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Text 4. The Spirit of the Renaissance




Read the text and answer the questions.

1. What ideas marked Renaissance thought?

2. Why did the Renaissance begin in Italian cities?

3. How did the Renaissance spread beyond Italy?

4. What aspects of Greek and Roman culture appealed to some people during the Renaissance?

5. What were the effects of the invention of movable type?

 

Late in the Middle Ages, new ways of looking at life took hold in Europe and soon affected human affairs of all kinds as a new spirit of optimism, confidence, and creativity developed. This remarkable period began in the fourteenth century in the city-sates of Italy and lasted into the sixteenth century. It is known as the Renaissance, from the French word for “rebirth,” and is considered by historians to mark the opening phase of the modern era.

The Renaissance began about 1350 in the northern Italian city-states. These cities, profiting from their central location, had long dominated trade routes between Eastern and Western Europe and between Europe and the Middle East. By the 1300’s they had become the richest cities in Europe.

Italian merchants and bankers had the wealth to acquire libraries and fine works of art. They admired and encouraged art, literature, and scholarship. Surrounded by reminders of ancient Rome – amphitheaters, monuments, and sculptures – they took an interest in classical culture and thought.

In Italy the most famous patrons – supporters – of the arts were the members of the Medici family. The Medici were bankers who had branch offices in cities all over Western Europe. They became active in the politics of Florence in the 1400’s and controlled the city for most of the next 300 years.

The best-known member of the family was Lorenzo de Medici (1449-1492), known as “the Magnificent.” Lorenzo was a scholar, a skilled architect, and a talented poet. He collected a huge library of classical manuscripts, which he invited other thinkers to use. To give the city’s young people an opportunity to study classical literature, he expanded the university at Florence. Lorenzo also hired painters, architects, and sculptors to create works of art not only for his palace but also for the city of Florence. many of these works still survive, making Florence one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Like Lorenzo the magnificent, many wealthy Italians of the fifteenth century took a keen interest in the ancient Romans. they paid for the restoration of old monuments and works of art. They searched out classical manuscripts in the libraries of European monasteries; often finding them in poor condition and entirely forgotten. Popes, princes, and merchants collected these neglected treasures and stored them in magnificent libraries. There they could be studied by scholars from every corner of Europe.

Renaissance scholars’ interest in Greek and Roman learning developed into the study of the humanities – subjects concerned with humankind and culture, as opposed to science. The humanities included Latin and Greek language and literature, composition, history, and philosophy. Music and mathematics were sometimes studied as well. Those who read and wrote about these subjects were called humanists.

Enthusiasm for ancient Greece and Rome spread from scholars to the rest of the Italian upper classes. Many people imitated not only the language but the customs and ways of life of the classical civilizations. Some even tried to trace their ancestry back to ancient Rome.

Francesco Petrarch, an Italian poet born in 1304, led the early development of Renaissance humanism. Regarding ancient Roman times as a much grander period than his own day, he studied Roman literature and philosophy and encouraged others to do the same. A collector of ancient manuscripts, Petrarch rediscovered a number of Roman authors whose work had been forgotten during the Middle Ages.

In his scholarly writings in Latin, Petrarch discussed the ideas of Roman writers and copied their style. He also wrote hundreds of love poems in Italian.

 


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