone who had any contact with the diseased. Those infected felt themselves penetrated by a pain throughout their whole bodies and, so to say, undermined. Then there developed on the thighs or upper arms a boil about the size of a lentil which the people called "burn boil." This infected the whole body and penetrated it so that the patient violently vomited blood. This vomiting of blood continued without intermission for three days, there being no means of healing it and the patient expired.
(Quoted in Johannes Nohl, "The Black Death", trans. C.H.Clarke, London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1926).


The devastating effects of the plague are realised not only in the massive decline in population through out the known world, but in other areas of society as well. Firstly, though, let's look at just how much damage the Black Death did to European and Middle Eastern populations. Estimates at exactly how many people died in the plague of 1348 varies considerably. Conservative historians place it approximately 35 million people dead in Europe alone. It is believed that up to two thirds of the populations of many of the major European cities was struck down by the plague from 1348-1350. Other sources say that between one quarter and one third of the the populations of Europe and the Islamic world were lost to the Black Death. In Egypt the Marmluk's army was severely affected, this in turn was believed to be a contributing factor to the eventual loss of Egypt to the Ottoman Empire in the early 16th century.

According to Joseph P. Byrne in "The Black Death" Pope Clement VI was informed that 28,840,000 people had died or about 31 per cent of the population of 75 million. Yet Byrne goes on to assert that these numbers are merely guesses as no one can know for sure how many people actually lived in Europe at this time. (There wasn't really a door-to-door census in those days). Boccaccio claimed 100,000 dead in Florence and Robert of Avesbury said over 200 died each day in London. Jean Venette believed that 500 died each day in Paris, Agnolo di Tura said that 52,000 died in Siena; Friar John Clynn reported 14,000 dead in Dublin; and a Flemish chronicler wrote that 62,000 died in Avignon in just three months. (Joseph P. Byrne, The Black Death, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, p58

Whatever the true number it is certain that it was significant and the effects on society even more so. The responses in Europe were two-fold. Most people looked to the Bible as to why the plague was happening and the result was that Europe was being punished for the greed, avarice, pride, lust and other equally detrimental sins in which they were living their lives. The notion that God was striking down the sinners is also evident in the art contemporary to the plague.

Many people turned to the church for help and consolidation during the tragic times of the plague. We even see the return of the self-flagellants, a group of people who would travel around meting out their own self-punishment. The church always condemned self-flagellation, however it was still a recurring phenomenon in times of tragedy.

Reactions to the plague weren't just increased piety and religious devotion.
Boccaccio's Decameron is famous for conveying a different reaction, that of the devil-may-care attitude. Boccaccio says "they practiced what they preached" drinking heavily and roaming gaily from house to house, tavern to tavern. Those who could afford to quickly fled the cities and retired to their country estates, where they could live in seclusion and isolation and still enjoy a more than comfortable life.
Elizabeth I was one such dignitary who fled to the country in an attempt to avoid the plague as did the Sultan of Egypt. This latter case is an unusual one as, unlike Christianity, Islamists saw the plague as a form of martyrdom from Allah. Those who died from the plague would be admitted instantly into paradise. Obviously, the Sultan didn't agree!

In response to the lack of action by the church and lack of assistance from general doctors and apothecaries (due to the unknown nature of the plague) there also developed a rise in supernatural ways of dealing with the plague. Spells, amulets, chants, prayers, magic squares and more became quite popular in both the Christian and the Islamic world in an attempt to ward off the plague. I think we can even safely assume that the dissatisfaction of people toward the church during the plague continued to grow and this combined with the notion that God was punishing people for their sins were both contributing factors in the Reformation two centuries later.

Economic consequences were many, the most obvious being the closing down of shops and businesses. Shops, factories, even taverns were all brought to a production stand-still. With this came the hald in food production and the decrease in provisions brought in from nearby countrysides. In turn, the poor food situation led to higher deaths and the higher demand for food led to inflated prices. Those who worked the farms were able to demand higher wages due to the scarcity of healthy workers. Likewise doctors and apothecaries were able to charge exorbitant prices for their services. New healers and doctors sprung up all over the place, most of them uneducated but with some knowledge in herbal and natural remedies. Here is a famous picture of a doctor wearing his "beaked" mask to prevent catching the plague. The mask is filled with specific herbs for warding off the pestilence.
Source: The Medieval World
Health committies were set up in many of the large cities and governments did as much as they could (in many instances) to try and prevent, and then contain, the spread of plague. Venice in particular prided itself on its ability to block off entrance into the islands, however this did not stop the spread of plague in the end.

A tremendous shift in the consciousness of the medieval people due to the Black Death also contributed to the budding movement soon to sweep through Europe's lands. The Renaissance, that magnificent re-birth of classical belief and art can be linked to the Black Death in that people no longer wanted to live their life with the afterlife in mind, but rather to enjoy their time on earth for their own sake. Other significant consequences of the Black Death include changes in law and legislation, a shift away from medieval social structure, agriculture, economics, work and land entitlements and more. For more information on this, see Joseph P. Byrne The Black Death, chapter 4 'Effects of the Black Death on European Society.'

Anyway, I could go on and on about the Black Death and will expand on this further at a later date. This is really just the tip of the plague's iceberg. Hope you enjoy your breakfast!

The Women of the Renaissance

My research on women in the Renaissance has brought up a lot of surprising and interesting information. Jacob Burckhardt in his tome The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy made the rather sweeping statement in his chapter entitled The Position of Women: "To understand the higher forms of social intercourse at this period we must keep before our minds the fact that women stood on a footing of perfect equality with men."

This statement was taken at face value by historians for many years until the feminist movement in the 1970s when historians began to revise history and examine it also from a woman's perspective. Joan Kelly's Did Women Have a Renaisssance is one essay that raised the notion that indeed women were not on equal footing with their male counterparts.

