Chapter Summary

The Renaissance was initiated in the midst of the devastation of the Black Death. Unlike the Middle Ages, the Renaissance placed particular value on the renewal of classical art forms and literature and on the importance of the individual. Associated with Italy more than any other region of Europe, the Renaissance initiated a period of dramatic change. The entire age can be subdivided into three phases: from 1350 to 1400 during which discovery of ancient texts and experimentation with new art forms took place; 1400 to 1500 typified by political stability in the Italian city-states and the creation of a recognizable culture; and 1500 to 1550 dominated by foreign invasion and the diffusion of the Italian Renaissance to the rest of western Europe.

Italy was distinguished from the rest of Europe by the degree of its urbanization. Not only were seven of the ten largest European towns located in the Italian peninsula, but the region also was dotted with numerous smaller towns as well. Surrounding each city was a rural area that served as a supplier of foodstuffs and as a region of recruitment for the urban population. The cities served as central markets for the produce of their agricultural hinterlands. In the aftermath of the plague, Italian cities were smaller than their pre-plague counterparts. Despite the diminution of the population, urban space was crowded with men, markets, animals, and agricultural products. The social organization of towns differed from the countryside, where social status was determined by one’s relationship to the land. In the city, social distinction was determined by occupation and membership in guilds, communal organizations that imposed monopolies of trade or production. At the top of the guild structure were wholesale merchants, bankers, and public administrators. Farther down the social scale were retail merchants and skilled craftsmen. At the bottom were those men, unskilled and underemployed laborers, who were not guild members. Urban society was typified by a huge gulf between rich and poor. In Florence, ten percent of the population held ninety percent of all wealth in the city. Such disparities were common in Renaissance cities.

Demographics shaped the change in market forces in the early Renaissance. Between 1350 and 1400, the plague and subsequent aftershocks continued to depress the population of all areas. As a result, the value of labor increased. In the short run, the agricultural laborers’ disposable wealth—that amount left after the purchase of necessities—went up. Simultaneously, investment in the traditional fashion, in land and in the cloth industry, brought diminished returns for wealthy capitalists in the cities. Both the poor and the rich, each group with greater amounts of disposable wealth, turned to the purchase of luxuries. Such purchases eased the psychological burden of the plague and aided in escaping the increasing burdens of taxation. Producers responded to the sudden demand for luxuries by expanding markets in silks, jewelry, imported foodstuffs, and art objects. In a sense, the culture of the Renaissance was the creation of the plague.

Life in a Renaissance city could be hard, particularly for the poor. Children of the poor often failed to survive childhood. For those young who survived, males were apprenticed and females were sent out as domestic servants. Children of the wealthy were more likely to survive past their early years. There was no standard for Renaissance families. Most were probably nuclear in structure, but there were examples of several generations—grandparents, siblings, grandchildren, and servants—living under a single roof. Even nuclear households often contained servants. Older children were dealt with as economic resources and utilized to increase the economic fortunes of the household. Sons were normally apprenticed at age ten or thereafter. Daughters’ fortunes were determined by the ability of the family to arrange for a dowry. Young women with dowries were married and entered the household of their husbands until such time as the new couple had sufficient wealth to establish a separate household. Those without dowries were hired out as domestic servants or entered convents. Women commonly were married at around age twenty to men ten or more years their seniors. Married life for women normally involved successive pregnancies. Only death and the age differential between men and women limited family size. Men married much later in life, after long supervision in the households of other males. Some males never were able to establish independent households. Delayed household formation may have led to sexual frustration and even homosexuality. Men who did successfully establish independent households enjoyed complete authority over those under their roofs. Death was a companion of the Renaissance household. Frequent outbreaks of the plague and lack of medical knowledge ensured annual harvests of those without natural defenses—often the very young and adolescents. Famine and starvation were less significant causes of death.

Despite the plague, the quality of life for surviving citizens of the Renaissance may have improved. Life spans increased for survivors as a result of more plentiful food supplies and more varied diets. Social and political cohesion also increased as citizens came to depend on a greater variety of social support groups. Kinship groups were supplemented by guilds, neighborhood organizations—either familial or ecclesiastical—and godparenting. The Church remained central to Renaissance society. The fundamental symbols of daily ritual were derived from ecclesiastical sources. The calendar of the Church continued to establish the rhythms of urban life. Even spatial relationships within towns were dependent on the location of individual churches and parish boundaries. The extent to which Renaissance citizens were able to express social solidarity with the city in which they resided can be observed in the works of art produced within the shops and schools of Italy. In many cases, works of art were expressions of civic pride.

The art of the Renaissance owed as much to the social system in which the artists lived and worked as to the individual genius and techniques of the artists. Wealth within the cities permitted the creation of public works of art—buildings and monumental sculpture. The celebration of the individual and the existence of disposable wealth led to a sudden interest in portraiture. Renaissance art was also the product of a system of education based on the principles of the craft guilds. Students worked as members of shops where wealthy patrons contracted specific works of art. It was, in short, a business. Most Renaissance artists became skilled in more than one area of expertise. The great geniuses of the Renaissance were equally renowned for their architectural, sculptural, and painted works.

