Michaelangelo

Western Civilization II Marshall High School Mr. Cline Unit Three BA * Michaelangelo

• Working for the Medici

• The Medici were bankers and patrons to many artists of Florence.

• A patron is a person who gives financial or other support to a person, organization, cause or activity.

• In simpler terms, it's a person who wants some piece of art created, so he foots the bill for the artist's supplies and living expenses while the artist works.

• As soon as the wealthy Medici got a glimpse of Michelangelo's talent, their loose connection grew into a full-blown bond.

• In the early 1490s, Michelangelo left the apprenticeship of Ghirlandaio and actually moved into the estate of Lorenzo de Medici, a sculptor himself and the de facto ruler of Florence.

• While studying in the Medici gardens, Michelangelo met some of the world's most respected poets, scientists and philosophers.

• Their views rubbed off on the young Michelangelo's work, mixing religion with myth.

• Two of his most famous works of this time are the Madonna of the Stairs, also known as the 'Madonna of the Steps,' and the Battle of the Centaurs. While working on his craft, it seems Michelangelo spent little time working on his people skills. Known to history as a rather moody, arrogant fellow, it seems he began gaining this reputation rather early. According to tradition, Michelangelo and a fellow student of the arts got into a quarrel, and the artist punched Michelangelo in the nose, breaking it and causing it to be crooked for the rest of time. Sculpting 'Bacchus,' 'The Pieta' and 'David' In 1492, Lorenzo de Medici, Michelangelo's patron, died. After his death, the Medici fortune began to dwindle. This, along with the outspoken words of Florence's new ruler Savonarola, a monk who radically opposed any sort of secular art and accused the Medici of heresy, caused Michelangelo to return to the home of his father. Upon his return, Michelangelo became enthralled with the human form, even studying cadavers to improve his craft. By 1496, Michelangelo found himself in Rome, where he received a commission, or the hiring and payment for the creation of a piece. The cardinal himself wanted the young Michelangelo to sculpt a huge statue of Bacchus, the ancient god of wine. Although it seems the cardinal wasn't fond of the finished product, this didn't stop Michelangelo. Just a short time later, he sculpted the Pieta, which still stands in Saint Peter's Basilica of Rome. Of this magnificent sculpture, a fellow Renaissance artist wrote, 'It is a miracle that a shapeless block of stone could have been carved away to make something so perfect that even nature could hardly have made it better, using real human flesh!' After the death of the radical monk Savonarola, Michelangelo returned to Florence. With Florence in political upheaval, Michelangelo was commissioned to turn a damaged piece of marble into the biblical hero David. This masterpiece of the human form shows the naked David poised like a Greek god with his eyes determined to protect his land. Many art historians believe this work, more than any other, portrays Michelangelo's devotion for the Republic of Florence and his desire to see it be set free. The Sistine Chapel With his star rising, Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the Pope himself! Pope Julius II, being rather up there in age, wanted Michelangelo to design an over-the-top tomb for him. From this project came the famous Moses, which is still in Rome today. However, before his tomb could be completed, the Pope turned his attention to a new project. In around 1508, Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Arguably, this would become Michelangelo's most famous work. Ironically, Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor, not a painter, making him none-too-thrilled to receive this job. In true, moody artistic style, Michelangelo finally agreed to the job but refused to adhere to the Pope's vision. Instead, he created his own. By the time this awe-inspiring work was complete, it depicted the story of the creation of Adam, the downfall of Adam and Eve and many other scenes, encompassing over 300 figures. The fact that this was all done in fresco, meaning a painting that is done rapidly in watercolor on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling so that the colors penetrate the plaster, makes this work even more impressive. Add to this that Michelangelo painted this high in the air while on his back, and the whole thing seems a bit supernatural. After the death of Pope Julius II in 1513, Pope Leo X of the infamous Medici family came to power. This Pope, also enthralled with the talent of Michelangelo, charged him to design tombs for the Medici family. For this, Michelangelo headed back to Florence. However, Michelangelo and the rest of Florence were no longer willing to accept the Medici as their rulers. Not ones to be messed with, the Medici took the city by force, inducing Michelangelo to leave his precious Florence forever! The Last Judgment In the 1530s, a new Pope, Pope Clement VII, called Michelangelo back to Rome to paint the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. This would become the Last Judgment, a gruesome scene, which depicts some going to Heaven but many, many others going to Hell. Art historians believe this was Michelangelo thumbing his nose at the greed and immorality of the Church of his day. To the horror of many, Michelangelo chose to depict these figures in the nude. This angered so many that another artist was commissioned to paint drapes over the naked bodies. In his later years, Michelangelo expanded his talents to include designing the new dome of St. Peter's Basilica. Although it was not completed before his death, its beauty stands as a reminder of his talent. Personal Relationships Although Michelangelo was famous for his moods and his outbursts, he did have friendships that held his heart. Many believe he had an affinity for many of the male models whom he sculpted. However, the nature of these friendships has never been proven. Another relationship, which has been recorded by history, was his friendship with the noble widow Vittoria Colonna, a poet of the 16th century. Although many believe this was simply a friendship born out of a mutual faith and a love of poetry, the two of them wrote sonnet upon sonnet, which they penned to one another. Legend holds that Michelangelo once expressed of this relationship something to the effect of: 'My sole regret in life was that I did not kiss the widow's face in the same manner that I had her hand.' Although time may have added a bit of romance to something that was mere friendship, their many interactions prove they were dear friends. Elizabeth Comes to the Throne The Elizabethan Era of English history was a remarkable time now coined England's Golden Age. Queen Elizabeth I, from the illustrious Tudor dynasty, reigned for 45 years. During her reign, it was a time of relative political stability, exploration, and creativity in which art flourished. Coming to the throne in 1558 after the violent reign of her Catholic half-sister, Mary I - known infamously as Bloody Mary - Elizabeth worked to heal her land of the violent clashes between Catholics and Protestants. Though Elizabeth honored many of the Protestant reforms set up by her father, King Henry VIII, she also made significant concessions to the Catholics of her realm. In 1559, the Elizabethan Religious Settlement was enacted. In this legislation, Elizabeth was declared the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. This act also allowed for both Protestant and Catholic interpretations of church tradition. Due to her desire to unite her subjects under one throne, her reign is marked as a time of peace. During this peace, she encouraged self-sufficiency in England through the growth of agriculture and trade. This newfound wealth ushered in England's Golden Age. The Economy of the Golden Age At the time of Elizabeth's ascension, the feudal system, or the system of wealth based on land ownership, had greatly declined. Seeing these changes, Elizabeth very smartly encouraged the new, growing middle class to continue to engage in agriculture; however, it moved from peasants farming lands for wealthy nobles to independent citizens working for wage. England's wool trade also began to boom during Elizabeth's Golden Age. With the increase of wool, the face of farming changed, bringing about the process of land enclosure, in which the traditional open field system ended in favor of creating larger closed areas of land that required fewer workers. Although these new ranches of sorts were extremely profitable, the fact that they required less labor induced many workers to leave their villages for the employment found in towns. Thus, towns and cities burgeoned under Elizabeth's rule. The Arts Flourish These new towns and their new money were a perfect recipe for art to flourish. Just like in Italy, as money flowed, people looked for ways to spend it. While Italy turned to painters and sculptors, Elizabethan England turned to the theatre and, boy, did they love it! Elizabethan inn-yards were one of the first venues for English theatre. These inns, which provided lodging and entertainment, attracted traveling actors and troubadours, or poets who wrote verse to music. Soon crafty entrepreneurs realized there was money to be made by producing plays and then teaming with inn owners to charge for the performances. One of the first Englishmen to jump on this profitable performing bandwagon was James Burbage. History gives him credit for being among the first producers of Elizabethan commercial theatre. These inn-yards, being very profitable, soon grew into full-blown theatre houses. Among the most famous is the Globe Theatre of London. This theatre, built to mimic the Roman amphitheaters, was home to the original works of London's most famous playwrights. Speaking of playwrights, not only did the Golden Age of England produce lots of wool, it produced some of the most revered playwrights of all time. There was Christopher Marlowe, made famous by his Jew of Malta. To him we can add Thomas Kyd, known for his Spanish Tragedy. Of course, there's William Shakespeare, whose name has become synonymous with the word 'playwright.' To England's Golden Age and to high schools across the globe, he gave works like Hamlet, King Henry V, and the tragic Romeo and Juliet. Although the arts had been enjoyed throughout history, Elizabeth's Golden Age opened them up to every class of society. The upper-class nobility, the middle-class merchant, and the commoner all enjoyed this entertainment of the day. Just like today, the better the seat, the higher the price, but admission was available to all. Scientific Study and Exploration Along with a thriving economy and the flourishing arts, England's Golden Age opened an entire new world to the English realm through scientific study. Men like Sir Francis Bacon, who structured the idea of a defined scientific method, worked in England's Golden Age. To Bacon, we can also add Dr. John Dee, a famous alchemist, or in today's terms, chemist, who studied under Elizabeth's rule. As scientific exploration boomed, so did overseas exploration. Up until this time, Spain and Portugal had dominated the New World's seas, but Elizabeth's Golden Age saw the emergence of English explorers onto the scene. There was Sir Francis Drake, the first European to pass from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast of South America. He also sailed around the world in his ship, the Golden Hind. We also have Henry Hudson, who discovered the Hudson River of New York, or Sebastian Cabot, the Italian-born explorer who sailed for England and searched for the illusive Northwest Passage across North America. The list would not be complete without adding Sir Walter Raleigh. History tells us this guy was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. It also tells us he was very handsome and very debonair. (He's the guy who allegedly stopped the queen mid-step in order to place his coat over a mud puddle she was about to step into.) When not flirting with the queen, Sir Walter Raleigh also did some exploring. He established the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island. On an interesting side note, the state of Virginia is named after Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen. The Virgin Queen This brings us to our last topic, the fact that Elizabeth ruled over England as an unmarried, female monarch, earning her the nickname 'the Virgin Queen.' This alone is a huge difference between Elizabethan England and most other times throughout all of history. Not only was Elizabeth a single, female monarch, she was a survivor. First of all, we need to remember much of England felt she was an illegitimate heir, since her mother Anne Boleyn's marriage to Henry VIII was never accepted by the Catholic Church. It also didn't help matters when Boleyn was later executed for treason. Add to this that Elizabeth's half-sister, Bloody Mary, accused her of plotting a Protestant rebellion and had her imprisoned in the Tower of London, and you can see what backbone Elizabeth had. In 1588, Elizabeth would prove her backbone was as strong as any man's with the defeat of the Spanish Armada, an attack by well over 100 Spanish ships toward the English coast. Not only would this famous encounter prove Elizabeth could hold her own, it would establish England as preeminent over the seas. What We Know About William Shakespeare Considering how famous and well-regarded William Shakespeare's work is today, it's kind of surprising that we really don't know a whole lot about his life. Some people even challenge the fact that Shakespeare actually wrote the plays he was credited with - that's how mysterious he is. Some people don't even believe he wrote his plays! It's ironic that he is such an incredibly influential figure and, with regard to his personal life, a blank slate. We just don't know much about him, but that doesn't mean that this will be a short lesson. Sorry! Let's go over the biographical details that we do have. We'll also talk about his most famous plays and poems, as well as their lasting influence. So, when I say we don't know that much about William Shakespeare, we really don't. We don't even know his birthday because birth certificates - short or long-form - didn't exist back then. People born into noble families might have had their birthday recorded for posterity, similar to how these days you can find Brad Pitt's birthday by Googling it, but you probably can't find your next-door neighbor's birth date. Shakespeare, though, was born into a family of commoners. We do know that he was baptized. There are some public records of that. So, he must have been born somewhere near his baptism date of April 26, 1564. His father was a glover from Snitterfield, which sounds like a Harry Potter name, but apparently was a real place. The Shakespeare family wasn't badly off, but they were still commoners. We don't really know where Shakespeare went to school, but he probably did go because he ended up literate. The next solid record we have of the life of William Shakespeare is his marriage, which took place in 1582. Shakespeare married at the age of 18, while his wife, Anne Hathaway (no, not that Anne Hathaway, though seriously, what were that Anne Hathaway's parents thinking, naming her that) was actually of the ripe old age of 26. Six months after their wedding, their first daughter, Susanna, was born… so I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. They then had twins in 1585, named Judith and Hamnet (Hamnet, you say? That sounds familiar! - We'll talk about that later). Hamnet sadly died at the age of 11, and there's been a lot of speculation that his death may have influenced Shakespeare's playwriting, including the famous (and similar-sounding) Hamlet. While the name Hamlet technically comes from a different Scandinavian name, scholars still search for a connection. At some point, while still married to Anne, Shakespeare scooted off to London and got involved in the theatre scene - rather like the Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore of today, William and Anne's marriage was a May-December romance that was destined for failure. From various records, we do know that he worked as an actor as well as a playwright. He wrote plays for a company called Lord Chamberlain's Men. Starting in 1599, the company performed at the Globe Theatre, which is south of the Thames in London. If you go to London now, you can watch Shakespeare performances in a rebuilt Globe roughly in the same spot. Why was it rebuilt? Well, it was made entirely of wood, and it burned down in 1613, but the recreation is pretty good. Well, I mean, it looks good to me. I didn't see the original, but it looks great now, and if you go to London, you really should see a Shakespeare play at the Globe. It's pretty incredible. So, the Globe burned down from a fire started by a special effects cannon fired during a performance. So even back then, there was always a desire for snappy special effects, and this one had a pretty serious consequence. Personally, I'd rather see a real, live cannon go off than some lame video projection. That would have been awesome. Shakespeare had a lot of success from his playwriting and grew reasonably wealthy from it, which was a rare feat at the time… or now, really, I don't know how many wealthy playwrights you can name. He competed for audiences with the likes of Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson and other famous playwrights of the time. Christopher Marlowe might sound familiar if you've seen the movie Shakespeare in Love. Shakespeare's work has enjoyed a far wider audience in modern times than it did in his time, though. Plays What was it that he wrote that was so awesome and influential and long lasting? Well, let's talk about it. Shakespeare is really pretty unavoidable for most people. You've probably had contact with some of his plays; almost no one escapes high school without having to read Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's famous tragedy of star-crossed lovers in Verona. If you haven't read it, you've probably seen one of the numerous movie adaptations, or maybe even West Side Story, which is based on the plot of Romeo and Juliet. I'm not going to list off all of his plays. If you really want to know the names of all of them, you can go to Wikipedia. But I want to give you a timeline of some of his most significant works. I'll talk a little bit about each one, but keep in mind that we've got separate videos devoted to each the really big plays, so you should check those out. Also, you should bear in mind that scholars are divided on the dating of many of these. They're working off of multiple versions and incomplete records. Shakespeare's plays didn't have copyright dates like books do now, so not all of these dates are 100% accurate; they're really a best estimate based on the evidence available. So, take this chronology as a suggestion, and use it for slotting the plays in relation to each other, but don't hold on to the dates as gospel. Before we start - what did Shakespeare's plays look like when he wrote them? They tended to be written in something called blank verse. This is made up of lines of iambic pentameter that don't rhyme. What's iambic pentameter? Well, it's a 10-syllable line divided into five units, or feet, called iambs. An iamb is just two syllables that go light-STRONG in stress. For example, one of the more famous lines of iambic pentameter comes from Romeo and Juliet. This is when Romeo sees Juliet on the balcony at the start of that famous balcony scene: 'But SOFT! what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS.' Obviously, the actors don't read it that way, but that's a line of iambic pentameter, and that's how the syllables are supposed to work together. Earliest Plays So, Shakespeare went to London in the early 1590s, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Scholars fight about which play was the first he wrote, but many agree that it was probably The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which was written sometime between 1589-1591. Though it is significant for being (maybe) his first play and definitely the first instance of cross-dressing, which Shakespeare LOVED, it's generally not considered to be his best work. Next, possibly, came The Taming of the Shrew, around the same time period (1590-1591). It's another comedy and one of my personal favorites. If you want to know the plot of this play, you should watch the movie 10 Things I Hate About You - it's very similar, it's really based on the play - but then go and read or watch The Taming of the Shrew as well, since that's where it came from. Remember how, in the movie, Julia Stiles is this cranky, mean girl, and she doesn't want a boyfriend, but her younger sister really wants a boyfriend, and so Heath Ledger (RIP) has to wear her down and make her fall in love with him? Julia Stiles plays 'the shrew' in The Taming of the Shrew, or the Catherine character, and Heath Ledger is the Petruchio character - his name is Patrick Verona in the film. Rolling right along, we hit Richard III sometime around 1592-1593. This is a play about a villain, Richard III, scheming to get the crown and - SPOILER - he gets it, hence the kingly name. He kills a ton of people, including smothering a few children. This is an example of one of Shakespeare's history plays because it has a basis in history. Next up comes Romeo and Juliet, in 1595. You probably know the drill: Romeo falls in love with Juliet, but he's a Montague, and she's a Capulet, and their families hate each other. Their plan to be together goes awry, and they both end up killing themselves. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a lot more lighthearted - it's also from 1595. This involves four Athenian teenagers who run out into the woods to try and figure out their romantic problems. They run into some fairies, who mess around with them for fun. There's also an awesome dude, named Bottom, whose head gets turned into a donkey's head. It's a really fun play - I highly recommend A Midsummer Night's Dream. Late '90s Plays and Events 1596 brings The Merchant of Venice. It's the first entry in 'Cultural Studies with William Shakespeare.' This play is famous for the character Shylock, who's portrayed as a miserly Jew who demands a 'pound of flesh' as payment for a debt. That's problematic; anti-Semitism is not cool. It's an interesting play, but you've got to take it with a grain of salt and keep in mind when it was written. An important event in Shakespeare's life comes around the same time, which is the death of young Hamnet in1596. Shortly after that, or maybe around the same time, comes Henry IV, Parts I and II. The titular Henry IV is referred to as 'Hal' throughout the play, just to make it confusing, and there's also a really funny fat guy named Falstaff, who totally steals the show. Falstaff alone makes the Henry plays worthwhile. Another history play is Julius Caesar, from 1599. You might remember the famous line 'Et tu, Brute?' ('You too, Brutus?'). Roman emperor Julius Caesar is brutally murdered by a bunch of people in the government, including his previously loyal friend Brutus. Saying You too, Brutus? is probably the thing most people remember from this. Chaos ensues as everyone scrambles to lead Rome. Now we're coming up to the big daddy, the grand poobah, the big cheese: Hamlet, written around 1599-1601. It's probably the most famous and frequently discussed play he ever wrote. It's referenced in everything and performed a ton; it's even the basis for The Lion King. The play is about poor Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, who just can't seem to make up his mind about whether he should kill his uncle Claudius to avenge his father's death. It features his mother, Gertrude; his poor love interest, Ophelia; hilarious old fool, Polonius; and probably the most famous skull in theatre history - the 'Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well…' scene. Hamlet is really the first of Shakespeare's great tragedies and, arguably, the most well known. Later Plays Next up is one of his great comedies, Twelfth Night. Shakespeare's really on a roll in this period around 1601. Twelfth Night is wildly successful, and it features even more cross- dressing. We've got the heroine, Viola, who falls in love with Duke Orsino while she's dressed as a boy. Orsino loves Olivia, who falls in love with Viola dressed as a boy - don't worry, it's all sorted out in the end, but hijinks ensue. Around this time, Queen Elizabeth I dies and is succeeded by James I, the former king of Scotland - just a little historical context there. Next up: Othello, written around 1603-1604ish. It's another entry in 'Cultural Studies with Shakespeare.' Othello is a Moor (a North African) who is a general in Venice, and a lot of people don't like that because he's black and they're jerks. There's a bad guy named Iago who convinces Othello that his wife Desdemona is cheating on him. Eventually, Iago wears Othello down; Othello believes him, goes mad, kills his wife - it's a bummer. It's dramatized in a fabulous movie called O featuring Julia Stiles as yet another Shakespearean heroine. It's really the second of the great tragedies. Moving right along, we've got King Lear, features an old man (King Lear) who wants to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. He ends up banishing one daughter, Cordelia, because she doesn't kiss up enough. The other two, Regan and Goneril turn out to be really nasty and, again, pretty much everyone dies. That's the third of the great tragedies. If you're familiar with the book or the movie called A Thousand Acres, that's based on the story of King Lear. Next up we've got 'the Scottish play', aka Macbeth, written around 1606. People refer to it as 'the Scottish play' because it's considered bad luck to say 'Macbeth' in the theatre - not really sure why. It features Macbeth, a Scottish lord, who tries to become king through murder and avarice at the encouragement of his nutty wife, Lady Macbeth. It features a lot of witches, ghosts, kilts and some great monologues. It's a lot of fun, but it's also a bummer because it's a tragedy. This is followed up by The Tempest, written in the 1610-1611 region. This play is a lot of fun. It features Prospero, the former Duke of Milan. He wrecks a ship carrying the usurping Duke of Milan on a magical island. Prospero's weird supernatural servants Ariel and Caliban hang out with the shipwrecked passengers while his daughter Miranda falls in love with one of them. It's kind of like the original Lost, if you will. The Tempest is probably the last play that Shakespeare wrote on his own. Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen were most likely co-written, both in 1613. OK, I need to take a breath. That was a lot of plays, and I didn't even tell you about all of them. Again, if you want to find out the names of all of Shakespeare's plays, go look on Wikipedia. So, that's a lot to remember, and I don't expect you to recite that all back to me. So, what should you keep in mind after hearing this massive list of plays? I would say, first, that Shakespeare's plays can generally be divided into three categories: comedies, tragedies and histories. At this point, the timeline we've been building could become color-coded for each type of play. The lines can get fuzzy, especially in the tragedy/history areas, because some of the tragedies have a historical basis - also, what kind of history isn't tragic in some way? The comedies are things like The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night. They have fun hijinks like cross-dressing or mistaken identity. They tend to end with a wedding - sometimes more than one wedding. Tragedies are plays like Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, and they tend to end with pretty much everyone dying, or at least a significant number of people dying. The histories are the ones like Henry IV Parts I and II and Richard III - really, if it's got a strong basis in British or Scottish or whatever history, it's a history play. Other Works So, in addition to all of those plays (and, like I said, I didn't even hit on all of them), Shakespeare actually wrote even more. He wrote poems, sonnets in particular, which are 14- line poems with a very specific rhyme structure. You can learn more about them in our lesson on Shakespeare's sonnets. But if you see a 14-line iambic pentameter poem in Shakespearean-type language, odds are you're looking at one of his 154 sonnets. This guy was busy. He wrote a ton! You've probably heard the oft-parodied 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' poem. Depending on your point of view, you may find it gloriously romantic or seriously cheesy, but that's a Shakespearean sonnet, and really, the remaining ones are just as good. They're beautiful; they're really worth checking out. In addition to the sonnets, he also wrote some longer poems - Venus and Adonis, written in the 1592-1593 range, and also The Rape of Lucrece in 1594. In Venus and Adonis, the Greek goddess Venus tries to get the mortal Adonis (who is really, really hot and buff - that's where the term 'Adonis' comes from) to sleep with her, but he refuses and then is killed while on a hunt. Bummer. It's written in 6-line stanzas that go a/b/a/b/c/c. The Rape of Lucrece is pretty self-explanatory, unfortunately. Lucretia is raped by the son of the King of Rome and commits suicide, which incites a revolt against the king. That poem is written in 7-line stanzas that go a/b/a/b/b/c/c, also known as 'rhyme royale.' Themes of Baroque Painting As the 16th century drew to a close, a new form of art arose in Western Europe. This new style, called the Baroque, had a profound impact on all forms of art, including architecture and sculpture. Yet nowhere is the Baroque style more evident than in painting. Baroque painting can be seen as the apex of realism in European art. In the Renaissance, European painters had learned the importance of form and anatomy in representing human figures realistically. Indeed, Renaissance painters were so proud of their accurate portrayal of the human form that their figures almost always took the fore in their scenes. While the background might be detailed, it remained just that - a background. If the Renaissance painters were obsessed with form and figure, Baroque painters were obsessed with light. It was not just the figures that needed to be realistic, but also their surroundings, as well and their place in the overall picture. Baroque painters supplemented Renaissance perfection of form and figure with an unprecedented consciousness of how light reacts to different materials, different surfaces and in different contexts. As a result, Baroque painters put just as much effort into depicting an accurate landscape or interior scene as they did into creating realistic figures. Indeed, this emphasis on the background became so popular that some Baroque painters abandoned human figures altogether, focusing entirely on how light played off a bowl of fruit or a landscape at sunset. This exploration of new themes was not limited to backgrounds. As time progressed, Baroque painters were just as likely to paint a scene from Greek myth as one from the Bible, and a portrait was as likely to be a portrait of the artist himself as of his local lord or the Virgin Mary. So, we've seen some of the major themes of Baroque painting: A de-emphasis of the figure A mastery of light and shadow Realism in all things And new subjects like landscapes, still life and self-portrait Let us look for these new themes in the works of the great artists of the Baroque. Italy: Caravaggio Not surprisingly, the Baroque started out in Rome. The Roman Catholic Church had long been the greatest patron of the arts, and they supported the Baroque style in its infancy. One of the earliest forms of Baroque art was the open ceiling fresco. In this style, the ceiling of a room was painted in such a way that it appeared to be open to the heavens. In the ceiling of the Barberini Palace by Pietro da Cortona, we see a shift in emphasis from the central figure to the illusory framing that gives the ceiling its depth. This shift in emphasis is even clearer in the ceiling fresco of Sant'Ignazio by Andrea dal Pozzo. Look at how much time and attention has been put into the architectural elements that border the heavenly theme. Also, note that rather than faces looking down from on high, we see the feet of people ascending upward, who are only occasionally looking down. Yet though these ceiling frescoes are bathed in rays of glory, the true baroque mastery of light and realism comes to the fore in the canvasses and panels painted by Caravaggio. As Caravaggio and his fellow Italians were right under the nose of the Vatican, it is not surprising that their subjects remained highly religious. Yet Caravaggio did explore other themes on occasion, as evidenced by his painting Love Conquers