The Renaissance

The Medici family’s the first ones to spark the Renaissance. They are so wealthy that they decide to hire people to create pretty things for others to ooh and aah and recognize their wealth. They are not the only ones to come up with this idea, there are merely the first. Thousands of individuals became wealthy by Mediterranean trade. So these wealthy people have nothing else better to do with the wealth so they decided to flaunt it to display their wealth and make people jealous,

Eventually, the church became jealous and wanted some of the art too. At the same time, when we tie it into humanism, one of the overwhelming subjects of Renaissance art is religion, partly because Church becomes the #1 patron of art. But all art goes back to the main themes of Rome and Greece. To compare and contrast, art is entirely different,

Castiglione: The first one to present, in the form of a book called The Book of the Courtier, what it is to be a Renaissance man. He describes that the person must be well rounded, so rather than being skillful in one or two areas, the person must be educated in science, math, literature, participate in physical activities such as fencing.

Petrarch: A poet who perfected the art of the sonnet.

Boccaccio: Wrote the Decameron, a series of ten stories about a group of people who has isolated themselves to escape the Black Death. His stories give a great snapshot of what medieval life was like. Extreme likeliness to The Canterbury Tales.

Machiavelli: His most famous work is a story called The Prince, about a young prince who ponders on how to rule his kingdom in the future and Machiavelli is his tutor. Machiavelli teaches the prince to rule with an iron fist.

Erasmus: Wrote In Praise of Folly in honor of his friend Thomas More. More in Dutch means Folly, FYI.

Thomas More: Write the book Utopia, meaning perfect society or “no place” because he feels a Utopia doesn’t exist. He becomes a chancellor in England and gets executed by Henry 8. By this, he becomes martyred.

Gutenberg: Invented the printing press. By increasing the speed of printing, books become cheaper and people become more literate. The first book to be printed this way is the Bible, thus converting lots also. Within 50 years, every city has one, it becomes that popular.

Art begins to look more realistic as paintings and sculptures depict more realistic humans and postures. A proportion scale to the human body is discovered to prevent the body looking weird and defected. Natural poses replaced the stiff ones of previous statues and painting subjects. FYI, despite the artists being humanists, all paintings have heavy religious overtones.

Botticelli: Known for great composition in his paintings. Painter of the Birth of Venus.

Masaccio: Master of Linear Perspective. He was the first to apply the technique of linear prospective to his paintings, thus making his paintings look 3-D. Used the technique of the vanishing point. He's also famous for created the illusion of depth.

Giotto: Arranged things in a painting using lines and such to direct the viewer’s eye to the subject.

Ghiberti: Won the competition and carved biblical stories on the first set of bronze doors of the Baptistery by entering the best scene for the sacrifice of Isaac. He slipped his own bust into the doors. Good friends with Donatello.
Brunelleschi: Was the runner up to the same competition above. But because he was so good, they led him do the dome of the Baptistery.
Leonardo: Perhaps the greatest painter and inventor ever, he has only one known portrait of himself. Although it isn’t proven, Leonardo might’ve been in the bodysnatching business because his sketches could not have been done without the aid of a visual model, thus a skeleton, muscles, skulls, things you find after you cut people up. If he was caught participating, he could be executed. In his whole career, he used only two women for modeling. His notebooks contained many anatomy sketches and applied them to his art and practice sketches. He illustrates his scientific ideas and inventions in his notebooks that involve geometry with art, and diagrams that involve complicated physics. Lastly, as a well rounded Renaissance man, he does music too.
Raphael: He’s actually a student of Michelangelo. His art is so similar to Michelangelo that it’s hard to tell them apart and it’s implied that Raphael was trying to copy his art and techniques. His most famous painting is the The School of Athens where he replaces the faces of Greeks with the faces of Renaissance men.
Donatello: sculpted the first ever free standing David. David becomes really popular to sculpt, but Donatello was the first to sculpt him but Michelangelo’s version was the most popular.
Michelangelo: Claimed that stone talked to him, that he can see the things inside and chip away the excess rock to free them. Painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, however some parts are repainted for “cover ups” and also got into trouble for painting a butt above the altar to eternally moon the pope as he preach.
Holbein: Famous for his detailed portraits.

Great Thinkers

Gerbert d'Aurillac/ Pope Sylvester II: He is the one to make use of Indian numbers, the numbers we use today. 1 2 3 4 5 6 those are examples of them.

