Map QuizRenaissance

Theme: Crisis and Recovery

Lesson 24

ID & SIG

• Bubonic Plague, da Vinci, humanists, Hundred Years’ War, movable type, Renaissance, Renaissance art, state building

Renaissance

• Crisis– Bubonic Plague– Hundred Years’ War

• Recovery– State building– Renaissance

Crisis

Bubonic PlagueWhere we left off in Lesson 23

• During the 1330s plague erupted in southwestern China

• During the 1340s, Mongols, merchants, and other travelers helped to spread the disease along trade routes to points west of China

• It thrived in the trading cities of central Asia where domestic animals and rodents provided abundant breeding grounds for fleas and the plague bacillus

• By 1346 it had reached the Black Sea ports of Caffa and Tana

http://historymedren.about.com/library/atlas/blatmapasiabd.htm

Bubonic Plague

• In 1347 Italian merchants fled the plague-infected Black Sea ports and unwittingly spread the disease to the Mediterranean Basin

• By 1348, following trade routes, plague had sparked epidemics in most of western Europe– We’ll talk more about

the Bubonic Plague in Europe in Lesson 24

Illustration of bubonic plague in the Toggenburg Bible

(1411)

Bubonic Plague

• Victims developed inflamed lymph nodes, particularly in the neck, armpit, and groin areas

• Most died within a few days of onset of symptoms

• Internal hemorrhaging often discolored the inflammations known as “buboes” which gave rise to the term “bubonic” plague– Europeans referred to the

plague as “Black Death”

Bubonic Plague

• In Europe, plague erupted intermittingly from the 1340s until the late 17th Century

• In areas hit hard by the plague, it took a century or more to begin recovery from the demographic consequences

“Doktor Schnabel von Rom” (“Doctor Beak from Rome”) engraving, Rome 1656. The “beak” is a primitive gas mask filled with substances thought

to ward off the plague

Bubonic Plague

• Population decline caused massive labor shortages which in turn generated social unrest– Urban workers demanded higher wages and many

left their homes in search of better conditions– Political authorities responded by freezing wages and

forbidding workers to leave their homes– Peasants in the countryside tried to move to regions

where landlords offered better terms and landlords responded by restricting the freedom of peasants to move and reimposing labor requirements; in effect, reinstating serfdom (remember from Lesson 18)

Bubonic Plague

• These sharply conflicting interests led to a series of rebellions which political authorities eventually suppressed with considerable social disruption and loss of life

Townspeople flee to the countryside to avoid the plague

Bubonic Plague

• Economic recovery was underway in Europe by 1500 when European population climbed to 81 million

• Today the bubonic plague survives in rodent communities, but since the1940s antibiotic drugs have brought it largely under control among human populations.

In the US, the last urban plague epidemic occurred in Los Angeles in 1924-25. Since then, human plague in the US has occurred as mostly scattered cases in rural areas (an average of 10 to 15 persons each year).

Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)

• Series of armed conflicts fought over a 116-year period between England and France– Centered around a maze of

feudal and commercial claims

• Fought primarily in France and devastated the countryside

Hundred Years’ War

• Marauders called écorcheurs looted and pillaged anybody weaker than themselves

• Joan of Arc’s family had to flee their home at Domrémy to escape écorcheurs

Joan of Arc rallied French soldiers demoralized after their defeat at Agincourt and

led France to victory at Orleans. Ultimately, she was captured by the English and burned

at the stake.

Hundred Years’ War

• In 1358, French peasants launched the Jacquerie Revolt against the écorcheurs, the nobles (who made extortionate demands but provided no protection), and the general poverty and devastation of the Hundred Years’ War

• The leader, Guillaume Karle (or Cale), was captured and beheaded by Charles II of Navarre, and the mob was easily dispersed – The nobles took revenge by massacring thousands of

the peasants

Recovery

State Building

• By the late 15th Century, states in Italy, Spain, France, and England had devised techniques of government that vastly enhanced their power– State building was based principally on fresh

sources of finance and the maintenance of large standing armies

France

• Partly because of the tremendous expenses incurred during the Hundred Years’ War, the kings of France and England began to levy direct taxes and assert the authority of the central government over the nobility

France

• King Louis XI maintained a permanent army of about 15,000 troops, many professional mercenaries equipped with firearms– The expense of such an army was beyond the

means of the nobility, so King Louis and his successors enjoyed a decisive advantage over those who might challenge the central authority

Spain

• In 1469, the marriage of Fernando of Aragon and Isabel of Castile united the two wealthiest and most important Iberian realms

• With their combined wealth they were able to build an army capable of conquering the Muslims in the Kingdom of Granada and completing the Reconquista (Remember from Lesson 20)

• They were also able to project Spanish authority beyond Iberia such as by sponsoring Christopher Columbus’ explorations (We’ll talk about this next lesson)

Italy

• Italian city-states had enriched themselves from industrial production and trade, much of which was generated by the Crusades (Remember from Lesson 20)

• This allowed the regional states to strengthen their authority within their own boundaries and collectively the city-states of Milan, Venice, and Florence, the papal state based in Rome, and the Kingdom of Naples controlled public affairs in most of the Italian peninsula

Italy as Birthplace of the Renaissance

• Survival of Roman artistic and architectural heritage and the continued use of Latin kept memories of classical civilization alive