All, which shows a winged cupid standing over objects representing all other human endeavors, including warfare, politics and music. Spain: Velazquez Though Spain remained a Catholic country, they did not seem to feel so constrained to religious themes. This is most evident in the work of the great Spanish painter Velazquez. In Velazquez, we see the same attention to shadow and light that characterizes the Baroque. Yet the subject matter is much more mundane, like these weavers or this old woman cooking eggs. And in his painting Las Meninas, Velazquez gets truly creative. In this painting, Velazquez is in the middle of painting a portrait of the king of Spain, while the king's daughters and attendants look on. The king himself is only visible in the reflection of a mirror across the room, while to the left, and much larger, stands Velazquez himself, glancing about the huge canvass of the king's portrait. This sort of novelty and fascination with neat visual effects would come to typify Baroque painting. Belgium: Rubens In Belgium, religious themes were much less prevalent, as Catholics and Protestants battled for mastery over the country. This conflict can be seen clearly in the works of the Flemish painter Rubens, who was just as likely to paint a mythological scene, like the Judgment of Paris or The Battle of the Amazons, as a religious scene, like The Fall of Man or The Massacre of the Innocents by King Herod. Yet Rubens also engaged in some novel themes, like this portrait of his sister-in-law or this lovely landscape. France: Poussin & Lorrain The themes of myth and landscape received even greater attention in France, where Poussin created some lovely paintings on Greek myth, like the Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite and this painting of Shepherds of Arcadia. Note here how the shadow on the stone tomb represents both the real shadows imposed by light and the metaphorical shadow of death. Yet in my opinion, France's greatest contribution to Baroque painting was Lorrain, whose landscapes remain some of the most beautiful ever created. Note how the human figure is no longer the focus of the paintings but rather a part of the scenery. This is especially evident in his paintings of the sea. Holland: Rembrandt So, we've seen how Baroque mastery of light and shadow was applied to new subject matter as this new style spread across Europe. This spread to a new subject matter reached its apex in Holland beneath the brush of the greatest of all Baroque painters, Rembrandt. Rembrandt brings all the Baroque features we've described together into one genius. In Rembrandt, we witness the mastery of light, shadow and realism. We see religious subject matter, like Belshazzar's Feast, and Joseph Accused by Potiphar's Wife. We also see unconventional subject matter, like this painting of an anatomy lesson, these landscapes, and even still lifes. Themes of Baroque Architecture The Baroque period was one of the most exciting times for European architecture. During this period, from the end of the 16th century to the dawn of the 18th century, European architecture exploded in novel directions. Rather than designing a single building, an architect might be responsible for reimagining a complex of buildings, or even planning an entire city. With this shift, the capitol of art and architecture moved from Rome to Paris. Regular, repeating designs gave way to curves and irregularity, as various styles were mixed and adapted. Yet this variety was regulated for the purposes of symmetry and grandeur. Finally, for the first time since antiquity, architects began tinkering with optical illusion in building. They realized you could trick the eye into making a large building seem even grander. This hearkens back to Greek tricks that allowed their grand temples to tower even larger in the eye of the beholder. Though Baroque architecture found its way across Europe, two countries came to the fore in this field: Italy and France. Baroque architecture got its start in Italy and is still evident today at the Vatican in Rome. This new architectural form reached its apex in France. Its mark can be seen quite clearly in Paris, but its purest expression can be found in that most Baroque of all buildings, Louis XIV's palace at Versailles. Baroque Architecture in Italian Churches Let us begin, as the Baroque style did, in Italy. Here we can see the most obvious Baroque architectural innovation: the use of curves. At the Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, we can see how straight lines were replaced with delicate curves, giving the building its distinctively Baroque feel. From the rounded windows to the graceful squiggle of the whole facade, this church is a feast for the eyes. In Venice, the church of Santa Maria della Salute we see another key facet of Baroque art, symmetrical irregularity. Each side of this eight-sided structure offers the viewer a new perspective, different from the last, yet symmetrical in its own right. Every step offers new views and varied decoration, from the standard statues occupying alcoves to the novel curls of stone buttressing the high dome. Reinventing the Vatican Yet perhaps the best example of Baroque architecture in Italy is at Rome itself. At the heart of the Vatican stands the Basilica of St Peter. This impressive structure reached its current state at the hands of Baroque architects. To the left and right a massive colonnade, designed by Bernini, creates a panoramic effect, drawing the eye ever onward to the basilica at its center. Along the top of this colonnade a series of statues break up the silhouette, providing variety even as it flanks the basilica with symmetrical wings. The facade of the Basilica itself, designed by Maderna, is its own little wonder. Here we can see the variety of Baroque architecture in full swing. Like the colonnade, the skyline of Maderna's facade is broken at intervals by statues and other decorations. Yet Maderna goes further, mixing up styles by alternating square columns with round ones. Likewise, the pediments over the windows and doors also alternate between rounded and triangular designs. Indeed, there are almost as many types of doors and windows as there are doors and windows. Yet all this exuberant variety is regulated and controlled to create symmetry, as each novel design on the right is echoed by a similar design to the left. The overall effect is as grand and orderly as it is picturesque and visually fascinating. Yet the Baroque is not just limited to the exterior. Connecting St Peter's basilica to the Apostolic Palace lies an impressive staircase designed by Bernini, called the Scala Regia, or the 'Stairs of the Queen.' Bernini's staircase shrinks to a vanishing point, making the staircase seem longer and higher than it really is. In this respect, at least, Bernini was attempting something that had not been tried since classical times: weaving optical illusion into architectural design to fool the eye into seeing something as even grander and larger than it is. Thus, in Italy, we've seen the foundation of themes that would repeat again and again in Baroque architecture: the use of curves, the introduction of irregular decoration and design, the subordination of irregularity to symmetry, and the incorporation of optical illusion into architectural design. The Lovely Louvre While the Pope was supporting the arts in Italy, on the other side of the Alps a new patron of the arts was emerging. Louis XIV, the Sun King, France's absolute monarch, had decided to aggrandize his status with a massive arts campaign. Louis' mission was both propagandistic and practical. On the propaganda side, Louis wished to surround his city and court with the best art in the world. On the practical side, Louis knew that with relatively cheap materials (stone, canvas, bronze and paint), a skilled artist could create priceless works of art. Though alchemists had failed to turn lead into gold, Louis knew he could turn stone into treasure. So Louis set about building a treasury of art. At the heart of this project was the Louvre, where Louis housed the artists he'd brought in from around Europe, as well as France's greatest artistic treasures, including DaVinci's Mona Lisa. To make the Louvre worthy of the artistic talent housed within, Louis commissioned a complete redesign of the Louvre, from a private residence to proclamation of France's status as the capitol of art. In the east facade of the Louvre, designed by Perrault we can see some of the same Baroque elements that we saw in Italy, especially irregular openings and a focus on symmetry. Yet this design seems almost tame when compared with the busy exuberance of the Vatican. We must go inside the Louvre to truly see the Baroque at work. Within the Louvre lies the Apollo Gallery, designed by Le Brun. Here we begin to see what French Baroque means. Delicate curves and swirls adorn every surface. Entryways alternate between curved and triangular. Even the parquet floor displays a dizzying variety of design. The low arch of the ceiling is broken up with both paintings and sculptures, making the ceiling seem to soar far higher than its actual height. Yet, if we draw a line down the middle of the gallery, all this dizzy variety falls into orderly symmetry, as even artistic chaos is brought into order. Versailles: The Epitome of Baroque Architecture Yet the Louvre was simply not big enough for Louis' ambitions. Why should he be satisfied with a palace, when the Pope had an entire city to himself? Louis XIV thought he should have a residence at least as grand as the Pope's. To this end, Louis began construction on the most ambitious architectural project of his age: the palace at Versailles. Here at last was a large enough canvass for Louis' architectural ambitions. Louis made his palace the consummate masterpiece of Baroque architecture. Every inch is covered with ornamental statues. Even the roof peaks are adorned with bronze filigree. Every window offers new vistas. Yet all of these features fall into perfect symmetry, yet on a scale unimagined. Even the grounds themselves were brought into line with Louis' Baroque plan, with intricately patterned gardens, in which even the trees were brought into line, trimmed into geometrical shapes, and laid out with symmetrical perfection. Within, Versailles is even more impressive, with miles of opulently decorated galleries. The most impressive of these is the Hall of Mirrors, designed by Le Brun. Here Le Brun takes the same techniques he used at the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre to a whole new level. Every step is rife with glorious detail. Every glance offers views of breathtaking beauty. The ceiling is trimmed with intricate sculpture, while the ceiling itself is painted to evoke a three-dimensional feel, with paintings set within painted frames, themselves supported by painted architecture. Yet the illusions go even further, for on one side of the hall, windows to the outside pour in light, while on the other side, an identical series of openings are glazed with mirrors, giving the beholder the impression that he is walking down a corridor of sunlight and further aggrandizing the space. And, in true Baroque form, all of this exuberant variety, all this opulent decoration, all these illusions and effects, are perfectly balanced into a symmetrical whole that almost takes the breath away. For all these reasons, Versailles is considered by many to be the epitome of Baroque architecture. Themes in Baroque Sculpture It is difficult to make general statements about Baroque sculpture. Baroque sculpture shows a distinct variety depending on the country of its origin. In Italy, sculptures broke up the outlines of Baroque buildings and glorious altarpieces were created with breathtaking visual effects. In Belgium, Baroque sculptors created pulpits of extraordinary complexity and beauty. And in France, sculpture was dedicated to the glorification of a new breed of absolute monarchs. Despite these differences, we can identify some themes of Baroque sculpture: stark realism, highly pictorial effects and technical mastery equivalent to, if not surpassing, antiquity. Keep an eye out for these themes as we explore the spread of Baroque sculpture across Europe. Italian Sculpture Let us begin in Italy, with the great genius of the Italian Baroque, Bernini. Bernini was both a sculptor and architect, and his architectural achievements serve only to highlight his sculptural genius. This can be seen quite clearly in the colonnade he designed for the Vatican. Note how the sculptures add variety to the skyline of the heart of Christendom. We can see Bernini's sculptural magnificence in full force in this altarpiece depicting the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. Note the powerful pictorial effect of this sculpture, the sculpted witnesses to the side, the marble clouds, and the rays of brazen sunlight heightened by colored lighting from a concealed source. Looking closer, we also see Bernini's technical mastery in the dramatic posture of the limp and defenseless Theresa, with her flowing folds of robe, and the delicate gestures of the angel. Bernini's excellence brought him clients from all over Europe, including Louis XIV of France, who commissioned this magnificent bust from Bernini. Bernini's skill and pictorial sensibilities are evident here as well, in the majestic, windblown curls and swaths of fabric, whipping around the calm controlled visage of France's great absolute monarch. French Sculpture This use of sculpture to worship Louis XIV was, naturally, carried out in France itself. We can see it clearly in this statue of the King by Coysevox. Yet, there is more than one way to glorify a king, besides merely depicting the king himself. Another way was with simple technical perfection. Louis commissioned many, many artists, to surround him with priceless works of art. One of these was Puget, who glorified the King of France by means of his incredible skill, which was at least equal to that of the Greeks. Witness the dramatic pose of Puget's Milo of Croton, and the airy weightlessness of his Perseus and Andromeda. Spanish and German Sculpture In Germany and Spain, we see many of the same themes we saw in France. Like Coysevox in France, the German sculptor Schluter, produced some impressive statues, like this one of Prince Frederick. Note how the importance and power of the prince on horseback is emphasized by the dejected poses of the accompanying figures at the base. And in Spain, sculptors working in wood, like Montane, created painted sculptures of unprecedented skill and realism, like this statue of Saint Francis. Note the veins on his hands, the realistic folds of his garment and the almost shocking realism of his tender expression. Belgian Sculpture Yet, the most unique sculptures of the Baroque period come from Belgium, where the Flemish sculptors Vervoort and Verbruggen created pulpits of unprecedented grandeur and intricacy, like this pulpit in the form of a tree, teeming with life and religious allegory, that Vervoort constructed for the Cathedral at Antwerp and Verbruggen's pulpit for the Cathedral at Brussels, depicting Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. These sculptures, with their pictorial realism and lack of restraint, mark the transition from the symmetrical grandeur of the early Baroque style into the unrestrained activity of the late Baroque style, also known as Rococo. Francis Bacon: Prophet of Science Every great shift in human thinking has its founding prophet: a man ahead of his time, a true visionary who imagined a different way of looking at the world. Buddhism has the Buddha. Christianity has Jesus. Islam has Muhammad. Science has Sir Francis Bacon. When Francis Bacon was born in 1561, the Bible was considered the ultimate authority. People thought the Earth was at the center of the universe, and science was so intertwined with religion that the greatest minds of the time were arguing about how many angels could dance on a pin head. By the time Bacon died in 1626, a new sort of authority had taken root in Europe: scientific proof. Galileo had established scientific proof that the Earth orbited the Sun, and the first divisions between religion and science had begun to appear, as the greatest minds of the time struggled to reconcile scientific proof with religious faith. Such sweeping changes in a single lifetime should give us some notion of how rapidly the world was transforming at the turn of the 17th century. To credit Bacon alone with these changes would be to overlook the efforts of his many contemporaries and successors. Bacon was not the cause of this transformation. In fact, Bacon made few scientific discoveries of any real note. Instead, Bacon was the prophet of this new age - he wrote its laws, and provided its inspiration. The Scientific Method Bacon's vision allowed him to see this new scientific way of looking at the world before it ever existed. Yet Bacon's true genius lies in the methods he provided to make this vision possible. Bacon realized that his fellow Europeans were never going to learn anything new so long as they kept looking for answers in the Bible or in the works of classical philosophers. No matter how deeply they thought about these concepts, no matter how many compelling arguments they might invent, the scholars of Europe essentially had been treading the same ground for centuries. Bacon proposed a new way to unlock the secrets of nature: the scientific experiment. Nature is chaotic, with many factors influencing everything we perceive. The simple fall of a leaf from a tree involves laws of gravity pulling the leaf down, laws of meteorology governing the wind, and laws of aerodynamics governing how the leaf responds to that wind. In nature, these laws are all mixed up, so we don't know which laws govern what. Moreover, the sheer irregularity of nature makes it almost impossible to measure. No two leaves are alike, and even if they were, they would not fall in the same way, due to the countless other factors influencing them - the wind, their position, their height - all of these things. How can we possibly hope to learn anything from nature when nature is so disorderly? Bacon's solution was simple yet profound. To learn about Nature, we have to pull Nature out of her comfort zone. We need to put Nature in a place where we control as many of the factors as possible and make her perform the same activity again and again. Only then can we begin to eliminate the factors that confuse our attempts to understand nature. So what was Bacon talking about? The Benefits of Experimental Science Let us return to our example of the falling leaf. Let us say we are trying to determine the laws that affect how leaves fall. As we saw above, a wide variety of factors influence how each leaf falls: wind, air resistance, and gravity. Moreover, since no two leaves are exactly the same and each leaf falls from a different point, we could watch a thousand leaves fall and be no closer to our answers. Imagine trying to learn anything from this chaos. You'd have to weigh and measure each leaf. You'd have to run around with a tape measure, figuring out which twig each leaf fell from. You'd have to record where the wind was coming from and how fast, at every moment. You'd have to measure the density of the air beneath each individual leaf. In short, learning anything from the random falling of leaves from a tree is all but impossible. So the first way we might apply Bacon's theory would be to drop the same leaf from the same height, over and over again, thereby controlling at least some of these factors. Now instead of worrying about how all leaves fall, we're just trying to discover how this leaf falls. Yet we'd still keep getting a wide variety of behaviors from our dropped leaf, since the wind would sometimes be blowing and sometimes it wouldn't. If we moved our experiment indoors, we could eliminate another factor, the impact of the wind. Yet even with this improvement, our leaf is still not always falling in exactly the same way, although we're getting closer. The simple laws of gravity are still confused by the resistance of the air. So let's remove the factor of the air. Let's put our leaf in a bell jar and remove the air. And wouldn't you know it, the leaf falls the same way, at the same rate, every time. If we repeat this process enough and measure it closely, we could determine that the falling leaf accelerates at a rate of 9.8 meters per second per second. And if we expanded this, and tried it with other objects, we would discover that, in a vacuum, everything from leaves to feathers to basketballs to jellybeans fall at an accelerating rate of 9.8 meter per second per second. And just like that, we've discovered a law of gravity. Now Bacon did not discover this law - Isaac Newton did, a few decades later. However, Newton made this discovery by following Bacon's approach. Take the things we see in nature out of the chaos of nature, and tinker with them in an environment that we control. That is the essence of the scientific method. Bacon's foundational work in this field has earned him the title 'Father of Experimental Science.' Baconian Optimism So we've seen how Bacon served as a prophet of this new scientific age. We've seen how his experimental method laid the foundations for modern science. These contributions alone would be enough to write Bacon's name large in the pages of history. Yet Bacon did more than predict the scientific revolution, and his contributions were not limited to the scientific method. Arguably Bacon's greatest contribution to the world of science was his incredible optimism and enthusiasm. Bacon didn't just predict and codify science - he sold it to the world. Bacon thought science would fix all of mankind's problems. He envisioned an age of constant invention, where every day brought new technology to make man's life better and easier. With science we could feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and heal the sick. By understanding nature, we could transcend her limits, and forge a new world, a better world for everyone. Bacon voiced his scientific ideals in many treatises and books. One of my favorites is his story of New Atlantis. In this story, Bacon paints a vision of a Utopian society based on scientific principles. The people of New Atlantis do not hoard gold or other material goods. Everyone has everything they need, provided by the advances of science. Instead, they trade these earthly goods around the world, in exchange for the greatest of all treasures: knowledge. Today, Bacon's vision may seem like dewy-eyed naïveté. Anyone who has seen battlefields torn asunder by scientifically-perfected killing machines knows that science, like any other tool, is only as good or evil as the hand that wields it. But 400 years ago, Bacon's enthusiastic optimism inspired generations of thinkers to make his vision a reality. In many ways the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution are all examples of humanity trying to fulfill Bacon's lofty dream of the future. Their efforts built the world we know today. The Copernicus Crisis At the dawn of the 17th century, the Roman Catholic Church was in crisis. The Protestant Reformation was sweeping across Europe. The Catholic Church was losing entire countries to this heresy. And now it seemed like the universe itself was falling apart. The Church had spent centuries believing that the earth was at the center of the universe. The sun, moon, planets and stars orbited the earth embedded in concentric spheres, each one larger than the last, like a celestial Russian doll. Then, in 1543, this fellow Copernicus came up with the wild notion that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the universe, a concept that came to be known as heliocentrism. The Church tried to stomp this idea out in any way they could. Yet despite their best efforts, heliocentrism was becoming ever more popular. Fools like Johannes Kepler or Tycho Brahe were even expanding upon it. And the Church could do nothing to stop them! Gone were the good old days when the Church could burn people alive for saying things they disagreed with. As a Protestant living in a Protestant country, Kepler and his ilk were forever out of the Church's reach. Unable to silence these mad theories, the Church's only comfort was that no one could actually prove them. Unfortunately for the Church, a fellow named Galileo just happened to be in the business of proving things. Unfortunately for Galileo, unlike his fellow scientists safe in the Protestant North, Galileo lived right under the nose of the Pope himself. Galileo's Falling Bodies Experiment Now what do I mean when I say that Galileo was in the business of proving things? Well, let me give you an example. Imagine you're holding a feather in one hand and an apple in another. You let them both go. Which one will hit the ground first? The apple, of course. From this you might draw the conclusion that heavy things, like the apple, fall faster than light things, like the feather. This was how most people, with the exception of a few philosophers, thought gravity worked for thousands of years. Galileo rejected this common-sense notion. 'Our observation of the feather and apple cannot be counted as proof,' he would say, 'because there are too many factors involved. The feather isn't just lighter than the apple, it also has a different shape. If we want to see how something's weight affects how fast it falls, we need to remove all the other factors and just look at the weight.' According to legend, that's exactly what Galileo did. He made two balls, completely identical except that one was made of lead and the other was made of cork. He then dropped those balls from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Despite the fact that the lead ball was much heavier than the cork ball, they both hit the ground at exactly the same time. This story, if it is true, is one of the first recorded scientific experiments in history. The Importance of the Scientific Method So, what differentiates Galileo's experiment from our observation of the feather and apple? Well, first of all, Galileo was able to separate one factor from another. Instead of saying that apples and feathers fall at different speeds because of their weight, Galileo thought that they fell at different speeds because of their shape. Second, instead of just stating his theory and supporting it with reasoning, Galileo decided to test his hypothesis by conducting an experiment. Finally, his experiment showed that Galileo understood the limitations of human observation. If we simply drop two objects a few feet, our limited senses might not be able to detect if one object fell before the other. They may seem to hit the ground at the same time because the difference is too small for us to notice. However, if we drop our two objects from the top of a tall tower, we can spread out the phenomenon and give our senses a chance to notice even small differences. This was a whole new way of looking at the world. Galileo's method demanded more than observation and explanation. It required an examination of the factors involved and, most importantly, proof. In this sense, Galileo joins the ranks of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes as fathers of the scientific method. Telescope and Starry Messenger Galileo applied this new scientific method to the matter of heliocentrism. He would prove, once and for all, that the earth orbited around the sun, not the other way around. Yet to do so, he was going to have to build a new tool, something much more challenging than balls of lead and cork. Galileo needed a telescope. Luckily for him, in 1608, a series of Dutch craftsmen had invented the telescope. A year later, in 1609, news of the telescope reached Galileo. The day after he'd heard about the Dutch telescope, Galileo had already built one of his own. The first telescopes were quite weak, only capable of magnifying something to three or four times its normal size. Galileo gradually improved his technique until he had constructed a telescope 33 times more powerful than the naked eye, thereby overcoming the limitations of human observation. Taking this new tool in hand, Galileo turned it towards the heavens, and the things he saw proved once and for all that the heliocentric theory was right and the old geocentric theory was wrong. One of the first things Galileo discovered were the moons of Jupiter. If the geocentric theory was right, then all heavenly bodies should orbit the earth. But here were four heavenly bodies that orbited another heavenly body. Another thing Galileo noticed was that the planet Venus seemed to go through phases just like the moon. These phase changes could only be explained if Venus orbited the sun, not the earth. Yet another thing that Galileo found was a whole new planet, Neptune, which didn't even show up in the geocentric model of the universe. These findings alone were enough to refute the geocentric model of the universe, but Galileo did not stop there. He also learned that the moon, rather than being the perfect celestial orb that everyone assumed, was rather pocked with craters and mountains. He discovered that the Milky Way was made of hundreds of millions of stars packed closely together. This told Galileo that the universe was much bigger than people had assumed. The next year, in 1610, Galileo published his findings in a short treatise called 'The Starry Messenger.' This was the first scientific paper ever published. The Church's Response Galileo's discoveries made him an instant celebrity. Everyone wanted to have a look at the heavens through Galileo's new telescope. Galileo's support for the heliocentric model of the universe didn't get him into that much trouble - at least, at first. However, a few years later, in 1614, the Church decided to take a more hard-line approach on heliocentrism. Galileo found himself under suspicion by the Inquisition, and the very notion of heliocentrism was on trial. Galileo made his way to Rome to defend his name and heliocentrism. In the end, Galileo was cleared of suspicion, but he was ordered to keep his mouth shut about this heliocentric stuff. Galileo obediently kept his head down for the better part of a decade. However, when the old pope died in 1623 and was replaced by a new, friendlier pope, Galileo saw the opportunity he'd been waiting for to publish a new book on heliocentrism. It took Galileo two years of pleading to gain permission to publish his book. Some accounts claim that the Pope himself demanded that Galileo include geocentric arguments in his book as well as heliocentric arguments, much as some people today argue for creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Galileo was clearly insulted by the request, for when he published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he put the geocentric arguments, the words of the Pope himself, into the mouth of a character he named Simplicio, meaning 'simpleton.' This was too much for the Pope. Galileo was put on trial for heresy. The Church had warned Galileo to lay off the heliocentric talk, and now here he was, defending the heliocentric model and calling the Pope a simpleton for disagreeing. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, where he would spend the rest of his life. Galileo's discoveries made him an instant celebrity. Everyone wanted to have a look at the heavens through Galileo's new telescope. Galileo's support for the heliocentric model of the universe didn't get him into that much trouble - at least, at first. However, a few years later, in 1614, the Church decided to take a more hard-line approach on heliocentrism. Galileo found himself under suspicion by the Inquisition, and the very notion of heliocentrism was on trial. Galileo made his way to Rome to defend his name and heliocentrism. In the end, Galileo was cleared of suspicion, but he was ordered to keep his mouth shut about this heliocentric stuff. Galileo obediently kept his head down for the better part of a decade. However, when the old pope died in 1623 and was replaced by a new, friendlier pope, Galileo saw the opportunity he'd been waiting for to publish a new book on heliocentrism. It took Galileo two years of pleading to gain permission to publish his book. Some accounts claim that the Pope himself demanded that Galileo include geocentric arguments in his book as well as heliocentric arguments, much as some people today argue for creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Galileo was clearly insulted by the request, for when he published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he put the geocentric arguments, the words of the Pope himself, into the mouth of a character he named Simplicio, meaning 'simpleton.' This was too much for the Pope. Galileo was put on trial for heresy. The Church had warned Galileo to lay off the heliocentric talk, and now here he was, defending the heliocentric model and calling the Pope a simpleton for disagreeing. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, where he would spend the rest of his life.