The early Renaissance produced three artistic masters who dominated their respective fields. Brunelleschi combined classical architectural motifs—in particular the dome and round windows with concepts already present in late Gothic architecture to produce a radically new style. His greatest triumph was the dome atop the cathedral in Florence. In sculpture, Donatello was the most important early Renaissance innovator. Again, Donatello impressed classical concepts of the ideal form on the sculpture of the later Gothic period. Among his contributions was a renewed interest in the equestrian monumental statue, a common feature of public art in antiquity. Masaccio introduced the mathematical science of linear perspective to Renaissance painting. His innovation gave paintings the illusion of three-dimensional space.

By 1450 the innovations of Masaccio, Donatello, and Brunelleschi had produced a recognizable Renaissance style, nowhere more apparent than in Florence. For the middle period of the Renaissance, the greatest architect was Leon Battista Alberti. He continued Brunelleschi’s technique of utilizing basic geometric forms according to Euclidean theorems. Alberti not only worked in monumental scale, but also transferred the new style to domestic scale. No sculptor of the middle period surpassed the artistic achievements of Donatello, but there were many painting masters. Piero della Francesca surpassed Masaccio’s study of linear perspective, possibly under the influence of Alberti’s geometric studies in architecture. Sandro Botticelli introduced a greater sense of romanticism and emotion than the more rigorously geometric painters. Better known still was Leonardo da Vinci. A master of composition (The Last Supper) and portraiture (La Gioconda or the Mona Lisa), Leonardo also was a master of scientific speculation.

The most complete master of the Renaissance was Michelangelo Buonarroti—sculptor, painter, poet and architect. A son of a wealthy Florentine family, Michelangelo underwent the customary training as an apprentice in an artistic shop patronized by Lorenzo de’ Medici. His period of apprenticeship, two years, was remarkably brief. During his studies he may have been influenced by Neoplatonist philosophers who also enjoyed Lorenzo de’ Medici’s patronage. Following his apprenticeship, Michelangelo embarked on a career that took him first to Rome and then back to Florence. Between 1496 and 1504 he created two masterpieces of sculpture, the Pieta and David. The expressiveness and majesty of the two works guaranteed the artist’s fame. A third work, the paintings covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, established Michelangelo as a painter as well as a sculptor. In some ways the most impressive achievement of the Sistine Chapel was Michelangelo’s ability to make the rounded surface of the ceiling appear flat when the frescoes were viewed from the floor. Michelangelo’s masterpieces continued throughout his career, but the crowning glory of his life was the completion of the dome for St. Peter’s Cathedral, the seat of St. Peter’s grave. The building of the dome was considered an architectural impossibility, but Michelangelo solved the load-bearing problems and integrated the structure into the already completed base of the cathedral. Renaissance art was an expression of the society that was responsible for its creation. It merged the renewed taste for classical models with the remnants of medieval art. A contemporary observer was able to list over two hundred major artists of the period.

Renaissance thought was embodied in the scholarly approach called humanism. Like Renaissance art, humanism entailed the synthesis of classical literary forms into the educational system. Those responsible for the recovery and interpretation of classical texts were referred to as humanists. While humanism did include topics that could be considered secular in nature and did often dwell on the accomplishments of man, there was nothing antireligious in the humanistic curriculum. Many humanists applied the study of classical languages to ecclesiastical texts, including the Bible.

At the heart of humanistic education was the study of ancient texts, particularly Greek works. After the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, Italy became the center of Greek studies. Humanism also departed from Scholasticism in the points of emphasis within the curriculum. Humanists placed importance on grammar, rhetoric, moral philosophy, and history. Of the ancient authors, Cicero was most favored as a model for humanistic studies. Petrarch was responsible for the elevation of Cicero to the humanistic pedestal. Petrarch’s most important successor, Leonardo Bruni, concentrated on the study of the texts of the two major Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. Bruni was one of the founders of the influential Florentine Platonic Academy. Lorenzo Valla was famed for his study of philology, the study of the origin of words. Rigorously utilizing the humanistic study of philology, Valla invalidated the papacy’s claims to secular authority in Italy by proving the so-called Donation of Constantine a forgery. Humanists tended to be political activists. Leon Battista Alberti wrote a tract proposing proper family lifestyles in the urban setting. Even more influential was the work of Baldesar Castiglione. In the Courtier Castiglione defined the qualities necessary for the successful member of the ruling elite. The Courtier was both a book of etiquette and political science.

Renaissance scientific inquiry emphasized the recovery of ancient texts and their correction based on observation. In the biological sciences the recovery of the works of Hippocrates led to greater interest in anatomy and advances in the setting of broken bones. The treatment of disease was heavily influenced by the work of Galen which explained disease as an imbalance of bodily humors. At the same time new engineering techniques developed through the search for solutions to practical problems by Renaissance craftsmen and artists working on the building projects of the Renaissance.

