Chapter 10 - Renaissance and Discovery

Renaissance in Italy = CHANGE!

• New rational & statistic approach to reality
• Jacob Burckhardt
• Transition from medieval à modern
• National consciousness, political organization, urban economy (organized economy &capitalism), lay & secular control of culture & religion
• Death of Petrarch (father of humanism) & Giovanni Boccaccio (author of the Decameron)
• Humanist culture emerged
• Creative expression ended when Spanish destroyed Rome

Italian city-states

• Merchant cities became bankers for Europe
• A. Growth
• War between pope & emperors helped growth, free to expand w/o a king
• 1. Duchy of Milan
• 2. Republic of Florence
• 3. Republic of Venice
• 4. Papal States
• 5. Kingdom of Naples
• (competed for political power – evolved
• B. Social class/conflict
• Florence (social division & anarchy)
• 1. Grandi (old rich)
• Popolo grosso (new rich, capitalists – challenged grandi for power)
• Guild masters, shop owners
• Popolo minute – lower class (1/3 of population)
• Groups produced conflict
• Ciompi Revolt (of poor) caused:
• Feud of old rich and new rich
• Social anarchy from Black Death
• Collapse of banks
• C. Despotism/Diplomacy
• Cosmio de’ Medici – wealthy man, controls city.  Gets pope elected, banker for pope.
• Signoria (council) governed Florence from powerful businesses & professions
• Despots hired in other places – podesta- to maintain law and order
• To permit business
• Operated through condottieri
• Subject to assassination
• Helped give birth to diplomacy
• D. HUMANISM!
• First humanists were artists and poets
• Most of their sources were classical & biblical
• Petrarch was the father of humanism
• Celebrates ancient Rome in “Letters to the Ancient Dead”
• Most famous work was his love sonnets to a girl named Laura
• Secular in orientation
• Alghieri
• Near-contemporary
• Vita nuova & divine comedy
• Boccaccio
• Decameron, takes a look at human behavior
• Assembled encyclopedia of Greek and Roman mythology
• Educational reforms and goals
• Wisdom, knowledge, and the desire to have it
• Languages, athletics, music
• Women too! (Christine de Pisan)
• Revival of Greek studies (Plato)
• Plationsim, flattening view of human nature (eternal/mortal)
• Influence in Pico’s Oration on the Dignity of Man
• Humanists were critics of tradition
• Lorenzo Valla (author – new learning)
• Young humanists became Martin Luther’s first supporters
• Civic Humanism: education should promote individual virtue & public service.
• In Florence, Salutati, Bruni, Bracciolini
• Renaissance ART!
• Church lost power, education, culture, increase national sentiment, showed in art
• Showed natural world & human emotions
• Rational order, symmetry
• Oil paints & shading chiaroscuro
• Linear perspective
• Giotto – father of Renaissance painting
• Masaccio, Donatello
• Da Vinci
• Universal person, scientific experiments, studied anatomy
• Raphael
• Sensitive, the school of Athens
• Michelangelo
• Variety of works, perfection, complex mannerism.
• Slavery
• Flourishes with market
• Muslim slaves, domestic slavery, plantation slavery, (many races)
• Italy’s political decline
• Composed of autonomous city-states, relied on cooperation (upheld by Treaty of Lordi)
• Ended in 1494
• French entered Naples to take control &got power hungry
• Charles VIII’s march through Italy
• Tried to be stopped by Pero de’ Medici
• Started with Florence
• Ferdinand of Aragon created League of Venice to try to stop Charles & ally against France (succeeded)
• Pope Alexander VI
• Helped France back into Italy
• MOST CORRUPT POPE EVER
• Very involved in corrupt politics
• Created French alliance w/ a marriage
• Abandoned League of Venice
• Cesare Borgia married sister of King of Navarre to increase Borgia’s military strength & get grants from Louis XVI
• Pope Julius II
• Weakened Borgias, raised papacy power
• Drove venetians out of Romanga & secured papal states
• Kicked French out of Italy again
• Gained some territory – still under papal control
• Niccolo Machiavelli
• Thought Italian political units were necessary by any means
• Humanist, studied ancient Rome, republican ideals (needed strong, good rulers)
• Wanted a Medici ruler
• Wrote The Prince

