Renaissance

• Renaissance


  • Revival of interest in the leanings of ancient Rome and Greece
  • People began to be curious and enquiring
  • Marked the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern world
• Reasons why the Renaissance began in Italy

  • Many ruins of ancient Rome (Colosseum, Circus Maximus)
  • Wealthy Italian cities (Venice, Florence, Milan)
  • Italy was the centre of trade routes throughout Europe (spices, silks from India and China)
  • Invention of the printing press
  • Patrons like the Medici family sponsored people to create amazing works of art
• Humanism


  Humanists believed that old writings from ancient Greece and Rome gave a better understanding of human nature
• Changes in art and architecture during the Renaissance

  • New interest in portraits and landscapes
  • Less religious pictures and more realistic people and nature
  • Artists studied the human body to make paintings and sculpture more realistic
  • Artists mixed oil with colours and could change details
  • Perspective used to give an impression of depth and 3D effect
  • Sfumato - a smoky cloudy style where outlines were blurred
• Renaissance architecture


  • Square or rectangular symmetrical shapes
  • Symmetrical front/facade
  • Roman type columns
  • Arches and domes
  • Flat ceilings
• Renaissance buildings


  • Basilica of St. Peter
  • Sistine Chapel
• Apprenticeship for artists


  Boys became apprentices at 12, learned recipes for mixing colours, taught how to paint frescoes, became members of a guild when trained, depended on rich patrons
• Patrons of the arts


  • Medici family
  • Cosimo de Medici
  • Lorenzo de Medici
  • Pope Leo X
• Medici family


  • Ruled Florence for 200 years
  • Supported artists like Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci
  • Supported science and Galileo Galilei
• Leonardo da Vinci


  • One of the greatest artists in history, excelled in drawing, painting, sculpture
  • Famous for paintings like Mona Lisa and The Last Supper
  • Used sfumato style
  • Kept journals full of drawings and sketches, studied anatomy, interested in science and inventions
• Michelangelo


  • Born near Florence, became apprentice at 13, sculpted Pietà and David, painted Sistine Chapel ceiling and The Last Supper, designed dome of St. Peter's Basilica
  • Difficult to work with, made over 200 drawings for Sistine Chapel
• Albrecht Durer


  • Famous German artist and engraver, noted for self-portraits and realistic paintings of nature
• Michelangelo


  • Interrupted him, trying to speed up the work
  • Painted The Last Supper, a fresco, behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel
  • Originally the figures were nude, but it caused such an outcry that clothes were painted to partly cover the bodies
  • Painting depicts God sending people to Heaven or Hell
  • Designed the Dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome but died before it was built
  • When he died, he was buried in Rome, but the people of Florence robbed his body from the grave and buried him again in Florence
  • Made over 200 drawings while preparing to do the Sistine chapel
• Albrecht Durer


  Famous artist and engraver
• Albrecht Durer


  • Born near Nuremberg 1471, son of a goldsmith
  • Began his apprenticeship as a painter when he was 15
  • Appointed court painter to Emperor Maximilian, leader of the Holy Roman Empire
  • Noted for self-portraits, and pictures of nature; plants and animals
  • Painted realistic painting called The Hare and Clump of Turf
  • Tried to reveal the features and characteristics of the person he painted
  • Famous for his engravings –fine lines and precise details
  • Famous engravings: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, St Jerome in his Study and The Knight, death and the Devil
  • After his death, German painting went into the decline partly because of the influence of the Reformation
• William Shakespeare


  • Considered to be the greatest writer of all time
  • An actor and playwright
  • His plays were seen in the globe theatre
  • Women were not allowed to act, so young boys, whose voices had not broken played the female parts
  • Wrote 38 plays including Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A midsummer night's dream etc
  • The characters in his plays were very realistic, showed emotions
  • Famous for his 14 lined sonnets
• Galileo


  • Born in Pisa, Italy, father was a music teacher and a famous musician
  • Went to the University of Pisa to study medicine in 1581
  • Became interested in physics and mathematics
  • Observed a lamp hanging from the ceiling in the cathedral, noticed it took the same amount of time to swing back and forth
  • Left the university and got a job as a teacher, began to experiment with pendulums, levers, balls, and other objects
  • Wanted to test principles and see if he could observe them in the real world, laid the foundation for the scientific method
  • Tested the idea that heavier items would land first, proved they landed at the same time
  • Moved from Pisa to the University of Padua, where he was permitted to experiment and discuss new ideas
  • Studied Copernicus' work and felt his observations of the planets supported the view that the Sun was the centre
  • Built his own telescope, made many discoveries including the four large moons around Jupiter and the phases of the planet Venus
  • Wrote a book called the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, describing why he thought the Earth orbited the Sun
  • Sentenced to life in prison by the Catholic Church, later allowed to live at his home in Tuscany under house arrest for years
  • Continued to write while under house arrest, became blind, died on January 8, 1642
• William Harvey


  • Discovered that the heart made blood circulate around the body
• The Renaissance spread to France Belgium, Holland, Germany and England
• The spread of the Renaissance was due to the invention of the Printing Press, the spread along trade routes, Northern Artists visiting Italy, and the patronage of the Medicis
• Printing Press


  Invented by German Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, allowed for information to be distributed to a wide audience, helped to spread new scientific discoveries, ideas and opinions
• Printed items from the Printing Press

  • German poem
  • Latin Grammars
  • Indulgences for the Catholic Church
  • Gutenberg Bible (42 lined Bible)
• Music and Dance in the Renaissance

  • Music became a part of everyday life, experimented with new types of instruments and combinations of voices
  • Polyphony - interweaving several different vocal melodies at the same time, became popular in choirs
  • Madrigal - romantic poems sung with emotion, between three and six singers
  • New and improved instruments developed including the violin, horns, stringed instruments, and woodwind instruments
  • Court dances - formal dances performed by trained dancers
  • Country dances - dances where anyone could participate, with specific steps and movements
• Renaissance Entertainment


  • Festivals
  • Sporting events
  • Games such as chess, checkers, and backgammon
  • Carnival with Masquerade
• Renaissance Food


  • Bread and stew for most people
  • Fancy meals for the rich
  • Beer or wine with meals
• Renaissance Clothing


  • Tight coat called a doublet for men
  • Long dresses for women
  • Clothing was an important status symbol
• The effects/results of the Renaissance included questioning old science and knowledge, leading to the Age of exploration and Reformation, the development of perspective, sfumato and Roman style architecture, artists becoming respected as scholars, and the printing press helping to spread education and writing in the vernacular language