In The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli portrayed the ideal characteristics of a ruling prince in Renaissance Italy. His work has been interpreted as the blueprint for power politics without regard to public benefit. The son of a relatively poor lawyer, Machiavelli received a humanistic education before entering public service in the Florentine government. He served primarily as a diplomat until his dismissal from office and subsequent banishment. In exile he composed his literary works, including The Prince. Machiavelli’s dissection of the proper use of power is based on classical models drawn from history. It is entirely secular in mood. The sole concern of the ruler is maintaining power without reference to ethics. Rulers were advised to conquer, murder, and deceive in order to restore the ancient empire.

The Italian peninsula was dotted with city-states. The economic supremacy of the cities was a result of their position astride the trade routes between East and West. Each state was a political entity that competed politically and militarily with its neighbors.

Five political units dominated the affairs of Italy. In the far south, hereditary monarchs ruled the kingdom of Naples, including the island of Sicily. In the middle of the fifteenth century, the kingdom fell to the Spanish monarchs of Aragon. Just north of the kingdom of Naples lay the Papal States, technically ruled from Rome. Within the Papal States were numerous semi-independent cities seeking to distance themselves from ecclesiastical government. The last three political powers were city-states of northern Italy. Florence and Venice were republics. The former was inland. The latter was a maritime republic, dependent on sea power, and only later developing dominance over its landlocked neighbors. The last of the group was Milan, governed by a single aristocratic family. Until 1450, the political affairs of the Italian peninsula were chaotic. Foreign invasions, internal insurrections and political rivalries, and inter-city warfare destroyed any semblance of order. After the middle of the fifteenth century, internal order was achieved through the development of increasingly centralized governments. The republics saw the emergence of powerful elites that gained control over the electoral processes. In Milan, Francesco Sforza established a new military government. The succession of the Aragonese to the throne of Naples brought order in the South. Finally, the end of the Great Schism allowed the popes to restore their authority within the Papal States. Restoration of internal order led to the creation of a diplomatic balance of power within the peninsula. Since the hiring of mercenary soldier, called condottieri, was expensive, the Italian states used diplomacy as both a defensive and offensive weapon. Sforza’s overthrow of the Visconti in Milan led to the Peace of Lodi and the alliance of Milan with Florence. Venice allied with Naples.

Venice’s prosperity was based on its military and commercial control of the seas. From the tenth century, Venice enjoyed a privileged position in Byzantine trade. All of the lucrative trade coming into the city from the east had to be carried on Venetian galleys. The republican government controlled all merchant contracts in such a way that many, rather than a few, prospered. Venetian government was also intended to distribute power among many. A strictly regulated oligarchy, power was restricted to those families able to secure membership in the Great Council. From the approximately 2,500 men who were members of the Great Council, all public officers were chosen. Terms of public service were brief, and even the highest offices were distributed evenly among all members of the Great Council. Venice was able to create an enormous overseas empire in the East along the lines of its trade routes to the Byzantine Empire. In the fifteenth century, Venice began to extend its control to the west into the Italian peninsula. In part, the creation of a land empire was to balance the loss of eastern trade associated with the fall of Constantinople.

The Florentine economy was based on the commercial successes of its numerous banking houses and on the industrial capacity of its woolen crafts. The calamities of the mid-fourteenth century ended prosperity for many banking families and for the cloth industry. Eligibility for the Florentine government depended on guild membership. As the number of guild masters was few, the government in Florence, as in Venice, was an oligarchic republic. Leaders among Florentine families were able to create powerful factions and to control access to public office. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Medici family was able to secure domination of the Florentine government. The Medici were a powerful banking family whose members were closely associated as patrons with the cultural revival of the Renaissance. The most famous of the family was Lorenzo the Magnificent. Himself a product of a humanistic education, Lorenzo excelled at diplomacy. He was able to maintain the balance of power in the Italian peninsula, although his concentration on political affairs permitted his banking house to collapse. In the long run, the success of the Medici political faction corrupted the sense of republicanism in Florence.

During the Renaissance, Italy enjoyed a political, cultural, and economic hegemony over western Europe. The political empires of the five major states of Italy were tenuous. They were immediately threatened by the expansion of the Ottoman Empire under Mehmed II. Conquerors of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottomans rapidly extended their control to the Balkan peninsula and to Greece. The Ottomans posed a most direct threat to the Venetians, who lost their seaborne empire in the East. Despite the Ottoman challenge, the Italian states were unable to overcome their individual differences. Instead, they plunged into an internecine conflict that destroyed the equilibrium of political power in Italy. Wars between the Italian states brought foreign intervention. Charles VIII of France in alliance with Milan successfully conquered most of northern Italy. In response, the defeated powers brought in Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor to offset the influence of the French. The myth of Italian power was destroyed in the Italian Wars.