THE RENAISSANCE
The term Middle Ages was coined by scholars in the 15th century to
designate the interval between the downfall of the Classical world of Greece and
Rome and its rediscovery at the beginning of their own century, a revival in
which they felt they were participating. Indeed, the notion of a long period of
cultural darkness had been expressed by Petrarch even earlier. Events at the end
of the Middle Ages, particularly beginning in the 12th century, set in motion a
series of social, political, and intellectual transformations that culminated in the
Renaissance. These included the increasing failure of the Roman Catholic
Church and the Holy Roman Empire to provide a stable and unifying framework
for the organization of spiritual and material life, the rise in importance of city-
states and national monarchies, the development of national languages, and the
breakup of the old feudal structures.
While the spirit of the Renaissance ultimately took many forms, it was
expressed earliest by the intellectual movement called humanism. Humanism
was initiated by secular men of letters rather than by the scholar-clerics who had
dominated medieval intellectual life and had developed the Scholastic
philosophy. Humanism began and achieved fruition first in Italy. Its
predecessors were men like Dante and Petrarch, and its chief protagonists
included Gianozzo Manetti, Leonardo Bruni, Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico
della Mirandola, Lorenzo Valla, and Coluccio Salutati. The fall of
Constantinople in 1453 provided humanism with a major boost, for many
eastern scholars fled to Italy, bringing with them important books and
manuscripts and a tradition of Greek scholarship.
Humanism had several significant features. First, it took human nature in
all of its various manifestations and achievements as its subject. Second, it
stressed the unity and compatibility of the truth found in all philosophical and
theological schools and systems, a doctrine known as syncretism. Third, it
emphasized the dignity of man. In place of the medieval ideal of a life of
penance as the highest and noblest form of human activity, the humanists looked
to the struggle of creation and the attempt to exert mastery over nature. Finally,
humanism looked forward to a rebirth of a lost human spirit and wisdom. In the
course of striving to recover it, however, the humanists assisted in the
consolidation of a new spiritual and intellectual outlook and in the development
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of a new body of knowledge. The effect of humanism was to help men break
free from the mental strictures imposed by religious orthodoxy, to inspire free
inquiry and criticism, and to inspire a new confidence in the possibilities of
human thought and creations.
From Italy the new humanist spirit and the Renaissance it engendered
spread north to all parts of Europe, aided by the invention of printing, which
allowed literacy and the availability of Classical texts to grow explosively.
Foremost among northern humanists was Desiderius Erasmus, whose Praise of
Folly (1509) epitomized the moral essence of humanism in its insistence on
heartfelt goodness as opposed to formalistic piety. The intellectual stimulation
provided by humanists helped spark the Reformation, from which, however,
many humanists, including Erasmus, recoiled. By the end of the 16th century the
battle of Reformation and Counter-Reformation had commanded much of
Europe’s energy and attention, while the intellectual life was poised on the brink
of the Enlightenment.
Artistic developments and the emergence of Florence
It was in art that the spirit of the Renaissance achieved its sharpest
formulation. Art came to be seen as a branch of knowledge, valuable in its own
right and capable of providing man with images of God and his creations as well
as with insights into man’s position in the universe. In the hands of men such as
Leonardo da Vinci it was even a science, a means for exploring nature and a
record of discoveries. Art was to be based on the observation of the visible
world and practiced according to mathematical principles of balance, harmony,
and perspective, which were developed at this time. In the works of painters
such as Masaccio, the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Fra Angelico,
Sandro Botticelli, Perugino, Piero della Francesca, Raphael, and Titian;
sculptors such as Giovanni Pisano, Donatello, Andrea del Verrocchio, Lorenzo
Ghiberti, and Michelangelo; and architects such as Leon Battista Alberti, Filippo
Brunelleschi, Andrea Palladio, Michelozzo, and Filarete, the dignity of man
found expression in the arts.
