The Renaissance Age

The term “Renaissance” is French for rebirth, though none who lived through the Renaissance called it that, as the term wasn’t coined until 1855 in French historian Jules Michelet’s History of France. The Renaissance encompasses a “Golden Age” of creativity, not dissimilar from past periods such as the Tang Dynasty in China or the Muslim world under the Abassids. The Renaissance comes on the heels of what’s been called “the medieval synthesis,” a pattern of late medieval European thinking regarding the place of religion in the world, the purposes of scholarship, and the dominance of particular forms of art and literature. By the beginning of the 14th century, however, these thought patterns were beginning to corrode: religious doubts, skepticism towards the Church, and a reworking of scholarship paved the way to a gradual, European-wide challenge of the medieval synthesis. The Renaissance would lead to changes in the way people saw themselves and their place in the world, and it helped give rise to individualism and secularism, both of which are alive and kicking today. Our simplistic ‘sketch’ of the Renaissance begins with the 14th century rise of humanism and its heyday in the 15th century, and the emergence of neoplatonism and the era of the ‘High Renaissance’ in 16th century Italy. Though we associate the Renaissance with Italy because it flourished there, Renaissance ideals spread throughout Europe. Though northern Europe proved somewhat resilient against Renaissance ideals, these same ideals spread like kudzu through England and France.

Humanism’s affect on European history cannot be understated. Humanism swept through Europe in the late mid-late 15th and early 16th centuries, and humanist curriculums would dominate western European higher learning until the end of the 19th century. Inadvertently, humanism and its ‘New Learning’—the educational reform that put medieval scholasticism in its grave—would give Europe a sense of wider unity that would preserve European culture and identity for four hundred years of relentless conflict and bloodshed. Humanism would also lay the bedrock for the Scientific Revolution and the rise of secularism. The Renaissance saw archaeology, epigraphy (the study of inscriptions on architectural artifacts), and numismatics (the study of coins) come into their own. Greek writers laid the bedrock for a number of physical sciences: Aristotle was beloved by physicists, Ptolemy by astronomers, and Galen by physicians. The failure of these Greek heavyweights to explain new data would eventually lead a number Renaissance scientists (known in the 16th and 17th centuries as ‘natural philosophers’) to rethink classical assumptions. Though at first scorned in their fields by those in bed with Aristotle and his ilk, their ideas were boosted by the rediscovery of writings belonging to the Greek scientist Archimedes, who disagreed with Aristotle on many points (one could thus be within the humanist fold while legitimately criticizing classical ideas). These brave scientific pioneers would storm a trail known as the Scientific Revolution (but we’re getting ahead of ourselves). And regarding secularism, though Renaissance thinkers still thought within the box of traditional Christian religious beliefs, their elevation of classical literature opened doorways into different, non-religious ways of thinking. Though the ‘new’ followers of Plato taught Platonic teachings as truth on par with the Bible, they still advocated the Bible as solid truth, and looked for ways to reconcile Plato and Scripture. It wouldn’t be long before humanists began to question the accuracy of the Bible in favor of more novel ways of thinking; this ushered in a ‘secular’ age where religion (which had dominated European politics and identity for a thousand years) was supplanted by ‘secular’ (or non-religious) ways of thinking, believing, and identifying. 

Now let us examine the rise of humanism. In the late 13th century, scholars began advocating education reform with more attention to classics and to help people lead more moral lives. They formed a movement known as humanism (though it didn’t have this name until the 19th century). Humanism evolved to mean ‘classic scholarship’, defined as ‘the ability to read, understand, and appreciate the writings of the ancient world.’ Humanists focused on history, literature, and philosophy, and their overarching goal was to go back to the ancients and relearn the right way to live—and convert people to it. The humanism of today—a secular philosophy undergirded by atheistic evolution and denying religion a fair saying—was not the humanism of the Renaissance; Renaissance humanists read the Church fathers as much as pagan Greek authors and believed the greatest virtues were in piety. Humanism didn’t seek to undermine religious faith but to enrich it.

