This document provides an overview of key figures and developments in the Late Renaissance period from 1500-1600. It discusses major artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. It also examines influential political and religious leaders such as Pope Alexander VI, Pope Julius II, and Martin Luther. Luther's 95 Theses challenging Catholic doctrine helped spark the Protestant Reformation. The document also summarizes the Catholic Counter-Reformation and the religious conflicts it led to like the Thirty Years War.

1. Lecture 7c
LATE RENAISSANCE
INTRO TO WESTERN HUMANITIES

2. Late/High Renaissance
(1500-1600)
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519)
Michelangelo (1475 – 1564)
Raphael (1483 – 1520)

3. Verrocchio, Baptism of Christ
1470
Leonardo da Vinci’s earliest
known painting is this angel

4. Leonardo da Vinci.
Self-Portrait, after
1500.

5. Leonardo da Vinci,
Vitruvian Man,
c. 1485-90.

9. Leonardo da Vinci,
Embryo in the
Womb, ca. 1510.

10. Michelangelo,
David, 1501-1504.

12. Michelangelo.
Pietà, 1498/9-1500

13. Michelangelo, Moses, c. 1514

15. Michelangelo, Ceiling Sistine Chapel, c. 1508-1512
Contains nine scenes from the Book of Genesis of which the Creation of
Adam is the best known.

19. Creation of Adam

21. Michelangelo,
Last Judgment
Sistine Chapel, Vatican,
Rome. 1534-1541

22. Raphael,
Madonna of the Meadow, 1505.

27. Italian politics during the 15th century were
convoluted, pitting city against city, city
against the Papal states, and after 1494,
the French, and after 1498, the Spanish as
well.

29. The spread of gunpowder weapons
increased the cost and scale of war. No
longer was armored cavalry the most
important weapon. Instead, mass armies
of infantry became progressively more
important.

30. Military Revolution
Refers to new military tactics that began in the late
Renaissance, which maximized the utility of
firearms, which in turn led to a need for more trained
troops and thus for permanent forces.
These changes in turn had major political
consequences in the level of administrative support
and the supply of money, men and provisions,
producing new financial demands and the creation
of new governmental institutions (the nation state).

35. The Medici Family in Florence
Was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal
house. They produced four popes, two queens of France,
and were the unofficial rulers of the Republic of Florence.

36. Còsimo di Mèdici
Piero di Medici (the Gouty)

37. Piero de' Medici
(The Unfortunate)
Pope Leo X
Pope Clement VII
Lorenzo de' Medici (The Magnificent)

38. Rodrigo Borgias (Pope Alexander VI from
1492-1503) appeared to epitomize the
corruption of the Renaissance Catholic
Church.
There wasn’t a sin that Alexander VI wasn’t
willing to sample, whether it be deception,
simony, avarice, fornication (he had seven
children from his numerous mistresses),
treason, violence, murder, even perhaps
incest, …
His (and his son Cesare Borgia) efforts at
creating real political power for his family
(and the papacy) was a source of inspiration
for Machiavelli.
Alexander VI was a great patron of the arts,
hiring Michelangelo, Raphael, and others.

40. Machiavelli
(1469-1527)

41. Or as he appears in Assassin’s Creed

42. Machiavelli was an extraordinarily
innovative and influential writer.
He is a beautiful stylist and you
are not educated unless you have
read Machiavelli …

44. “Since my intention is to say something
that will prove to be of practical use to
the inquirer, I have thought it proper to
represent things as they are in real truth,
rather than as they are imagined.”

45. “The gulf between how one should live
and how one does live is so wide that a
man who neglects what is actually done
for what should be done learns the way to
self destruction.”

46. Contrast this to the accepted view about
ethics and politics …

47. Cicero (106-43 BCE)
Roman Senator and writer
“Honesty is the best policy for
effective rule.”
“Virtu [in politics] consists of
always acting honorably and
morally.”

48. “For a man who
professes goodness at all times
will come to ruin
among so many who are not good.”

49. vs

50. “I judge it to be true that fortune is the
arbiter of one half of our actions but that
she leaves the control of the other half to
us.
…
She shows her force where there is
organized strength to resist her; and she
directs her impact there where she
knows that dikes and embankments are
not constructed to hold her.”

