Section Overview |
The articulation of natural laws, |
Renaissance intellectuals and artists revived classical motifs in the fine arts and classical values in literature and education. Intellectuals—later called humanists—employed new methods of textual criticism based on a deep knowledge of Greek and Latin, and revived classical ideas that made human beings the measure of all things. Artists formulated new styles based on ancient models. The humanists remained Christians while promoting ancient philosophical ideas and classical texts. Artists and architects such as Brunelleschi, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael glorified human potential and the human form in the visual arts, basing their art on classical models while using new techniques of painting and drawing, such as geometric perspective. The invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century accelerated the development and dissemination of these new attitudes, notably in Europe north of the Alps (the Northern Renaissance).
During the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans developed new approaches to and methods for looking at the natural world in what historians have called the Scientific Revolution. Aristotle’s classical cosmology and Ptolemy’s astronomical system came under increasing scrutiny from natural philosophers (later called scientists) such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. The philosophers Francis Bacon and René Descartes articulated comprehensive theories of inductive and deductive reasoning to give the emerging scientific method a sound foundation. Bacon urged the collection and analysis of data about the world and spurred the development of an international community of natural philosophers dedicated to the vast enterprise of what came to be called natural science. In medicine, the new approach to knowledge led physicians such as William Harvey to undertake observations that produced new explanations of anatomy and physiology and to challenge the traditional theory of health and disease (the four humors) espoused by Galen in the second century.
The articulation of natural laws, often expressed mathematically, became the goal of science, especially after the Europeans’ encounters with the Western Hemisphere. The explorations produced new knowledge of geography and the world’s peoples through direct observation, and this seemed to give credence to new approaches to knowledge more generally. Yet while they developed inquiry-based epistemologies, Europeans also continued to draw upon longstanding explanations of the natural world.
Source: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf
During the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans developed new approaches to and methods for looking at the natural world in what historians have called the Scientific Revolution. Aristotle’s classical cosmology and Ptolemy’s astronomical system came under increasing scrutiny from natural philosophers (later called scientists) such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. The philosophers Francis Bacon and René Descartes articulated comprehensive theories of inductive and deductive reasoning to give the emerging scientific method a sound foundation. Bacon urged the collection and analysis of data about the world and spurred the development of an international community of natural philosophers dedicated to the vast enterprise of what came to be called natural science. In medicine, the new approach to knowledge led physicians such as William Harvey to undertake observations that produced new explanations of anatomy and physiology and to challenge the traditional theory of health and disease (the four humors) espoused by Galen in the second century.
The articulation of natural laws, often expressed mathematically, became the goal of science, especially after the Europeans’ encounters with the Western Hemisphere. The explorations produced new knowledge of geography and the world’s peoples through direct observation, and this seemed to give credence to new approaches to knowledge more generally. Yet while they developed inquiry-based epistemologies, Europeans also continued to draw upon longstanding explanations of the natural world.
Source: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf
Renaissance Italy
Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) shows the correlations of ideal human body proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in his De Architectura.
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Renaissance Men and Women
- key Renaissance figures
- Giotto
- Masaccio
- Dante Alighieri (Divine Comedy)
- Petrarch
- Leonardo Bruni
- Pico della Mirandola (Dignity of Man)
- Marsilio Ficino (Florentine Academy)
- Lorenzo Valla
- Leonardo da Vinci (Mona Lisa, Last Supper)
- Leon Battista Alberti
- Francesco Sforza
- Cosimo Medici
- Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince, 1513)
- Francesco Guicciardini (History of Italy)
- Baldassare Castiglione (The Courtier)
- Filipo Brunelleschi (Il Duomo)
- Donatello (David)
- Sandro Botticelli (Birth of Venus, Primavera)
- Michelangelo (Pieta, David, Moses, Sistine Chapel)
- Pope Julius II
- Pope Clement VII
- Raphael (School of Athens)
- Pope Leo X
- Andrea Palladio
- Titian
- Giovanni Bellini
Northern Renaissance
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People:
People:
- Jan Van Eyck (Giovanni Arnolfini)
- Pieter Brueghel the Elder (Peasant Wedding, Peasant Dance, Winter Landscape)
- Hieronymus Bosch (Garden of Earthly Delights)
- Albrecht Dürer (Knight, Death, and the Devil, Self-portrait, Martyrdom of 10,000)
- Hans Holbein the Younger (Henry VIII, Georg Giese, The Ambassadors)
- Francis I of France
- Johann Gutenberg of Mainz
- Christine de Pizan (City of Ladies, 1405)
- François Rabelais (Gargantua and Pantagruel, 1532–1564)
- Michel de Montaigne (Essays)
- William Shakespeare (Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, Sonnets)
- Christopher Marlowe (Doctor Faustus)
Mannerism and Baroque Art
BAROQUE
- Gian Bernini (Ecstasy of Saint Theresa)
- Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
- St. Paul's Cathedral, London by Christopher Wren
- Palace of Versailles, France
- Palace of Charlottenburg, Germany
- Les Invalides, France
- Caravaggio (Taking of Christ, Salome with Head of John the Baptist, David with Head of Goliath)
- Artemisia Gentileschi (Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1614–1620)
- Peter Paul Reubens (Marie de' Medici Cycle, 1622–1624)
- Nicolas Poussin (Ashes of Phokion, 1648)
- Johann Sebastian Bach (Brandenburg Concertos)
- George Frideric Handel (Messiah)
- Antonio Vivaldi (Four Seasons)
- Diego Velasquez (Las Meninas)
Traditional Alchemy and Astrology
Nostradamus was a French seer who published prophecies that have since become famous. He's been credited with predicting the Great Fire of London, the rise of Napoleon and Adolf Hitler, and 9/11.
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The Scientific Revolution
Tycho Brahe's body has been exhumed twice for study, in 1901 and 2010. He likely died of burst bladder and his artificial nose was probably made of brass rather gold, as some believed in his time.
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