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Sample Chapter DISCOVERING THE HUMANITIES © 2010 Henry M. Sayre ISBN13: 9780205672301 ISBN10: 0205672302 Visit www.pearsonhighered.com/replocator to contact your local Pearson representative. Chapter begins on next page >> SAMPLE CHAPTER SAMPLE CHAPTER The pages of this Sample Chapter may have slight variations in final published form. www.pearsonhighered.com 7 The Renaissance Florence, Rome, and Venice Fig. 7.1 Florence Cathedral. Begun 1296 on original plan by Arnolfo di Cambio; redesigned 1357 and 1366 by Francesco Talenti, Andrea Orcagna, and Neri di Fioravanti; dome 1420–1436 by Filippo Brunelleschi; height at bronze ball atop lantern, 350¿. Baptistery, late 11th–early 12th century. Campanile ca. 1334–1350 by Giotto, Andrea Pisano, and Francesco Talenti. Essentially a 200-year-long construction project, Florence Cathedral was a source of extraordinary civic pride. It underscored Florence’s place as the center of European Renaissance culture. I have placed you at the very center of the The State as a Work of Art: Florence and the Medici “world. You may, as the free and proud Beyond Florence: The Ducal Courts and the Arts shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in From Florence to Rome: The High Renaissance the form you prefer. The High Renaissance in Venice Pico della Mirandola,” Oration on the Dignity of Man lorence, Italy, was the center of a more than 150- were the most powerful family in Florentine affairs from year-long cultural revival in Europe that we have 1418, when they became banker to the papacy, until 1494, come to call the Renaissance. It lasted from the when irate citizens removed them from power. A family of time of the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth cen- bankers with offices in Pisa, Rome, Bologna, Naples, Venice, tury (see chapter 6) until the early years of the six- Avignon, Lyon, Geneva, Basel, Cologne, Antwerp, Bruges, Fteenth century. The word Renaissance, from the Italian and London during the fifteenth century, the Medici never rinascita [ree-nah-shee-TAH], “rebirth,” became widely used in ruled Florence outright, but managed its affairs from behind the nineteenth century as historians began to assert that the the scenes. beliefs and values of the medieval world were transformed in No event better exemplifies the nature of the Italian Italy, and in Florence particularly. Where the Middle Ages had Renaissance and anticipates the character of Florence been an age of faith, in which the salvation of the soul was an under the Medici than a competition held in 1401 to individual’s chief preoccupation, the Renaissance was an age choose a designer for a pair of bronze doors for the north of intellectual exploration, in which the humanist strove to entrance to the city’s baptistery (Fig. 7.1), a building stand- understand in ever more precise and scientific terms the ing in front of the cathedral and used for the Christian rite nature of humanity and its relationship to the natural world. of baptism. This chapter traces the rise of the humanist Renaissance By the thirteenth century, a legend had developed that city-state as a center of culture in Italy in the fifteenth cen- the baptistery stood on the site of a Roman temple to Mars, tury, concentrating on Florence, Rome, and Venice (Map subsequently rededicated to Saint John the Baptist. The 7.1). In Florence the Medici [MED-uh-chee] family, whose octagonal building was thus the principal civic monument wealth derived from their considerable banking interests, did connecting Florence to its Roman roots, and it stood at the much to position the city as a model that others felt com- very heart of the city, in front of the cathedral, which was pelled to imitate. In Rome, the wealth at the disposal of the still under construction in 1401. The original doors, at the papacy, and the willingness of the Church to bestow that south entrance, had been designed before the advent of the wealth in the form of commissions to artists and architects in Black Death, and had fallen into disrepair. The Cloth Mer- an effort to restore that city to the greatness it enjoyed over chants’ Guild, or “Arte della Lana,” which was in charge of a thousand years earlier at the height of the Roman Empire, the Opera del Duomo—literally, the “Works of the essentially guaranteed its rebirth as a new and vital center of Cathedral”—was determined to create a new set of doors for culture. And the citizenry of Venice, where goods from the north entrance. Northern Europe flowed into the Mediterranean, and goods In many ways it is remarkable that the competition to from the Mediterranean and points east flowed into Europe, find the best design for the baptistery doors could even take thought of themselves