51. “Fortune is a women, and it is necessary,
in order to keep her down, to beat her
and struggle with her.”

52. Pope Alexander VI Pope Julius II Pope Leo X
1492-1503 1503-1513 1513-1521

53. Italian Wars
Papal Alliance Opponent
1508-1510 Papal States Venice
France
Holy Roman Empire
Spain
1510-1511 Papal States France
Venice
Julius II , “The Warrior Pope “ 1511-1513 Papal States France
Venice
Holy Roman Empire
Spain
England
1513-1516 Papal States Venice
Holy Roman Empire France
Spain Scotland
England

54. The old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome was
built in the time of Constantine (around 330
CE)

55. The dome is the tallest in the world, and its
diameter is just a bit smaller than that in
Florence. Dome design by Michelangelo and
completed after his death in 1590.
It uses a similar design as Brunelleschi's (two
shells using herringbone bricks reinforced with
steel rods). Since the 1800s, the dome has
begun to crack and large chains have been
wrapped around it to prevent further spreading.

59. St. Peter’s monstrous
scale can best be seen
by looking at its immense
piers.

60. Pope Julius II also commissioned Michelangelo’s painting of the Sistine Chapel as well as the massive Tomb of Julius II which was planned to
include over 40 life-sized statues.

61. Julius’s successor was Pope Leo
X (born Giovanni di Lorenzo de'
Medic).
Like Julius, much of his reign was
focused on warfare. His papacy is
associated with the growth in the
sale of indulgences (to help fund
the on-going Italian Wars, as well
as to fund the rebuilding of St.
Peter’s) as well as the beginning of
the Protestant schism.

62. Woodcuts illustrating the sale of indulgences.

63. The Church believed that one could reduce
one’s time in Purgatory by performing good
deeds while alive in this world.
But what is a good deed?
How about working/helping the poor?
What about giving money to the Church and
telling it to use it to help the poor?
What about just giving money to the Church
(they know how to best use it, after all, they
are God’s representatives on earth)?

64. “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church … Whatever you forbid on earth will
be forbidden in heaven and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”
Matthew 16: 18-19.
Inscribed in the great dome of St. Peter’s in Rome

65. “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church … Whatever you forbid on earth will
be forbidden in heaven and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”
Matthew 16: 18-19.
St. Peter receiving the keys. Later Catholic tradition claimed Peter journeyed to Rome and
became the first bishop of Rome (i.e., the first Pope).

66. Dominican Friar Tetzel was the best known of
the indulgence sellers.
The Friar's most famous jingle was:
"As soon as the coin in the coffer rings,
a soul from Purgatory upward springs."

67. Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)
While the Church and its popes were deeply enmeshed in political
machinations, a movement for reform of the Church began to build
during this same time (1490s-1520s). These reformers wanted a less
worldly, more spiritual church, as well as a church focused on the
needs of their parishioners (i.e., vernacular translations of Bible and
more charity/less building of magnificent buildings/art).

68. Criticizing the Church was a dangerous profession. Indeed
the Church usually attacked any criticisms as heresy.
However the Church relied on secular power for the
prosecution of heresy.
But what would happen if secular power decided not to
prosecute the Church’s enemies, and indeed decided to
support those enemies/critics?

69. Paintings of Martin Luther (1483-1546)

71. Luther was born in Germany, went into Law as a young man,
and then after an intense spiritual crisis, moved into an
Augustinian monastery.
He was obsessed with his soul’s salvation and through his
careful reading of Augustine and the Book of Romans in the
Bible, became convinced that salvation is only achievable
through God’s grace. That is, human works/actions play no
role in salvation.
Thus, for Luther, the practice of indulgences was highly
wrong.
First, it indicated a church focused obsessively on worldly
concerns (money and power).
Second, it indicated that salvation could be purchased (i.e.,
God responded to money or was “forced” to let people into
heaven due to their deeds).
Lucas Cranach (the Elder), Martin Luther, 1526, aged 46

72. In 1517, Luther (aged 34) posted 95 Theses on the
door of the Church at Wittenberg.
Key points:
5.Scripture should be made available to all (i.e., in
vernacular)
6.No need for hierarchical cadre of scriptural
professionals (there could be a priesthood of all
believers)
7.Any religious dogma without scriptural evidence
should be rejected (e.g., priests, popes, purgatory,
saints, virgin mary, writings of the early church fathers,
monasteries)
8.Salvation comes from god’s grace, not through
human works
9.Secular power is what guarantees peace on earth
(not the church)