* Michaelangelo

• Working for the Medici

• Their views rubbed off on the young Michelangelo's work, mixing religion with myth.

• Two of his most famous works of this time are the relief sculptures; Madonna of the Stairs, also known as the 'Madonna of the Steps,' and the Battle of the Centaurs. * Michaelangelo

• Working for the Medici

• While working on his craft, it seems Michelangelo spent little time working on his people skills.

• Known to history as a rather moody, arrogant fellow, it seems he began gaining this reputation rather early.

• According to tradition, Michelangelo and a fellow student of the arts got into a quarrel, and the artist punched Michelangelo in the nose, breaking it and causing it to be crooked for the rest of time.

• Sculpting 'Bacchus,' 'The Pieta' and 'David'

• In 1492, Lorenzo de Medici, Michelangelo's patron, died. After his death, the Medici fortune began to dwindle.

• This, along with the outspoken words of Florence's new ruler Savonarola, a monk who radically opposed any sort of secular art and accused the Medici of heresy, caused Michelangelo to return to the home of his father. * Michaelangelo

• Sculpting 'Bacchus,' 'The Pieta' and 'David'

• Upon his return, Michelangelo became enthralled with the human form, even studying cadavers to improve his craft.

• By 1496, Michelangelo found himself in Rome, where he received a commission, or the hiring and payment for the creation of a piece.

• The cardinal himself wanted the young Michelangelo to sculpt a huge statue of Bacchus, the ancient god of wine.

• Although it seems the cardinal wasn't fond of the finished product, this didn't stop Michelangelo.

• Just a short time later, he sculpted the Pieta, which still stands in Saint Peter's Basilica of Rome.

• Of this magnificent sculpture, a fellow Renaissance artist wrote, 'It is a miracle that a shapeless block of stone could have been carved away to make something so perfect that even nature could hardly have made it better, using real human flesh!'