• Profited from both Islamic and Byzantine influences• Trade built wealth that furnished material resources for

cultural development and created an affluent middle/upper class with the leisure for education and a sense of political responsibility

• City-states competed with one another in cultural affairs and sponsored innovations in art and architecture

Renaissance

• “Renaissance” is French for “rebirth” and refers to the explosion of artistic and intellectual creativity that took place between the 14th and 15th Centuries in western Europe

Artists

• Renaissance painters, sculptors, and architects drew inspiration from the classical Greek and Roman artists rather than their medieval predecessors

• Artists used the technique of linear perspective to represent the three dimensions of real life on flat, two dimensional surfaces

Difference in Painting

MedievalRenaissance (The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne by da

Vinci, 1510)

Difference in Painting

Renaissance (Pope Julius II by Raphael)

Medieval

The School at Athens by Raphael

The School at Athens, with lines to

show perspective

Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337)

• Overcame the obstacle of flat forms by skillfully contrasting light and shadow to create an illusion of depth that made human figures look solid and round “The Mourning of Christ,”

painted c.1305

Masaccio (Tomassco Guidi) (1401-1428)

• Used atmospheric perspective to show objects receding into a background and to make figures appear round and truly three dimensional

Trinity 1425-28 Fresco

Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520)

• Excelled in composition and use of soft colors

St. George Fighting the Dragon, 1505

Raphael is famous for his warm, pious, and graceful Madonnas such as The

Small Cowper Madonna, c. 1505

El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos) (1541-1614)

• Used severe colors and elongated features to express Spanish religious zeal in powerful and emotional paintings

The Burial of Count Orgaz conveys the Catholic spirit of

communion among God, saints, and humans

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

• A great artist, but more than any other person of his age, personified the idea of the “Renaissance man”– Someone of broad

interests who is accomplished in both the arts and sciences

Mona Lisa uses light and shadow and perspective to make the figures fully human, enigmatic, and mysterious

The Last Supper captures the emotions of each of Jesus’ disciples at the exact moment of their learning one will

betray Him

Leonardo da Vinci

da Vinci’s study of the proportions of the human

body

da Vinci’s plans for a helicopter

Sculptors

• Sculptors depicted their subjects in natural poses that reflected the actual workings of human muscles rather than the awkward and rigid poses often found in earlier sculptures

Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564)

• Considered himself a sculptor first and painted with a sculptor’s eye

• Made the muscular masculine figure his ideal beauty

Michelangelo’s David and Moses show dramatic and emotional postures and expressions

Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo’s frescos covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican are perhaps the single

greatest achievement in Renaissance art

Donatello (Donato di Niccoli di Betto) (1386-1466)

• Traveled to Rome to study the classics of antiquity

• Employed models and created studies of anatomy and the human body

Donatello’s David was the first nude statue of the Renaissance and is known

for its grace, proportionality, and balance

Architects

• Architects designed buildings in the simple, elegant classical style and perfected domed architecture which enclosed large spaces but kept them open and airy underneath massive domes

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446)

• Combined the Romanesque cruciform floor plan with classical features such as columns, rounded windows, and arches

Brunelleschi is famous for his dome atop the

cathedral in Florence

Andrea Palladio (1508-1580)

• Combined elements of both the early Renaissance stress on balance and geometrical symmetry with the mannerist architecture of visual paradox and confusion

• Made the exteriors of private houses match the exteriors of classically influenced churches and public buildings to create a place for the wealthy and powerful at the very top of civic life– This would become a principle of domestic

architecture throughout Europe and the colonies in America

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello shows the influence of Palladio’s

Villa Rotunda

Humanists

• Unlike later “secular humanists,” Renaissance humanists were scholars and literary figures who were deeply committed to Christianity and religious themes

• They scorned the dense and often convoluted writing style of the scholastic theologians and instead used the elegant and polished language of classical Greek and Roman authors and the early church fathers– Erasmus’ Praise of Folly

attacked both the pedantic dogmatism of scholars and the ignorance of the masses

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) published an edition of

the New Testament that served as the basis for various

translations into the vernacular languages.

Humanists

• They reconsidered medieval ethical thinking that taught that the most honorable calling was that of a monk or nun who withdrew from society and instead argued that it was possible to lead a morally virtuous life while participating actively in the affairs of the world

By writing about everyday life within all social classes, Giovanni Boccaccio

(1313-1375) brought the lustfulness and earthy wit of the lower classes into the

realm of serious literature

Humanists

• Represented an attempt to reconcile Christian values and ethics with the increasingly urban and commercial society of Renaissance Europe

Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) wrote in the Tuscan vernacular so his poetry reached a large audience. His sonnets celebrated his love for Laura, a married

women he admired from afar.

Other Great Renaissance Authors

• Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)– Canterbury Tales

• Thomas More (1478-1535)– Utopia

• Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)– Don Quixote

• William Shakespeare (1564-1616)– Known for his use of language and analysis of

character which reflected a deep understanding of the good and evil in man

Movable Type

• Johannes Gutenberg’s use of movable type to print books accelerated the spread of classical learning

• Allowed for the mass production of texts that spread the cultural heritage of the classical world throughout Europe

Next

• European Exploration