Saturday, May 22, 2010

The Renaissance Notes

The Renaissance

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

11:38 AM

  • Artist looking at new ways to paint people - not entirely biblical and featuring daily life
  • Brought about different views of religion and people
  • Division in church - east and west
  • Protestant break of
  • Martin Luther in Germany essentially makes a new sect of Christianity
  • In the renaissance there is more art created then there has been since the roman times

  • Medici Family had the most influence on the Italian Renaissance
  • Florence 1389 man baptized - not noble
  • Humble beginnings
  • Dawn of 15th century
  • Treasure trade
  • Holy church had most of it
  • Treasure was knowledge
  • Lost secrets of the ancient world
  • Achievement of classics were above everything that had happened in the past few hundred years
  • Florence was a major trading city that didn't have a king but different family's fought for power
  • Medici bank prestigious trading
  • Chose clients carefully
  • Helped a priest become pope and then had the pope (John 23) "remember"

  • Medici planned to rebuild and overambitious unfinished cathedral
  • They needed ancient architectural knowledge
  • Went to Brunelleschi - a maverick architect
  • Had a bad temper and "weird ideas"
  • Medici not intimidated
  • Was doing things that had not been seen for thousands of years
  • Used old styles like roman columns and such
  • With Medici's help sparked an archictual revolution
  • Medici was becoming patron to up their power
  • Brunelleschi went to work on the dome and got the go ahead from the authorities
  • Got inspiration from pantheon

  • Head Medici died and his son couzimo took over
  • Their rivals the albitzis controlled the city for generations
  • As medicis got more power the tensions rose and fighting heightened
  • Cauzimo was thrown in jail but a bribe got him out
  • He was banished and because he had paid for most of the cities economy the people got tired of the albitzis
  • They brought cauzimo back and gave him control of the city
  • Revenge was selective but brutal
  • Money flooded back into Florence
  • Work on the dome started once again
  • As they grew they became more powerful they

  • The patsi were another rivals of the Medici
  • They hatched a plan to kill the heirs of the Medici
  • They need to kill both brothers at the same time
  • On Easter Sunday they attempt the assassination in the cathedral
  • One of the brothers escaped wounded but alive
  • Violence broke out as fighting between the two sides supporters reeked havoc on Florence
  • The surviving brother, Lorenzo the Magnificent, went and made a deal with the other side
  • Returned to Florence - now peaceful and under the control of the Medici
  • Used his new found power to fund art
  • One that he sponsored was Leonardo da Vinci
  • Started the first art school in Florence
  • Michelangelo went there and Lorenzo thought he was great
  • Lorenzo took him home to live with him and his family
  • Michelangelo had two types of art - normal religious figures and humanist
  • There were other people struggling between the two
  • Creativity and art were at its peak but they were struggling financially
  • Medici banks couldn't keep up with what people were asking
  • Lorenzo fell ill and died at age 43
  • People of the church who had not liked the art that Lorenzo made (they thought it was sinful) damned him
  • Things flipped upside down when Lorenzo died
  • Radical Christians took over and - beat prostitutes, killed homosexuals, got rid of wigs and jewelry and makeup, got rid of literature and paintings that weren't Christian
  • Everything that Lorenzo did during his life was reversed

No comments:

Post a Comment