Renaissance In Italy

Describe the various influences that led to the establishment of the Renaissance in Italy. Exactly why, when, where the changes that formed the Renaissance occurred, is unclear. About 1400 medieval thinking began to give way to ideas that brought about changes in art, architecture, interior design and many other aspects of human life. In Renaissance Europe there was a succession of design styles that came to dominate the settings of life for the powerful and wealthy and the institution of church and state that they controlled. For the ones that weren’t powerful and wealthy, stylistic changes were less important – medieval ways survived with some small changes that were more cosmetic then basic. Unlike the medieval worldview, which didn’t encourage the individual curiosity and imagination, Renaissance humanism forced the idea that obvious could be questioned, that the mysterious could become less mysterious through probing and discovery. In the medieval thinking the human questioning suggested luck of faith. The new ideas of humanism developed against an unquestioned Christian backdrop also. Much of the new art was in dedication of the Church. Reforms in the Church, based on

humanist textual criticism of the New Testament occurred. October 1517 Luther published the “95 Theses”, challenging papal authority and criticizing its perceived corruption, particularly with regard to its sale of indulgences. Also, it led to the Reformation, a break with Roman Catholic Church that previously claimed hegemony in Western Europe. Therefore, humanism and Renaissance played a direct role in sparking the Reformation. During the Renaissance was spread out the idea of the importance of the individual. It developed the idea that each human being has the potentialities to learn, discover, and achieve. The humanism faith in classical scholarship led to the search for ancient texts that would increase current scientific knowledge. Botany, zoology, magic, alchemy, and astrology were developed during the Renaissance as a result of the study of ancient texts. Among the works rediscovered were Galen’s physiological and anatomical studies and Ptolemy’s Geography , as well as Plato, Archimedes, and Euclid. Leonardo da Vinci discovered that thrown or shot projectiles moves in one curved trajectory rather then two; metallurgical techniques that allowed him to make great sculptures; and anatomical

observation that increased the accuracy of his drawings. It was an age of genius. Along with scientific curiosity came a new curiosity about history. This aspect justified the name Renaissance itself- literally ”rebirth” a new approach to a long-forgotten wisdom and skills of ancient times. Aided by the invention of the printing press that made ancient literature available, the rediscovery of classical techniques and texts consumed the best minds. They aimed to move forward on the basic of the best human achievements of the past. In the arts, it’s easy to observe the ways in which ancient elements came to be admired and used, but it is a mistake to supposed that Renaissance design imitated the Roman one. However, Roman structural elements, the arches, vaults, domes, and many of the decorative forms served as an open treasury from which the designers of the 15th century unstintingly borrowed and adapted them to new needs in original combinations. Florentine humanist literature was undoubtedly the main preliminary to the artistic movement, which began between 1410 and 1420. The faith in autonomous rational research into human values and the reference to classic antiquity became a reason for breaking the

recent tradition, against which a remote one, critically reconstructed, to be set. The artists’ work presupposed intellectual deliberation typical for humanistic enquiry in the moral field and so was part of a wider movement, in which men of letter, politicians, entrepreneurs, scholars, and jurists took part; this movement couldn’t be fitted into the traditional institutional patterns, but it certainly produced a “rupture of balance and patterns” from which a new distribution of human activities emerged. Culture was more advanced on the banks of the Arno. While the rest of Europe shoveled in food with their paws, refined Florentines ate with froks. The great development of European capitalism was to came in second half of the 15th and the first half of 16th centuries, and the merchants of this period-some of most important of whom were the Florentine families of the Albixi, Strozzi, Medici and Pazzi –were certainly the pioneers of later development, the propensities and psychological mood of which they anticipated. The volume of business of the Medici in the early 14th century was already three times that of the main bankers of the 14th century. That became possible because of

progress in applied mathematics and particularly by the practice of double-entry book- keeping spread- it had already been used by the Genoese in the previous century- and so did long-distance economic transactions. The new aristocracy of money obeyed an economic logic different from the traditional one, and made a decisive contribution to the crisis of the city’s corporative institutions. The new class was linked to the world of artists both by similarity of their cultural backgrounds- which put the emphasis on individual ability as against the traditional rules of collective actionand because the wealthier families began to replace public bodies in commissioning buildings and works of art. The great dynasties like the Medici in Florence, the Este in Ferrara, and the Gonzagas in Mantua helped for establishing the Renaissance idea. Patrons took the most important role in this by personally dealing with artists and designers, and iconographers even.

Bibliography The architecture of the Renaissance, Volume 2, by Leonardo Benevolo. Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul 1978 A history of interior design Second edition, By John F. Pile. Published

in 2005 by Laurence King Publishing, London,UK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance#Religion