renaissance 1

• Renaissance

  A cultural movement that spanned the period roughly from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe
• Renaissance

  • Innovative flowering of Latin and vernacular literatures
  • Development of linear perspective and other techniques of rendering a more natural reality in painting
  • Gradual but widespread educational reform
  • Development of the conventions of diplomacy
  • Increased reliance on observation in science
• Petrarch


  Credited with the 14th-century resurgence of learning based on classical sources
• Polymaths

  Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance man"
• Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, engineer, astronomer, and philosopher
• Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer
• Origin of Renaissance

  Had their origin in late 13th century Florence
• Reasons why Renaissance originated in Italy


  • Expanding trade into Asia and Europe brought wealth to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries
  • Silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money
  • Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa and Venice
• Medici

  A banking family and later ducal ruling house, the catalyst for an enormous amount of arts patronage, encouraging his countryman to commission works from Florence's leading artists
• Italy in the early modern period

  • Did not exist as a political entity, instead divided into smaller city states and territories
  • One of the most urbanized areas in Europe, with many cities standing among the ruins of ancient Roman buildings
  • Appeared to have exited from Feudalism, with a society based on merchants and commerce
  • City republics were devoted to notions of liberty
• Venice and Florence

  • Great trading centers, making them intellectual crossroads where merchants brought ideas from far corners of the globe
  • Venice was Europe's gateway to trade with the East, and a producer of fine glass, while Florence was a capital of textiles
  • The wealth such business brought meant large public and private artistic projects could be commissioned and individuals had more leisure time for study
• Humanism

  The resurgent study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy, and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries
• Renaissance humanism


  • A cultural movement of the Italian Renaissance based on the study of classical works
  • Humanists reacted against the "narrow pedantry" and sought to create a citizenry able to speak and write with eloquence and clarity, through the study of the studia humanitatis (grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy)
  • A pervasive cultural mode and not the program of a small elite
• Renaissance art

  • Development of highly realistic linear perspective
  • Painters also developed other techniques, studying light, shadow, and human anatomy
  • Works of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Sandro Botticelli
• Renaissance architecture


  • Developed first in Florence, with Filippo Brunelleschi as one of its innovators, and quickly spread to other Italian cities
  • Became not only a question of practice, but also a matter for theoretical discussion
  • The first treatise on architecture was De re aedificatoria by Leon Battista Alberti in 1450, the first printed book on architecture
• Science and art were very much intermingled in the early Renaissance, with polymath artists such as Leonardo da Vinci making observational drawings of anatomy and nature
• The willingness to question previously held truths and search for new answers resulted in a period of major scientific advancements, including De humani corporis fabrica by Andreas Vesalius and De Revolutionibus by Nicolaus Copernicus
• Significant scientific advances were made during this time by Galileo Galilei, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler
• Renaissance architecture


  The architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture
• Renaissance architecture


  Followed Gothic architecture and was succeeded by Baroque architecture
• Developed first in Florence


  With Filippo Brunelleschi as one of its innovators, the Renaissance style quickly spread to other Italian cities
• Architectural theory during the Renaissance

  • Architecture became not only a question of practice, but also a matter for theoretical discussion
• Treatises on architecture


  • De re aedificatoria (On the Art of Building) by Leon Battista Alberti in 1450
  • Regole generali d'architettura (General Rules of Architecture) by Sebastiano Serlio in 1537
  • I quattro libri dell'architettura (The Four Books of Architecture) by Andrea Palladio in 1570
• Phases of the Renaissance in Italy

  • Early Renaissance (ca. 1400–1500)
  • High Renaissance (ca.1500–1525)
  • Mannerism (ca 1520–1600)
• Early Renaissance


  • Space was organised by proportional logic, its form and rhythm subject to geometry. The prime example is the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Florence by Filippo Brunelleschi
• High Renaissance

  • Concepts derived from classical antiquity were developed and used with greater surety. The most representative architect is Bramante (1444–1514) who expanded the applicability of classical architecture to contemporary buildings
• Mannerism


  • Architects experimented with using architectural forms to emphasize solid and spatial relationships. The best known architect associated with the Mannerist style was Michelangelo (1475–1564), who is credited with inventing the giant order
• Renaissance style

  • Places emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the architecture of classical antiquity and in particular ancient Roman architecture
• Characteristics of Renaissance architecture

  • Symmetry is a dominant concern and the details of moldings and trim draw on ancient roman example
  • The classical orders of columns, pilasters and lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical domes, niches and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings
  • Classical architectural forms were used in plasterwork, inlaid woodwork, and painted decoration as well as for staircases, doors, windows, and fireplaces, which formed increasingly important and elaborate features of interior design
• Plan

  • The plans of Renaissance buildings have a square, symmetrical appearance in which proportions are usually based on a module. The need to integrate the design of the plan with the façade was introduced as an issue in the work of Filippo Brunelleschi. The first building to demonstrate this was St. Andrea in Mantua by Alberti
• Façade

  • Façades are symmetrical around their vertical axis. Church façades are generally surmounted by a pediment and organized by a system of pilasters, arches and entablatures. Domestic buildings are often surmounted by a cornice. An early and much copied prototype was the façade for the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence

  
• Columns and pilasters

  • The Roman orders of columns are used: Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite. The orders can either be structural, supporting an arcade or architrave, or purely decorative, set against a wall in the form of pilasters. One of the first buildings to use pilasters as an integrated system was the Old Sacristy by Brunelleschi
• Arches

  • Arches are semi-circular or (in the Mannerist style) segmental. Arches are often used in arcades, supported on piers or columns with capitals. Alberti was one of the first to use the arch on a monumental scale at the St. Andrea in Mantua
• Vaults


  • Vaults do not have ribs. They are semi-circular or segmental and on a square plan, unlike the Gothic vault which is frequently rectangular. The barrel vault is returned to architectural vocabulary as at the St. Andrea in Mantua
• Dome

  • The dome is used frequently, both as a very large structural feature that is visible from the exterior and as a means of roofing smaller spaces where they are only visible internally. After the success of the dome in Brunelleschi's design for the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore and its use in Bramante's plan for St. Peter's Basilica, the dome became an indispensable element in church architecture and later even for secular architecture, such as Palladio's Villa Rotunda
• Renaissance means "rebirth"
• Italy is considered as the birthplace of the Renaissance because it was there that many artists, writers, philosophers, scientists, and scholars lived during this time.
• Humanism - focus on human potential and achievements rather than religious beliefs