Peter Abelard: He is a philosopher. As Christians gain more knowledge, they begin to doubt the religion. Back then it was ok because they know they’re dumb and uneducated. But now when they know stuff, they begin to doubt. Man A says, “I’ve been trying to turn water to wine like Jesus. Why isn’t this working? Was Christianity a hoax?” and Abelard would use logic to answer them and regain their faith. He explains to everyone that there’s a difference between the visible and spiritual world and you can’t always see the stuff in the spiritual world.

St. Bernard: he takes Abelard’s work a step further. He explains that it is God’s work and it is impossible to figure out what God is thinking.

Thomas Aquinas: wrote the book Summa Theologica explaining that faith and reason are two separate things. Just because you can prove through reason one thing doesn’t mean that contradicts faith. He debates to himself in the book but at the end, he states that you can be an intellectual and not understand God. And just because you can’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Education

Schools are largely modeled on medieval concepts, some examples are university system, and structure of education. The church is the one that organizes and preserves all the information.

The word liberal comes from liber (knowledge) and arb (free). Combined, it means knowledge freeing the man. It includes three main subjects: Latin grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic. This is called the Trivium.

The next level is called the Quadrivium in which the liberal arts are arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. And even beyond that, you branch out to learn languages.

You’ve got three different levels of degrees. This may sound familiar; bachelors, masters, and doctor. For the master’s degree, you literally create a masterpiece just like in the blacksmith story. The order to gain knighthood was also similar in a way. Apprentice is equivalent to Page, Journeyman to Squire, and Master to Knight.

The code of Order and Law for the monasteries was St. Benedict. Physical punishment was common and very effective. And thanks to trade, all the knowledge from the east can travel to the monasteries.

The Role of Religion

One of the biggest reasons why Europe wasn’t able to handle the situation was because of Christianity. The religion forbids the practice of anatomy, so the Europeans had no clue about the human body. Instead, they follow a concept that the body is composed of four fluids, one of which is blood, and sickness is caused by too much of one fluid. When the Black Death came, people thought they had too much blood and went to barbers to bleed themselves.

Now these barbers take a knife, cut a person, use the knife with the infected blood of another to cut another, and – oops – he cuts himself along the way. All customers and barber are now infected. People are trying to cut/pop the bubbles, spreading them even more.

In the panic, people thought God was punishing them because there are sinners among them. They go to the outcasts, the Jews, the witches, and execute them in belief they will rid them of the town’s sins and stop the plague. This is the first time people have a problem with Jews in Europe.

Despite all the miserable things, people have more faith in the church. People called Flagellants whip themselves out in the street as an apology to God for society’s sins. They get infected easily as their wounds open.

And to strengthen this belief even more, people in monasteries, religious education centers, survived. This led the people to believe that then sinless and the religious are skilled. Actually, it was the fact that monasteries are very isolated.

The effect of all this is a sense that death is all around them. Everyone is miserable and emo.

Black Death

All that awful city life set the stage up for this. The Black Death is actually not just a bubonic plague; it’s a series of unfortunate events and illnesses that hit Europe over a period of years. They just mashed them all together and call it dun dun dun… the Black Death.

40 years before the plague even hits, Europe is struck with long winters, bad weather, and tremendous flooding that seriously cut the food supply. With the food shortage, people become malnourished and their immune system weakens.

Factor #2 is trade. People and goods are flying all over the world by ships, caravans, from China, from Africa, who cares? By ancient standards, it take no time to travel from one place to another and if it takes so little time for gold to arrive in Italy, then why not diseases?

Pandemic: a disease that crosses continents. Most people believed that the bubonic plague that destroyed 1/3 (and in some areas 1/2) of the European population came from China. The first reporting was a town in Asia Minor where a Mongol siege arrived in the late 13^th century.

The way it is spread is fleas. The fleas bite the rats, animals, or humans. Back then, people bathed once a month or so, so everyone had fleas. The cites were practically a breeding ground for rats. So when an infected rat from China arrives, it’s everywhere. So when the flea sucks the infected blood from the rat, it clogs their stomach so they never get full. Eventually, the flea drinks the blood of a human, discovers the blood has nowhere to go so –

The flea vomits the infected blood into the human.

Have a great lunch guys.