The lawyer-poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) accused Church leaders of being worldly and materialistic, and so he had to turn to the Church fathers and the ancient Romans to find worthy examples of the noble life. A surefire path to holiness was in emulating ancient heroes such as Cicero and St. Augustine. Petrarch viewed the time period between the ancient world and his day as ‘contemptible,’ and it is in the wake of the Renaissance that “the Middle Ages,” as a particular title to a period of European history, began to take shape. He advocated forgetting the ‘darkness’ of the so-called Middle Ages and returning in spirit to the days of the Romans and building from there. Petrarch’s contemporary Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 – 1375) published a collection of short stories called The Decameron, wherein his frank treatment of sex and the creation of run-of-the-mill characters marked a break with the literature of the so-called Middle Ages. Boccaccio would become a staunch supporter of Petrarch and help his ideas flourish in Florence. Such was Boccaccio’s influence that within a generation, humanism was the rallying cry for Florence’s intellectual leaders. If Florentines adopted the revival of antiquity, they said, Florence would become the preeminent Italian state—and they were right.

Humanism swept through the Italian states, transforming art, literature, and even political and social values. A group of humanists spearheaded by Coloccui Salutati gained the favor of Pope Nicholas V, who ordered the construction of a vast library of classical texts. Eastern scholars from the decaying Byzantine Empire filled the University of Florence to promote humanism and translate classical Greek texts into Latin and Italian. It wasn’t long before all sorts of classical work became available to the less-learned masses: mathematical treatises, the works of the Greek fathers, the dialogues of Plato, lyrical poetry, tragedies, histories—all of this at the humanist’s fingertips! Salutati and his followers stressed that participation in the public life was integral to true human flourishing; those who actively sought higher ends beyond themselves could achieve virtue. Salutati and his fellow ‘civic humanists’ proposed Republicanism as the best form of government; society could only benefit when educated citizens played a part.

When you hear the term ‘Renaissance,’ is it humanism that pops into mind or the world-renowned art and architecture that spread throughout Italy? It’s likely the latter, and there are at least three reasons for this. First, art is more appealing than philosophy to the masses. The truth of this can be seen in the tourists who flock to Italy to see the paintings and sculptures but give no mind to the humanist philosophy that undergirded it all. Second, humanist philosophy couldn’t exist in a vacuum; it had to be fleshed out, and this philosophical return to antiquity was echoed in Renaissance media: “The Three Friends”, who spearheaded the Italian revolution in painting, sculpture, and architecture, were simply applying humanism to art. Third, respectable aristocratic courts came with poets and painters, and as humanism swept through Europe, artists bent towards that philosophy received patronage and social elevation. The Italian states took this to the extreme: the five big states—Milan, Naples, Florence, Venice, and the Papal States—were at war with one another from the end of the 15th century through the mid-late 16th century; loyalty to one’s state was hammered into the population, and the states tried to outdo each other in a contest for preeminence in art and architecture. Thus Italian artists—especially those in artistic Florence and Venice—were able to climb the ladder of interstate conflict to achieve their ambitions.

‘Renaissance Art’ kicked off with the “Three Friends” in the early-mid 15th century. Masaccio, Donatello, and Brunelleschi studied ancient art in the 1420s, angling to recreate them. They went all around Rome, taking notes on paintings, making measurements of classical architecture, and studying the ancient sculptures; the locals thought they were all nuts. Nuts they may have been, but geniuses they certainly were. Masaccio, a painter, painted the first nudes since ancient times; Donatello, a sculptor, also favored the nudes, and he recreated them with such accuracy that they seemed lifelike; and Brunelleschi, the architect, broke tradition with cross-shaped churches by topping one with a dome (the domed style was copied throughout Florence, and became a badge of Florentine pride). The successors to the Three Friends built upon what they had achieved and carried it further, with particular emphasis on returning to classical styles and themes. All this culminated in the ‘High Renaissance’ of 16th century Italy, where heavyweight artists brought the aspirations of the Three Friends to its climax. Leonardo da Vinci was a mastermind with both military fortifications and art, and his Mona Lisa has become known throughout the world; Michelangelo, a poet and sculptor, has become famous for his The Creation of Man; and Titian—whose paintings depicted vibrant nudes, stormy skies, and dogs—became Europe’s premier portraitist.