The Italian renaissance was a period during 1300 and 1500, ‘Renaissance’ is a French word for rebirth. These years was definitely a time of rebirth for how we look at different paraphernalia. The movement started in Italy and would later spread to all of Europe. During these centauries it brought new ideas and it shaped the way we look at our Solar System now for example.
During this key time Florence, Pisa and Venice all played big roles to the point where Venice was called The New Roman Empire.
Before I dive into the Renaissance you need to understand the contents of Humanism, Individualism and Virtu. These three words will be very important to for your understanding of why people decided to do what. Humanism means the understanding of a people-centred society in pre-Christian times. They got these idea from writings of the Greeks and Romans and the scattered ruins of the roman empire in every city state. Individualism means self-action or emotion. Virtu means to work until you find someone’s potential.
Now, I will go into the reasons the Renaissance started. The 1st reason happened was because the north was very rich because it acted as a hub for trade. Spices from the east would go to Italy and then exported to the west for countries like Germany and England. This made many people in the cities rich so they could put forward their won idea and they would have the money to back them up. They could also support other artist’s and writer’s opinions and ideas with their money. The 2nd reason the Renaissance happened was because during this time many city-states because independent from the roman empire and these states were often run by one man. To get prestige these men would support artists. If the artist, thinker or writer became successful the states name would also be better-known. The next reason the revolution happened was because there were ruins of the roman empire everywhere. This made Humanist writers want to know about them more, but they couldn’t read these ancient languages. Greek was not known outside of Greece and not many people knew ancient Italian. The final reason it is said a rebirth started was that people from the falling Byzantine Empire fled to Italy. On realisations these people could understand ancient Greek and Roman, Humanist writers used this to their advantage, and they re-wrote classic poems and stories which not many people knew before. This was helped by Johannes Guttenberg’s invention of the Printing Press which gave access gave access to more people.
The first Truly renaissance writer was Francesco Petrarch or better known as Petrarch. Petrarch also promoted the study of Rome and Greece mythology; he also holds the grand title of Father of Humanism. He also used the Byzantinists to his advantage. However, a man called Joannes Boccaccio introduced a new type of style of writing that almost every book follows today. Boccaccio introduced a comedic style of writing in comparison to religious lessons which was very popular at the time.
Because of the scattered Roman ruins everywhere the architects at the time wanted to build some of these ruins again the most popular of these being the Florence Cathedral.
During this time, renaissance painting became more realistic. Painters made their art 3-dimensional, they added shadows and later they oil paints would be made. Artist Giotto – who is considered father of renaissance Painting – drew his painting with Chiaroscuro which made his paintings more realistic. Fra Angelico also endorsed tis style. Another Painter called Masaccio was the first to show Naturalism by painting nude pictures of Adam and Eve.
Other Key renaissance figures include Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Leonardo Bruni and Niccolò Machiavelli.
According to Castiglione if you wanted to be a true renaissance man you had to be good at Sports, Music, Dance, Latin, Greek and good at conversations. So wealthy men who were not in the arts mostly were bankers. An example of these types of people were the Medici’s who were a family of bankers who ruled Florence. Women were also working and the vast majority of them worked as nuns in the church or seamstresses. Life for children was also not good as the children as soon as they learned how to walk were expected to work as hard as the older men.
Popular pastimes these men did were chess, Jousting and Bullfighting. These rich people would show off their belongings at sports events.
Life for the peasant however did not change much. If you were poor, you would have only two outfits at maximum. These outfits would be made out of rough materials like Wool, Woven Cotton, Raw Silk, Linen and Flax. Peasants like the Rich wore hats, but the dull hats of peasants were simple, and they wore it to protect themselves while working. Usually, you would have bread as wine for every meal but if you were lucky on some days, you could eat fish and pie.
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