Revival of Monarchy in N. Europe

• Divided feudal monarchy à unified national monarchy
• Feudal system
• Powers divided between King and other semiautonomous people
• New alliance: king & town (soverign states)
• Taxes, wars, laws = national matters
• Executives & bureaucracies
• Created national armies
• Needed to raise $
• Gabelle (Salt tax – France)
• Acaballa (sales tax – Spain)
• Direct taxes
• Sale of public offices
• No taxes on noble
• France
• Charles VII
• Permanent army
• w/ Jacque Coeur, strong econ., diplomatic corps, national administration
• Louis XI made France a great power
• France had 2 political cornerstones
• Collapse of the English empire in France after 100 years war
• Defeat of Charles the Bold
• Spain
• Castile & Aragon united
• Isabella (Castille) & Ferdinand (Aragon)married
• United 2 kingdoms (still constitutionally separated)
• Tried to Christianize spain (conquered Moors in Granada)
• Conquered Navarre
• Won allegiance of Hemandad
• Church and state intertwined
• Promoted overseas exploration
• England
• Tough political time, House of York v. House of Lancaster (wars of the roses)
• Edward IV (York) increased power & finance of monarchy
• Bro. Richard III blamed for killing Edward’s son to get the throne, upped support for Henry Tudor (Lancaster)
• Henry Tudor (Henry VII) was 1st of Tudor dynasty
• Disciplined English nobility through Court of Star Chamber (stop bribes)
• Holy Roman Empire
• Germany & Italy were exceptions to politically centralized lands
• Germany resisted national unity
• Super divided, princes and cities didn’t work together to make laws
• Golden Bull (Charles IV) established 7 member electoral college.  Elected emperor & provided unity.
• Reichstog (control feuding)
• Banned private warfare
• Create supreme court of justice (peace)
• Cardinal of Regency (policy)
• Poor substance for national unity
• Religious dispute

The Northern Renaissance

• More diverse backgrounds, more open to religious reform
• Religious & educational reforms (religion without vows)
• Printing Press
• New power to reforms
• Helped people become more intelligent, made books economical
• Moveable type upped efficiency
• Put readers in control
• Erasmus
• Most famous northern humanist
• Gained fame through printed works as an educational and religious reformer
• Tutored youth & created Latin dialogues to teach them manners and how to live
• Called colloquies
• Ancient & contemporary proverbs (Adages)
• wanted to unite humanists and civic virtue w/ love and piety
• translated the bible that Luther would later use
• Humanism & Reform
• Germany – Agricola = father of German Humanism
• Celtics & Von Hutton gave humanism nationalism
• Reuchlin, Christian authority on Hebrew & Jewish learning.
• England
• Grocyn, Linacre & Erasmus matured humanism
• Colet patronized humanist studies & promoted religious reform
• Thomas Moore – best known English humanist   
• Wrote Utopia
• Henry VII trusted More
• Act of Supremacy (king = head of England church)
• More refused to allow divorce, & the king marrying Boleyn girl, so was executed
• France
• France invaded Italy, stirred reform
• Bude & d’etaples were leaders of French humanism
• Biconennte & D’Angouleme sparked youth reform
• Spain
• Humanism à catholic reform
• Francisco Jimenez
• U of Alcoco
• Discovery of ME & W’
• Discovery of America expanded horizons of Europeans
• Portuguese chart course
• Prince henry the navigator started Portuguese exploration Of African coast
• Searched religion, slaves, gold, spices
• New routes to India
• Spain & Columbus
• Left from canary islands, met Indians
• Amerigo Vespucci & Magellan exp. SA
• Consequences
• New empire in America
• Discovery à conquest
• New traveling bloc
• Religious and political wars
• Biological impact
• New food, diseases, animals
• Spanish empire in the new world
• Spain wanted gold
• Aztecs (Mexico)
• Ruled almost all of Mexico
• Cortes landed in México and worked with Montezuma
• Thought Cortés was a god
• Spain took over capital of Mexico = new Spain
• Incas (Peru)
• Subjects worked for state
• Pizzaro lured Atahualpa & killed him, taking over peru
• Church in Spanish America
• Tried to convert people to Christianity and teach them European civilization and learning
• Needed to conquer to convert
• Las casa argued to opposite
• Black legend Spanish treatment of NA’s was inhumane
• Church became land holder
• Roman catholic church remained in Latin America
• Econ of exploitation
• Mining
• Conquistadores wanted gold & silver
• Potosi (Peru) and some in Mexico
• Spain got 1//5 of mining revenues
• Agriculture
• Hacienda (large estate owned by Spanish)
• Almost slave labor
• Foodstuffs and leather goods
• West indies, plantation
• Cuba, Puerto rico (slaves and sugar
• Labor servitude
• Supplied by native people
• Econmienda (*right to labor o Indians)
• Repartimiento (adult males Indians devoted to # of days annually o work)
• Debt peonage (workers free but had to bu stuff from employer
• Black slavery
• Impact on Europe
• Skepticism of wisdom and ancients
• Spices & metals good/bad
• Rising prices and inflation
• Capitalist systems in Italy
• Social divisions