as the most cosmopolitan and the place. As much as four-fifths of the city-state’s population most democratic people in the world. In this environment of had died in the Black Death of 1348, and the plague had enlightened leadership, the arts flourished. returned, though less severely, in 1363, 1374, 1383, and 1390. Finally, in the summer of 1400, it came again, this time killing 12,000 Florentines, about one-fifth of the popu- The State as a Work of Art: lation. Perhaps the guild hoped that a facelift for the baptis- Florence and the Medici tery might appease an evidently wrathful God. Furthermore, civic pride and patriotism were also at stake. Milan, the pow- The most preeminent Italian city-state in the fifteenth cen- erful city-state to the north, had laid siege to Florence, tury was Florence. It was so thoughtfully and carefully con- blocking trade to and from the seaport at Pisa and creating structed by the ruling Medici family that later scholars would the prospect of famine. The fate of the Florentine Republic come to view it as a work of art in its own right. The Medici seemed to be in the balance. 187 188 CHAPTER 7 THE RENAISSANCE D U C H LOMBARDY Y Milan Brescia Venice OTTOMAN O Padua ISTRIA DUCHY F M EMPIRE Piacenza Mantua OF IL Asti A DUCHY OF N DUCHY OF SAVOY MODENA FERRARA Genoa VENETIAN REPUBLIC Bologna REPUBLIC OF GENOA Florence DALMATIA DUCHY OF Pisa Urbino A LUCCA Siena d STATES REPUBLIC OF r Perugia i FLORENCE OF THE a t i Corsica CHURCH c (To Genoa) S Rome e a Naples Sardinia (To Spain) Tyrrhenian Sea KINGDOM OF THE TWO SICILIES Palermo M e d i t e 100 km r r a n 100 miles e Sicily a n S Map 7.1 Major Italian City-States e a during the Renaissance. So the competition was not merely about artistic talent. The Sacrifice of Isaac is the story of how God tested the The general feeling was that if God looked with favor on faith of the patriarch Abraham by commanding him to sac- the enterprise, the winner’s work might well be the city’s rifice Isaac, his only son. Abraham took Isaac into the salvation. In fact, during the summer of 1402, as the com- wilderness to perform the deed but at the last moment, an petition was concluding, the duke of Milan died in his angel stopped him, implying that God was convinced of encampment outside the walls of Florence. The siege was Abraham’s faith and would be satisfied with the sacrifice of over, and Florence was spared. If the Cloth Merchants a ram instead. Brunelleschi and Ghiberti both depicted the Guild could not take credit for these events, no one could same aspect of the story, the moment when the angel inter- deny the coincidence. venes. Brunelleschi placed Isaac in the center of the panel Thirty-four judges—artists, sculptors, and prominent and the other figures, whose number and type were proba- citizens, including a Medici—chose the winner from bly prescribed by the judges, all around (Fig. 7.2). The among the seven entrants. Each artist was asked to create a opposition between Abraham and the Angel, as the Angel bronze relief panel depicting the Hebrew Bible’s story of grabs Abraham’s arm to stop him from plunging his knife 1 the Sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22) in a 21 by 17 ΋2-inch into his son’s breast, is highly dramatic and realistic, an quatrefoil (a four-leaf clover shape set on a diamond). All effect achieved by the figures’ jagged movements. Ghiber- but two designs were eliminated, both by little-known 24- ti, in contrast, set the sacrifice to one side of the panel (Fig. year-old goldsmiths: Filippo Brunelleschi [broo-nel-ESS- 7.3). He replaced a sense of physical strain with graceful kee] (1377–1446) and Lorenzo Ghiberti [ghee-BEHR-tee] rhythms, so that Isaac and Abraham are unified by the (1378–1455). bowed curves of their bodies, Isaac’s nude body turning on THE RENAISSANCE CHAPTER 7 189 Fig. 7.2 Filippo Brunelleschi, Sacrifice of Isaac, competition relief Fig. 7.3 Lorenzo Ghiberti, Sacrifice of Isaac, competition relief commissioned for the doors of the baptistery. 1401–1402. Parcel-gilt commissioned for the doors of the baptistery. 1401–1402. Parcel-gilt 1 1 bronze, 21–*17 ΋2–. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. bronze, 21–*17 ΋2–. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. As opposed Brunelleschi’s background seems to be little more than a flat surface to Brunelleschi’s, Ghiberti’s background seems to be real, deep space, as if against which his forms are set. containing the air itself. its axis to face Abraham. The angel in the upper right cor- expect in the shallow space available in a relief sculpture, ner is represented in a more dynamic manner than in both sought to create a sense of a deep, receding space, Brunelleschi’s panel.
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