73. Unlike earlier “heretics” who criticized the Church, Luther was
able to survive because of support from a variety of powerful
German princes. The Pope did excommunicate Luther in 1520,
and was eventually summoned to the German Holy Roman
Emperor to answer charges of heresy.
Luther’s famous declaration (“Here I stand. I can do no other.”)
lead to him being declared a heretic, but wasn’t prosecuted
because he was protected by the Elector of Saxony.

74. Safe from heresy trials, Luther :
3.Translated the Bible into German (first vernacular translation)
which was then distributed via printing press
4.Published his sermons in German which were then distributed
via printing press.
5.Transformed church practices in Saxony, which then spread to
other areas of Germany (and then to other areas in Europe). This
was eventually codified into the doctrines of the Lutheran faith,
the first Protestant Church.
6.Married the former nun Katharina von Bora.

76. Luther quotes:
“Young men are plagued by prurience, which
extinguishes as soon as they enter into
matrimony.”
“A happy fart never comes from a miserable ass.”
“Whoever smells it, out of him it crept.”
“Whoever brawls with filth, whether he wins or
loses, leaves covered in shit.”
“The world is like a drunken peasant; if one helps
him into the saddle on one side, he will fall off on
the other side.”
“If God has no sense of humor, I don't want to go to
Heaven.”

77. After Luther there were a
variety of other reform
movements throughout
Europe.
The most prominent of
these were ones inspired
by John Calvin
(1509-1564).
Calvin eventually created
a type of total theocracy
in the Swiss city of
Geneva.

78. Calvinists destroying
images in church

79. Protestant church architecture, in direct constrast to the
rich elaborateness of the Catholic church, was very much
focused on spartan simplicity.

80. Catholic Church of the Reformation Era

82. "I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there
seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at
times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it
out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire
with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me
moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive
pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with
nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though
the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which
now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His
goodness to make him experience it”
The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Bernini

84. Most of today’s evangelic-style Christian faiths are either
inspired by or directly descended from Calvin’s religious
writings.

85. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church responded to the
Protestant Challenge in a variety of ways.
This is generally referred to as the Catholic Counter-
Reformation.

86. Counter-Reformation

87. Pope Clement VII Pope Paul III
1523-1534 1534-1549

88. The Counter Reformation refers to the attempt by the
Catholic Church to:
3.Reform itself (e.g., Council of Trent [1545] articulated
the main beliefs of Catholicism [still in force], Jesuits)
4.Eliminate Protestant heresy by encouraging monarchs
of Catholic lands to defeat or invade lands ruled by
Protestant monarchs.
5.More effort in eliminating heresy within Catholic lands
(e.g., office of inquisition)

89. Inquisition

90. Inquisition

92. Wars of Religion
[1560s-1648]
Albrecht Dürer,
The Knight, Death and the
Devil, 1513.

93. 1. Revolt of the Netherlands
[also known as the 80 Years
War, 1568-1648]
Protestant nationalists (mainly
urban merchants) in the
Netherlands rebelled against
Catholic Spain.
Eventually result: Netherlands
Independence

94. 1. French Wars of Religion
[1560s-1598].
Huguenots (Protestants,
mainly urban merchants)
mainly expelled or killed
[e.g., St. Bartholomew's Day
Massacre, 1572]

95. St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, 1572. Perhaps
as many as 10000 Protestants killed in Paris and
other cities in France.

96. 1. England under Henry VIII
made himself head of the
Church of England
(eventually Anglican
church).

97. 1. Conflict with France and Spain
under Elizabeth I [1558-1603],
e.g. defeat of Spanish Armada.

98. 5. Thirty Years War [1618-1648]

99. Defenestration of Prague [1618]
Thirty Years War [1618-1648] began with the Defenestration (throw
someone out a window) of Prague. In this case, it was Papal envoys
who were defenestrated.

101. Up until the Second World War, The Thirty Years War,
fought mainly in German lands, was the most destructive
war in European history.

102. Reduction in Germany's population as a percentage of the whole population.