The Renaissance (c1400–1600)

Renaissance means 'rebirth' (French). It began in Italy around c1400 — a revival of classical Greek and Roman ideas in art, scholarship, architecture and thought.

1. Wealth from Mediterranean trade gave merchants money to spend on art. 2. Political rivalry between city states made cultural patronage a form of competition. 3. The physical remains of ancient Rome and the arrival of Greek scholars (after 1453) made classical learning readily available.

A humanist was a scholar who placed human dignity, reason and classical learning (Greek and Latin texts) at the centre of education — shifting focus from purely theological questions towards human achievement and civic life.

Florence was a merchant republic governed by a wealthy guild-based oligarchy. Competition among merchant families for prestige, a tradition of civic republicanism, and the rise of the Medici banking family from the 1430s created ideal conditions for cultural patronage.

A republic shared power among citizens (in practice, wealthy merchants) — e.g. Venice and (in theory) Florence. A signoria was rule by a single lord (signore) — e.g. Milan under the Sforza family. The form of government shaped who funded art and why.

Lorenzo de Medici (1449–1492) was the de facto ruler of Florence. He patronised art for: (1) political prestige and civic loyalty; (2) diplomatic purposes (e.g. sending Botticelli to Rome); (3) intellectual life (the Platonic Academy with Ficino and Pico); (4) personal legacy and humanist ambition.

Ludovico Sforza ('il Moro', c1452–1508) was the Duke of Milan. His hold on power was legally questionable, so he used art — especially Leonardo da Vinci (in Milan c1482–1499) — to project legitimacy, impress foreign courts, and show Milan as a great Renaissance capital.

The Last Supper (1495–1498, Santa Maria delle Grazie) and military engineering designs (weapons, canals). Leonardo also produced court entertainments and worked on a giant bronze equestrian statue of Ludovico's father.

Pope Nicholas V (r.1447–1455) — began rebuilding Rome and founded the Vatican Library. Pope Sixtus IV (r.1471–1484) — built the Sistine Chapel and hired Botticelli. Pope Julius II (r.1503–1513) — commissioned Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, Raphael's Stanze, and Bramante's St Peter's.

Partly religious piety (glorifying God), partly political (projecting the Church's authority after the crisis of the schism), partly personal ambition (being remembered like Roman emperors). Julius II explicitly saw himself as a new Julius Caesar building an empire in marble and paint.

Venice was a stable oligarchic republic — power held by a hereditary merchant nobility with a largely figurehead Doge. Collective institutions (guilds, Scuole Grandi) funded art for communal pride, producing a distinctive Venetian style (Byzantine influence, rich colour — Bellini, Titian) rather than the personal propaganda of a single lord.

Form of government → type of patronage → style and purpose of art. E.g.: signoria (Milan) → personal lordly patronage → art as propaganda for the ruler's legitimacy. Republic (Venice) → collective institutional patronage → art celebrating communal identity.

A ruler's primary duty is to maintain power. Machiavelli argued it is better to be feared than loved, separated politics from Christian morality, and drew on Roman history to analyse what actually keeps a ruler in power.

Because it separated political advice from Christian ethics and argued that rulers should do whatever is necessary to hold power — directly challenging the idea that rulers must govern according to God's law.

Christian Humanism applied Renaissance textual methods to the Bible and early Church writings rather than pagan classical texts. Erasmus is the key figure: his critical Greek New Testament (1516) and *The Praise of Folly* (1511) exemplify the approach.

Using satire, it mocked Church corruption, clerical ignorance, and human vanity. Erasmus attacked abuses within the Church while remaining loyal to it — believing education and reason, not schism, were the path to reform.

Dürer travelled to Italy (1494–95, 1505–07), absorbed Italian technique (perspective, proportion, classical subjects), and spread Renaissance imagery northward through printed engravings and woodcuts. His self-portraits introduced the concept of the artist as creative genius to German art.

Both adapted Italian Renaissance methods to northern contexts. Erasmus used humanist philology on scripture (textual scholarship); Dürer used Italian artistic techniques in German visual art. Erasmus spread ideas through printed books; Dürer through printed engravings — both benefiting from the printing press.

The Duchy of Burgundy (under Philip the Good, ruled 1419–1467) was one of the wealthiest European courts and acted as a cultural bridge between Italy and the north. Burgundian court culture blended Italian Renaissance influences with the Gothic tradition, transmitting new ideas to Germany, France, and the Low Countries.

Colet (c1467–1519) studied in Italy, returned to lecture at Oxford using humanist methods on St Paul's letters, and founded St Paul's School (1509) to teach Greek and Latin using humanist texts — bringing Renaissance education directly into English schools.

*Utopia* imagined an ideal society built on reason and civic virtue, using the Renaissance method of classical comparison to criticise contemporary European politics. It shows the English Renaissance producing original humanist political thought, not merely copying Italy.

Holbein (c1497–1543), a German-born painter, became court painter to Henry VIII. He introduced the Italian Renaissance portrait tradition — realistic, psychologically rich — to England, transforming how the Tudor monarchy presented itself visually to Europe.

The English Renaissance depended heavily on imported talent (Holbein was German, Erasmus was Dutch). Royal power constrained humanist independence — More's execution in 1535 showed that Tudor authority could crush Renaissance individualism. England absorbed and adapted the Renaissance rather than fully replicating the Italian model.

**Colet taught it** (education — St Paul's School 1509), **More wrote it** (political thought — *Utopia* 1516), **Holbein painted it** (court portraiture — Henry VIII's image). These three names cover education, literature/politics, and art.