In Italy the Renaissance proper was preceded by an important “proto-
renaissance” in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, which drew inspiration
from Franciscan radicalism. St. Francis of Assisi had rejected the formal
Scholasticism of the prevailing Christian theology and gone out among the poor
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praising the beauties and spiritual value of nature. His example inspired Italian
artists and poets to take pleasure in the world around them. The work of the
most famous artist of the proto-renaissance period, Giotto (1266/67 or 1276–
1337), reveals a new pictorial style that depends on clear, simple structure and
great psychological penetration rather than on the flat, linear decorativeness and
hierarchical compositions of his predecessors and contemporaries, such as the
Florentine painter Cimabue and the Siennese painters Duccio and Simone
Martini. The great poet Dante lived at about the same time as Giotto, and his
poetry shows a similar concern with inward experience and the subtle shades
and variations of human nature. Although his Divine Comedy belongs to the
Middle Ages in its plan and ideas, its subjective spirit and power of expression
look forward to the Renaissance. Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio also belong
to this proto-renaissance period, both through their extensive studies of Latin
literature and through their writings in the vernacular. Unfortunately, the terrible
plague of 1348 and subsequent civil wars submerged both the revival of
humanistic studies and the growing interest in individualism and naturalism
revealed in the works of Giotto and Dante. The spirit of the Renaissance did not
surface again until the 15th century.
In 1401 a competition was held at Florence to award the commission for
bronze doors to be placed on the baptistery of San Giovanni. Defeated by the
goldsmith and painter Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi and Donatello left
for Rome, where they immersed themselves in the study of ancient architecture
and sculpture. When they returned to Florence and began to put their knowledge
into practice, the rationalized art of the ancient world was reborn. The founder
of Renaissance painting was Masaccio (1401–28). The intellectuality of his
conceptions, the monumentality of his compositions, and the high degree of
naturalism in his works mark Masaccio as a pivotal figure in Renaissance
painting. The succeeding generation of artists—Piero della Francesca, the
Pollaiuolo brothers, and Verrochio—pressed forward with researches into linear
and aerial perspective and anatomy, developing a style of scientific naturalism.
The situation in Florence was uniquely favourable to the arts. The civic
pride of Florentines found expression in statues of the patron saints
commissioned from Ghiberti and Donatello for niches in the grain-market
guildhall known as Or San Michele, and in the largest dome built since
antiquity, placed by Brunelleschi on the Florence cathedral. The cost of
construction and decoration of palaces, churches, and monasteries was
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underwritten by wealthy merchant families, chief among whom were the Medici
family.
The Medici traded in all of the major cities in Europe, and one of the most
famous masterpieces of Northern Renaissance art, The Portinari Altarpiece, by
Hugo van der Goes (c. 1476; Uffizi, Florence), was commissioned by their
agent, Tommaso Portinari. Instead of being painted with the customary tempera
of the period, the work is painted with translucent oil glazes that produce
brilliant jewel-like colour and a glossy surface. Early Northern Renaissance
painters were more concerned with the detailed reproduction of objects and their
symbolic meaning than with the study of scientific perspective and anatomy
even after these achievements became widely known. On the other hand, central
Italian painters began to adopt the oil medium soon after The Portinari
Altarpiece was brought to Florence in 1476.
The High Renaissance
High Renaissance art, which flourished for about 35 years, from the early
1490s to 1527, when Rome was sacked by imperial troops, revolved around
three towering figures: Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Michelangelo (1475–
1564), and Raphael (1483–1520). Each of the three embodied an important
aspect of the period: Leonardo was the ultimate Renaissance man, a solitary
genius to whom no branch of study was foreign; Michelangelo emanated
creative power, conceiving vast projects that drew for inspiration on the human
body as the ultimate vehicle for emotional expression; Raphael created works
that perfectly expressed the Classical spirit—harmonious, beautiful, and serene.
Although Leonardo was recognized in his own time as a great artist, his
restless researches into anatomy, the nature of flight, and the structure of plant
and animal life left him little time to paint. His fame rests on a few completed
works; among them are the Mona Lisa (1503–05; Louvre), The Virgin of the
Rocks (c. 1485; Louvre), and the sadly deteriorated fresco The Last Supper
(1495–98; Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan).
Michelangelo’s early sculpture, such as the Pietà (1499; St. Peter’s,
Vatican City) and the David (1501–04; Accademia, Florence), reveals a
breathtaking technical ability in concert with a disposition to bend rules of
anatomy and proportion in the service of greater expressive power. Although
Michelangelo thought of himself first as a sculptor, his best-known work is the
giant ceiling fresco of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. It was completed in
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four years, from 1508 to 1512, and presents an incredibly complex but
philosophically unified composition that fuses traditional Christian theology
with Neoplatonic thought.