• After the death of the radical monk Savonarola, Michelangelo returned to Florence. With Florence in political upheaval, Michelangelo was commissioned to turn a damaged piece of marble into the biblical hero David. This masterpiece of the human form shows the naked David poised like a Greek god with his eyes determined to protect his land. Many art historians believe this work, more than any other, portrays Michelangelo's devotion for the Republic of Florence and his desire to see it be set free. The Sistine Chapel With his star rising, Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the Pope himself! Pope Julius II, being rather up there in age, wanted Michelangelo to design an over-the-top tomb for him. From this project came the famous Moses, which is still in Rome today. However, before his tomb could be completed, the Pope turned his attention to a new project. In around 1508, Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Arguably, this would become Michelangelo's most famous work. Ironically, Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor, not a painter, making him none-too-thrilled to receive this job. In true, moody artistic style, Michelangelo finally agreed to the job but refused to adhere to the Pope's vision. Instead, he created his own. By the time this awe-inspiring work was complete, it depicted the story of the creation of Adam, the downfall of Adam and Eve and many other scenes, encompassing over 300 figures. The fact that this was all done in fresco, meaning a painting that is done rapidly in watercolor on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling so that the colors penetrate the plaster, makes this work even more impressive. Add to this that Michelangelo painted this high in the air while on his back, and the whole thing seems a bit supernatural. After the death of Pope Julius II in 1513, Pope Leo X of the infamous Medici family came to power. This Pope, also enthralled with the talent of Michelangelo, charged him to design tombs for the Medici family. For this, Michelangelo headed back to Florence. However, Michelangelo and the rest of Florence were no longer willing to accept the Medici as their rulers. Not ones to be messed with, the Medici took the city by force, inducing Michelangelo to leave his precious Florence forever! The Last Judgment In the 1530s, a new Pope, Pope Clement VII, called Michelangelo back to Rome to paint the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. This would become the Last Judgment, a gruesome scene, which depicts some going to Heaven but many, many others going to Hell. Art historians believe this was Michelangelo thumbing his nose at the greed and immorality of the Church of his day. To the horror of many, Michelangelo chose to depict these figures in the nude. This angered so many that another artist was commissioned to paint drapes over the naked bodies. In his later years, Michelangelo expanded his talents to include designing the new dome of St. Peter's Basilica. Although it was not completed before his death, its beauty stands as a reminder of his talent. Personal Relationships Although Michelangelo was famous for his moods and his outbursts, he did have friendships that held his heart. Many believe he had an affinity for many of the male models whom he sculpted. However, the nature of these friendships has never been proven. Another relationship, which has been recorded by history, was his friendship with the noble widow Vittoria Colonna, a poet of the 16th century. Although many believe this was simply a friendship born out of a mutual faith and a love of poetry, the two of them wrote sonnet upon sonnet, which they penned to one another. Legend holds that Michelangelo once expressed of this relationship something to the effect of: 'My sole regret in life was that I did not kiss the widow's face in the same manner that I had her hand.' Although time may have added a bit of romance to something that was mere friendship, their many interactions prove they were dear friends. Elizabeth Comes to the Throne The Elizabethan Era of English history was a remarkable time now coined England's Golden Age. Queen Elizabeth I, from the illustrious Tudor dynasty, reigned for 45 years. During her reign, it was a time of relative political stability, exploration, and creativity in which art flourished. Coming to the throne in 1558 after the violent reign of her Catholic half-sister, Mary I - known infamously as Bloody Mary - Elizabeth worked to heal her land of the violent clashes between Catholics and Protestants. Though Elizabeth honored many of the Protestant reforms set up by her father, King Henry VIII, she also made significant concessions to the Catholics of her realm. In 1559, the Elizabethan Religious Settlement was enacted. In this legislation, Elizabeth was declared the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. This act also allowed for both Protestant and Catholic interpretations of church tradition. Due to her desire to unite her subjects under one throne, her reign is marked as a time of peace. During this peace, she encouraged self-sufficiency in England through the growth of agriculture and trade. This newfound wealth ushered in England's Golden Age. The Economy of the Golden Age At the time of Elizabeth's ascension, the feudal system, or the system of wealth based on land ownership, had greatly declined. Seeing these changes, Elizabeth very smartly encouraged the new, growing middle class to continue to engage in agriculture; however, it moved from peasants farming lands for wealthy nobles to independent citizens working for wage. England's wool trade also began to boom during Elizabeth's Golden Age. With the increase of wool, the face of farming changed, bringing about the process of land enclosure, in which the traditional open field system ended in favor of creating larger closed areas of land that required fewer workers. Although these new ranches of sorts were extremely profitable, the fact that they required less labor induced many workers to leave their villages for the employment found in towns. Thus, towns and cities burgeoned under Elizabeth's rule. The Arts Flourish These new towns and their new money were a perfect recipe for art to flourish. Just like in Italy, as money flowed, people looked for ways to spend it. While Italy turned to painters and sculptors, Elizabethan England turned to the theatre and, boy, did they love it! Elizabethan inn-yards were one of the first venues for English theatre. These inns, which provided lodging and entertainment, attracted traveling actors and troubadours, or poets who wrote verse to music. Soon crafty entrepreneurs realized there was money to be made by producing plays and then teaming with inn owners to charge for the performances. One of the first Englishmen to jump on this profitable performing bandwagon was James Burbage. History gives him credit for being among the first producers of Elizabethan commercial theatre. These inn-yards, being very profitable, soon grew into full-blown theatre houses. Among the most famous is the Globe Theatre of London. This theatre, built to mimic the Roman amphitheaters, was home to the original works of London's most famous playwrights. Speaking of playwrights, not only did the Golden Age of England produce lots of wool, it produced some of the most revered playwrights of all time. There was Christopher Marlowe, made famous by his Jew of Malta. To him we can add Thomas Kyd, known for his Spanish Tragedy. Of course, there's William Shakespeare, whose name has become synonymous with the word 'playwright.' To England's Golden Age and to high schools across the globe, he gave works like Hamlet, King Henry V, and the tragic Romeo and Juliet. Although the arts had been enjoyed throughout history, Elizabeth's Golden Age opened them up to every class of society. The upper-class nobility, the middle-class merchant, and the commoner all enjoyed this entertainment of the day. Just like today, the better the seat, the higher the price, but admission was available to all. Scientific Study and Exploration Along with a thriving economy and the flourishing arts, England's Golden Age opened an entire new world to the English realm through scientific study. Men like Sir Francis Bacon, who structured the idea of a defined scientific method, worked in England's Golden Age. To Bacon, we can also add Dr. John Dee, a famous alchemist, or in today's terms, chemist, who studied under Elizabeth's rule. As scientific exploration boomed, so did overseas exploration. Up until this time, Spain and Portugal had dominated the New World's seas, but Elizabeth's Golden Age saw the emergence of English explorers onto the scene. There was Sir Francis Drake, the first European to pass from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast of South America. He also sailed around the world in his ship, the Golden Hind. We also have Henry Hudson, who discovered the Hudson River of New York, or Sebastian Cabot, the Italian-born explorer who sailed for England and searched for the illusive Northwest Passage across North America. The list would not be complete without adding Sir Walter Raleigh. History tells us this guy was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. It also tells us he was very handsome and very debonair. (He's the guy who allegedly stopped the queen mid-step in order to place his coat over a mud puddle she was about to step into.) When not flirting with the queen, Sir Walter Raleigh also did some exploring. He established the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island. On an interesting side note, the state of Virginia is named after Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen. The Virgin Queen This brings us to our last topic, the fact that Elizabeth ruled over England as an unmarried, female monarch, earning her the nickname 'the Virgin Queen.' This alone is a huge difference between Elizabethan England and most other times throughout all of history. Not only was Elizabeth a single, female monarch, she was a survivor. First of all, we need to remember much of England felt she was an illegitimate heir, since her mother Anne Boleyn's marriage to Henry VIII was never accepted by the Catholic Church. It also didn't help matters when Boleyn was later executed for treason. Add to this that Elizabeth's half-sister, Bloody Mary, accused her of plotting a Protestant rebellion and had her imprisoned in the Tower of London, and you can see what backbone Elizabeth had. In 1588, Elizabeth would prove her backbone was as strong as any man's with the defeat of the Spanish Armada, an attack by well over 100 Spanish ships toward the English coast. Not only would this famous encounter prove Elizabeth could hold her own, it would establish England as preeminent over the seas. What We Know About William Shakespeare Considering how famous and well-regarded William Shakespeare's work is today, it's kind of surprising that we really don't know a whole lot about his life. Some people even challenge the fact that Shakespeare actually wrote the plays he was credited with - that's how mysterious he is. Some people don't even believe he wrote his plays! It's ironic that he is such an incredibly influential figure and, with regard to his personal life, a blank slate. We just don't know much about him, but that doesn't mean that this will be a short lesson. Sorry! Let's go over the biographical details that we do have. We'll also talk about his most famous plays and poems, as well as their lasting influence. So, when I say we don't know that much about William Shakespeare, we really don't. We don't even know his birthday because birth certificates - short or long-form - didn't exist back then. People born into noble families might have had their birthday recorded for posterity, similar to how these days you can find Brad Pitt's birthday by Googling it, but you probably can't find your next-door neighbor's birth date. Shakespeare, though, was born into a family of commoners. We do know that he was baptized. There are some public records of that. So, he must have been born somewhere near his baptism date of April 26, 1564. His father was a glover from Snitterfield, which sounds like a Harry Potter name, but apparently was a real place. The Shakespeare family wasn't badly off, but they were still commoners. We don't really know where Shakespeare went to school, but he probably did go because he ended up literate. The next solid record we have of the life of William Shakespeare is his marriage, which took place in 1582. Shakespeare married at the age of 18, while his wife, Anne Hathaway (no, not that Anne Hathaway, though seriously, what were that Anne Hathaway's parents thinking, naming her that) was actually of the ripe old age of 26. Six months after their wedding, their first daughter, Susanna, was born… so I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. They then had twins in 1585, named Judith and Hamnet (Hamnet, you say? That sounds familiar! - We'll talk about that later). Hamnet sadly died at the age of 11, and there's been a lot of speculation that his death may have influenced Shakespeare's playwriting, including the famous (and similar-sounding) Hamlet. While the name Hamlet technically comes from a different Scandinavian name, scholars still search for a connection. At some point, while still married to Anne, Shakespeare scooted off to London and got involved in the theatre scene - rather like the Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore of today, William and Anne's marriage was a May-December romance that was destined for failure. From various records, we do know that he worked as an actor as well as a playwright. He wrote plays for a company called Lord Chamberlain's Men. Starting in 1599, the company performed at the Globe Theatre, which is south of the Thames in London. If you go to London now, you can watch Shakespeare performances in a rebuilt Globe roughly in the same spot. Why was it rebuilt? Well, it was made entirely of wood, and it burned down in 1613, but the recreation is pretty good. Well, I mean, it looks good to me. I didn't see the original, but it looks great now, and if you go to London, you really should see a Shakespeare play at the Globe. It's pretty incredible. So, the Globe burned down from a fire started by a special effects cannon fired during a performance. So even back then, there was always a desire for snappy special effects, and this one had a pretty serious consequence. Personally, I'd rather see a real, live cannon go off than some lame video projection. That would have been awesome. Shakespeare had a lot of success from his playwriting and grew reasonably wealthy from it, which was a rare feat at the time… or now, really, I don't know how many wealthy playwrights you can name. He competed for audiences with the likes of Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson and other famous playwrights of the time. Christopher Marlowe might sound familiar if you've seen the movie Shakespeare in Love. Shakespeare's work has enjoyed a far wider audience in modern times than it did in his time, though. Plays What was it that he wrote that was so awesome and influential and long lasting? Well, let's talk about it. Shakespeare is really pretty unavoidable for most people. You've probably had contact with some of his plays; almost no one escapes high school without having to read Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's famous tragedy of star-crossed lovers in Verona. If you haven't read it, you've probably seen one of the numerous movie adaptations, or maybe even West Side Story, which is based on the plot of Romeo and Juliet. I'm not going to list off all of his plays. If you really want to know the names of all of them, you can go to Wikipedia. But I want to give you a timeline of some of his most significant works. I'll talk a little bit about each one, but keep in mind that we've got separate videos devoted to each the really big plays, so you should check those out. Also, you should bear in mind that scholars are divided on the dating of many of these. They're working off of multiple versions and incomplete records. Shakespeare's plays didn't have copyright dates like books do now, so not all of these dates are 100% accurate; they're really a best estimate based on the evidence available. So, take this chronology as a suggestion, and use it for slotting the plays in relation to each other, but don't hold on to the dates as gospel. Before we start - what did Shakespeare's plays look like when he wrote them? They tended to be written in something called blank verse. This is made up of lines of iambic pentameter that don't rhyme. What's iambic pentameter? Well, it's a 10-syllable line divided into five units, or feet, called iambs. An iamb is just two syllables that go light-STRONG in stress. For example, one of the more famous lines of iambic pentameter comes from Romeo and Juliet. This is when Romeo sees Juliet on the balcony at the start of that famous balcony scene: 'But SOFT! what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS.' Obviously, the actors don't read it that way, but that's a line of iambic pentameter, and that's how the syllables are supposed to work together. Earliest Plays So, Shakespeare went to London in the early 1590s, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Scholars fight about which play was the first he wrote, but many agree that it was probably The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which was written sometime between 1589-1591. Though it is significant for being (maybe) his first play and definitely the first instance of cross-dressing, which Shakespeare LOVED, it's generally not considered to be his best work. Next, possibly, came The Taming of the Shrew, around the same time period (1590-1591). It's another comedy and one of my personal favorites. If you want to know the plot of this play, you should watch the movie 10 Things I Hate About You - it's very similar, it's really based on the play - but then go and read or watch The Taming of the Shrew as well, since that's where it came from. Remember how, in the movie, Julia Stiles is this cranky, mean girl, and she doesn't want a boyfriend, but her younger sister really wants a boyfriend, and so Heath Ledger (RIP) has to wear her down and make her fall in love with him? Julia Stiles plays 'the shrew' in The Taming of the Shrew, or the Catherine character, and Heath Ledger is the Petruchio character - his name is Patrick Verona in the film. Rolling right along, we hit Richard III sometime around 1592-1593. This is a play about a villain, Richard III, scheming to get the crown and - SPOILER - he gets it, hence the kingly name. He kills a ton of people, including smothering a few children. This is an example of one of Shakespeare's history plays because it has a basis in history. Next up comes Romeo and Juliet, in 1595. You probably know the drill: Romeo falls in love with Juliet, but he's a Montague, and she's a Capulet, and their families hate each other. Their plan to be together goes awry, and they both end up killing themselves. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a lot more lighthearted - it's also from 1595. This involves four Athenian teenagers who run out into the woods to try and figure out their romantic problems. They run into some fairies, who mess around with them for fun. There's also an awesome dude, named Bottom, whose head gets turned into a donkey's head. It's a really fun play - I highly recommend A Midsummer Night's Dream. Late '90s Plays and Events 1596 brings The Merchant of Venice. It's the first entry in 'Cultural Studies with William Shakespeare.' This play is famous for the character Shylock, who's portrayed as a miserly Jew who demands a 'pound of flesh' as payment for a debt. That's problematic; anti-Semitism is not cool. It's an interesting play, but you've got to take it with a grain of salt and keep in mind when it was written. An important event in Shakespeare's life comes around the same time, which is the death of young Hamnet in1596. Shortly after that, or maybe around the same time, comes Henry IV, Parts I and II. The titular Henry IV is referred to as 'Hal' throughout the play, just to make it confusing, and there's also a really funny fat guy named Falstaff, who totally steals the show. Falstaff alone makes the Henry plays worthwhile. Another history play is Julius Caesar, from 1599. You might remember the famous line 'Et tu, Brute?' ('You too, Brutus?'). Roman emperor Julius Caesar is brutally murdered by a bunch of people in the government, including his previously loyal friend Brutus. Saying You too, Brutus? is probably the thing most people remember from this. Chaos ensues as everyone scrambles to lead Rome. Now we're coming up to the big daddy, the grand poobah, the big cheese: Hamlet, written around 1599-1601. It's probably the most famous and frequently discussed play he ever wrote. It's referenced in everything and performed a ton; it's even the basis for The Lion King. The play is about poor Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, who just can't seem to make up his mind about whether he should kill his uncle Claudius to avenge his father's death. It features his mother, Gertrude; his poor love interest, Ophelia; hilarious old fool, Polonius; and probably the most famous skull in theatre history - the 'Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well…' scene. Hamlet is really the first of Shakespeare's great tragedies and, arguably, the most well known. Later Plays Next up is one of his great comedies, Twelfth Night. Shakespeare's really on a roll in this period around 1601. Twelfth Night is wildly successful, and it features even more cross- dressing. We've got the heroine, Viola, who falls in love with Duke Orsino while she's dressed as a boy. Orsino loves Olivia, who falls in love with Viola dressed as a boy - don't worry, it's all sorted out in the end, but hijinks ensue. Around this time, Queen Elizabeth I dies and is succeeded by James I, the former king of Scotland - just a little historical context there. Next up: Othello, written around 1603-1604ish. It's another entry in 'Cultural Studies with Shakespeare.' Othello is a Moor (a North African) who is a general in Venice, and a lot of people don't like that because he's black and they're jerks. There's a bad guy named Iago who convinces Othello that his wife Desdemona is cheating on him. Eventually, Iago wears Othello down; Othello believes him, goes mad, kills his wife - it's a bummer. It's dramatized in a fabulous movie called O featuring Julia Stiles as yet another Shakespearean heroine. It's really the second of the great tragedies. Moving right along, we've got King Lear, features an old man (King Lear) who wants to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. He ends up banishing one daughter, Cordelia, because she doesn't kiss up enough. The other two, Regan and Goneril turn out to be really nasty and, again, pretty much everyone dies. That's the third of the great tragedies. If you're familiar with the book or the movie called A Thousand Acres, that's based on the story of King Lear. Next up we've got 'the Scottish play', aka Macbeth, written around 1606. People refer to it as 'the Scottish play' because it's considered bad luck to say 'Macbeth' in the theatre - not really sure why. It features Macbeth, a Scottish lord, who tries to become king through murder and avarice at the encouragement of his nutty wife, Lady Macbeth. It features a lot of witches, ghosts, kilts and some great monologues. It's a lot of fun, but it's also a bummer because it's a tragedy. This is followed up by The Tempest, written in the 1610-1611 region. This play is a lot of fun. It features Prospero, the former Duke of Milan. He wrecks a ship carrying the usurping Duke of Milan on a magical island. Prospero's weird supernatural servants Ariel and Caliban hang out with the shipwrecked passengers while his daughter Miranda falls in love with one of them. It's kind of like the original Lost, if you will. The Tempest is probably the last play that Shakespeare wrote on his own. Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen were most likely co-written, both in 1613. OK, I need to take a breath. That was a lot of plays, and I didn't even tell you about all of them. Again, if you want to find out the names of all of Shakespeare's plays, go look on Wikipedia. So, that's a lot to remember, and I don't expect you to recite that all back to me. So, what should you keep in mind after hearing this massive list of plays? I would say, first, that Shakespeare's plays can generally be divided into three categories: comedies, tragedies and histories. At this point, the timeline we've been building could become color-coded for each type of play. The lines can get fuzzy, especially in the tragedy/history areas, because some of the tragedies have a historical basis - also, what kind of history isn't tragic in some way? The comedies are things like The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night. They have fun hijinks like cross-dressing or mistaken identity. They tend to end with a wedding - sometimes more than one wedding. Tragedies are plays like Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, and they tend to end with pretty much everyone dying, or at least a significant number of people dying. The histories are the ones like Henry IV Parts I and II and Richard III - really, if it's got a strong basis in British or Scottish or whatever history, it's a history play. Other Works So, in addition to all of those plays (and, like I said, I didn't even hit on all of them), Shakespeare actually wrote even more. He wrote poems, sonnets in particular, which are 14- line poems with a very specific rhyme structure. You can learn more about them in our lesson on Shakespeare's sonnets. But if you see a 14-line iambic pentameter poem in Shakespearean-type language, odds are you're looking at one of his 154 sonnets. This guy was busy. He wrote a ton! You've probably heard the oft-parodied 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' poem. Depending on your point of view, you may find it gloriously romantic or seriously cheesy, but that's a Shakespearean sonnet, and really, the remaining ones are just as good. They're beautiful; they're really worth checking out. In addition to the sonnets, he also wrote some longer poems - Venus and Adonis, written in the 1592-1593 range, and also The Rape of Lucrece in 1594. In Venus and Adonis, the Greek goddess Venus tries to get the mortal Adonis (who is really, really hot and buff - that's where the term 'Adonis' comes from) to sleep with her, but he refuses and then is killed while on a hunt. Bummer. It's written in 6-line stanzas that go a/b/a/b/c/c. The Rape of Lucrece is pretty self-explanatory, unfortunately. Lucretia is raped by the son of the King of Rome and commits suicide, which incites a revolt against the king. That poem is written in 7-line stanzas that go a/b/a/b/b/c/c, also known as 'rhyme royale.' Themes of Baroque Painting As the 16th century drew to a close, a new form of art arose in Western Europe. This new style, called the Baroque, had a profound impact on all forms of art, including architecture and sculpture. Yet nowhere is the Baroque style more evident than in painting. Baroque painting can be seen as the apex of realism in European art. In the Renaissance, European painters had learned the importance of form and anatomy in representing human figures realistically. Indeed, Renaissance painters were so proud of their accurate portrayal of the human form that their figures almost always took the fore in their scenes. While the background might be detailed, it remained just that - a background. If the Renaissance painters were obsessed with form and figure, Baroque painters were obsessed with light. It was not just the figures that needed to be realistic, but also their surroundings, as well and their place in the overall picture. Baroque painters supplemented Renaissance perfection of form and figure with an unprecedented consciousness of how light reacts to different materials, different surfaces and in different contexts. As a result, Baroque painters put just as much effort into depicting an accurate landscape or interior scene as they did into creating realistic figures. Indeed, this emphasis on the background became so popular that some Baroque painters abandoned human figures altogether, focusing entirely on how light played off a bowl of fruit or a landscape at sunset. This exploration of new themes was not limited to backgrounds. As time progressed, Baroque painters were just as likely to paint a scene from Greek myth as one from the Bible, and a portrait was as likely to be a portrait of the artist himself as of his local lord or the Virgin Mary. So, we've seen some of the major themes of Baroque painting: A de-emphasis of the figure A mastery of light and shadow Realism in all things And new subjects like landscapes, still life and self-portrait Let us look for these new themes in the works of the great artists of the Baroque. Italy: Caravaggio Not surprisingly, the Baroque started out in Rome. The Roman Catholic Church had long been the greatest patron of the arts, and they supported the Baroque style in its infancy. One of the earliest forms of Baroque art was the open ceiling fresco. In this style, the ceiling of a room was painted in such a way that it appeared to be open to the heavens. In the ceiling of the Barberini Palace by Pietro da Cortona, we see a shift in emphasis from the central figure to the illusory framing that gives the ceiling its depth. This shift in emphasis is even clearer in the ceiling fresco of Sant'Ignazio by Andrea dal Pozzo. Look at how much time and attention has been put into the architectural elements that border the heavenly theme. Also, note that rather than faces looking down from on high, we see the feet of people ascending upward, who are only occasionally looking down. Yet though these ceiling frescoes are bathed in rays of glory, the true baroque mastery of light and realism comes to the fore in the canvasses and panels painted by Caravaggio. As Caravaggio and his fellow Italians were right under the nose of the Vatican, it is not surprising that their subjects remained highly religious. Yet Caravaggio did explore other themes on occasion, as evidenced by his painting Love Conquers All, which shows a winged cupid standing over objects representing all other human endeavors, including warfare, politics and music. Spain: Velazquez Though Spain remained a Catholic country, they did not seem to feel so constrained to religious themes. This is most evident in the work of the great Spanish painter Velazquez. In Velazquez, we see the same attention to shadow and light that characterizes the Baroque. Yet the subject matter is much more mundane, like these weavers or this old woman cooking eggs. And in his painting Las Meninas, Velazquez gets truly creative. In this painting, Velazquez is in the middle of painting a portrait of the king of Spain, while the king's daughters and attendants look on. The king himself is only visible in the reflection of a mirror across the room, while to the left, and much larger, stands Velazquez himself, glancing about the huge canvass of the king's portrait. This sort of novelty and fascination with neat visual effects would come to typify Baroque painting. Belgium: Rubens In Belgium, religious themes were much less prevalent, as Catholics and Protestants battled for mastery over the country. This conflict can be seen clearly in the works of the Flemish painter Rubens, who was just as likely to paint a mythological scene, like the Judgment of Paris or The Battle of the Amazons, as a religious scene, like The Fall of Man or The Massacre of the Innocents by King Herod. Yet Rubens also engaged in some novel themes, like this portrait of his sister-in-law or this lovely landscape. France: Poussin & Lorrain The themes of myth and landscape received even greater attention in France, where Poussin created some lovely paintings on Greek myth, like the Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite and this painting of Shepherds of Arcadia. Note here how the shadow on the stone tomb represents both the real shadows imposed by light and the metaphorical shadow of death. Yet in my opinion, France's greatest contribution to Baroque painting was Lorrain, whose landscapes remain some of the most beautiful ever created. Note how the human figure is no longer the focus of the paintings but rather a part of the scenery. This is especially evident in his paintings of the sea. Holland: Rembrandt So, we've seen how Baroque mastery of light and shadow was applied to new subject matter as this new style spread across Europe. This spread to a new subject matter reached its apex in Holland beneath the brush of the greatest of all Baroque painters, Rembrandt. Rembrandt brings all the Baroque features we've described together into one genius. In Rembrandt, we witness the mastery of light, shadow and realism. We see religious subject matter, like Belshazzar's Feast, and Joseph Accused by Potiphar's Wife. We also see unconventional subject matter, like this painting of an anatomy lesson, these landscapes, and even still lifes. Themes of Baroque Architecture The Baroque period was one of the most exciting times for European architecture. During this period, from the end of the 16th century to the dawn of the 18th century, European architecture exploded in novel directions. Rather than designing a single building, an architect might be responsible for reimagining a complex of buildings, or even planning an entire city. With this shift, the capitol of art and architecture moved from Rome to Paris. Regular, repeating designs gave way to curves and irregularity, as various styles were mixed and adapted. Yet this variety was regulated for the purposes of symmetry and grandeur. Finally, for the first time since antiquity, architects began tinkering with optical illusion in building. They realized you could trick the eye into making a large building seem even grander. This hearkens back to Greek tricks that allowed their grand temples to tower even larger in the eye of the beholder. Though Baroque architecture found its way across Europe, two countries came to the fore in this field: Italy and France. Baroque architecture got its start in Italy and is still evident today at the Vatican in Rome. This new architectural form reached its apex in France. Its mark can be seen quite clearly in Paris, but its purest expression can be found in that most Baroque of all buildings, Louis XIV's palace at Versailles. Baroque Architecture in Italian Churches Let us begin, as the Baroque style did, in Italy. Here we can see the most obvious Baroque architectural innovation: the use of curves. At the Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, we can see how straight lines were replaced with delicate curves, giving the building its distinctively Baroque feel. From the rounded windows to the graceful squiggle of the whole facade, this church is a feast for the eyes. In Venice, the church of Santa Maria della Salute we see another key facet of Baroque art, symmetrical irregularity. Each side of this eight-sided structure offers the viewer a new perspective, different from the last, yet symmetrical in its own right. Every step offers new views and varied decoration, from the standard statues occupying alcoves to the novel curls of stone buttressing the high dome. Reinventing the Vatican Yet perhaps the best example of Baroque architecture in Italy is at Rome itself. At the heart of the Vatican stands the Basilica of St Peter. This impressive structure reached its current state at the hands of Baroque architects. To the left and right a massive colonnade, designed by Bernini, creates a panoramic effect, drawing the eye ever onward to the basilica at its center. Along the top of this colonnade a series of statues break up the silhouette, providing variety even as it flanks the basilica with symmetrical wings. The facade of the Basilica itself, designed by Maderna, is its own little wonder. Here we can see the variety of Baroque architecture in full swing. Like the colonnade, the skyline of Maderna's facade is broken at intervals by statues and other decorations. Yet Maderna goes further, mixing up styles by alternating square columns with round ones. Likewise, the pediments over the windows and doors also alternate between rounded and triangular designs. Indeed, there are almost as many types of doors and windows as there are doors and windows. Yet all this exuberant variety is regulated and controlled to create symmetry, as each novel design on the right is echoed by a similar design to the left. The overall effect is as grand and orderly as it is picturesque and visually fascinating. Yet the Baroque is not just limited to the exterior. Connecting St Peter's basilica to the Apostolic Palace lies an impressive staircase designed by Bernini, called the Scala Regia, or the 'Stairs of the Queen.' Bernini's staircase shrinks to a vanishing point, making the staircase seem longer and higher than it really is. In this respect, at least, Bernini was attempting something that had not been tried since classical times: weaving optical illusion into architectural design to fool the eye into seeing something as even grander and larger than it is. Thus, in Italy, we've seen the foundation of themes that would repeat again and again in Baroque architecture: the use of curves, the introduction of irregular decoration and design, the subordination of irregularity to symmetry, and the incorporation of optical illusion into architectural design. The Lovely Louvre While the Pope was supporting the arts in Italy, on the other side of the Alps a new patron of the arts was emerging. Louis XIV, the Sun King, France's absolute monarch, had decided to aggrandize his status with a massive arts campaign. Louis' mission was both propagandistic and practical. On the propaganda side, Louis wished to surround his city and court with the best art in the world. On the practical side, Louis knew that with relatively cheap materials (stone, canvas, bronze and paint), a skilled artist could create priceless works of art. Though alchemists had failed to turn lead into gold, Louis knew he could turn stone into treasure. So Louis set about building a treasury of art. At the heart of this project was the Louvre, where Louis housed the artists he'd brought in from around Europe, as well as France's greatest artistic treasures, including DaVinci's Mona Lisa. To make the Louvre worthy of the artistic talent housed within, Louis commissioned a complete redesign of the Louvre, from a private residence to proclamation of France's status as the capitol of art. In the east facade of the Louvre, designed by Perrault we can see some of the same Baroque elements that we saw in Italy, especially irregular openings and a focus on symmetry. Yet this design seems almost tame when compared with the busy exuberance of the Vatican. We must go inside the Louvre to truly see the Baroque at work. Within the Louvre lies the Apollo Gallery, designed by Le Brun. Here we begin to see what French Baroque means. Delicate curves and swirls adorn every surface. Entryways alternate between curved and triangular. Even the parquet floor displays a dizzying variety of design. The low arch of the ceiling is broken up with both paintings and sculptures, making the ceiling seem to soar far higher than its actual height. Yet, if we draw a line down the middle of the gallery, all this dizzy variety falls into orderly symmetry, as even artistic chaos is brought into order. Versailles: The Epitome of Baroque Architecture Yet the Louvre was simply not big enough for Louis' ambitions. Why should he be satisfied with a palace, when the Pope had an entire city to himself? Louis XIV thought he should have a residence at least as grand as the Pope's. To this end, Louis began construction on the most ambitious architectural project of his age: the palace at Versailles. Here at last was a large enough canvass for Louis' architectural ambitions. Louis made his palace the consummate masterpiece of Baroque architecture. Every inch is covered with ornamental statues. Even the roof peaks are adorned with bronze filigree. Every window offers new vistas. Yet all of these features fall into perfect symmetry, yet on a scale unimagined. Even the grounds themselves were brought into line with Louis' Baroque plan, with intricately patterned gardens, in which even the trees were brought into line, trimmed into geometrical shapes, and laid out with symmetrical perfection. Within, Versailles is even more impressive, with miles of opulently decorated galleries. The most impressive of these is the Hall of Mirrors, designed by Le Brun. Here Le Brun takes the same techniques he used at the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre to a whole new level. Every step is rife with glorious detail. Every glance offers views of breathtaking beauty. The ceiling is trimmed with intricate sculpture, while the ceiling itself is painted to evoke a three-dimensional feel, with paintings set within painted frames, themselves supported by painted architecture. Yet the illusions go even further, for on one side of the hall, windows to the outside pour in light, while on the other side, an identical series of openings are glazed with mirrors, giving the beholder the impression that he is walking down a corridor of sunlight and further aggrandizing the space. And, in true Baroque form, all of this exuberant variety, all this opulent decoration, all these illusions and effects, are perfectly balanced into a symmetrical whole that almost takes the breath away. For all these reasons, Versailles is considered by many to be the epitome of Baroque architecture. Themes in Baroque Sculpture It is difficult to make general statements about Baroque sculpture. Baroque sculpture shows a distinct variety depending on the country of its origin. In Italy, sculptures broke up the outlines of Baroque buildings and glorious altarpieces were created with breathtaking visual effects. In Belgium, Baroque sculptors created pulpits of extraordinary complexity and beauty. And in France, sculpture was dedicated to the glorification of a new breed of absolute monarchs. Despite these differences, we can identify some themes of Baroque sculpture: stark realism, highly pictorial effects and technical mastery equivalent to, if not surpassing, antiquity. Keep an eye out for these themes as we explore the spread of Baroque sculpture across Europe. Italian Sculpture Let us begin in Italy, with the great genius of the Italian Baroque, Bernini. Bernini was both a sculptor and architect, and his architectural achievements serve only to highlight his sculptural genius. This can be seen quite clearly in the colonnade he designed for the Vatican. Note how the sculptures add variety to the skyline of the heart of Christendom. We can see Bernini's sculptural magnificence in full force in this altarpiece depicting the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. Note the powerful pictorial effect of this sculpture, the sculpted witnesses to the side, the marble clouds, and the rays of brazen sunlight heightened by colored lighting from a concealed source. Looking closer, we also see Bernini's technical mastery in the dramatic posture of the limp and defenseless Theresa, with her flowing folds of robe, and the delicate gestures of the angel. Bernini's excellence brought him clients from all over Europe, including Louis XIV of France, who commissioned this magnificent bust from Bernini. Bernini's skill and pictorial sensibilities are evident here as well, in the majestic, windblown curls and swaths of fabric, whipping around the calm controlled visage of France's great absolute monarch. French Sculpture This use of sculpture to worship Louis XIV was, naturally, carried out in France itself. We can see it clearly in this statue of the King by Coysevox. Yet, there is more than one way to glorify a king, besides merely depicting the king himself. Another way was with simple technical perfection. Louis commissioned many, many artists, to surround him with priceless works of art. One of these was Puget, who glorified the King of France by means of his incredible skill, which was at least equal to that of the Greeks. Witness the dramatic pose of Puget's Milo of Croton, and the airy weightlessness of his Perseus and Andromeda. Spanish and German Sculpture In Germany and Spain, we see many of the same themes we saw in France. Like Coysevox in France, the German sculptor Schluter, produced some impressive statues, like this one of Prince Frederick. Note how the importance and power of the prince on horseback is emphasized by the dejected poses of the accompanying figures at the base. And in Spain, sculptors working in wood, like Montane, created painted sculptures of unprecedented skill and realism, like this statue of Saint Francis. Note the veins on his hands, the realistic folds of his garment and the almost shocking realism of his tender expression. Belgian Sculpture Yet, the most unique sculptures of the Baroque period come from Belgium, where the Flemish sculptors Vervoort and Verbruggen created pulpits of unprecedented grandeur and intricacy, like this pulpit in the form of a tree, teeming with life and religious allegory, that Vervoort constructed for the Cathedral at Antwerp and Verbruggen's pulpit for the Cathedral at Brussels, depicting Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. These sculptures, with their pictorial realism and lack of restraint, mark the transition from the symmetrical grandeur of the early Baroque style into the unrestrained activity of the late Baroque style, also known as Rococo. Francis Bacon: Prophet of Science Every great shift in human thinking has its founding prophet: a man ahead of his time, a true visionary who imagined a different way of looking at the world. Buddhism has the Buddha. Christianity has Jesus. Islam has Muhammad. Science has Sir Francis Bacon. When Francis Bacon was born in 1561, the Bible was considered the ultimate authority. People thought the Earth was at the center of the universe, and science was so intertwined with religion that the greatest minds of the time were arguing about how many angels could dance on a pin head. By the time Bacon died in 1626, a new sort of authority had taken root in Europe: scientific proof. Galileo had established scientific proof that the Earth orbited the Sun, and the first divisions between religion and science had begun to appear, as the greatest minds of the time struggled to reconcile scientific proof with religious faith. Such sweeping changes in a single lifetime should give us some notion of how rapidly the world was transforming at the turn of the 17th century. To credit Bacon alone with these changes would be to overlook the efforts of his many contemporaries and successors. Bacon was not the cause of this transformation. In fact, Bacon made few scientific discoveries of any real note. Instead, Bacon was the prophet of this new age - he wrote its laws, and provided its inspiration. The Scientific Method Bacon's vision allowed him to see this new scientific way of looking at the world before it ever existed. Yet Bacon's true genius lies in the methods he provided to make this vision possible. Bacon realized that his fellow Europeans were never going to learn anything new so long as they kept looking for answers in the Bible or in the works of classical philosophers. No matter how deeply they thought about these concepts, no matter how many compelling arguments they might invent, the scholars of Europe essentially had been treading the same ground for centuries. Bacon proposed a new way to unlock the secrets of nature: the scientific experiment. Nature is chaotic, with many factors influencing everything we perceive. The simple fall of a leaf from a tree involves laws of gravity pulling the leaf down, laws of meteorology governing the wind, and laws of aerodynamics governing how the leaf responds to that wind. In nature, these laws are all mixed up, so we don't know which laws govern what. Moreover, the sheer irregularity of nature makes it almost impossible to measure. No two leaves are alike, and even if they were, they would not fall in the same way, due to the countless other factors influencing them - the wind, their position, their height - all of these things. How can we possibly hope to learn anything from nature when nature is so disorderly? Bacon's solution was simple yet profound. To learn about Nature, we have to pull Nature out of her comfort zone. We need to put Nature in a place where we control as many of the factors as possible and make her perform the same activity again and again. Only then can we begin to eliminate the factors that confuse our attempts to understand nature. So what was Bacon talking about? The Benefits of Experimental Science Let us return to our example of the falling leaf. Let us say we are trying to determine the laws that affect how leaves fall. As we saw above, a wide variety of factors influence how each leaf falls: wind, air resistance, and gravity. Moreover, since no two leaves are exactly the same and each leaf falls from a different point, we could watch a thousand leaves fall and be no closer to our answers. Imagine trying to learn anything from this chaos. You'd have to weigh and measure each leaf. You'd have to run around with a tape measure, figuring out which twig each leaf fell from. You'd have to record where the wind was coming from and how fast, at every moment. You'd have to measure the density of the air beneath each individual leaf. In short, learning anything from the random falling of leaves from a tree is all but impossible. So the first way we might apply Bacon's theory would be to drop the same leaf from the same height, over and over again, thereby controlling at least some of these factors. Now instead of worrying about how all leaves fall, we're just trying to discover how this leaf falls. Yet we'd still keep getting a wide variety of behaviors from our dropped leaf, since the wind would sometimes be blowing and sometimes it wouldn't. If we moved our experiment indoors, we could eliminate another factor, the impact of the wind. Yet even with this improvement, our leaf is still not always falling in exactly the same way, although we're getting closer. The simple laws of gravity are still confused by the resistance of the air. So let's remove the factor of the air. Let's put our leaf in a bell jar and remove the air. And wouldn't you know it, the leaf falls the same way, at the same rate, every time. If we repeat this process enough and measure it closely, we could determine that the falling leaf accelerates at a rate of 9.8 meters per second per second. And if we expanded this, and tried it with other objects, we would discover that, in a vacuum, everything from leaves to feathers to basketballs to jellybeans fall at an accelerating rate of 9.8 meter per second per second. And just like that, we've discovered a law of gravity. Now Bacon did not discover this law - Isaac Newton did, a few decades later. However, Newton made this discovery by following Bacon's approach. Take the things we see in nature out of the chaos of nature, and tinker with them in an environment that we control. That is the essence of the scientific method. Bacon's foundational work in this field has earned him the title 'Father of Experimental Science.' Baconian Optimism So we've seen how Bacon served as a prophet of this new scientific age. We've seen how his experimental method laid the foundations for modern science. These contributions alone would be enough to write Bacon's name large in the pages of history. Yet Bacon did more than predict the scientific revolution, and his contributions were not limited to the scientific method. Arguably Bacon's greatest contribution to the world of science was his incredible optimism and enthusiasm. Bacon didn't just predict and codify science - he sold it to the world. Bacon thought science would fix all of mankind's problems. He envisioned an age of constant invention, where every day brought new technology to make man's life better and easier. With science we could feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and heal the sick. By understanding nature, we could transcend her limits, and forge a new world, a better world for everyone. Bacon voiced his scientific ideals in many treatises and books. One of my favorites is his story of New Atlantis. In this story, Bacon paints a vision of a Utopian society based on scientific principles. The people of New Atlantis do not hoard gold or other material goods. Everyone has everything they need, provided by the advances of science. Instead, they trade these earthly goods around the world, in exchange for the greatest of all treasures: knowledge. Today, Bacon's vision may seem like dewy-eyed naïveté. Anyone who has seen battlefields torn asunder by scientifically-perfected killing machines knows that science, like any other tool, is only as good or evil as the hand that wields it. But 400 years ago, Bacon's enthusiastic optimism inspired generations of thinkers to make his vision a reality. In many ways the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution are all examples of humanity trying to fulfill Bacon's lofty dream of the future. Their efforts built the world we know today. The Copernicus Crisis At the dawn of the 17th century, the Roman Catholic Church was in crisis. The Protestant Reformation was sweeping across Europe. The Catholic Church was losing entire countries to this heresy. And now it seemed like the universe itself was falling apart. The Church had spent centuries believing that the earth was at the center of the universe. The sun, moon, planets and stars orbited the earth embedded in concentric spheres, each one larger than the last, like a celestial Russian doll. Then, in 1543, this fellow Copernicus came up with the wild notion that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the universe, a concept that came to be known as heliocentrism. The Church tried to stomp this idea out in any way they could. Yet despite their best efforts, heliocentrism was becoming ever more popular. Fools like Johannes Kepler or Tycho Brahe were even expanding upon it. And the Church could do nothing to stop them! Gone were the good old days when the Church could burn people alive for saying things they disagreed with. As a Protestant living in a Protestant country, Kepler and his ilk were forever out of the Church's reach. Unable to silence these mad theories, the Church's only comfort was that no one could actually prove them. Unfortunately for the Church, a fellow named Galileo just happened to be in the business of proving things. Unfortunately for Galileo, unlike his fellow scientists safe in the Protestant North, Galileo lived right under the nose of the Pope himself. Galileo's Falling Bodies Experiment Now what do I mean when I say that Galileo was in the business of proving things? Well, let me give you an example. Imagine you're holding a feather in one hand and an apple in another. You let them both go. Which one will hit the ground first? The apple, of course. From this you might draw the conclusion that heavy things, like the apple, fall faster than light things, like the feather. This was how most people, with the exception of a few philosophers, thought gravity worked for thousands of years. Galileo rejected this common-sense notion. 'Our observation of the feather and apple cannot be counted as proof,' he would say, 'because there are too many factors involved. The feather isn't just lighter than the apple, it also has a different shape. If we want to see how something's weight affects how fast it falls, we need to remove all the other factors and just look at the weight.' According to legend, that's exactly what Galileo did. He made two balls, completely identical except that one was made of lead and the other was made of cork. He then dropped those balls from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Despite the fact that the lead ball was much heavier than the cork ball, they both hit the ground at exactly the same time. This story, if it is true, is one of the first recorded scientific experiments in history. The Importance of the Scientific Method So, what differentiates Galileo's experiment from our observation of the feather and apple? Well, first of all, Galileo was able to separate one factor from another. Instead of saying that apples and feathers fall at different speeds because of their weight, Galileo thought that they fell at different speeds because of their shape. Second, instead of just stating his theory and supporting it with reasoning, Galileo decided to test his hypothesis by conducting an experiment. Finally, his experiment showed that Galileo understood the limitations of human observation. If we simply drop two objects a few feet, our limited senses might not be able to detect if one object fell before the other. They may seem to hit the ground at the same time because the difference is too small for us to notice. However, if we drop our two objects from the top of a tall tower, we can spread out the phenomenon and give our senses a chance to notice even small differences. This was a whole new way of looking at the world. Galileo's method demanded more than observation and explanation. It required an examination of the factors involved and, most importantly, proof. In this sense, Galileo joins the ranks of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes as fathers of the scientific method. Telescope and Starry Messenger Galileo applied this new scientific method to the matter of heliocentrism. He would prove, once and for all, that the earth orbited around the sun, not the other way around. Yet to do so, he was going to have to build a new tool, something much more challenging than balls of lead and cork. Galileo needed a telescope. Luckily for him, in 1608, a series of Dutch craftsmen had invented the telescope. A year later, in 1609, news of the telescope reached Galileo. The day after he'd heard about the Dutch telescope, Galileo had already built one of his own. The first telescopes were quite weak, only capable of magnifying something to three or four times its normal size. Galileo gradually improved his technique until he had constructed a telescope 33 times more powerful than the naked eye, thereby overcoming the limitations of human observation. Taking this new tool in hand, Galileo turned it towards the heavens, and the things he saw proved once and for all that the heliocentric theory was right and the old geocentric theory was wrong. One of the first things Galileo discovered were the moons of Jupiter. If the geocentric theory was right, then all heavenly bodies should orbit the earth. But here were four heavenly bodies that orbited another heavenly body. Another thing Galileo noticed was that the planet Venus seemed to go through phases just like the moon. These phase changes could only be explained if Venus orbited the sun, not the earth. Yet another thing that Galileo found was a whole new planet, Neptune, which didn't even show up in the geocentric model of the universe. These findings alone were enough to refute the geocentric model of the universe, but Galileo did not stop there. He also learned that the moon, rather than being the perfect celestial orb that everyone assumed, was rather pocked with craters and mountains. He discovered that the Milky Way was made of hundreds of millions of stars packed closely together. This told Galileo that the universe was much bigger than people had assumed. The next year, in 1610, Galileo published his findings in a short treatise called 'The Starry Messenger.' This was the first scientific paper ever published. The Church's Response Galileo's discoveries made him an instant celebrity. Everyone wanted to have a look at the heavens through Galileo's new telescope. Galileo's support for the heliocentric model of the universe didn't get him into that much trouble - at least, at first. However, a few years later, in 1614, the Church decided to take a more hard-line approach on heliocentrism. Galileo found himself under suspicion by the Inquisition, and the very notion of heliocentrism was on trial. Galileo made his way to Rome to defend his name and heliocentrism. In the end, Galileo was cleared of suspicion, but he was ordered to keep his mouth shut about this heliocentric stuff. Galileo obediently kept his head down for the better part of a decade. However, when the old pope died in 1623 and was replaced by a new, friendlier pope, Galileo saw the opportunity he'd been waiting for to publish a new book on heliocentrism. It took Galileo two years of pleading to gain permission to publish his book. Some accounts claim that the Pope himself demanded that Galileo include geocentric arguments in his book as well as heliocentric arguments, much as some people today argue for creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Galileo was clearly insulted by the request, for when he published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he put the geocentric arguments, the words of the Pope himself, into the mouth of a character he named Simplicio, meaning 'simpleton.' This was too much for the Pope. Galileo was put on trial for heresy. The Church had warned Galileo to lay off the heliocentric talk, and now here he was, defending the heliocentric model and calling the Pope a simpleton for disagreeing. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, where he would spend the rest of his life. Galileo's discoveries made him an instant celebrity. Everyone wanted to have a look at the heavens through Galileo's new telescope. Galileo's support for the heliocentric model of the universe didn't get him into that much trouble - at least, at first. However, a few years later, in 1614, the Church decided to take a more hard-line approach on heliocentrism. Galileo found himself under suspicion by the Inquisition, and the very notion of heliocentrism was on trial. Galileo made his way to Rome to defend his name and heliocentrism. In the end, Galileo was cleared of suspicion, but he was ordered to keep his mouth shut about this heliocentric stuff. Galileo obediently kept his head down for the better part of a decade. However, when the old pope died in 1623 and was replaced by a new, friendlier pope, Galileo saw the opportunity he'd been waiting for to publish a new book on heliocentrism. It took Galileo two years of pleading to gain permission to publish his book. Some accounts claim that the Pope himself demanded that Galileo include geocentric arguments in his book as well as heliocentric arguments, much as some people today argue for creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Galileo was clearly insulted by the request, for when he published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he put the geocentric arguments, the words of the Pope himself, into the mouth of a character he named Simplicio, meaning 'simpleton.' This was too much for the Pope. Galileo was put on trial for heresy. The Church had warned Galileo to lay off the heliocentric talk, and now here he was, defending the heliocentric model and calling the Pope a simpleton for disagreeing. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, where he would spend the rest of his life.

