Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance brought about a revival of interest in classical learning lasting from the end of the fourteenth century until the end of the sixteenth century. The Renaissance abounded with new technologies that fostered visual material culture, which fueled artisan communities and guilds to serve growing trade networks, as Italy became an international hub for creative expression and exchange. European expansion beyond its own shores created opportunities to build trading networks to support empire building in Africa, the East Indies, and in North America. The powerful families of Italy became patrons in a highly competitive marketplace of ideas and talent. Florentine painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was influential in delineating trends during the Renaissance that traveled northward throughout Europe. Florentine sculptor, architect, poet, and painter Michelangelo (1475–1564) developed a courtly, self-conscious style known as mannerism that endured. Raphael (1483–1520) was instrumental in promoting perspective and Humanism in art.

Brief History

Though often thought of as a dramatic cultural shift away from medieval traditions, the Renaissance was in fact a gradual evolution with roots throughout the Middle Ages. However, certain events and developments can be seen as critical to and characteristic of this change. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 resulted in the influx of classical texts and new technology to Italy. Printmaking utilizing the newest technology (first woodcuts and then metal engravings) allowed the growing merchant class to own the works of master artists that were mass-produced. Graphic arts were brought to new heights. Expensive illuminated manuscripts on vellum were supplemented by the development of paper mills, with watermark techniques used to identify different papermakers of medieval Italy.

These inventions were followed by the mid-fifteenth century refinement of woodcut images, movable type, and the printing press (in Germany), which further fueled the Renaissance throughout Europe by bringing art and literature to more and more people. Florentine book publisher Aldus Manutius innovated the Humanist or Old Style book design during the Renaissance, introduced a portable vessel for ideas with the small-format book, and invented italicized type in 1501. During the early sixteenth century, type founders applied names to commonly used types and standardized sizes.

The emergence of a wealthy urban merchant class led to the flowering of the arts. For a time, Venice was the most important European sea power, engaging in trade throughout the Mediterranean and Asia until its influence began to decline in the sixteenth century. Milan was a powerful city-state under the Sforza family from 1447 until 1535 when it was taken by Spain. The Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza (1451–1508) tried to cement his family’s power base with diplomacy but his 1491 alliance with Charles VIII of France marked the start of the Italian Wars. Florence dominated as cultural and intellectual center during the Renaissance, which coincided with the rule of the Medici family. Florentine political theorist and civil servant Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), after serving in the republican government in Florence between 1469 and 1527, lost his job when the Medici family returned to power, and wrote the treatise called The Prince (1513), in which he offered influential advice on how a ruler of a small state could preserve his power with the judicious use of force.

The Florentine Camerata (an “intellectual club” of humanist, poets, and musicians) started meeting in 1573 under the patronage of Count Giovanni de Bardi (1534–1612) in order to bring back the humanistic sensibilities of the ancient Greeks. In art this was reflected in the development of perspective and a new interest in composition and color harmonies along with the rise of artistic portraiture. Artists placed increasing emphasis on developing their own individual expression.

Overview

During the Renaissance, the concept of “the study” as a specific space allocated for the male head of a family within a household reflected the prestige that came with a liberal arts education and the growing sense of individualism. In art and literature there was a return of humanism. Literary theorist Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) was instrumental in creating a revival of Petrarch’s work as he utilized the poet’s verses as the basis for the secular music genre of the madrigal during the Renaissance. Known as “The Three Fountains,” Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio offered indigenous vernacular literature that fueled creativity during the Renaissance. Lodovico Ariosto (1474–1533) wrote Orlando Furioso (1532) to glorify his patrons in the Este family with love stories from the era of Charlemagne when Christian knights and Saracens grappled for the control of Christendom. Torquato Tasso (1544–95) who was a member of the court at Ferrara beginning in 1565 was known for his epic poem about the First Crusade called Jerusalem Delivered (1581) that became a model for later writers.

Secular madrigals became popular. The Florentine Camerata, basing their conversations on the work of humanist Girolama Mei (1519–94) who led a revival of Greek dramatic style asserting that it was sung, asserted that medieval word painting was unsophisticated and complicated and was therefore unsuited for true emotional expression in music. Emilio de’ Cavalieri (1550–1602), Giulio Caccini (1546–1618), and Jacobo Peri (1561–1633) were musical members of the Camerata who promoted the idea of music as mimesis. Librettist Ottavo Rinuccini (1562–1621) collaborated with Peri on the first opera Le Dafne. The Camerata increased music expressivity by stating the words must be easily understood, lyrics should be sung with natural declamation, and vocal melody should interpret the true feelings of characters and not the singers preference.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–94) spent much of his career in the service of the Catholic Church where he wrote masses, magnificats, litanies, and motets along with secular songs. Andrea Gabrieli (1533–86) was organist at St. Marks in Venice where he wrote vocal and organ music. His nephew Giovanni Gabrieli (1553–1612) succeeded him, developing a new concerto style that emerged during the Baroque era.

Reaction against Gothic design led to great innovation in the fine arts. Florentine architect and engineer Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) was a pioneer in perspective drawing. Sculptor and goldsmith Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378–1455) led a transition between Gothic and Renaissance design when he created cast gilt bronze doors in bas-relief for the Baptistery in Florence called “Gates of Paradise,” considered to be his masterpiece. Donatello (1386–1466), perhaps the greatest sculptor of the fifteenth century, became an innovator of art in Florence when he invented the stiacciato (“like drawing on marble”) technique that influenced Michelangelo. Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72) became the first art theorist of the Renaissance with his book On Painting (1435), examining color harmony in relation to light.

Bibliography

Burke, Peter. The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1999. Print.

Campbell, Stephen J., and Michael W. Cole. Italian Renaissance Art. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Print.

Emison, Patricia A. The Italian Renaissance and Cultural Memory. New York: Cambridge UP, 2012. Print.

Joost-Gaugier, Christine L. Italian Renaissance Art: Understanding its Meaning. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Print.

Panizza, Letizia. Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society. Oxford: European Humanities Research Ctr., 2000. Print.

Quiviger, Francois. The Sensory World of the Italian Renaissance. London: Reaktion, 2010. Print.

Sinisgalli, Rocco. Leon Battista Alberti; On Painting: A New Translation and Critical Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.

Thornton, Dora. The Scholar in His Study: Ownership and Experience in Renaissance Italy. New Haven: Yale UP, 1997. Print.

Van Cleave, Clare. Master Drawings of the Italian Renaissance. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2007. Print.