Raphael’s greatest work, The School of Athens (1508–11), was painted in
the Vatican at the same time that Michelangelo was working on the Sistine
Chapel. In this large fresco Raphael brought together representatives of the
Aristotelian and Platonic schools of thought. Instead of the densely packed,
turbulent surface of Michelangelo’s masterpiece, Raphael placed his groups of
calmly conversing philosophers and artists in a vast court with vaults receding
into the distance. Raphael was initially influenced by Leonardo, and he
incorporated the pyramidal composition and beautifully modelled faces of The
Virgin of the Rocks into many of his own paintings of the Madonna. He differed
from Leonardo, however, in his prodigious output, his even temperament, and
his preference for Classical harmony and clarity.
The creator of High Renaissance architecture was Donato Bramante
(1444–1514), who came to Rome in 1499, when he was 55. His first Roman
masterpiece, the Tempietto (1502) at San Pietro in Montorio, is a centralized
dome structure that recalls Classical temple architecture. Pope Julius II (reigned
1503–13) chose Bramante to be papal architect, and together they devised a plan
to replace the 4th-century Old St. Peter’s with a new church of gigantic
dimensions. The project was not completed, however, until long after
Bramante’s death.
Humanistic studies continued under the powerful popes of the High
Renaissance, Julius II and Leo X, as did the development of polyphonic music.
The Sistine Choir, which performed at services when the pope officiated, drew
musicians and singers from all of Italy and northern Europe. Among the most
famous composers who became members were Josquin des Prez (1445–1521)
and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–84).
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Competition from Mannerism
The Renaissance as a unified historical period ended with the fall of Rome
in 1527. The strains between Christian faith and Classical humanism led to
Mannerism in the latter part of the 16th century. Great works of art animated by
the Renaissance spirit, however, continued to be made in northern Italy and in
northern Europe.
Seemingly unaffected by the Mannerist crisis, northern Italian painters
such as Correggio (1494–1534) and Titian (1488/90–1576) continued to
celebrate both Venus and the Virgin Mary without apparent conflict. The oil
medium, introduced to northern Italy by Antonello da Messina and quickly
adopted by Venetian painters who could not use fresco because of the damp
climate, seemed particularly adapted to the sanguine, pleasure-loving culture of
Venice. A succession of brilliant painters—Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian,
Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese—developed the lyrical Venetian painting style
that combined pagan subject matter, sensuous handling of colour and paint
surface, and a love of extravagant settings. Closer in spirit to the more
intellectual Florentines of the Quattrocento was the German painter Albrecht
Dürer (1471–1528), who experimented with optics, studied nature assiduously,
and disseminated his powerful synthesis of Renaissance and Northern Gothic
styles through the Western world by means of his engravings and woodcuts.
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REFORMATION
Reformation, also called Protestant Reformation, the religious revolution
that took place in the Western church in the 16th century. Its greatest leaders
undoubtedly were Martin Luther and John Calvin. Having far-reaching political,
economic, and social effects, the Reformation became the basis for the founding
of Protestantism, one of the three major branches of Christianity.
The world of the late medieval Roman Catholic Church from which the
16th-century reformers emerged was a complex one. Over the centuries the
church, particularly in the office of the papacy, had become deeply involved in
the political life of western Europe. The resulting intrigues and political
manipulations, combined with the church’s increasing power and wealth,
contributed to the bankrupting of the church as a spiritual force. Abuses such as
the sale of indulgences (or spiritual privileges) by the clergy and other charges
of corruption undermined the church’s spiritual authority. These instances must
be seen as exceptions, however, no matter how much they were played up by
polemicists. For most people, the church continued to offer spiritual comfort.
There is some evidence of anticlericalism, but the church at large enjoyed
loyalty as it had before. One development is clear: the political authorities
increasingly sought to curtail the public role of the church and thereby triggered
tension.