* Michaelangelo

• Sculpting 'Bacchus,' 'The Pieta' and 'David'

• After the death of the radical monk Savonarola, Michelangelo returned to Florence.

• With Florence in political upheaval, Michelangelo was commissioned to turn a damaged piece of marble into the biblical hero David.

• This masterpiece of the human form shows the naked David poised like a Greek god with his eyes determined to protect his land. Many art historians believe this work, more than any other, portrays Michelangelo's devotion for the Republic of Florence and his desire to see it be set free.

• The Sistine Chapel

• With his star rising, Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the Pope himself! Pope Julius II, being rather up there in age, wanted Michelangelo to design an over-the-top tomb for him.

• From this project came the famous Moses, which is still in Rome today.

* Michaelangelo

• The Sistine Chapel

• However, before his tomb could be completed, the Pope turned his attention to a new project.

• In around 1508, Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

• Arguably, this would become Michelangelo's most famous work.

• Ironically, Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor, not a painter, making him none-too-thrilled to receive this job.

• In true, moody artistic style, Michelangelo finally agreed to the job but refused to adhere to the Pope's vision. Instead, he created his own.

• By the time this awe-inspiring work was complete, it depicted the story of the creation of Adam, the downfall of Adam and Eve and many other scenes, encompassing over 300 figures. * Michaelangelo

• The Sistine Chapel

• The fact that this was all done in fresco, meaning a painting that is done rapidly in watercolor on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling so that the colors penetrate the plaster, makes this work even more impressive.

• Add to this that Michelangelo painted this high in the air while on his back, and the whole thing seems a bit supernatural.

• After the death of Pope Julius II in 1513, Pope Leo X of the infamous Medici family came to power.

• This Pope, also enthralled with the talent of Michelangelo, charged him to design tombs for the Medici family.

• For this, Michelangelo headed back to Florence. However, Michelangelo and the rest of Florence were no longer willing to accept the Medici as their rulers.

• Not ones to be messed with, the Medici took the city by force, inducing Michelangelo to leave his precious Florence forever!

