Renaissance Ideas and English Culture

• Renaissance ideas


  • Knowledge of classical learning increased amongst the elite groups in society
  • A growing number of schools became influenced by humanist approaches to education
  • Henry VIII saw himself as a promoter of new ideas and of humanism
  • The Crown needed well-educated diplomats who could communicate with their counterparts in other countries in a fashionably elegant style
• Renaissance ideas


  Had an increasing influence on visual culture
• Henry VIII


  Commissioned the Italian sculptor Pietro Torrigiano
• Commissioned


  1. To produce the tombs of his parents

  2. To produce the tomb of his grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort
• Northern Renaissance


  Owed far more to Gothic influences than it did to the Italian Renaissance
• Dominant painters at Henry VIII's court

  • From the 'northern Renaissance'
• Best-known painter at the court

  • German Hans Holbein
• Best paid painter at the court

  • Fleming Lucas Horenbout