The Renaissance

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The Renaissance
1450 - 1600
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naissance
Re
re
birth

• A Rebirth of what??
• The Greeks and Romans
• Ancient Culture

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THE RENAISSANCE COULD BE CONSIDERED A BRIDGE
The Middle Ages
The Modern World
By celebrating the beauty of nature and the
dignity of mankind, Renaissance artists and
scholars helped shape the intellectual and
cultural history of the modern world.
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POLITICAL STRUCTURE

• Nations as we know them today did not exist ?
  City States
• What is a City State?

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• What are the advantages? Disadvantages?

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Constitutional Oligarchies

• 2 - 12 (depending of the city) of the male
  population in these city-states actually had the
  right to vote.
• Examples Venice, Siena, Lucca and Florence
  (until the Medici family)

• Executive Bodies dominated by the most powerful
  families
• Legislative or advisory councils
• Special Commission

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Hereditary Despotism

• Signori run by a single family. Example Milan
  was ruled the Sforza family
• What does this seem like that exists in todays
  society?

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Republics

• Example Venice its constitution had a balance
  of political interests
• The doge an official elected for life by the
  Senate executive authority (like a monarch)

• The Great Council 2,500 patricians elected a
  Senate which represented nobility - No one
  represented the peasants who were ½ the population

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Papal States

• Pope the spiritual prince
• He was elected for life by cardinals
• Ran just like any other city-state
• There was a declining role of the papacy over the
  city-states after the Babylonian Captivity

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Military Importance

• Why was it so necessary in this type of political
  environment to have a strong military?

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Economic Structure

• Development of banking How does this help to
  stimulate the economy?
• Florences currency the gold florin became the
  standard currency in European trade.

• Positives?
• They were able to provide credit to purchasers
  stimulating trade.
• International Trade

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Economic Structure

• Negatives?
• Risky the King of England had forced Florentine
  merchants to loan him money he defaulted when
  he failed during an invasion of France in the 100
  years War many bankers went into bankruptcy.

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Social Structure
POPULO GROSSO fat people 5 of the
population elite/nobles, wealthy merchants, and
manufacturers.
MEDIOCI middle smaller merchants and master
artisans.
POPULO MINUTO little people bulk of the
urban population.
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Social Structure
There was some social mobility Why?
What were the social classes based on?
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Introduction to Renaissance Culture
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Florence, Italy

• Center of the Southern Renaissance
• Why? Why did it become the center of the
  Renaissance?
• The Arno Rivier which flowed through the port
  of Pisa, helped trade and commerce (Florence
  conquered Pisa)
• Medici Family encouraged a cultural movement
• City honored accomplishments of citizens
• Education many schools(civic as well as
  private) university highest literacy rate in
  Europe

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The Medici Family - Cosimo

• Wealthy Banking Family provided stability
• Banished rival clans
• Manipulated electoral process
• Cosimos Grandson survived an assassination
  attempt hours later enemies of the family were
  hanging upside down from a government building
  including the archbishop of Pisa
• Botticelli was commissioned to paint them as they
  swung.

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Culture of the Renaissance

• Petrarch Tuscan poet copied ancient works
  from manuscripts
• Discovered texts no one new about
• Inspired successors to find and copy other
  classical manuscripts

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Culture of the Renaissance

• Gutenberg development of Printing
• Diffusion of a variety of
• Histories
• Treatises
• Biographies
• Autobiographies and poems
• LIBRARIES

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Culture of the Renaissance
Scholasticism ? Humanism The study of law,
medicine and theology To The study of grammar,
rhetoric, and metaphysics
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Petrarch mocked scholastics They can tell you
how many hairs there are in the lions mane. . .
With how many arms the squid binds a shipwrecked
sailor. . . . All these things or the greater
part of it is wrong . . . . And even if they
were true, they would not contribute anything to
the blessed life. What is the use, I pray you,
of knowing the nature of beasts, birds, fishes
and serpents, and not knowing, or spurning the
nature of man, to what end we are born, and from
were and whither we pilgrimage. What is a
Renaissance Man?