• The Last Judgment In the 1530s, a new Pope, Pope Clement VII, called Michelangelo back to Rome to paint the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. This would become the Last Judgment, a gruesome scene, which depicts some going to Heaven but many, many others going to Hell. Art historians believe this was Michelangelo thumbing his nose at the greed and immorality of the Church of his day. To the horror of many, Michelangelo chose to depict these figures in the nude. This angered so many that another artist was commissioned to paint drapes over the naked bodies. In his later years, Michelangelo expanded his talents to include designing the new dome of St. Peter's Basilica. Although it was not completed before his death, its beauty stands as a reminder of his talent. Personal Relationships Although Michelangelo was famous for his moods and his outbursts, he did have friendships that held his heart. Many believe he had an affinity for many of the male models whom he sculpted. However, the nature of these friendships has never been proven. Another relationship, which has been recorded by history, was his friendship with the noble widow Vittoria Colonna, a poet of the 16th century. Although many believe this was simply a friendship born out of a mutual faith and a love of poetry, the two of them wrote sonnet upon sonnet, which they penned to one another. Legend holds that Michelangelo once expressed of this relationship something to the effect of: 'My sole regret in life was that I did not kiss the widow's face in the same manner that I had her hand.' Although time may have added a bit of romance to something that was mere friendship, their many interactions prove they were dear friends. Elizabeth Comes to the Throne The Elizabethan Era of English history was a remarkable time now coined England's Golden Age. Queen Elizabeth I, from the illustrious Tudor dynasty, reigned for 45 years. During her reign, it was a time of relative political stability, exploration, and creativity in which art flourished. Coming to the throne in 1558 after the violent reign of her Catholic half-sister, Mary I - known infamously as Bloody Mary - Elizabeth worked to heal her land of the violent clashes between Catholics and Protestants. Though Elizabeth honored many of the Protestant reforms set up by her father, King Henry VIII, she also made significant concessions to the Catholics of her realm. In 1559, the Elizabethan Religious Settlement was enacted. In this legislation, Elizabeth was declared the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. This act also allowed for both Protestant and Catholic interpretations of church tradition. Due to her desire to unite her subjects under one throne, her reign is marked as a time of peace. During this peace, she encouraged self-sufficiency in England through the growth of agriculture and trade. This newfound wealth ushered in England's Golden Age. The Economy of the Golden Age At the time of Elizabeth's ascension, the feudal system, or the system of wealth based on land ownership, had greatly declined. Seeing these changes, Elizabeth very smartly encouraged the new, growing middle class to continue to engage in agriculture; however, it moved from peasants farming lands for wealthy nobles to independent citizens working for wage. England's wool trade also began to boom during Elizabeth's Golden Age. With the increase of wool, the face of farming changed, bringing about the process of land enclosure, in which the traditional open field system ended in favor of creating larger closed areas of land that required fewer workers. Although these new ranches of sorts were extremely profitable, the fact that they required less labor induced many workers to leave their villages for the employment found in towns. Thus, towns and cities burgeoned under Elizabeth's rule. The Arts Flourish These new towns and their new money were a perfect recipe for art to flourish. Just like in Italy, as money flowed, people looked for ways to spend it. While Italy turned to painters and sculptors, Elizabethan England turned to the theatre and, boy, did they love it! Elizabethan inn-yards were one of the first venues for English theatre. These inns, which provided lodging and entertainment, attracted traveling actors and troubadours, or poets who wrote verse to music. Soon crafty entrepreneurs realized there was money to be made by producing plays and then teaming with inn owners to charge for the performances. One of the first Englishmen to jump on this profitable performing bandwagon was James Burbage. History gives him credit for being among the first producers of Elizabethan commercial theatre. These inn-yards, being very profitable, soon grew into full-blown theatre houses. Among the most famous is the Globe Theatre of London. This theatre, built to mimic the Roman amphitheaters, was home to the original works of London's most famous playwrights. Speaking of playwrights, not only did the Golden Age of England produce lots of wool, it produced some of the most revered playwrights of all time. There was Christopher Marlowe, made famous by his Jew of Malta. To him we can add Thomas Kyd, known for his Spanish Tragedy. Of course, there's William Shakespeare, whose name has become synonymous with the word 'playwright.' To England's Golden Age and to high schools across the globe, he gave works like Hamlet, King Henry V, and the tragic Romeo and Juliet. Although the arts had been enjoyed throughout history, Elizabeth's Golden Age opened them up to every class of society. The upper-class nobility, the middle-class merchant, and the commoner all enjoyed this entertainment of the day. Just like today, the better the seat, the higher the price, but admission was available to all. Scientific Study and Exploration Along with a thriving economy and the flourishing arts, England's Golden Age opened an entire new world to the English realm through scientific study. Men like Sir Francis Bacon, who structured the idea of a defined scientific method, worked in England's Golden Age. To Bacon, we can also add Dr. John Dee, a famous alchemist, or in today's terms, chemist, who studied under Elizabeth's rule. As scientific exploration boomed, so did overseas exploration. Up until this time, Spain and Portugal had dominated the New World's seas, but Elizabeth's Golden Age saw the emergence of English explorers onto the scene. There was Sir Francis Drake, the first European to pass from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast of South America. He also sailed around the world in his ship, the Golden Hind. We also have Henry Hudson, who discovered the Hudson River of New York, or Sebastian Cabot, the Italian-born explorer who sailed for England and searched for the illusive Northwest Passage across North America. The list would not be complete without adding Sir Walter Raleigh. History tells us this guy was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. It also tells us he was very handsome and very debonair. (He's the guy who allegedly stopped the queen mid-step in order to place his coat over a mud puddle she was about to step into.) When not flirting with the queen, Sir Walter Raleigh also did some exploring. He established the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island. On an interesting side note, the state of Virginia is named after Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen. The Virgin Queen This brings us to our last topic, the fact that Elizabeth ruled over England as an unmarried, female monarch, earning her the nickname 'the Virgin Queen.' This alone is a huge difference between Elizabethan England and most other times throughout all of history. Not only was Elizabeth a single, female monarch, she was a survivor. First of all, we need to remember much of England felt she was an illegitimate heir, since her mother Anne Boleyn's marriage to Henry VIII was never accepted by the Catholic Church. It also didn't help matters when Boleyn was later executed for treason. Add to this that Elizabeth's half-sister, Bloody Mary, accused her of plotting a Protestant rebellion and had her imprisoned in the Tower of London, and you can see what backbone Elizabeth had. In 1588, Elizabeth would prove her backbone was as strong as any man's with the defeat of the Spanish Armada, an attack by well over 100 Spanish ships toward the English coast. Not only would this famous encounter prove Elizabeth could hold her own, it would establish England as preeminent over the seas. What We Know About William Shakespeare Considering how famous and well-regarded William Shakespeare's work is today, it's kind of surprising that we really don't know a whole lot about his life. Some people even challenge the fact that Shakespeare actually wrote the plays he was credited with - that's how mysterious he is. Some people don't even believe he wrote his plays! It's ironic that he is such an incredibly influential figure and, with regard to his personal life, a blank slate. We just don't know much about him, but that doesn't mean that this will be a short lesson. Sorry! Let's go over the biographical details that we do have. We'll also talk about his most famous plays and poems, as well as their lasting influence. So, when I say we don't know that much about William Shakespeare, we really don't. We don't even know his birthday because birth certificates - short or long-form - didn't exist back then. People born into noble families might have had their birthday recorded for posterity, similar to how these days you can find Brad Pitt's birthday by Googling it, but you probably can't find your next-door neighbor's birth date. Shakespeare, though, was born into a family of commoners. We do know that he was baptized. There are some public records of that. So, he must have been born somewhere near his baptism date of April 26, 1564. His father was a glover from Snitterfield, which sounds like a Harry Potter name, but apparently was a real place. The Shakespeare family wasn't badly off, but they were still commoners. We don't really know where Shakespeare went to school, but he probably did go because he ended up literate. The next solid record we have of the life of William Shakespeare is his marriage, which took place in 1582. Shakespeare married at the age of 18, while his wife, Anne Hathaway (no, not that Anne Hathaway, though seriously, what were that Anne Hathaway's parents thinking, naming her that) was actually of the ripe old age of 26. Six months after their wedding, their first daughter, Susanna, was born… so I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. They then had twins in 1585, named Judith and Hamnet (Hamnet, you say? That sounds familiar! - We'll talk about that later). Hamnet sadly died at the age of 11, and there's been a lot of speculation that his death may have influenced Shakespeare's playwriting, including the famous (and similar-sounding) Hamlet. While the name Hamlet technically comes from a different Scandinavian name, scholars still search for a connection. At some point, while still married to Anne, Shakespeare scooted off to London and got involved in the theatre scene - rather like the Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore of today, William and Anne's marriage was a May-December romance that was destined for failure. From various records, we do know that he worked as an actor as well as a playwright. He wrote plays for a company called Lord Chamberlain's Men. Starting in 1599, the company performed at the Globe Theatre, which is south of the Thames in London. If you go to London now, you can watch Shakespeare performances in a rebuilt Globe roughly in the same spot. Why was it rebuilt? Well, it was made entirely of wood, and it burned down in 1613, but the recreation is pretty good. Well, I mean, it looks good to me. I didn't see the original, but it looks great now, and if you go to London, you really should see a Shakespeare play at the Globe. It's pretty incredible. So, the Globe burned down from a fire started by a special effects cannon fired during a performance. So even back then, there was always a desire for snappy special effects, and this one had a pretty serious consequence. Personally, I'd rather see a real, live cannon go off than some lame video projection. That would have been awesome. Shakespeare had a lot of success from his playwriting and grew reasonably wealthy from it, which was a rare feat at the time… or now, really, I don't know how many wealthy playwrights you can name. He competed for audiences with the likes of Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson and other famous playwrights of the time. Christopher Marlowe might sound familiar if you've seen the movie Shakespeare in Love. Shakespeare's work has enjoyed a far wider audience in modern times than it did in his time, though. Plays What was it that he wrote that was so awesome and influential and long lasting? Well, let's talk about it. Shakespeare is really pretty unavoidable for most people. You've probably had contact with some of his plays; almost no one escapes high school without having to read Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's famous tragedy of star-crossed lovers in Verona. If you haven't read it, you've probably seen one of the numerous movie adaptations, or maybe even West Side Story, which is based on the plot of Romeo and Juliet. I'm not going to list off all of his plays. If you really want to know the names of all of them, you can go to Wikipedia. But I want to give you a timeline of some of his most significant works. I'll talk a little bit about each one, but keep in mind that we've got separate videos devoted to each the really big plays, so you should check those out. Also, you should bear in mind that scholars are divided on the dating of many of these. They're working off of multiple versions and incomplete records. Shakespeare's plays didn't have copyright dates like books do now, so not all of these dates are 100% accurate; they're really a best estimate based on the evidence available. So, take this chronology as a suggestion, and use it for slotting the plays in relation to each other, but don't hold on to the dates as gospel. Before we start - what did Shakespeare's plays look like when he wrote them? They tended to be written in something called blank verse. This is made up of lines of iambic pentameter that don't rhyme. What's iambic pentameter? Well, it's a 10-syllable line divided into five units, or feet, called iambs. An iamb is just two syllables that go light-STRONG in stress. For example, one of the more famous lines of iambic pentameter comes from Romeo and Juliet. This is when Romeo sees Juliet on the balcony at the start of that famous balcony scene: 'But SOFT! what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS.' Obviously, the actors don't read it that way, but that's a line of iambic pentameter, and that's how the syllables are supposed to work together. Earliest Plays So, Shakespeare went to London in the early 1590s, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Scholars fight about which play was the first he wrote, but many agree that it was probably The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which was written sometime between 1589-1591. Though it is significant for being (maybe) his first play and definitely the first instance of cross-dressing, which Shakespeare LOVED, it's generally not considered to be his best work. Next, possibly, came The Taming of the Shrew, around the same time period (1590-1591). It's another comedy and one of my personal favorites. If you want to know the plot of this play, you should watch the movie 10 Things I Hate About You - it's very similar, it's really based on the play - but then go and read or watch The Taming of the Shrew as well, since that's where it came from. Remember how, in the movie, Julia Stiles is this cranky, mean girl, and she doesn't want a boyfriend, but her younger sister really wants a boyfriend, and so Heath Ledger (RIP) has to wear her down and make her fall in love with him? Julia Stiles plays 'the shrew' in The Taming of the Shrew, or the Catherine character, and Heath Ledger is the Petruchio character - his name is Patrick Verona in the film. Rolling right along, we hit Richard III sometime around 1592-1593. This is a play about a villain, Richard III, scheming to get the crown and - SPOILER - he gets it, hence the kingly name. He kills a ton of people, including smothering a few children. This is an example of one of Shakespeare's history plays because it has a basis in history. Next up comes Romeo and Juliet, in 1595. You probably know the drill: Romeo falls in love with Juliet, but he's a Montague, and she's a Capulet, and their families hate each other. Their plan to be together goes awry, and they both end up killing themselves. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a lot more lighthearted - it's also from 1595. This involves four Athenian teenagers who run out into the woods to try and figure out their romantic problems. They run into some fairies, who mess around with them for fun. There's also an awesome dude, named Bottom, whose head gets turned into a donkey's head. It's a really fun play - I highly recommend A Midsummer Night's Dream. Late '90s Plays and Events 1596 brings The Merchant of Venice. It's the first entry in 'Cultural Studies with William Shakespeare.' This play is famous for the character Shylock, who's portrayed as a miserly Jew who demands a 'pound of flesh' as payment for a debt. That's problematic; anti-Semitism is not cool. It's an interesting play, but you've got to take it with a grain of salt and keep in mind when it was written. An important event in Shakespeare's life comes around the same time, which is the death of young Hamnet in1596. Shortly after that, or maybe around the same time, comes Henry IV, Parts I and II. The titular Henry IV is referred to as 'Hal' throughout the play, just to make it confusing, and there's also a really funny fat guy named Falstaff, who totally steals the show. Falstaff alone makes the Henry plays worthwhile. Another history play is Julius Caesar, from 1599. You might remember the famous line 'Et tu, Brute?' ('You too, Brutus?'). Roman emperor Julius Caesar is brutally murdered by a bunch of people in the government, including his previously loyal friend Brutus. Saying You too, Brutus? is probably the thing most people remember from this. Chaos ensues as everyone scrambles to lead Rome. Now we're coming up to the big daddy, the grand poobah, the big cheese: Hamlet, written around 1599-1601. It's probably the most famous and frequently discussed play he ever wrote. It's referenced in everything and performed a ton; it's even the basis for The Lion King. The play is about poor Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, who just can't seem to make up his mind about whether he should kill his uncle Claudius to avenge his father's death. It features his mother, Gertrude; his poor love interest, Ophelia; hilarious old fool, Polonius; and probably the most famous skull in theatre history - the 'Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well…' scene. Hamlet is really the first of Shakespeare's great tragedies and, arguably, the most well known. Later Plays Next up is one of his great comedies, Twelfth Night. Shakespeare's really on a roll in this period around 1601. Twelfth Night is wildly successful, and it features even more cross- dressing. We've got the heroine, Viola, who falls in love with Duke Orsino while she's dressed as a boy. Orsino loves Olivia, who falls in love with Viola dressed as a boy - don't worry, it's all sorted out in the end, but hijinks ensue. Around this time, Queen Elizabeth I dies and is succeeded by James I, the former king of Scotland - just a little historical context there. Next up: Othello, written around 1603-1604ish. It's another entry in 'Cultural Studies with Shakespeare.' Othello is a Moor (a North African) who is a general in Venice, and a lot of people don't like that because he's black and they're jerks. There's a bad guy named Iago who convinces Othello that his wife Desdemona is cheating on him. Eventually, Iago wears Othello down; Othello believes him, goes mad, kills his wife - it's a bummer. It's dramatized in a fabulous movie called O featuring Julia Stiles as yet another Shakespearean heroine. It's really the second of the great tragedies. Moving right along, we've got King Lear, features an old man (King Lear) who wants to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. He ends up banishing one daughter, Cordelia, because she doesn't kiss up enough. The other two, Regan and Goneril turn out to be really nasty and, again, pretty much everyone dies. That's the third of the great tragedies. If you're familiar with the book or the movie called A Thousand Acres, that's based on the story of King Lear. Next up we've got 'the Scottish play', aka Macbeth, written around 1606. People refer to it as 'the Scottish play' because it's considered bad luck to say 'Macbeth' in the theatre - not really sure why. It features Macbeth, a Scottish lord, who tries to become king through murder and avarice at the encouragement of his nutty wife, Lady Macbeth. It features a lot of witches, ghosts, kilts and some great monologues. It's a lot of fun, but it's also a bummer because it's a tragedy. This is followed up by The Tempest, written in the 1610-1611 region. This play is a lot of fun. It features Prospero, the former Duke of Milan. He wrecks a ship carrying the usurping Duke of Milan on a magical island. Prospero's weird supernatural servants Ariel and Caliban hang out with the shipwrecked passengers while his daughter Miranda falls in love with one of them. It's kind of like the original Lost, if you will. The Tempest is probably the last play that Shakespeare wrote on his own. Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen were most likely co-written, both in 1613. OK, I need to take a breath. That was a lot of plays, and I didn't even tell you about all of them. Again, if you want to find out the names of all of Shakespeare's plays, go look on Wikipedia. So, that's a lot to remember, and I don't expect you to recite that all back to me. So, what should you keep in mind after hearing this massive list of plays? I would say, first, that Shakespeare's plays can generally be divided into three categories: comedies, tragedies and histories. At this point, the timeline we've been building could become color-coded for each type of play. The lines can get fuzzy, especially in the tragedy/history areas, because some of the tragedies have a historical basis - also, what kind of history isn't tragic in some way? The comedies are things like The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night. They have fun hijinks like cross-dressing or mistaken identity. They tend to end with a wedding - sometimes more than one wedding. Tragedies are plays like Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, and they tend to end with pretty much everyone dying, or at least a significant number of people dying. The histories are the ones like Henry IV Parts I and II and Richard III - really, if it's got a strong basis in British or Scottish or whatever history, it's a history play. Other Works So, in addition to all of those plays (and, like I said, I didn't even hit on all of them), Shakespeare actually wrote even more. He wrote poems, sonnets in particular, which are 14- line poems with a very specific rhyme structure. You can learn more about them in our lesson on Shakespeare's sonnets. But if you see a 14-line iambic pentameter poem in Shakespearean-type language, odds are you're looking at one of his 154 sonnets. This guy was busy. He wrote a ton! You've probably heard the oft-parodied 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' poem. Depending on your point of view, you may find it gloriously romantic or seriously cheesy, but that's a Shakespearean sonnet, and really, the remaining ones are just as good. They're beautiful; they're really worth checking out. In addition to the sonnets, he also wrote some longer poems - Venus and Adonis, written in the 1592-1593 range, and also The Rape of Lucrece in 1594. In Venus and Adonis, the Greek goddess Venus tries to get the mortal Adonis (who is really, really hot and buff - that's where the term 'Adonis' comes from) to sleep with her, but he refuses and then is killed while on a hunt. Bummer. It's written in 6-line stanzas that go a/b/a/b/c/c. The Rape of Lucrece is pretty self-explanatory, unfortunately. Lucretia is raped by the son of the King of Rome and commits suicide, which incites a revolt against the king. That poem is written in 7-line stanzas that go a/b/a/b/b/c/c, also known as 'rhyme royale.' Themes of Baroque Painting As the 16th century drew to a close, a new form of art arose in Western Europe. This new style, called the Baroque, had a profound impact on all forms of art, including architecture and sculpture. Yet nowhere is the Baroque style more evident than in painting. Baroque painting can be seen as the apex of realism in European art. In the Renaissance, European painters had learned the importance of form and anatomy in representing human figures realistically. Indeed, Renaissance painters were so proud of their accurate portrayal of the human form that their figures almost always took the fore in their scenes. While the background might be detailed, it remained just that - a background. If the Renaissance painters were obsessed with form and figure, Baroque painters were obsessed with light. It was not just the figures that needed to be realistic, but also their surroundings, as well and their place in the overall picture. Baroque painters supplemented Renaissance perfection of form and figure with an unprecedented consciousness of how light reacts to different materials, different surfaces and in different contexts. As a result, Baroque painters put just as much effort into depicting an accurate landscape or interior scene as they did into creating realistic figures. Indeed, this emphasis on the background became so popular that some Baroque painters abandoned human figures altogether, focusing entirely on how light played off a bowl of fruit or a landscape at sunset. This exploration of new themes was not limited to backgrounds. As time progressed, Baroque painters were just as likely to paint a scene from Greek myth as one from the Bible, and a portrait was as likely to be a portrait of the artist himself as of his local lord or the Virgin Mary. So, we've seen some of the major themes of Baroque painting: A de-emphasis of the figure A mastery of light and shadow Realism in all things And new subjects like landscapes, still life and self-portrait Let us look for these new themes in the works of the great artists of the Baroque. Italy: Caravaggio Not surprisingly, the Baroque started out in Rome. The Roman Catholic Church had long been the greatest patron of the arts, and they supported the Baroque style in its infancy. One of the earliest forms of Baroque art was the open ceiling fresco. In this style, the ceiling of a room was painted in such a way that it appeared to be open to the heavens. In the ceiling of the Barberini Palace by Pietro da Cortona, we see a shift in emphasis from the central figure to the illusory framing that gives the ceiling its depth. This shift in emphasis is even clearer in the ceiling fresco of Sant'Ignazio by Andrea dal Pozzo. Look at how much time and attention has been put into the architectural elements that border the heavenly theme. Also, note that rather than faces looking down from on high, we see the feet of people ascending upward, who are only occasionally looking down. Yet though these ceiling frescoes are bathed in rays of glory, the true baroque mastery of light and realism comes to the fore in the canvasses and panels painted by Caravaggio. As Caravaggio and his fellow Italians were right under the nose of the Vatican, it is not surprising that their subjects remained highly religious. Yet Caravaggio did explore other themes on occasion, as evidenced by his painting Love Conquers All, which shows a winged cupid standing over objects representing all other human endeavors, including warfare, politics and music. Spain: Velazquez Though Spain remained a Catholic country, they did not seem to feel so constrained to religious themes. This is most evident in the work of the great Spanish painter Velazquez. In Velazquez, we see the same attention to shadow and light that characterizes the Baroque. Yet the subject matter is much more mundane, like these weavers or this old woman cooking eggs. And in his painting Las Meninas, Velazquez gets truly creative. In this painting, Velazquez is in the middle of painting a portrait of the king of Spain, while the king's daughters and attendants look on. The king himself is only visible in the reflection of a mirror across the room, while to the left, and much larger, stands Velazquez himself, glancing about the huge canvass of the king's portrait. This sort of novelty and fascination with neat visual effects would come to typify Baroque painting. Belgium: Rubens In Belgium, religious themes were much less prevalent, as Catholics and Protestants battled for mastery over the country. This conflict can be seen clearly in the works of the Flemish painter Rubens, who was just as likely to paint a mythological scene, like the Judgment of Paris or The Battle of the Amazons, as a religious scene, like The Fall of Man or The Massacre of the Innocents by King Herod. Yet Rubens also engaged in some novel themes, like this portrait of his sister-in-law or this lovely landscape. France: Poussin & Lorrain The themes of myth and landscape received even greater attention in France, where Poussin created some lovely paintings on Greek myth, like the Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite and this painting of Shepherds of Arcadia. Note here how the shadow on the stone tomb represents both the real shadows imposed by light and the metaphorical shadow of death. Yet in my opinion, France's greatest contribution to Baroque painting was Lorrain, whose landscapes remain some of the most beautiful ever created. Note how the human figure is no longer the focus of the paintings but rather a part of the scenery. This is especially evident in his paintings of the sea. Holland: Rembrandt So, we've seen how Baroque mastery of light and shadow was applied to new subject matter as this new style spread across Europe. This spread to a new subject matter reached its apex in Holland beneath the brush of the greatest of all Baroque painters, Rembrandt. Rembrandt brings all the Baroque features we've described together into one genius. In Rembrandt, we witness the mastery of light, shadow and realism. We see religious subject matter, like Belshazzar's Feast, and Joseph Accused by Potiphar's Wife. We also see unconventional subject matter, like this painting of an anatomy lesson, these landscapes, and even still lifes. Themes of Baroque Architecture The Baroque period was one of the most exciting times for European architecture. During this period, from the end of the 16th century to the dawn of the 18th century, European architecture exploded in novel directions. Rather than designing a single building, an architect might be responsible for reimagining a complex of buildings, or even planning an entire city. With this shift, the capitol of art and architecture moved from Rome to Paris. Regular, repeating designs gave way to curves and irregularity, as various styles were mixed and adapted. Yet this variety was regulated for the purposes of symmetry and grandeur. Finally, for the first time since antiquity, architects began tinkering with optical illusion in building. They realized you could trick the eye into making a large building seem even grander. This hearkens back to Greek tricks that allowed their grand temples to tower even larger in the eye of the beholder. Though Baroque architecture found its way across Europe, two countries came to the fore in this field: Italy and France. Baroque architecture got its start in Italy and is still evident today at the Vatican in Rome. This new architectural form reached its apex in France. Its mark can be seen quite clearly in Paris, but its purest expression can be found in that most Baroque of all buildings, Louis XIV's palace at Versailles. Baroque Architecture in Italian Churches Let us begin, as the Baroque style did, in Italy. Here we can see the most obvious Baroque architectural innovation: the use of curves. At the Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, we can see how straight lines were replaced with delicate curves, giving the building its distinctively Baroque feel. From the rounded windows to the graceful squiggle of the whole facade, this church is a feast for the eyes. In Venice, the church of Santa Maria della Salute we see another key facet of Baroque art, symmetrical irregularity. Each side of this eight-sided structure offers the viewer a new perspective, different from the last, yet symmetrical in its own right. Every step offers new views and varied decoration, from the standard statues occupying alcoves to the novel curls of stone buttressing the high dome. Reinventing the Vatican Yet perhaps the best example of Baroque architecture in Italy is at Rome itself. At the heart of the Vatican stands the Basilica of St Peter. This impressive structure reached its current state at the hands of Baroque architects. To the left and right a massive colonnade, designed by Bernini, creates a panoramic effect, drawing the eye ever onward to the basilica at its center. Along the top of this colonnade a series of statues break up the silhouette, providing variety even as it flanks the basilica with symmetrical wings. The facade of the Basilica itself, designed by Maderna, is its own little wonder. Here we can see the variety of Baroque architecture in full swing. Like the colonnade, the skyline of Maderna's facade is broken at intervals by statues and other decorations. Yet Maderna goes further, mixing up styles by alternating square columns with round ones. Likewise, the pediments over the windows and doors also alternate between rounded and triangular designs. Indeed, there are almost as many types of doors and windows as there are doors and windows. Yet all this exuberant variety is regulated and controlled to create symmetry, as each novel design on the right is echoed by a similar design to the left. The overall effect is as grand and orderly as it is picturesque and visually fascinating. Yet the Baroque is not just limited to the exterior. Connecting St Peter's basilica to the Apostolic Palace lies an impressive staircase designed by Bernini, called the Scala Regia, or the 'Stairs of the Queen.' Bernini's staircase shrinks to a vanishing point, making the staircase seem longer and higher than it really is. In this respect, at least, Bernini was attempting something that had not been tried since classical times: weaving optical illusion into architectural design to fool the eye into seeing something as even grander and larger than it is. Thus, in Italy, we've seen the foundation of themes that would repeat again and again in Baroque architecture: the use of curves, the introduction of irregular decoration and design, the subordination of irregularity to symmetry, and the incorporation of optical illusion into architectural design. The Lovely Louvre While the Pope was supporting the arts in Italy, on the other side of the Alps a new patron of the arts was emerging. Louis XIV, the Sun King, France's absolute monarch, had decided to aggrandize his status with a massive arts campaign. Louis' mission was both propagandistic and practical. On the propaganda side, Louis wished to surround his city and court with the best art in the world. On the practical side, Louis knew that with relatively cheap materials (stone, canvas, bronze and paint), a skilled artist could create priceless works of art. Though alchemists had failed to turn lead into gold, Louis knew he could turn stone into treasure. So Louis set about building a treasury of art. At the heart of this project was the Louvre, where Louis housed the artists he'd brought in from around Europe, as well as France's greatest artistic treasures, including DaVinci's Mona Lisa. To make the Louvre worthy of the artistic talent housed within, Louis commissioned a complete redesign of the Louvre, from a private residence to proclamation of France's status as the capitol of art. In the east facade of the Louvre, designed by Perrault we can see some of the same Baroque elements that we saw in Italy, especially irregular openings and a focus on symmetry. Yet this design seems almost tame when compared with the busy exuberance of the Vatican. We must go inside the Louvre to truly see the Baroque at work. Within the Louvre lies the Apollo Gallery, designed by Le Brun. Here we begin to see what French Baroque means. Delicate curves and swirls adorn every surface. Entryways alternate between curved and triangular. Even the parquet floor displays a dizzying variety of design. The low arch of the ceiling is broken up with both paintings and sculptures, making the ceiling seem to soar far higher than its actual height. Yet, if we draw a line down the middle of the gallery, all this dizzy variety falls into orderly symmetry, as even artistic chaos is brought into order. Versailles: The Epitome of Baroque Architecture Yet the Louvre was simply not big enough for Louis' ambitions. Why should he be satisfied with a palace, when the Pope had an entire city to himself? Louis XIV thought he should have a residence at least as grand as the Pope's. To this end, Louis began construction on the most ambitious architectural project of his age: the palace at Versailles. Here at last was a large enough canvass for Louis' architectural ambitions. Louis made his palace the consummate masterpiece of Baroque architecture. Every inch is covered with ornamental statues. Even the roof peaks are adorned with bronze filigree. Every window offers new vistas. Yet all of these features fall into perfect symmetry, yet on a scale unimagined. Even the grounds themselves were brought into line with Louis' Baroque plan, with intricately patterned gardens, in which even the trees were brought into line, trimmed into geometrical shapes, and laid out with symmetrical perfection. Within, Versailles is even more impressive, with miles of opulently decorated galleries. The most impressive of these is the Hall of Mirrors, designed by Le Brun. Here Le Brun takes the same techniques he used at the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre to a whole new level. Every step is rife with glorious detail. Every glance offers views of breathtaking beauty. The ceiling is trimmed with intricate sculpture, while the ceiling itself is painted to evoke a three-dimensional feel, with paintings set within painted frames, themselves supported by painted architecture. Yet the illusions go even further, for on one side of the hall, windows to the outside pour in light, while on the other side, an identical series of openings are glazed with mirrors, giving the beholder the impression that he is walking down a corridor of sunlight and further aggrandizing the space. And, in true Baroque form, all of this exuberant variety, all this opulent decoration, all these illusions and effects, are perfectly balanced into a symmetrical whole that almost takes the breath away. For all these reasons, Versailles is considered by many to be the epitome of Baroque architecture. Themes in Baroque Sculpture It is difficult to make general statements about Baroque sculpture. Baroque sculpture shows a distinct variety depending on the country of its origin. In Italy, sculptures broke up the outlines of Baroque buildings and glorious altarpieces were created with breathtaking visual effects. In Belgium, Baroque sculptors created pulpits of extraordinary complexity and beauty. And in France, sculpture was dedicated to the glorification of a new breed of absolute monarchs. Despite these differences, we can identify some themes of Baroque sculpture: stark realism, highly pictorial effects and technical mastery equivalent to, if not surpassing, antiquity. Keep an eye out for these themes as we explore the spread of Baroque sculpture across Europe. Italian Sculpture Let us begin in Italy, with the great genius of the Italian Baroque, Bernini. Bernini was both a sculptor and architect, and his architectural achievements serve only to highlight his sculptural genius. This can be seen quite clearly in the colonnade he designed for the Vatican. Note how the sculptures add variety to the skyline of the heart of Christendom. We can see Bernini's sculptural magnificence in full force in this altarpiece depicting the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. Note the powerful pictorial effect of this sculpture, the sculpted witnesses to the side, the marble clouds, and the rays of brazen sunlight heightened by colored lighting from a concealed source. Looking closer, we also see Bernini's technical mastery in the dramatic posture of the limp and defenseless Theresa, with her flowing folds of robe, and the delicate gestures of the angel. Bernini's excellence brought him clients from all over Europe, including Louis XIV of France, who commissioned this magnificent bust from Bernini. Bernini's skill and pictorial sensibilities are evident here as well, in the majestic, windblown curls and swaths of fabric, whipping around the calm controlled visage of France's great absolute monarch. French Sculpture This use of sculpture to worship Louis XIV was, naturally, carried out in France itself. We can see it clearly in this statue of the King by Coysevox. Yet, there is more than one way to glorify a king, besides merely depicting the king himself. Another way was with simple technical perfection. Louis commissioned many, many artists, to surround him with priceless works of art. One of these was Puget, who glorified the King of France by means of his incredible skill, which was at least equal to that of the Greeks. Witness the dramatic pose of Puget's Milo of Croton, and the airy weightlessness of his Perseus and Andromeda. Spanish and German Sculpture In Germany and Spain, we see many of the same themes we saw in France. Like Coysevox in France, the German sculptor Schluter, produced some impressive statues, like this one of Prince Frederick. Note how the importance and power of the prince on horseback is emphasized by the dejected poses of the accompanying figures at the base. And in Spain, sculptors working in wood, like Montane, created painted sculptures of unprecedented skill and realism, like this statue of Saint Francis. Note the veins on his hands, the realistic folds of his garment and the almost shocking realism of his tender expression. Belgian Sculpture Yet, the most unique sculptures of the Baroque period come from Belgium, where the Flemish sculptors Vervoort and Verbruggen created pulpits of unprecedented grandeur and intricacy, like this pulpit in the form of a tree, teeming with life and religious allegory, that Vervoort constructed for the Cathedral at Antwerp and Verbruggen's pulpit for the Cathedral at Brussels, depicting Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. These sculptures, with their pictorial realism and lack of restraint, mark the transition from the symmetrical grandeur of the early Baroque style into the unrestrained activity of the late Baroque style, also known as Rococo. Francis Bacon: Prophet of Science Every great shift in human thinking has its founding prophet: a man ahead of his time, a true visionary who imagined a different way of looking at the world. Buddhism has the Buddha. Christianity has Jesus. Islam has Muhammad. Science has Sir Francis Bacon. When Francis Bacon was born in 1561, the Bible was considered the ultimate authority. People thought the Earth was at the center of the universe, and science was so intertwined with religion that the greatest minds of the time were arguing about how many angels could dance on a pin head. By the time Bacon died in 1626, a new sort of authority had taken root in Europe: scientific proof. Galileo had established scientific proof that the Earth orbited the Sun, and the first divisions between religion and science had begun to appear, as the greatest minds of the time struggled to reconcile scientific proof with religious faith. Such sweeping changes in a single lifetime should give us some notion of how rapidly the world was transforming at the turn of the 17th century. To credit Bacon alone with these changes would be to overlook the efforts of his many contemporaries and successors. Bacon was not the cause of this transformation. In fact, Bacon made few scientific discoveries of any real note. Instead, Bacon was the prophet of this new age - he wrote its laws, and provided its inspiration. The Scientific Method Bacon's vision allowed him to see this new scientific way of looking at the world before it ever existed. Yet Bacon's true genius lies in the methods he provided to make this vision possible. Bacon realized that his fellow Europeans were never going to learn anything new so long as they kept looking for answers in the Bible or in the works of classical philosophers. No matter how deeply they thought about these concepts, no matter how many compelling arguments they might invent, the scholars of Europe essentially had been treading the same ground for centuries. Bacon proposed a new way to unlock the secrets of nature: the scientific experiment. Nature is chaotic, with many factors influencing everything we perceive. The simple fall of a leaf from a tree involves laws of gravity pulling the leaf down, laws of meteorology governing the wind, and laws of aerodynamics governing how the leaf responds to that wind. In nature, these laws are all mixed up, so we don't know which laws govern what. Moreover, the sheer irregularity of nature makes it almost impossible to measure. No two leaves are alike, and even if they were, they would not fall in the same way, due to the countless other factors influencing them - the wind, their position, their height - all of these things. How can we possibly hope to learn anything from nature when nature is so disorderly? Bacon's solution was simple yet profound. To learn about Nature, we have to pull Nature out of her comfort zone. We need to put Nature in a place where we control as many of the factors as possible and make her perform the same activity again and again. Only then can we begin to eliminate the factors that confuse our attempts to understand nature. So what was Bacon talking about? The Benefits of Experimental Science Let us return to our example of the falling leaf. Let us say we are trying to determine the laws that affect how leaves fall. As we saw above, a wide variety of factors influence how each leaf falls: wind, air resistance, and gravity. Moreover, since no two leaves are exactly the same and each leaf falls from a different point, we could watch a thousand leaves fall and be no closer to our answers. Imagine trying to learn anything from this chaos. You'd have to weigh and measure each leaf. You'd have to run around with a tape measure, figuring out which twig each leaf fell from. You'd have to record where the wind was coming from and how fast, at every moment. You'd have to measure the density of the air beneath each individual leaf. In short, learning anything from the random falling of leaves from a tree is all but impossible. So the first way we might apply Bacon's theory would be to drop the same leaf from the same height, over and over again, thereby controlling at least some of these factors. Now instead of worrying about how all leaves fall, we're just trying to discover how this leaf falls. Yet we'd still keep getting a wide variety of behaviors from our dropped leaf, since the wind would sometimes be blowing and sometimes it wouldn't. If we moved our experiment indoors, we could eliminate another factor, the impact of the wind. Yet even with this improvement, our leaf is still not always falling in exactly the same way, although we're getting closer. The simple laws of gravity are still confused by the resistance of the air. So let's remove the factor of the air. Let's put our leaf in a bell jar and remove the air. And wouldn't you know it, the leaf falls the same way, at the same rate, every time. If we repeat this process enough and measure it closely, we could determine that the falling leaf accelerates at a rate of 9.8 meters per second per second. And if we expanded this, and tried it with other objects, we would discover that, in a vacuum, everything from leaves to feathers to basketballs to jellybeans fall at an accelerating rate of 9.8 meter per second per second. And just like that, we've discovered a law of gravity. Now Bacon did not discover this law - Isaac Newton did, a few decades later. However, Newton made this discovery by following Bacon's approach. Take the things we see in nature out of the chaos of nature, and tinker with them in an environment that we control. That is the essence of the scientific method. Bacon's foundational work in this field has earned him the title 'Father of Experimental Science.' Baconian Optimism So we've seen how Bacon served as a prophet of this new scientific age. We've seen how his experimental method laid the foundations for modern science. These contributions alone would be enough to write Bacon's name large in the pages of history. Yet Bacon did more than predict the scientific revolution, and his contributions were not limited to the scientific method. Arguably Bacon's greatest contribution to the world of science was his incredible optimism and enthusiasm. Bacon didn't just predict and codify science - he sold it to the world. Bacon thought science would fix all of mankind's problems. He envisioned an age of constant invention, where every day brought new technology to make man's life better and easier. With science we could feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and heal the sick. By understanding nature, we could transcend her limits, and forge a new world, a better world for everyone. Bacon voiced his scientific ideals in many treatises and books. One of my favorites is his story of New Atlantis. In this story, Bacon paints a vision of a Utopian society based on scientific principles. The people of New Atlantis do not hoard gold or other material goods. Everyone has everything they need, provided by the advances of science. Instead, they trade these earthly goods around the world, in exchange for the greatest of all treasures: knowledge. Today, Bacon's vision may seem like dewy-eyed naïveté. Anyone who has seen battlefields torn asunder by scientifically-perfected killing machines knows that science, like any other tool, is only as good or evil as the hand that wields it. But 400 years ago, Bacon's enthusiastic optimism inspired generations of thinkers to make his vision a reality. In many ways the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution are all examples of humanity trying to fulfill Bacon's lofty dream of the future. Their efforts built the world we know today. The Copernicus Crisis At the dawn of the 17th century, the Roman Catholic Church was in crisis. The Protestant Reformation was sweeping across Europe. The Catholic Church was losing entire countries to this heresy. And now it seemed like the universe itself was falling apart. The Church had spent centuries believing that the earth was at the center of the universe. The sun, moon, planets and stars orbited the earth embedded in concentric spheres, each one larger than the last, like a celestial Russian doll. Then, in 1543, this fellow Copernicus came up with the wild notion that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the universe, a concept that came to be known as heliocentrism. The Church tried to stomp this idea out in any way they could. Yet despite their best efforts, heliocentrism was becoming ever more popular. Fools like Johannes Kepler or Tycho Brahe were even expanding upon it. And the Church could do nothing to stop them! Gone were the good old days when the Church could burn people alive for saying things they disagreed with. As a Protestant living in a Protestant country, Kepler and his ilk were forever out of the Church's reach. Unable to silence these mad theories, the Church's only comfort was that no one could actually prove them. Unfortunately for the Church, a fellow named Galileo just happened to be in the business of proving things. Unfortunately for Galileo, unlike his fellow scientists safe in the Protestant North, Galileo lived right under the nose of the Pope himself. Galileo's Falling Bodies Experiment Now what do I mean when I say that Galileo was in the business of proving things? Well, let me give you an example. Imagine you're holding a feather in one hand and an apple in another. You let them both go. Which one will hit the ground first? The apple, of course. From this you might draw the conclusion that heavy things, like the apple, fall faster than light things, like the feather. This was how most people, with the exception of a few philosophers, thought gravity worked for thousands of years. Galileo rejected this common-sense notion. 'Our observation of the feather and apple cannot be counted as proof,' he would say, 'because there are too many factors involved. The feather isn't just lighter than the apple, it also has a different shape. If we want to see how something's weight affects how fast it falls, we need to remove all the other factors and just look at the weight.' According to legend, that's exactly what Galileo did. He made two balls, completely identical except that one was made of lead and the other was made of cork. He then dropped those balls from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Despite the fact that the lead ball was much heavier than the cork ball, they both hit the ground at exactly the same time. This story, if it is true, is one of the first recorded scientific experiments in history. The Importance of the Scientific Method So, what differentiates Galileo's experiment from our observation of the feather and apple? Well, first of all, Galileo was able to separate one factor from another. Instead of saying that apples and feathers fall at different speeds because of their weight, Galileo thought that they fell at different speeds because of their shape. Second, instead of just stating his theory and supporting it with reasoning, Galileo decided to test his hypothesis by conducting an experiment. Finally, his experiment showed that Galileo understood the limitations of human observation. If we simply drop two objects a few feet, our limited senses might not be able to detect if one object fell before the other. They may seem to hit the ground at the same time because the difference is too small for us to notice. However, if we drop our two objects from the top of a tall tower, we can spread out the phenomenon and give our senses a chance to notice even small differences. This was a whole new way of looking at the world. Galileo's method demanded more than observation and explanation. It required an examination of the factors involved and, most importantly, proof. In this sense, Galileo joins the ranks of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes as fathers of the scientific method. Telescope and Starry Messenger Galileo applied this new scientific method to the matter of heliocentrism. He would prove, once and for all, that the earth orbited around the sun, not the other way around. Yet to do so, he was going to have to build a new tool, something much more challenging than balls of lead and cork. Galileo needed a telescope. Luckily for him, in 1608, a series of Dutch craftsmen had invented the telescope. A year later, in 1609, news of the telescope reached Galileo. The day after he'd heard about the Dutch telescope, Galileo had already built one of his own. The first telescopes were quite weak, only capable of magnifying something to three or four times its normal size. Galileo gradually improved his technique until he had constructed a telescope 33 times more powerful than the naked eye, thereby overcoming the limitations of human observation. Taking this new tool in hand, Galileo turned it towards the heavens, and the things he saw proved once and for all that the heliocentric theory was right and the old geocentric theory was wrong. One of the first things Galileo discovered were the moons of Jupiter. If the geocentric theory was right, then all heavenly bodies should orbit the earth. But here were four heavenly bodies that orbited another heavenly body. Another thing Galileo noticed was that the planet Venus seemed to go through phases just like the moon. These phase changes could only be explained if Venus orbited the sun, not the earth. Yet another thing that Galileo found was a whole new planet, Neptune, which didn't even show up in the geocentric model of the universe. These findings alone were enough to refute the geocentric model of the universe, but Galileo did not stop there. He also learned that the moon, rather than being the perfect celestial orb that everyone assumed, was rather pocked with craters and mountains. He discovered that the Milky Way was made of hundreds of millions of stars packed closely together. This told Galileo that the universe was much bigger than people had assumed. The next year, in 1610, Galileo published his findings in a short treatise called 'The Starry Messenger.' This was the first scientific paper ever published. The Church's Response Galileo's discoveries made him an instant celebrity. Everyone wanted to have a look at the heavens through Galileo's new telescope. Galileo's support for the heliocentric model of the universe didn't get him into that much trouble - at least, at first. However, a few years later, in 1614, the Church decided to take a more hard-line approach on heliocentrism. Galileo found himself under suspicion by the Inquisition, and the very notion of heliocentrism was on trial. Galileo made his way to Rome to defend his name and heliocentrism. In the end, Galileo was cleared of suspicion, but he was ordered to keep his mouth shut about this heliocentric stuff. Galileo obediently kept his head down for the better part of a decade. However, when the old pope died in 1623 and was replaced by a new, friendlier pope, Galileo saw the opportunity he'd been waiting for to publish a new book on heliocentrism. It took Galileo two years of pleading to gain permission to publish his book. Some accounts claim that the Pope himself demanded that Galileo include geocentric arguments in his book as well as heliocentric arguments, much as some people today argue for creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Galileo was clearly insulted by the request, for when he published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he put the geocentric arguments, the words of the Pope himself, into the mouth of a character he named Simplicio, meaning 'simpleton.' This was too much for the Pope. Galileo was put on trial for heresy. The Church had warned Galileo to lay off the heliocentric talk, and now here he was, defending the heliocentric model and calling the Pope a simpleton for disagreeing. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, where he would spend the rest of his life. Galileo's discoveries made him an instant celebrity. Everyone wanted to have a look at the heavens through Galileo's new telescope. Galileo's support for the heliocentric model of the universe didn't get him into that much trouble - at least, at first. However, a few years later, in 1614, the Church decided to take a more hard-line approach on heliocentrism. Galileo found himself under suspicion by the Inquisition, and the very notion of heliocentrism was on trial. Galileo made his way to Rome to defend his name and heliocentrism. In the end, Galileo was cleared of suspicion, but he was ordered to keep his mouth shut about this heliocentric stuff. Galileo obediently kept his head down for the better part of a decade. However, when the old pope died in 1623 and was replaced by a new, friendlier pope, Galileo saw the opportunity he'd been waiting for to publish a new book on heliocentrism. It took Galileo two years of pleading to gain permission to publish his book. Some accounts claim that the Pope himself demanded that Galileo include geocentric arguments in his book as well as heliocentric arguments, much as some people today argue for creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Galileo was clearly insulted by the request, for when he published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he put the geocentric arguments, the words of the Pope himself, into the mouth of a character he named Simplicio, meaning 'simpleton.' This was too much for the Pope. Galileo was put on trial for heresy. The Church had warned Galileo to lay off the heliocentric talk, and now here he was, defending the heliocentric model and calling the Pope a simpleton for disagreeing. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, where he would spend the rest of his life.

