Art and Culture - Module 07 - Renaissance (Early)

Lecture 7
FLORENCE
and the
EARLY
RENAISSANCE
AESTHETIC
EXPERIENCE
AND
IDEAS

So how do we get from this
...

Michelangelo, Sistine chapel [circa 1500]

The term Renaissance refers to a
profound p and enduring upheaval
and transformation in culture,
politics, art, and society throughout
Europe between the years 1400
and 1600. The word describes
both:
• a period in history, and
• a more general ideal of cultural
renewal.

While renaissance ultimately
becomes a European-wide
phenomenon, it is initially (or even
mainly) something that happens
mainly in Italy.

For about 300 years (1200-1525), Italy was the center of trade and
commerce in Europe and thus relatively rich.
Atlantic exploration (1500-1700) would eventually shift trade and wealth to
Portugal, Spain, France, Holland, and England.

Much of the story of the
early Renaissance is a
story about Florence.
Florence becomes a
wealthy city initially
because it produces very
high-quality woolen cloth.
Eventually, they also
develop the first banks (in
order to help maintain
and grow the cloth
industry).

The Renaissance develops in
Florence for several interconnected
reasons:
1. Strong urban life.
2. Development of humanism.
3. Development of republican
political life.

Urban life in Italy as a whole had
remained strong, even during the
medieval dark ages, and many
secular values had been sustained
along with a memory of the Roman
Empire.

Renaissance humanism was a
reaction against medieval scholastic
education, and which emphasized
practical, rhetorical, literary,
historical, and scientific studies of
Greek and Roman teachings.

It also endeavored to revive the
cultural (esp. the literary) legacy
and moral philosophy of classical
antiquity … a legacy that was
beginning to be rediscovered.

Early important Florentine humanists
include Petrarch (1304-1374) and
Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406).

By the late 1300s, humanist
education was wide-spread
amongst the Florentine elite.
In fact literacy rates in Florence were maybe as
high as 30% of the population, a percentage
that dwarfed any other city in Europe.

In the 13th century (1200-1299),
Florence was torn by conflict between
the textile merchants, their textile
workers, and the traditional aristocrats
whose status was based on the
ownership of agricultural land and serfs.

The aristocratic ruling elites of 13th
century Florence were similar to other
medieval elites in Europe: ideologically
united by knightly norms of violence and
social superiority.

Towers of
San Gimignano
13th century Florence (like other Italian
cities of the time) was dominated by the
towers of these aristocratic families who
engaged in constant inter-family feuds
and vendettas (think of the Montague
and Capulet feud in Romeo and Juliet).

Eventually, by 1293, the merchants and
the guild members were able to take
control over Florence. They abolished
serfdom (thus eliminated the nobles
source of power and wealth). The noble
families were also expelled from the city
and their towers were torn down. The
Florentine Republic begins.

In the Republic, nobles are barred from
political office. It also provided for
frequent changes of office to ensure that
no group or individual could get control
of the state.
The top office was a body of nine Priors
(who were elected for a mere two
months). These priors were elected by
magistrates who were elected by citizens
(i.e., any property owning guild
member).

With a balance between its leading
merchant families, Florence was now
ruled by its guilds, which were
associations of master craftsmen and
tradesmen (which were like a blend of
corporation, government, and community
association).

This guild republic was the creation of
the broad middle ranks of the city (the
popolo): regional merchants, notaries,
manufacturers of cloth, shop keepers,
builders, artisans, etc

As a result of the constitution of 1293,
Florentines developed a keen interest in
their politics and became a community of
civil servants available for public life.

The ideal of communal power becomes
the key part of Florentine self-identity.
This can be seen in the nature of the
building projects of the early republic.

Santa Maria Novella [1279]
Florence Cathedral [1294]
Palazzo Vecchio [1299]
Santa Croce [1294]

The only tower allowed in the
Republic was that of Palazzo
Vecchio, the city hall, the
center of the Republican
government.
The castles and towers of the exiled aristocratic
families were replaced with public spaces: not
only churches but large piazzas where citizens
could gather.

Cities ruled by kings or
despots minimized public
spaces because people
coming together was
perceived by the rulers as a
potential threat, but in
Florence, the city was
changed to encourage
people to come together.

The 15th century Renaissance thus
sprouts out of the fertile ground of
the 14th century Florentine Republic,
a community dominated by a
shared set of values, values that
emphasized the flourishing of
individuals within a context of the
communal good and a belief that a
better life could be (partially or even
completely) achieved here on earth.

This outlook on life and on politics is
sometimes referred to as civic
humanism: that is, the belief that
participatory politics and a public-space
oriented city provides the
twin environments for human
fulfilment.

The renaissance and its focus on
civic humanism helped shaped the
modern conception of the
individual.
It is during this time that the cultural
invention of the “genius” is initially
enacted, and we will find that these
geniuses were acting within a
system of ideals that were
constructed from the civic-oriented
nature of Italian life.

I marvel and at used to the same ttiimmee ttoo ggrriieevvee tthhaatt ssoo mmaannyy eexxcceelllleenntt aanndd
superior arts and sciences from our most vigorous antique past could seem
lacking and wholly lost. … Thus I believed … that Nature had grown old and
tired and no longger pproduced either ggeniuses or ggiants which in her more
youthful and more glorious days she had produced so marvelously and
abundantly.
Since then, I have been brought back here to Florence … I have to
uunnddeerrssttaanndd tthhaatt … iinn yyoouu, FFiilliippppoo Brunelleschi, aanndd iinn oouurr cclloossee ffrriieenndd
Donatello, the sculpture, and in others like Ghiberti … and Massaccio, there
is a genius for every praiseworthy thing.
Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, 1434

Baptistery, Florence.
In 1400 a return of the plague killed about 1/5 of the
population. Also, for most of the year, the city was under siege
by the armies of Milan.
In 1401 in celebration of the victory over Milan a competition
was held for the sculptures on the doors of the Baptistery. Each
competitor had to provide a panel showing the Old Testament
scene of the sacrifice of Isaac (God testing Abraham’s faith).