The Black Death is called the Black Death because people who caught the plague turned black. The disease is nasty and fast. A person will fall dead within three days of getting the plague. The worst of it is that it is a violent death and happens in front of everyone’s faces. The moment a person walks out the door, he will find the bodies of the ones who died the night previous. Common symptoms include bubbles that ooze pus, fever, and vomiting.

The plague is already existent during Justinian’s reign, but spreads only so far because there was no contact with other people. But since the Second Agricultural Revolution, the plague is on the move once more. And it wasn’t like they can quarantine cities. We can’t even do that today.

The Process of a Sweater: Medieval Times

• Farmer: raises and breeds the sheep. He’s the one who shaves the sheep, and puts it in a bag. He sells the wool to the
• Spinner: spins the strands of wool into yarn. The spinner then sells the yarn to a
• Weaver: takes a loom (new invention!) and weave wool cloth. The weaver then takes the fabric and sells it to the
• Fuller: Ok, the wool came off a sheep, an animal. It’s abrasive, itchy, and nasty. So the fuller’s job is to relax the wool. They put the fabric in a bowl of urine and stomp on it. FYI, the urine is often taxed. Like a tax collector will come to your house and take not only your money but also your pee. The fuller will sell the clean fresh cloth to a
• Dyer: When the fuller takes the fabric out, it’s clean but looks icky. So the dyer’s job is to make it look nicer. After dying the fabric, the dyer sells the finished fabric to the
• Finisher: who sews and cuts it who then sells the finished sweater to a
• Merchant: who loads it on a ship and sells it to a
• Consumer: who wears the product?

The above is still simplified. This process actually takes a really long time, like months even today, to complete.

Guilds

Guilds are another result of trade. A guild is a medieval union; groups of people that are of the same profession and get together. This story will tell the pros and cons of guilds:

Senerio One: GOOD

There are three blacksmiths in APWorldville: A, B, and C. A and B charge horseshoes for $4, but C charges horseshoes for $3. People flock to C because of cheaper prices. But soon they realize that those horseshoes last for only four months while horseshoes from A and B lasts all year. People flock to blacksmiths A and B.

One day, A, B, and C realize if they get together and form the International Brotherhood of Horseshoes, they can control the price. If they all charge everyone $5 a horseshoe, then there won’t be competition from anyone because “anyone” is their friend! That way, we all make more money, there is nowhere else the villagers can get horseshoes. Of course, we won’t overcharge or produce bad quality because then villagers get desperate and head out to the next village.

Scenario Two BAD

Another thing they realize they can control is access to the profession. Blacksmith D comes into town and charges everyone $1. To protect their shops, A, B, and C play dirty. They can tell everyone “hey, A’s got 24 years experience, B’s got 30, and C’s got 264 years. This new guy, he’s only got 3. Every week, we get together and swap horseshoe knowledge so you know we’re smarter than D. Who do you trust? And by the way, he uses really bad material for his horseshoes.” And they wink at the end. That’s how Guilds work.

Scenario Three GOOD

So D is desperate to join the International Brotherhood of Horseshoes (IBH) so he can have a life. But the IBH gives their customers quality assurances. So how would they live up to that potential if D stinks at blacksmithing? This is where the Guild is good. The IBH has a system of qualifications, standards, for the profession. So when Mr. Jellinek walks into a blacksmith shop with membership to the IBH, Mr. Jellinek can be assured that he’s going to bet a good horseshoe because that blacksmith has been through a proper education. This prevents people from waking up one day going, “I’m a master blacksmith!” and ruins everyone’s life by giving farmers awful horseshoes. No. You’re certified a master blacksmith by other master blacksmiths.

Scenario Four GOOD

D decides to join the IBH. But first he must pass the tests. D starts out as an apprentice to A. First, D starts by just watching A work, working in A’s shop, and learn the skills that way. When the time comes, A will promote D to a Journeyman. Now is D’s chance to make horseshoes right alongside with A! As D work, A will always be by his side, inspecting and helping his skills as a blacksmith. Eventually, D feels confident in his skills and asks to become a master blacksmith. He creates a masterpiece that reflects his knowledge of blacksmithing, presents it to the next IBH meeting, and a) gets rejected or b) gets certified. D opens his own shop, has a successful life, and dies after becoming infected with the bubonic plague. But until that death, fear of competition and going out of business will never worry him. J

Overall GOOD

The Guilds have a LOT of good things and only a few bad things