Humanism, the Arts & Social Change

The Fifteenth Century was a period of import in art, philosophy, political thought, and literature as the Renaissance developed power and altered the way man was viewed against the backdrop of the universe. Much of what began in the Fifteenth Century would flower in the Sixteenth Century. Both Machiavelli and Erasmus were born in the Fifteenth Century but would not produce their great works until the beginning of the Sixteenth, though they were clearly shaped by the Fifteenth and the forces then developing. The century was a time of contrasts between the richest and the poorest:

Florence, in the fifteenth century, was a citystate ruling not only Florence but (with interruptions) Prato, Pistoia, Pisa, Volterra, Cortona, Arezzo, and their agricultural hinterland. The peasants were not serfs but partly small proprietors, mostly tenant farmers, who lived in houses of crude cemented stone much as today, and chose their own village officials to govern them in local affairs. Machiavelli did not disdain to chat and play with these hardy knights of the field, the orchard, or the vine. But the magistrates of the cities regulated sales, and, to appease a troublesome proletariat, kept food prices too low for peasant happiness; so the ancient strife of country and city added its somber obbligato to the songs of hate that rose from embattled classes within the city walls (Will Durant 139).

Humanism and the Renaissance involved similar revivals of classical learning, an elevation o

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lassical scholarship was a mark of the Humanist, with the revival of learning of the Renaissance period, which included as well a sense of mysticism in the imaginings of men of wide interests bent on bringing the Divine Spirit into every sphere of human thought. The Humanist was also penetrated by the sense of the beauty and the mystery of life. The Humanist saw that philosophy could be more profound and have better scientific tools at its command for investigating the ways of the world (Maynard 41-42). The human-centered nature of Renaissance expression can be seen in a number of artworks. Donatello was considered the father of Renaissance sculpture and produced a number of works during the early part of the fifteenth century that embodied a certain realism that would influence subsequent artists. Donatello did not follow the traditional representations of certain religious images but developed his own ideas based on a close reading of biblical texts. He was not realistic in terms of using contemporary subjects but in avoiding the idealized representations that had been accepted for so long as the way things had to be (Chilvers, Osborne, and Farr 148-149). Brunelleschi was an early Renaissance architect who sought a new w

Category: History - H