Preliminary remarks:
-19th- and early 20th-century views of the Renaissance, focusing on the sharp break from the Medieval era, and the birth of modern Europe.
-19th- and early 20th-century views of the Renaissance, focusing on the sharp break from the Medieval era, and the birth of modern Europe.
-Reflections of enlightenment and modern thinking on the interpretation of European cultural fluorescence of the 15th and 16th centuries.
-Later 20th century critique of earlier interpretations; and current approaches.
Setting:
-15th century Florence: urban commercial economy led by the new mercantile establishment
-new culture of commerce and consumption, new social alignments. Rise to prominence of new merchant-banker elites, over traditional aristocracies.
-Transformation of medieval courtly ideals.Parallel developments in other city states of Italy.
Studia humanitatis:
-Revival of Greek and Roman antiquity, emphasis on humanism and civic virtues. Ancient Greece and Rome perceived as foundational; models for the present, and present ideologies, cultures, and values.
New sense of history:
-validation of the present through the past.Revival of antiquity also a frame and legitimization for new elite and new forms of courtly society.
New sense of self and new modes of self-representation, new modes of negotiating one’s place in social hierarchies.
-Revived or new cultural forms: collections of letters in Latin or vernaculars; geographical surveys, maps; the essay, the autobiography, the newsletter. In visual arts: ancient history and mythology alongside Biblical themes; portrait painting, single point perspective.A relatively more secular outlook, and non-religious modes of expression and cultural production become more visible.
-New forms of artistic and cultural patronage, new forms of civility and manners.
-Encounter with distant and less-distant geographies and peoples, part of Renaissance culture of discovery and expansion.
-Distinctions between medieval and Renaissance rediscovery of antiquity.Diffusion of new cultural trends to northern Europe and fringes of Europe (Hungary, Ottoman lands): Renaissance ideas re-shaped, re-interpreted, used in line with local cultural dynamics.