* Michaelangelo

• The Sistine Chapel

• The fact that this was all done in fresco, meaning a painting that is done rapidly in watercolor on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling so that the colors penetrate the plaster, makes this work even more impressive.

• Add to this that Michelangelo painted this high in the air while on his back, and the whole thing seems a bit supernatural.

• After the death of Pope Julius II in 1513, Pope Leo X of the infamous Medici family came to power.

• This Pope, also enthralled with the talent of Michelangelo, charged him to design tombs for the Medici family.

• For this, Michelangelo headed back to Florence. However, Michelangelo and the rest of Florence were no longer willing to accept the Medici as their rulers.

• Not ones to be messed with, the Medici took the city by force, inducing Michelangelo to leave his precious Florence forever!

• The Last Judgment In the 1530s, a new Pope, Pope Clement VII, called Michelangelo back to Rome to paint the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. This would become the Last Judgment, a gruesome scene, which depicts some going to Heaven but many, many others going to Hell. Art historians believe this was Michelangelo thumbing his nose at the greed and immorality of the Church of his day. To the horror of many, Michelangelo chose to depict these figures in the nude. This angered so many that another artist was commissioned to paint drapes over the naked bodies. In his later years, Michelangelo expanded his talents to include designing the new dome of St. Peter's Basilica. Although it was not completed before his death, its beauty stands as a reminder of his talent. Personal Relationships Although Michelangelo was famous for his moods and his outbursts, he did have friendships that held his heart. Many believe he had an affinity for many of the male models whom he sculpted. However, the nature of these friendships has never been proven. Another relationship, which has been recorded by history, was his friendship with the noble widow Vittoria Colonna, a poet of the 16th century. Although many believe this was simply a friendship born out of a mutual faith and a love of poetry, the two of them wrote sonnet upon sonnet, which they penned to one another. Legend holds that Michelangelo once expressed of this relationship something to the effect of: 'My sole regret in life was that I did not kiss the widow's face in the same manner that I had her hand.' Although time may have added a bit of romance to something that was mere friendship, their many interactions prove they were dear friends. Elizabeth Comes to the Throne The Elizabethan Era of English history was a remarkable time now coined England's Golden Age. Queen Elizabeth I, from the illustrious Tudor dynasty, reigned for 45 years. During her reign, it was a time of relative political stability, exploration, and creativity in which art flourished. Coming to the throne in 1558 after the violent reign of her Catholic half-sister, Mary I - known infamously as Bloody Mary - Elizabeth worked to heal her land of the violent clashes between Catholics and Protestants. Though Elizabeth honored many of the Protestant reforms set up by her father, King Henry VIII, she also made significant concessions to the Catholics of her realm. In 1559, the Elizabethan Religious Settlement was enacted. In this legislation, Elizabeth was declared the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. This act also allowed for both Protestant and Catholic interpretations of church tradition. Due to her desire to unite her subjects under one throne, her reign is marked as a time of peace. During this peace, she encouraged self-sufficiency in England through the growth of agriculture and trade. This newfound wealth ushered in England's Golden Age. The Economy of the Golden Age At the time of Elizabeth's ascension, the feudal system, or the system of wealth based on land ownership, had greatly declined. Seeing these changes, Elizabeth very smartly encouraged the new, growing middle class to continue to engage in agriculture; however, it moved from peasants farming lands for wealthy nobles to independent citizens working for wage. England's wool trade also began to boom during Elizabeth's Golden Age. With the increase of wool, the face of farming changed, bringing about the process of land enclosure, in which the traditional open field system ended in favor of creating larger closed areas of land that required fewer workers. Although these new ranches of sorts were extremely profitable, the fact that they required less labor induced many workers to leave their villages for the employment found in towns. Thus, towns and cities burgeoned under Elizabeth's rule. The Arts Flourish These new towns and their new money were a perfect recipe for art to flourish. Just like in Italy, as money flowed, people looked for ways to spend it. While Italy turned to painters and sculptors, Elizabethan England turned to the theatre and, boy, did they love it! Elizabethan inn-yards were one of the first venues for English theatre. These inns, which provided lodging and entertainment, attracted traveling actors and troubadours, or poets who wrote verse to music. Soon crafty entrepreneurs realized there was money to be made by producing plays and then teaming with inn owners to charge for the performances. One of the first Englishmen to jump on this profitable performing bandwagon was James Burbage. History gives him credit for being among the first producers of Elizabethan commercial theatre. These inn-yards, being very profitable, soon grew into full-blown theatre houses. Among the most famous is the Globe Theatre of London. This theatre, built to mimic the Roman amphitheaters, was home to the original works of London's most famous playwrights. Speaking of playwrights, not only did the Golden Age of England produce lots of wool, it produced some of the most revered playwrights of all time. There was Christopher Marlowe, made famous by his Jew of Malta. To him we can add Thomas Kyd, known for his Spanish Tragedy. Of course, there's William Shakespeare, whose name has become synonymous with the word 'playwright.' To England's Golden Age and to high schools across the globe, he gave works like Hamlet, King Henry V, and the tragic Romeo and Juliet. Although the arts had been enjoyed throughout history, Elizabeth's Golden Age opened them up to every class of society. The upper-class nobility, the middle-class merchant, and the commoner all enjoyed this entertainment of the day. Just like today, the better the seat, the higher the price, but admission was available to all. Scientific Study and Exploration Along with a thriving economy and the flourishing arts, England's Golden Age opened an entire new world to the English realm through scientific study. Men like Sir Francis Bacon, who structured the idea of a defined scientific method, worked in England's Golden Age. To Bacon, we can also add Dr. John Dee, a famous alchemist, or in today's terms, chemist, who studied under Elizabeth's rule. As scientific exploration boomed, so did overseas exploration. Up until this time, Spain and Portugal had dominated the New World's seas, but Elizabeth's Golden Age saw the emergence of English explorers onto the scene. There was Sir Francis Drake, the first European to pass from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast of South America. He also sailed around the world in his ship, the Golden Hind. We also have Henry Hudson, who discovered the Hudson River of New York, or Sebastian Cabot, the Italian-born explorer who sailed for England and searched for the illusive Northwest Passage across North America. The list would not be complete without adding Sir Walter Raleigh. History tells us this guy was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. It also tells us he was very handsome and very debonair. (He's the guy who allegedly stopped the queen mid-step in order to place his coat over a mud puddle she was about to step into.) When not flirting with the queen, Sir Walter Raleigh also did some exploring. He established the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island. On an interesting side note, the state of Virginia is named after Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen. The Virgin Queen This brings us to our last topic, the fact that Elizabeth ruled over England as an unmarried, female monarch, earning her the nickname 'the Virgin Queen.' This alone is a huge difference between Elizabethan England and most other times throughout all of history. Not only was Elizabeth a single, female monarch, she was a survivor. First of all, we need to remember much of England felt she was an illegitimate heir, since her mother Anne Boleyn's marriage to Henry VIII was never accepted by the Catholic Church. It also didn't help matters when Boleyn was later executed for treason. Add to this that Elizabeth's half-sister, Bloody Mary, accused her of plotting a Protestant rebellion and had her imprisoned in the Tower of London, and you can see what backbone Elizabeth had. In 1588, Elizabeth would prove her backbone was as strong as any man's with the defeat of the Spanish Armada, an attack by well over 100 Spanish ships toward the English coast. Not only would this famous encounter prove Elizabeth could hold her own, it would establish England as preeminent over the seas. What We Know About William Shakespeare Considering how famous and well-regarded William Shakespeare's work is today, it's kind of surprising that we really don't know a whole lot about his life. Some people even challenge the fact that Shakespeare actually wrote the plays he was credited with - that's how mysterious he is. Some people don't even believe he wrote his plays! It's ironic that he is such an incredibly influential figure and, with regard to his personal life, a blank slate. We just don't know much about him, but that doesn't mean that this will be a short lesson. Sorry! Let's go over the biographical details that we do have. We'll also talk about his most famous plays and poems, as well as their lasting influence. So, when I say we don't know that much about William Shakespeare, we really don't. We don't even know his birthday because birth certificates - short or long-form - didn't exist back then. People born into noble families might have had their birthday recorded for posterity, similar to how these days you can find Brad Pitt's birthday by Googling it, but you probably can't find your next-door neighbor's birth date. Shakespeare, though, was born into a family of commoners. We do know that he was baptized. There are some public records of that. So, he must have been born somewhere near his baptism date of April 26, 1564. His father was a glover from Snitterfield, which sounds like a Harry Potter name, but apparently was a real place. The Shakespeare family wasn't badly off, but they were still commoners. We don't really know where Shakespeare went to school, but he probably did go because he ended up literate. The next solid record we have of the life of William Shakespeare is his marriage, which took place in 1582. Shakespeare married at the age of 18, while his wife, Anne Hathaway (no, not that Anne Hathaway, though seriously, what were that Anne Hathaway's parents thinking, naming her that) was actually of the ripe old age of 26. Six months after their wedding, their first daughter, Susanna, was born… so I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. They then had twins in 1585, named Judith and Hamnet (Hamnet, you say? That sounds familiar! - We'll talk about that later). Hamnet sadly died at the age of 11, and there's been a lot of speculation that his death may have influenced Shakespeare's playwriting, including the famous (and similar-sounding) Hamlet. While the name Hamlet technically comes from a different Scandinavian name, scholars still search for a connection. At some point, while still married to Anne, Shakespeare scooted off to London and got involved in the theatre scene - rather like the Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore of today, William and Anne's marriage was a May-December romance that was destined for failure. From various records, we do know that he worked as an actor as well as a playwright. He wrote plays for a company called Lord Chamberlain's Men. Starting in 1599, the company performed at the Globe Theatre, which is south of the Thames in London. If you go to London now, you can watch Shakespeare performances in a rebuilt Globe roughly in the same spot. Why was it rebuilt? Well, it was made entirely of wood, and it burned down in 1613, but the recreation is pretty good. Well, I mean, it looks good to me. I didn't see the original, but it looks great now, and if you go to London, you really should see a Shakespeare play at the Globe. It's pretty incredible. So, the Globe burned down from a fire started by a special effects cannon fired during a performance. So even back then, there was always a desire for snappy special effects, and this one had a pretty serious consequence. Personally, I'd rather see a real, live cannon go off than some lame video projection. That would have been awesome. Shakespeare had a lot of success from his playwriting and grew reasonably wealthy from it, which was a rare feat at the time… or now, really, I don't know how many wealthy playwrights you can name. He competed for audiences with the likes of Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson and other famous playwrights of the time. Christopher Marlowe might sound familiar if you've seen the movie Shakespeare in Love. Shakespeare's work has enjoyed a far wider audience in modern times than it did in his time, though. Plays What was it that he wrote that was so awesome and influential and long lasting? Well, let's talk about it. Shakespeare is really pretty unavoidable for most people. You've probably had contact with some of his plays; almost no one escapes high school without having to read Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's famous tragedy of star-crossed lovers in Verona. If you haven't read it, you've probably seen one of the numerous movie adaptations, or maybe even West Side Story, which is based on the plot of Romeo and Juliet. I'm not going to list off all of his plays. If you really want to know the names of all of them, you can go to Wikipedia. But I want to give you a timeline of some of his most significant works. I'll talk a little bit about each one, but keep in mind that we've got separate videos devoted to each the really big plays, so you should check those out. Also, you should bear in mind that scholars are divided on the dating of many of these. They're working off of multiple versions and incomplete records. Shakespeare's plays didn't have copyright dates like books do now, so not all of these dates are 100% accurate; they're really a best estimate based on the evidence available. So, take this chronology as a suggestion, and use it for slotting the plays in relation to each other, but don't hold on to the dates as gospel. Before we start - what did Shakespeare's plays look like when he wrote them? They tended to be written in something called blank verse. This is made up of lines of iambic pentameter that don't rhyme. What's iambic pentameter? Well, it's a 10-syllable line divided into five units, or feet, called iambs. An iamb is just two syllables that go light-STRONG in stress. For example, one of the more famous lines of iambic pentameter comes from Romeo and Juliet. This is when Romeo sees Juliet on the balcony at the start of that famous balcony scene: 'But SOFT! what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS.' Obviously, the actors don't read it that way, but that's a line of iambic pentameter, and that's how the syllables are supposed to work together. Earliest Plays So, Shakespeare went to London in the early 1590s, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Scholars fight about which play was the first he wrote, but many agree that it was probably The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which was written sometime between 1589-1591. Though it is significant for being (maybe) his first play and definitely the first instance of cross-dressing, which Shakespeare LOVED, it's generally not considered to be his best work. Next, possibly, came The Taming of the Shrew, around the same time period (1590-1591). It's another comedy and one of my personal favorites. If you want to know the plot of this play, you should watch the movie 10 Things I Hate About You - it's very similar, it's really based on the play - but then go and read or watch The Taming of the Shrew as well, since that's where it came from. Remember how, in the movie, Julia Stiles is this cranky, mean girl, and she doesn't want a boyfriend, but her younger sister really wants a boyfriend, and so Heath Ledger (RIP) has to wear her down and make her fall in love with him? Julia Stiles plays 'the shrew' in The Taming of the Shrew, or the Catherine character, and Heath Ledger is the Petruchio character - his name is Patrick Verona in the film. Rolling right along, we hit Richard III sometime around 1592-1593. This is a play about a villain, Richard III, scheming to get the crown and - SPOILER - he gets it, hence the kingly name. He kills a ton of people, including smothering a few children. This is an example of one of Shakespeare's history plays because it has a basis in history. Next up comes Romeo and Juliet, in 1595. You probably know the drill: Romeo falls in love with Juliet, but he's a Montague, and she's a Capulet, and their families hate each other. Their plan to be together goes awry, and they both end up killing themselves. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a lot more lighthearted - it's also from 1595. This involves four Athenian teenagers who run out into the woods to try and figure out their romantic problems. They run into some fairies, who mess around with them for fun. There's also an awesome dude, named Bottom, whose head gets turned into a donkey's head. It's a really fun play - I highly recommend A Midsummer Night's Dream. Late '90s Plays and Events 1596 brings The Merchant of Venice. It's the first entry in 'Cultural Studies with William Shakespeare.' This play is famous for the character Shylock, who's portrayed as a miserly Jew who demands a 'pound of flesh' as payment for a debt. That's problematic; anti-Semitism is not cool. It's an interesting play, but you've got to take it with a grain of salt and keep in mind when it was written. An important event in Shakespeare's life comes around the same time, which is the death of young Hamnet in1596. Shortly after that, or maybe around the same time, comes Henry IV, Parts I and II. The titular Henry IV is referred to as 'Hal' throughout the play, just to make it confusing, and there's also a really funny fat guy named Falstaff, who totally steals the show. Falstaff alone makes the Henry plays worthwhile. Another history play is Julius Caesar, from 1599. You might remember the famous line 'Et tu, Brute?' ('You too, Brutus?'). Roman emperor Julius Caesar is brutally murdered by a bunch of people in the government, including his previously loyal friend Brutus. Saying You too, Brutus? is probably the thing most people remember from this. Chaos ensues as everyone scrambles to lead Rome. Now we're coming up to the big daddy, the grand poobah, the big cheese: Hamlet, written around 1599-1601. It's probably the most famous and frequently discussed play he ever wrote. It's referenced in everything and performed a ton; it's even the basis for The Lion King. The play is about poor Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, who just can't seem to make up his mind about whether he should kill his uncle Claudius to avenge his father's death. It features his mother, Gertrude; his poor love interest, Ophelia; hilarious old fool, Polonius; and probably the most famous skull in theatre history - the 'Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well…' scene. Hamlet is really the first of Shakespeare's great tragedies and, arguably, the most well known. Later Plays Next up is one of his great comedies, Twelfth Night. Shakespeare's really on a roll in this period around 1601. Twelfth Night is wildly successful, and it features even more cross- dressing. We've got the heroine, Viola, who falls in love with Duke Orsino while she's dressed as a boy. Orsino loves Olivia, who falls in love with Viola dressed as a boy - don't worry, it's all sorted out in the end, but hijinks ensue. Around this time, Queen Elizabeth I dies and is succeeded by James I, the former king of Scotland - just a little historical context there. Next up: Othello, written around 1603-1604ish. It's another entry in 'Cultural Studies with Shakespeare.' Othello is a Moor (a North African) who is a general in Venice, and a lot of people don't like that because he's black and they're jerks. There's a bad guy named Iago who convinces Othello that his wife Desdemona is cheating on him. Eventually, Iago wears Othello down; Othello believes him, goes mad, kills his wife - it's a bummer. It's dramatized in a fabulous movie called O featuring Julia Stiles as yet another Shakespearean heroine. It's really the second of the great tragedies. Moving right along, we've got King Lear, features an old man (King Lear) who wants to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. He ends up banishing one daughter, Cordelia, because she doesn't kiss up enough. The other two, Regan and Goneril turn out to be really nasty and, again, pretty much everyone dies. That's the third of the great tragedies. If you're familiar with the book or the movie called A Thousand Acres, that's based on the story of King Lear. Next up we've got 'the Scottish play', aka Macbeth, written around 1606. People refer to it as 'the Scottish play' because it's considered bad luck to say 'Macbeth' in the theatre - not really sure why. It features Macbeth, a Scottish lord, who tries to become king through murder and avarice at the encouragement of his nutty wife, Lady Macbeth. It features a lot of witches, ghosts, kilts and some great monologues. It's a lot of fun, but it's also a bummer because it's a tragedy. This is followed up by The Tempest, written in the 1610-1611 region. This play is a lot of fun. It features Prospero, the former Duke of Milan. He wrecks a ship carrying the usurping Duke of Milan on a magical island. Prospero's weird supernatural servants Ariel and Caliban hang out with the shipwrecked passengers while his daughter Miranda falls in love with one of them. It's kind of like the original Lost, if you will. The Tempest is probably the last play that Shakespeare wrote on his own. Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen were most likely co-written, both in 1613. OK, I need to take a breath. That was a lot of plays, and I didn't even tell you about all of them. Again, if you want to find out the names of all of Shakespeare's plays, go look on Wikipedia. So, that's a lot to remember, and I don't expect you to recite that all back to me. So, what should you keep in mind after hearing this massive list of plays? I would say, first, that Shakespeare's plays can generally be divided into three categories: comedies, tragedies and histories. At this point, the timeline we've been building could become color-coded for each type of play. The lines can get fuzzy, especially in the tragedy/history areas, because some of the tragedies have a historical basis - also, what kind of history isn't tragic in some way? The comedies are things like The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night. They have fun hijinks like cross-dressing or mistaken identity. They tend to end with a wedding - sometimes more than one wedding. Tragedies are plays like Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, and they tend to end with pretty much everyone dying, or at least a significant number of people dying. The histories are the ones like Henry IV Parts I and II and Richard III - really, if it's got a strong basis in British or Scottish or whatever history, it's a history play. Other Works So, in addition to all of those plays (and, like I said, I didn't even hit on all of them), Shakespeare actually wrote even more. He wrote poems, sonnets in particular, which are 14- line poems with a very specific rhyme structure. You can learn more about them in our lesson on Shakespeare's sonnets. But if you see a 14-line iambic pentameter poem in Shakespearean-type language, odds are you're looking at one of his 154 sonnets. This guy was busy. He wrote a ton! You've probably heard the oft-parodied 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' poem. Depending on your point of view, you may find it gloriously romantic or seriously cheesy, but that's a Shakespearean sonnet, and really, the remaining ones are just as good. They're beautiful; they're really worth checking out. In addition to the sonnets, he also wrote some longer poems - Venus and Adonis, written in the 1592-1593 range, and also The Rape of Lucrece in 1594. In Venus and Adonis, the Greek goddess Venus tries to get the mortal Adonis (who is really, really hot and buff - that's where the term 'Adonis' comes from) to sleep with her, but he refuses and then is killed while on a hunt. Bummer. It's written in 6-line stanzas that go a/b/a/b/c/c. The Rape of Lucrece is pretty self-explanatory, unfortunately. Lucretia is raped by the son of the King of Rome and commits suicide, which incites a revolt against the king. That poem is written in 7-line stanzas that go a/b/a/b/b/c/c, also known as 'rhyme royale.' Themes of Baroque Painting As the 16th century drew to a close, a new form of art arose in Western Europe. This new style, called the Baroque, had a profound impact on all forms of art, including architecture and sculpture. Yet nowhere is the Baroque style more evident than in painting. Baroque painting can be seen as the apex of realism in European art. In the Renaissance, European painters had learned the importance of form and anatomy in representing human figures realistically. Indeed, Renaissance painters were so proud of their accurate portrayal of the human form that their figures almost always took the fore in their scenes. While the background might be detailed, it remained just that - a background. If the Renaissance painters were obsessed with form and figure, Baroque painters were obsessed with light. It was not just the figures that needed to be realistic, but also their surroundings, as well and their place in the overall picture. Baroque painters supplemented Renaissance perfection of form and figure with an unprecedented consciousness of how light reacts to different materials, different surfaces and in different contexts. As a result, Baroque painters put just as much effort into depicting an accurate landscape or interior scene as they did into creating realistic figures. Indeed, this emphasis on the background became so popular that some Baroque painters abandoned human figures altogether, focusing entirely on how light played off a bowl of fruit or a landscape at sunset. This exploration of new themes was not limited to backgrounds. As time progressed, Baroque painters were just as likely to paint a scene from Greek myth as one from the Bible, and a portrait was as likely to be a portrait of the artist himself as of his local lord or the Virgin Mary. So, we've seen some of the major themes of Baroque painting: A de-emphasis of the figure A mastery of light and shadow Realism in all things And new subjects like landscapes, still life and self-portrait Let us look for these new themes in the works of the great artists of the Baroque. Italy: Caravaggio Not surprisingly, the Baroque started out in Rome. The Roman Catholic Church had long been the greatest patron of the arts, and they supported the Baroque style in its infancy. One of the earliest forms of Baroque art was the open ceiling fresco. In this style, the ceiling of a room was painted in such a way that it appeared to be open to the heavens. In the ceiling of the Barberini Palace by Pietro da Cortona, we see a shift in emphasis from the central figure to the illusory framing that gives the ceiling its depth. This shift in emphasis is even clearer in the ceiling fresco of Sant'Ignazio by Andrea dal Pozzo. Look at how much time and attention has been put into the architectural elements that border the heavenly theme. Also, note that rather than faces looking down from on high, we see the feet of people ascending upward, who are only occasionally looking down. Yet though these ceiling frescoes are bathed in rays of glory, the true baroque mastery of light and realism comes to the fore in the canvasses and panels painted by Caravaggio. As Caravaggio and his fellow Italians were right under the nose of the Vatican, it is not surprising that their subjects remained highly religious. Yet Caravaggio did explore other themes on occasion, as evidenced by his painting Love Conquers All, which shows a winged cupid standing over objects representing all other human endeavors, including warfare, politics and music. Spain: Velazquez Though Spain remained a Catholic country, they did not seem to feel so constrained to religious themes. This is most evident in the work of the great Spanish painter Velazquez. In Velazquez, we see the same attention to shadow and light that characterizes the Baroque. Yet the subject matter is much more mundane, like these weavers or this old woman cooking eggs. And in his painting Las Meninas, Velazquez gets truly creative. In this painting, Velazquez is in the middle of painting a portrait of the king of Spain, while the king's daughters and attendants look on. The king himself is only visible in the reflection of a mirror across the room, while to the left, and much larger, stands Velazquez himself, glancing about the huge canvass of the king's portrait. This sort of novelty and fascination with neat visual effects would come to typify Baroque painting. Belgium: Rubens In Belgium, religious themes were much less prevalent, as Catholics and Protestants battled for mastery over the country. This conflict can be seen clearly in the works of the Flemish painter Rubens, who was just as likely to paint a mythological scene, like the Judgment of Paris or The Battle of the Amazons, as a religious scene, like The Fall of Man or The Massacre of the Innocents by King Herod. Yet Rubens also engaged in some novel themes, like this portrait of his sister-in-law or this lovely landscape. France: Poussin & Lorrain The themes of myth and landscape received even greater attention in France, where Poussin created some lovely paintings on Greek myth, like the Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite and this painting of Shepherds of Arcadia. Note here how the shadow on the stone tomb represents both the real shadows imposed by light and the metaphorical shadow of death. Yet in my opinion, France's greatest contribution to Baroque painting was Lorrain, whose landscapes remain some of the most beautiful ever created. Note how the human figure is no longer the focus of the paintings but rather a part of the scenery. This is especially evident in his paintings of the sea. Holland: Rembrandt So, we've seen how Baroque mastery of light and shadow was applied to new subject matter as this new style spread across Europe. This spread to a new subject matter reached its apex in Holland beneath the brush of the greatest of all Baroque painters, Rembrandt. Rembrandt brings all the Baroque features we've described together into one genius. In Rembrandt, we witness the mastery of light, shadow and realism. We see religious subject matter, like Belshazzar's Feast, and Joseph Accused by Potiphar's Wife. We also see unconventional subject matter, like this painting of an anatomy lesson, these landscapes, and even still lifes. Themes of Baroque Architecture The Baroque period was one of the most exciting