IDS 172
The Renaissance
“Getting into an Era; or, How to Enjoy this Course as More than a Duty”
· Learn facts but don’t be limited by them.
· Look for patterns, themes, cycles that make facts mere details.
· Investigate broadly (use course resources but link around too).
· Follow your interests wherever they lead. Allow extra time.
· Let knowledge grow in spots, then, slowly, connect the spots.
What is exciting/interesting about the Renaissance? How do we know it’s “real”?
THE RENAISSANCE: WHY DID IT HAPPEN WHEN AND WHERE IT DID?
Dates:
Places:
“Great People”:
Processes/Forces/Events/Stack of Turtles (Try to Venn Diagram, look for overlaps, try to explain one or more of these overlaps and/or the dialectics below, Discussion):
Natural:
Geographic:
Economic:
Technologic/Scientific:
Religious:
Political:
Sociological:
Philosophical:
Literary:
Artistic:
Concept of “Base” and “Superstructure” (Causes vs. Effects)
Turning Points vs. Gradual Transitions:
Monasteries (religion; preservation, order, obedience, stability: the “rock”)
Scholasticism and Monastic Culture
Identification of “Error” and Persecution of “Heretics”
Universities (humanities; discovery—esp. of ancient writings, but also experimentation later; free thought, questioning orthodoxy, change: “turtles”)
Why does questioning of old, stable “Truths” start to happen when and where it does?
Classicism (see Rafael, The School of Athens, 1511, and Renaissance architecture)
Notion of Progress in Human Knowledge
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (AKA “Pico”), 1463-1494.
Religion and Philosophy (What’s the difference? Can they be unified? What are some possible consequences of the attempt?)
“Oration on the Dignity of Man” (1486)
The Great Chain of Being
“Freedom of Man”: Divine or Bestial? No Fixed Nature. We Must Choose.
Human Perfectability? (Heretical—we are fallen, cast out, right? But also made in the image of God. Can we ascend the “Great Chain”? Progress?) Discussion?
Value of the Liberal Arts and Humanistic Education (vs. the vulgar pursuit of wealth) Discussion?
Renaissance Humanism (Individualism, Realism, Activism)
The “Renaissance Man”
The Artist as “Genius” (as divinely inspired, “terribilita,” a little crazy but great)
Can you think of any other artist-genius in history (how do people still play this role?) Discussion?
Michelangelo (1475-1564)
Sistine Chapel (1508-1512)
The Creation of Adam and The Drunkenness of Noah
David
(1504), symbol of “Genius,” “Perfectibility,” represents
Sculptor as imitator of God
Marble as human body, a perfect soul waiting to be revealed
Depicted in moment of decision/resolution
The Renaissance Man’s Renaissance Man: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Mona Lisa (c. 1503)
Notebooks
The Duomo (Santa Maria del Fiore), 1409-; by Brunelleschi (1377-1446)
The Marketplace
Their Rise to Power, Banking, Politics and Religion
Patronage of the Arts as a Key to Power
The ends justify the means (even in religion)
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), The Prince (1513)
Leadership requires deception and hypocrisy
It is better to be feared than loved
Anticipates
Modern Realpolitik,
Savonarola (1452-98, executed)
Dominicans Oppose Humanism, lead Inquisition after Reformation
“Bonfire of the Vanities” (1497)
Cycles of Revivalism, Puritanism
A Maritime Empire (including slavery)
Religious and Intellectual Capital
A Worldly
Papacy (the Borgias, Medici, and the new
The Renaissance in the North (a century later than
Cultural Diffusion (e.g., modern fashion)
Elizabethan
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
The Theater as a Social Institution (The Globe Theater)
Humanism and Hamlet (c. 1602)