Kelly illuminated the unique social position of Italy during the Renaissance: emerging from the Middle Ages and excelling in mercantile and manufacturing business it was more advanced in many ways than other European countries (please keep in mind that "Italy" as a country did not exist at this stage but was instead made up of many individual city states, republics and kingdoms - but that's a lesson for another day). She boldly states that these very advancements "affected women adversely, so much so that there was no renaissance for women - at least not during the Renaissance." (Women, history & theory: the essays of Joan Kelly, p 19 available from Google books ). Kelly examines women in a number of roles for her essay: female sexuality; economical and political roles; cultural roles (including education); ideology of women, in particular in art, literature and philosophy (ibid, p20).

In his equally fascinating book Women in the Streets: Essays on Sex and Power in Renaissance Italy Samuel K. Cohn Jr also looks at the decline of the appearance of women after the beginning of the 15 century. His study focuses on evidence from court and criminal archives, convent and dowry lists, and wills. It is an examination of women that delves so much deeper than merely the famous elite women of Italy delivered from a purely bourgeoise perspective. Women such as Sofonisba Anguissola, Catherine de Medici, Simonetta Cattani (beloved, but not wife, of Giuliano de Medici), and Lucrezia Donati (beloved, but not wife of Lorenzo de Medici) are women that are well known to the historian as elite, wealthy women who were able to participate somewhat in Renaissance society. The latter two are referred to as the "ideals of love." This was a common role for women belonging to the upper echelons of society and although Donati and Cattani were both married to other men, their public veneration by the Medici men was infamous. In fact, Lorenzo composed an early love sonnet to Lucrezia.

Catherine Lawless in her essay Women on the Margins: the 'beloved' and the 'mistress' in Renaissance Florence expounds further on this notion of "ideals of love". She also asserts that "Renaissance historians now know a great deal about wives, widows, mothers, nuns, tertiaries, anchoresses; even, although to a much lesser degree, about women who were poets and artists...women who did not fit into such clearly sanctioned, or perhaps it is more true to say, clearly defined roles have received little attention." (From Studies on medieval and early modern women: pawns of players, co-authored with Christine Meek, Four Courts, 2003 and available online at Three Monkeys Online

K.J.P Lowe's work Nuns' chronicles and convent culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2003) was a look into the lives of a somewhat forgotten and often ignored group of women in Renaissance history. It is insightful and has assisted me in developing a believable and historically accurate portrayal of Le Murate, or the Convent of Santa Annunziata where I have set my novel.

The role of women in Renaissance Italy and in particular Florence is an important one to the student of the Renaissance and it is worth investigating further. To accept Jacob Burckhardt's dated and now incorrect statement is an easy out for the student of history and further, deeper investigation is required (as is often the case in women's history) to truly understand the complex and diverse roles of women during this time. I hope these sources and this brief essay has helped those of you who are wishing to delve deeper and really examine closely the women of the Renaissance.

Venice - City of Excellence

This post has come from another one of my blogs which has recently become private. I moved many of the history articles from there over to here so that people can still access my bite sized pieces of history. Please forgive me if these ones are slightly overflowing from the plate, they weren't designed for the History Harlequin's purpose of quick, snippets of history.

 

I have had the immense pleasure of visiting Venice of couple of times, each time in winter. It wasn't as crowded as I hear it gets in the summer months and we were able to move through it fairly easily. The first time was with a fellow Aussie traveller, the second was with a group of students I knew when I was studying in Padova. There were a couple of Italians amongst us, which made the trip even better. Travelling around a country with a native of that country is a really great way to see the real thing. You know, when you're a tourist with Lonely Planet thrust tightly under one arm, phrase book in the other, you miss most of the good bits trying to get to the place where all the tourists are.

When I went with the group of students we wound up in a little cafe that served delicious warm red wine, glorious hot chocolate (thick and bitter - delicious!), sensational antipasto and more. I have no idea what it was called or if I'll ever end up there again. I think it may have been near some water. Down a dark, quiet alley. Hmm....



I remember this was the trip where I tasted salted licorice for the first time (yuck!), made fun of the raucous American students with their fancy cameras around their necks with my Swedish friend Steine and dodged the attentions of an Italian named Zeno who I knew had a Mexican girlfriend.

Anyway, this post isn't just about my more than enjoyable trips to the capital of the Veneto, it's also a look at a book that I have, called Venice Cità Excelentissima: Selections from the renaissance diaries of Marin Sanudo.


Source: The Book Depository

When I discovered this book on Google books last year needless to say I was very excited. One of the things about being a historical writer is finding primary sources that cover the topics pertinent to your story. Sanudo kept his diaries from January 1 1496 to 1533. He tried several times to give away his journal writing, but luckily for us historians, he was convinced otherwise.

Sanudo's work covers an enormously broad range of topics including Venetian government, crime and justice, war and diplomacy, economics, social life, religion and superstition, humanism and the arts, theater and much more.

Sanudo's account of life in Venice during the Renaissance is so comprehensive that for the first time, in all the many and diverse lives of Finding Orpheus I am considering changing the location of my story from Florence to Venice. Sanudo paints such a vivid picture, such inspiring first hand accounts that the information available to a novelist to create a realistic and historically accurate setting is hard to resist.

And Venice too has such a romantic image, being on the islands, with their dark, secret alleyways, the quiet lapping water that holds a myriad of secrets and mysteries. It also stands so close and in such contact with the mysterious and dangerous Ottoman Empire, something that snakes its way into my character's lives.

Who knows Ana and Giovanni may well end up in Venice sometime in the future. The killer that they are facing may lead them there. Or some other circumstance.

For those of you who are interested in the renaissance in Venice though, you can't go past Sanudo's diaries.