times for European architecture. During this period, from the end of the 16th century to the dawn of the 18th century, European architecture exploded in novel directions. Rather than designing a single building, an architect might be responsible for reimagining a complex of buildings, or even planning an entire city. With this shift, the capitol of art and architecture moved from Rome to Paris. Regular, repeating designs gave way to curves and irregularity, as various styles were mixed and adapted. Yet this variety was regulated for the purposes of symmetry and grandeur. Finally, for the first time since antiquity, architects began tinkering with optical illusion in building. They realized you could trick the eye into making a large building seem even grander. This hearkens back to Greek tricks that allowed their grand temples to tower even larger in the eye of the beholder. Though Baroque architecture found its way across Europe, two countries came to the fore in this field: Italy and France. Baroque architecture got its start in Italy and is still evident today at the Vatican in Rome. This new architectural form reached its apex in France. Its mark can be seen quite clearly in Paris, but its purest expression can be found in that most Baroque of all buildings, Louis XIV's palace at Versailles. Baroque Architecture in Italian Churches Let us begin, as the Baroque style did, in Italy. Here we can see the most obvious Baroque architectural innovation: the use of curves. At the Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, we can see how straight lines were replaced with delicate curves, giving the building its distinctively Baroque feel. From the rounded windows to the graceful squiggle of the whole facade, this church is a feast for the eyes. In Venice, the church of Santa Maria della Salute we see another key facet of Baroque art, symmetrical irregularity. Each side of this eight-sided structure offers the viewer a new perspective, different from the last, yet symmetrical in its own right. Every step offers new views and varied decoration, from the standard statues occupying alcoves to the novel curls of stone buttressing the high dome. Reinventing the Vatican Yet perhaps the best example of Baroque architecture in Italy is at Rome itself. At the heart of the Vatican stands the Basilica of St Peter. This impressive structure reached its current state at the hands of Baroque architects. To the left and right a massive colonnade, designed by Bernini, creates a panoramic effect, drawing the eye ever onward to the basilica at its center. Along the top of this colonnade a series of statues break up the silhouette, providing variety even as it flanks the basilica with symmetrical wings. The facade of the Basilica itself, designed by Maderna, is its own little wonder. Here we can see the variety of Baroque architecture in full swing. Like the colonnade, the skyline of Maderna's facade is broken at intervals by statues and other decorations. Yet Maderna goes further, mixing up styles by alternating square columns with round ones. Likewise, the pediments over the windows and doors also alternate between rounded and triangular designs. Indeed, there are almost as many types of doors and windows as there are doors and windows. Yet all this exuberant variety is regulated and controlled to create symmetry, as each novel design on the right is echoed by a similar design to the left. The overall effect is as grand and orderly as it is picturesque and visually fascinating. Yet the Baroque is not just limited to the exterior. Connecting St Peter's basilica to the Apostolic Palace lies an impressive staircase designed by Bernini, called the Scala Regia, or the 'Stairs of the Queen.' Bernini's staircase shrinks to a vanishing point, making the staircase seem longer and higher than it really is. In this respect, at least, Bernini was attempting something that had not been tried since classical times: weaving optical illusion into architectural design to fool the eye into seeing something as even grander and larger than it is. Thus, in Italy, we've seen the foundation of themes that would repeat again and again in Baroque architecture: the use of curves, the introduction of irregular decoration and design, the subordination of irregularity to symmetry, and the incorporation of optical illusion into architectural design. The Lovely Louvre While the Pope was supporting the arts in Italy, on the other side of the Alps a new patron of the arts was emerging. Louis XIV, the Sun King, France's absolute monarch, had decided to aggrandize his status with a massive arts campaign. Louis' mission was both propagandistic and practical. On the propaganda side, Louis wished to surround his city and court with the best art in the world. On the practical side, Louis knew that with relatively cheap materials (stone, canvas, bronze and paint), a skilled artist could create priceless works of art. Though alchemists had failed to turn lead into gold, Louis knew he could turn stone into treasure. So Louis set about building a treasury of art. At the heart of this project was the Louvre, where Louis housed the artists he'd brought in from around Europe, as well as France's greatest artistic treasures, including DaVinci's Mona Lisa. To make the Louvre worthy of the artistic talent housed within, Louis commissioned a complete redesign of the Louvre, from a private residence to proclamation of France's status as the capitol of art. In the east facade of the Louvre, designed by Perrault we can see some of the same Baroque elements that we saw in Italy, especially irregular openings and a focus on symmetry. Yet this design seems almost tame when compared with the busy exuberance of the Vatican. We must go inside the Louvre to truly see the Baroque at work. Within the Louvre lies the Apollo Gallery, designed by Le Brun. Here we begin to see what French Baroque means. Delicate curves and swirls adorn every surface. Entryways alternate between curved and triangular. Even the parquet floor displays a dizzying variety of design. The low arch of the ceiling is broken up with both paintings and sculptures, making the ceiling seem to soar far higher than its actual height. Yet, if we draw a line down the middle of the gallery, all this dizzy variety falls into orderly symmetry, as even artistic chaos is brought into order. Versailles: The Epitome of Baroque Architecture Yet the Louvre was simply not big enough for Louis' ambitions. Why should he be satisfied with a palace, when the Pope had an entire city to himself? Louis XIV thought he should have a residence at least as grand as the Pope's. To this end, Louis began construction on the most ambitious architectural project of his age: the palace at Versailles. Here at last was a large enough canvass for Louis' architectural ambitions. Louis made his palace the consummate masterpiece of Baroque architecture. Every inch is covered with ornamental statues. Even the roof peaks are adorned with bronze filigree. Every window offers new vistas. Yet all of these features fall into perfect symmetry, yet on a scale unimagined. Even the grounds themselves were brought into line with Louis' Baroque plan, with intricately patterned gardens, in which even the trees were brought into line, trimmed into geometrical shapes, and laid out with symmetrical perfection. Within, Versailles is even more impressive, with miles of opulently decorated galleries. The most impressive of these is the Hall of Mirrors, designed by Le Brun. Here Le Brun takes the same techniques he used at the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre to a whole new level. Every step is rife with glorious detail. Every glance offers views of breathtaking beauty. The ceiling is trimmed with intricate sculpture, while the ceiling itself is painted to evoke a three-dimensional feel, with paintings set within painted frames, themselves supported by painted architecture. Yet the illusions go even further, for on one side of the hall, windows to the outside pour in light, while on the other side, an identical series of openings are glazed with mirrors, giving the beholder the impression that he is walking down a corridor of sunlight and further aggrandizing the space. And, in true Baroque form, all of this exuberant variety, all this opulent decoration, all these illusions and effects, are perfectly balanced into a symmetrical whole that almost takes the breath away. For all these reasons, Versailles is considered by many to be the epitome of Baroque architecture. Themes in Baroque Sculpture It is difficult to make general statements about Baroque sculpture. Baroque sculpture shows a distinct variety depending on the country of its origin. In Italy, sculptures broke up the outlines of Baroque buildings and glorious altarpieces were created with breathtaking visual effects. In Belgium, Baroque sculptors created pulpits of extraordinary complexity and beauty. And in France, sculpture was dedicated to the glorification of a new breed of absolute monarchs. Despite these differences, we can identify some themes of Baroque sculpture: stark realism, highly pictorial effects and technical mastery equivalent to, if not surpassing, antiquity. Keep an eye out for these themes as we explore the spread of Baroque sculpture across Europe. Italian Sculpture Let us begin in Italy, with the great genius of the Italian Baroque, Bernini. Bernini was both a sculptor and architect, and his architectural achievements serve only to highlight his sculptural genius. This can be seen quite clearly in the colonnade he designed for the Vatican. Note how the sculptures add variety to the skyline of the heart of Christendom. We can see Bernini's sculptural magnificence in full force in this altarpiece depicting the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. Note the powerful pictorial effect of this sculpture, the sculpted witnesses to the side, the marble clouds, and the rays of brazen sunlight heightened by colored lighting from a concealed source. Looking closer, we also see Bernini's technical mastery in the dramatic posture of the limp and defenseless Theresa, with her flowing folds of robe, and the delicate gestures of the angel. Bernini's excellence brought him clients from all over Europe, including Louis XIV of France, who commissioned this magnificent bust from Bernini. Bernini's skill and pictorial sensibilities are evident here as well, in the majestic, windblown curls and swaths of fabric, whipping around the calm controlled visage of France's great absolute monarch. French Sculpture This use of sculpture to worship Louis XIV was, naturally, carried out in France itself. We can see it clearly in this statue of the King by Coysevox. Yet, there is more than one way to glorify a king, besides merely depicting the king himself. Another way was with simple technical perfection. Louis commissioned many, many artists, to surround him with priceless works of art. One of these was Puget, who glorified the King of France by means of his incredible skill, which was at least equal to that of the Greeks. Witness the dramatic pose of Puget's Milo of Croton, and the airy weightlessness of his Perseus and Andromeda. Spanish and German Sculpture In Germany and Spain, we see many of the same themes we saw in France. Like Coysevox in France, the German sculptor Schluter, produced some impressive statues, like this one of Prince Frederick. Note how the importance and power of the prince on horseback is emphasized by the dejected poses of the accompanying figures at the base. And in Spain, sculptors working in wood, like Montane, created painted sculptures of unprecedented skill and realism, like this statue of Saint Francis. Note the veins on his hands, the realistic folds of his garment and the almost shocking realism of his tender expression. Belgian Sculpture Yet, the most unique sculptures of the Baroque period come from Belgium, where the Flemish sculptors Vervoort and Verbruggen created pulpits of unprecedented grandeur and intricacy, like this pulpit in the form of a tree, teeming with life and religious allegory, that Vervoort constructed for the Cathedral at Antwerp and Verbruggen's pulpit for the Cathedral at Brussels, depicting Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. These sculptures, with their pictorial realism and lack of restraint, mark the transition from the symmetrical grandeur of the early Baroque style into the unrestrained activity of the late Baroque style, also known as Rococo. Francis Bacon: Prophet of Science Every great shift in human thinking has its founding prophet: a man ahead of his time, a true visionary who imagined a different way of looking at the world. Buddhism has the Buddha. Christianity has Jesus. Islam has Muhammad. Science has Sir Francis Bacon. When Francis Bacon was born in 1561, the Bible was considered the ultimate authority. People thought the Earth was at the center of the universe, and science was so intertwined with religion that the greatest minds of the time were arguing about how many angels could dance on a pin head. By the time Bacon died in 1626, a new sort of authority had taken root in Europe: scientific proof. Galileo had established scientific proof that the Earth orbited the Sun, and the first divisions between religion and science had begun to appear, as the greatest minds of the time struggled to reconcile scientific proof with religious faith. Such sweeping changes in a single lifetime should give us some notion of how rapidly the world was transforming at the turn of the 17th century. To credit Bacon alone with these changes would be to overlook the efforts of his many contemporaries and successors. Bacon was not the cause of this transformation. In fact, Bacon made few scientific discoveries of any real note. Instead, Bacon was the prophet of this new age - he wrote its laws, and provided its inspiration. The Scientific Method Bacon's vision allowed him to see this new scientific way of looking at the world before it ever existed. Yet Bacon's true genius lies in the methods he provided to make this vision possible. Bacon realized that his fellow Europeans were never going to learn anything new so long as they kept looking for answers in the Bible or in the works of classical philosophers. No matter how deeply they thought about these concepts, no matter how many compelling arguments they might invent, the scholars of Europe essentially had been treading the same ground for centuries. Bacon proposed a new way to unlock the secrets of nature: the scientific experiment. Nature is chaotic, with many factors influencing everything we perceive. The simple fall of a leaf from a tree involves laws of gravity pulling the leaf down, laws of meteorology governing the wind, and laws of aerodynamics governing how the leaf responds to that wind. In nature, these laws are all mixed up, so we don't know which laws govern what. Moreover, the sheer irregularity of nature makes it almost impossible to measure. No two leaves are alike, and even if they were, they would not fall in the same way, due to the countless other factors influencing them - the wind, their position, their height - all of these things. How can we possibly hope to learn anything from nature when nature is so disorderly? Bacon's solution was simple yet profound. To learn about Nature, we have to pull Nature out of her comfort zone. We need to put Nature in a place where we control as many of the factors as possible and make her perform the same activity again and again. Only then can we begin to eliminate the factors that confuse our attempts to understand nature. So what was Bacon talking about? The Benefits of Experimental Science Let us return to our example of the falling leaf. Let us say we are trying to determine the laws that affect how leaves fall. As we saw above, a wide variety of factors influence how each leaf falls: wind, air resistance, and gravity. Moreover, since no two leaves are exactly the same and each leaf falls from a different point, we could watch a thousand leaves fall and be no closer to our answers. Imagine trying to learn anything from this chaos. You'd have to weigh and measure each leaf. You'd have to run around with a tape measure, figuring out which twig each leaf fell from. You'd have to record where the wind was coming from and how fast, at every moment. You'd have to measure the density of the air beneath each individual leaf. In short, learning anything from the random falling of leaves from a tree is all but impossible. So the first way we might apply Bacon's theory would be to drop the same leaf from the same height, over and over again, thereby controlling at least some of these factors. Now instead of worrying about how all leaves fall, we're just trying to discover how this leaf falls. Yet we'd still keep getting a wide variety of behaviors from our dropped leaf, since the wind would sometimes be blowing and sometimes it wouldn't. If we moved our experiment indoors, we could eliminate another factor, the impact of the wind. Yet even with this improvement, our leaf is still not always falling in exactly the same way, although we're getting closer. The simple laws of gravity are still confused by the resistance of the air. So let's remove the factor of the air. Let's put our leaf in a bell jar and remove the air. And wouldn't you know it, the leaf falls the same way, at the same rate, every time. If we repeat this process enough and measure it closely, we could determine that the falling leaf accelerates at a rate of 9.8 meters per second per second. And if we expanded this, and tried it with other objects, we would discover that, in a vacuum, everything from leaves to feathers to basketballs to jellybeans fall at an accelerating rate of 9.8 meter per second per second. And just like that, we've discovered a law of gravity. Now Bacon did not discover this law - Isaac Newton did, a few decades later. However, Newton made this discovery by following Bacon's approach. Take the things we see in nature out of the chaos of nature, and tinker with them in an environment that we control. That is the essence of the scientific method. Bacon's foundational work in this field has earned him the title 'Father of Experimental Science.' Baconian Optimism So we've seen how Bacon served as a prophet of this new scientific age. We've seen how his experimental method laid the foundations for modern science. These contributions alone would be enough to write Bacon's name large in the pages of history. Yet Bacon did more than predict the scientific revolution, and his contributions were not limited to the scientific method. Arguably Bacon's greatest contribution to the world of science was his incredible optimism and enthusiasm. Bacon didn't just predict and codify science - he sold it to the world. Bacon thought science would fix all of mankind's problems. He envisioned an age of constant invention, where every day brought new technology to make man's life better and easier. With science we could feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and heal the sick. By understanding nature, we could transcend her limits, and forge a new world, a better world for everyone. Bacon voiced his scientific ideals in many treatises and books. One of my favorites is his story of New Atlantis. In this story, Bacon paints a vision of a Utopian society based on scientific principles. The people of New Atlantis do not hoard gold or other material goods. Everyone has everything they need, provided by the advances of science. Instead, they trade these earthly goods around the world, in exchange for the greatest of all treasures: knowledge. Today, Bacon's vision may seem like dewy-eyed naïveté. Anyone who has seen battlefields torn asunder by scientifically-perfected killing machines knows that science, like any other tool, is only as good or evil as the hand that wields it. But 400 years ago, Bacon's enthusiastic optimism inspired generations of thinkers to make his vision a reality. In many ways the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution are all examples of humanity trying to fulfill Bacon's lofty dream of the future. Their efforts built the world we know today. The Copernicus Crisis At the dawn of the 17th century, the Roman Catholic Church was in crisis. The Protestant Reformation was sweeping across Europe. The Catholic Church was losing entire countries to this heresy. And now it seemed like the universe itself was falling apart. The Church had spent centuries believing that the earth was at the center of the universe. The sun, moon, planets and stars orbited the earth embedded in concentric spheres, each one larger than the last, like a celestial Russian doll. Then, in 1543, this fellow Copernicus came up with the wild notion that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the universe, a concept that came to be known as heliocentrism. The Church tried to stomp this idea out in any way they could. Yet despite their best efforts, heliocentrism was becoming ever more popular. Fools like Johannes Kepler or Tycho Brahe were even expanding upon it. And the Church could do nothing to stop them! Gone were the good old days when the Church could burn people alive for saying things they disagreed with. As a Protestant living in a Protestant country, Kepler and his ilk were forever out of the Church's reach. Unable to silence these mad theories, the Church's only comfort was that no one could actually prove them. Unfortunately for the Church, a fellow named Galileo just happened to be in the business of proving things. Unfortunately for Galileo, unlike his fellow scientists safe in the Protestant North, Galileo lived right under the nose of the Pope himself. Galileo's Falling Bodies Experiment Now what do I mean when I say that Galileo was in the business of proving things? Well, let me give you an example. Imagine you're holding a feather in one hand and an apple in another. You let them both go. Which one will hit the ground first? The apple, of course. From this you might draw the conclusion that heavy things, like the apple, fall faster than light things, like the feather. This was how most people, with the exception of a few philosophers, thought gravity worked for thousands of years. Galileo rejected this common-sense notion. 'Our observation of the feather and apple cannot be counted as proof,' he would say, 'because there are too many factors involved. The feather isn't just lighter than the apple, it also has a different shape. If we want to see how something's weight affects how fast it falls, we need to remove all the other factors and just look at the weight.' According to legend, that's exactly what Galileo did. He made two balls, completely identical except that one was made of lead and the other was made of cork. He then dropped those balls from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Despite the fact that the lead ball was much heavier than the cork ball, they both hit the ground at exactly the same time. This story, if it is true, is one of the first recorded scientific experiments in history. The Importance of the Scientific Method So, what differentiates Galileo's experiment from our observation of the feather and apple? Well, first of all, Galileo was able to separate one factor from another. Instead of saying that apples and feathers fall at different speeds because of their weight, Galileo thought that they fell at different speeds because of their shape. Second, instead of just stating his theory and supporting it with reasoning, Galileo decided to test his hypothesis by conducting an experiment. Finally, his experiment showed that Galileo understood the limitations of human observation. If we simply drop two objects a few feet, our limited senses might not be able to detect if one object fell before the other. They may seem to hit the ground at the same time because the difference is too small for us to notice. However, if we drop our two objects from the top of a tall tower, we can spread out the phenomenon and give our senses a chance to notice even small differences. This was a whole new way of looking at the world. Galileo's method demanded more than observation and explanation. It required an examination of the factors involved and, most importantly, proof. In this sense, Galileo joins the ranks of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes as fathers of the scientific method. Telescope and Starry Messenger Galileo applied this new scientific method to the matter of heliocentrism. He would prove, once and for all, that the earth orbited around the sun, not the other way around. Yet to do so, he was going to have to build a new tool, something much more challenging than balls of lead and cork. Galileo needed a telescope. Luckily for him, in 1608, a series of Dutch craftsmen had invented the telescope. A year later, in 1609, news of the telescope reached Galileo. The day after he'd heard about the Dutch telescope, Galileo had already built one of his own. The first telescopes were quite weak, only capable of magnifying something to three or four times its normal size. Galileo gradually improved his technique until he had constructed a telescope 33 times more powerful than the naked eye, thereby overcoming the limitations of human observation. Taking this new tool in hand, Galileo turned it towards the heavens, and the things he saw proved once and for all that the heliocentric theory was right and the old geocentric theory was wrong. One of the first things Galileo discovered were the moons of Jupiter. If the geocentric theory was right, then all heavenly bodies should orbit the earth. But here were four heavenly bodies that orbited another heavenly body. Another thing Galileo noticed was that the planet Venus seemed to go through phases just like the moon. These phase changes could only be explained if Venus orbited the sun, not the earth. Yet another thing that Galileo found was a whole new planet, Neptune, which didn't even show up in the geocentric model of the universe. These findings alone were enough to refute the geocentric model of the universe, but Galileo did not stop there. He also learned that the moon, rather than being the perfect celestial orb that everyone assumed, was rather pocked with craters and mountains. He discovered that the Milky Way was made of hundreds of millions of stars packed closely together. This told Galileo that the universe was much bigger than people had assumed. The next year, in 1610, Galileo published his findings in a short treatise called 'The Starry Messenger.' This was the first scientific paper ever published. The Church's Response Galileo's discoveries made him an instant celebrity. Everyone wanted to have a look at the heavens through Galileo's new telescope. Galileo's support for the heliocentric model of the universe didn't get him into that much trouble - at least, at first. However, a few years later, in 1614, the Church decided to take a more hard-line approach on heliocentrism. Galileo found himself under suspicion by the Inquisition, and the very notion of heliocentrism was on trial. Galileo made his way to Rome to defend his name and heliocentrism. In the end, Galileo was cleared of suspicion, but he was ordered to keep his mouth shut about this heliocentric stuff. Galileo obediently kept his head down for the better part of a decade. However, when the old pope died in 1623 and was replaced by a new, friendlier pope, Galileo saw the opportunity he'd been waiting for to publish a new book on heliocentrism. It took Galileo two years of pleading to gain permission to publish his book. Some accounts claim that the Pope himself demanded that Galileo include geocentric arguments in his book as well as heliocentric arguments, much as some people today argue for creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Galileo was clearly insulted by the request, for when he published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he put the geocentric arguments, the words of the Pope himself, into the mouth of a character he named Simplicio, meaning 'simpleton.' This was too much for the Pope. Galileo was put on trial for heresy. The Church had warned Galileo to lay off the heliocentric talk, and now here he was, defending the heliocentric model and calling the Pope a simpleton for disagreeing. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, where he would spend the rest of his life. Galileo's discoveries made him an instant celebrity. Everyone wanted to have a look at the heavens through Galileo's new telescope. Galileo's support for the heliocentric model of the universe didn't get him into that much trouble - at least, at first. However, a few years later, in 1614, the Church decided to take a more hard-line approach on heliocentrism. Galileo found himself under suspicion by the Inquisition, and the very notion of heliocentrism was on trial. Galileo made his way to Rome to defend his name and heliocentrism. In the end, Galileo was cleared of suspicion, but he was ordered to keep his mouth shut about this heliocentric stuff. Galileo obediently kept his head down for the better part of a decade. However, when the old pope died in 1623 and was replaced by a new, friendlier pope, Galileo saw the opportunity he'd been waiting for to publish a new book on heliocentrism. It took Galileo two years of pleading to gain permission to publish his book. Some accounts claim that the Pope himself demanded that Galileo include geocentric arguments in his book as well as heliocentric arguments, much as some people today argue for creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Galileo was clearly insulted by the request, for when he published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he put the geocentric arguments, the words of the Pope himself, into the mouth of a character he named Simplicio, meaning 'simpleton.' This was too much for the Pope. Galileo was put on trial for heresy. The Church had warned Galileo to lay off the heliocentric talk, and now here he was, defending the heliocentric model and calling the Pope a simpleton for disagreeing. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, where he would spend the rest of his life.

* Michaelangelo

• The Last Judgment

• In the 1530s, a new Pope, Pope Clement VII, called Michelangelo back to Rome to paint the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel.

• This would become the Last Judgment, a gruesome scene, which depicts some going to Heaven but many, many others going to Hell.

• Art historians believe this was Michelangelo thumbing his nose at the greed and immorality of the Church of his day.

• To the horror of many, Michelangelo chose to depict these figures in the nude.

• This angered so many that another artist was commissioned to paint drapes over the naked bodies.

• In his later years, Michelangelo expanded his talents to include designing the new dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

• Although it was not completed before his death, its beauty stands as a reminder of his talent.

* Michaelangelo

• Personal Relationships

• Although Michelangelo was famous for his moods and his outbursts, he did have friendships that held his heart.

• Many believe he had an affinity for many of the male models whom he sculpted. However, the nature of these friendships has never been proven.

• Another relationship, which has been recorded by history, was his friendship with the noble widow Vittoria Colonna, a poet of the 16th century.

• Although many believe this was simply a friendship born out of a mutual faith and a love of poetry, the two of them wrote sonnet upon sonnet, which they penned to one another.

• Legend holds that Michelangelo once expressed of this relationship something to the effect of: 'My sole regret in life was that I did not kiss the widow's face in the same manner that I had her hand.'

• Although time may have added a bit of romance to something that was mere friendship, their many interactions prove they were dear friends