The Reformation of the 16th century was not unprecedented. Reformers
within the medieval church such as St. Francis of Assisi, Valdes (founder of the
Waldensians), Jan Hus, and John Wycliffe addressed aspects in the life of the
church in the centuries before 1517. In the 16th century Erasmus of Rotterdam,
a great humanist scholar, was the chief proponent of liberal Catholic reform that
attacked popular superstitions in the church and urged the imitation of Christ as
the supreme moral teacher. These figures reveal an ongoing concern for renewal
within the church in the years before Luther is said to have posted his Ninety-
five Theses on the door of the Castle Church, Wittenberg, Germany, on October
31, 1517, the eve of All Saints’ Day—the traditional date for the beginning of
the Reformation. (See Researcher’s Note.)
Martin Luther claimed that what distinguished him from previous
reformers was that while they attacked corruption in the life of the church, he
went to the theological root of the problem—the perversion of the church’s
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doctrine of redemption and grace. Luther, a pastor and professor at the
University of Wittenberg, deplored the entanglement of God’s free gift of grace
in a complex system of indulgences and good works. In his Ninety-five Theses,
he attacked the indulgence system, insisting that the pope had no authority over
purgatory and that the doctrine of the merits of the saints had no foundation in
the gospel. Here lay the key to Luther’s concerns for the ethical and theological
reform of the church: Scripture alone is authoritative (sola scriptura) and
justification is by faith (sola fide), not by works. While he did not intend to
break with the Catholic church, a confrontation with the papacy was not long in
coming. In 1521 Luther was excommunicated; what began as an internal reform
movement had become a fracture in western Christendom.
The Reformation movement within Germany diversified almost
immediately, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther.
Huldrych Zwingli built a Christian theocracy in Zürich in which church and
state joined for the service of God. Zwingli agreed with Luther in the centrality
of the doctrine of justification by faith, but he espoused a different
understanding of the Holy Communion. Luther had rejected the Catholic
church’s doctrine of transubstantiation, according to which the bread and wine
in Holy Communion became the actual body and blood of Christ. According to
Luther’s notion, the body of Christ was physically present in the elements
because Christ is present everywhere, while Zwingli claimed that entailed a
spiritual presence of Christ and a declaration of faith by the recipients.
Another group of reformers, often though not altogether correctly referred to as
“radical reformers,” insisted that baptism be performed not on infants but on
adults who had professed their faith in Jesus. Called Anabaptists, they remained
a marginal phenomenon in the 16th century but survived—despite fierce
persecution—as Mennonites and Hutterites into the 21st century. Opponents of
the ancient Trinitarian dogma made their appearance as well. Known as
Socinians, after the name of their founder, they established flourishing
congregations, especially in Poland.
Another important form of Protestantism (as those protesting against their
suppressions were designated by the Diet of Speyer in 1529) is Calvinism,
named for John Calvin, a French lawyer who fled France after his conversion to
the Protestant cause. In Basel, Switzerland, Calvin brought out the first edition
of his Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536, the first systematic,
theological treatise of the new reform movement. Calvin agreed with Luther’s
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teaching on justification by faith. However, he found a more positive place for
law within the Christian community than did Luther. In Geneva, Calvin was able
to experiment with his ideal of a disciplined community of the elect. Calvin also
stressed the doctrine of predestination and interpreted Holy Communion as a
spiritual partaking of the body and blood of Christ. Calvin’s tradition merged
eventually with Zwingli’s into the Reformed tradition, which was given
theological expression by the (second) Helvetic Confession of 1561.
The Reformation spread to other European countries over the course of
the 16th century. By mid century, Lutheranism dominated northern Europe.
Eastern Europe offered a seedbed for even more radical varieties of
Protestantism, because kings were weak, nobles strong, and cities few, and
because religious pluralism had long existed. Spain and Italy were to be the
great centres of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and Protestantism never
gained a strong foothold there.
In England the Reformation’s roots were both political and religious.
Henry VIII, incensed by Pope Clement VII’s refusal to grant him an annulment
of his marriage, repudiated papal authority and in 1534 established the Anglican
church with the king as the supreme head. In spite of its political implications,
the reorganization of the church permitted the beginning of religious change in
England, which included the preparation of a liturgy in English, the Book of
Common Prayer. In Scotland, John Knox, who spent time in Geneva and was
greatly influenced by John Calvin, led the establishment of Presbyterianism,
which made possible the eventual union of Scotland with England. For further
treatment of the Reformation, see Protestantism, history of. For a discussion of
the religious doctrine, see Protestantism.