Like the ancient Greeks, the
Florentines of the 15th century
seemed to have a love of
competition …

A Game of Calcio Storico in the Piazza Santa
Maria Novella, Florence, 1555

Florence’s four districts each
had/have a team with players
pulled from prison. It was/is a
combination of rugby and
MMA.

Field for Calcio Storico in the Piazza Santa
Maria Novella, Florence

Players parade enroute to Calcio Storico

http://vimeo.com/5257343
The game is played with 27 men on each side, two balls,
eight refs, no breaks, no time out and no substitutions over
a period of fifty minutes. Ten men on each side are allowed
to brawl with anyone on the other team. Ambulances come
onto the pitch without stopping the game. First prize?
Steaks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ea17DLpqIY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiKOhGpQPD4

Reproduction of original Baptistery doors

Over the previous several hundred years,
church doors were one of the most
important venues for bronze sculpture.

Western door,
St Michael’s Abbey
Church of Hildesheim, Hildesheim
(Germany), 1010-1033.

Door, Basilica di San Zeno Maggiore, Verona (1100s)

Sacrifice of Isaac,
Door, Basilica di San Zeno Maggiore, Verona (1100s)

The Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401
Competition for Florence
Baptistery doors
Entry by Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-
1455)

Ghiberti evidently influenced by the
discovery of Roman sculpture of Body
of Centaur

The Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401
Competition for Baptistery doors
Entry by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-
1446)
Prize jointly awarded. Brunelleschi
refused to work with Ghiberti and
left Florence with his friend
Donatello to travel, study, and live
in Rome.
Ghiberti spends much of the next
20 years working on the door.

Similarly, Brunellschi was influenced by
discovery of Roman sculpture, Boy with
Thorn.

The years that Brunelleschi and Donatello spend
in Rome studying are cloaked in mystery yet this
Roman sojourn was decisive for the entire
development of Italian art in the 15th century.
“Over the next 13 years, they would move back and forth between
Rome and Florence, living like vagrants, digging among the ancient
ruins, and learning about the great Roman accomplishments and
technology, all the while leaving the locals to believe that they were
mere opportunists, looking to find abandoned treasures”

David,
by Donatello,
c. 1408.
Donatello’’s first commission. Still shows gothic
influence and approach.

Donatello’s sculptures from 1411-13
for the Orsanmichele in Florence
after his trip to Rome reintroduced
classical sculptural principles (e.g.,
contrapposto ).

Saint Mark,
by Donatello,
c. 1413.
Jeremiah
by Donatello,
c. 1413.
The drapery
falls naturally
and moves
with the body.

Donatello also revived the naturalistic style of
Roman portrait sculpture.
Vasari in his chapter on Donatello says that as he
was carving one of these early sculptures, he began
yelling “Speak, Speak to me, dammit.”

David, by Donatello, c. 1455-1460.
First free-standing bronze statue since
antiquity. Also the first large-scale nude
sculpture since antiquity (1000+ years).
Created for the Medici to celebrate the
Peace of Lodi.
To most modern observers, this appears less
religious and heroic than homoerotic.
The figure curves sensuously, his limbs appear soft
and limp, the hilt of the sword is unusually phallic,
and the feathers on the dead Goliath’s helmet
caress David’s thigh.

One explanation for this narcissistic and erotic
androgyny perhaps lies in the early Renaissance
humanist philosophy that argued that divine
revelation could be approached through the
enjoyment of sensuous pleasures.
This is related to neo-Platonic thought which
allegorically described the transition of the soul to
the divine via beauty through the transformation of
bodily desire.
Some scholars see it more simply as a reflection of
Donatello’s homosexuality, a relatively common
practice in Florence due to the late age of most
marriages due to inheritance laws.

Meanwhile, in 1417, upon his return to Florence,
Brunelleschi painted perhaps the most influential
painting in the history of art (which unfortunately was
destroyed around 1494).
In this painting, Brunelleschi painted the Florence
Baptistery in true one-point perspective.

Brunelleschi’s perspective demonstration painting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla
yer_embedded&v=bkNMM8uiMww

Brunelleschi is thus credited for “discovering”
mathematical perspective (the method of representing
3D objects on a 2D surface that gives a realistic
impression of true position, size, and distance) and its
practical application in drawing.
Soon after, nearly every artist in Florence and in Italy used
geometrical perspective in their paintings. Indeed, until
early 20th Century modernism, almost every painting for
almost 500 years used his perspective technique.

Donatello,
The Feast of Herod,
c. 1425.

Masaccio. Holy Trinity, c. 1425.
Masaccio died when he was only
26, but using Brunelleschi's
innovations, revolutionized
painting.

Masaccio, The Tribute Money [1425-8]

Masaccio
Brancacci Chapel, Florence
1425-7

Perhaps the best way to appreciate Masaccio’s impact on
his 15th century contemporaries is to compare his art to
that produced just a few years before by others.

Compare the architectural details, the
modeling of the figures,and the naturalism of
the expressions in Massacio’s work

Again compare the naturalism of the
expressions and the realism of the
infant and the architecture in
Massacio’s work in comparison to the
Bytantine style

Perhaps the best analogy for the impact
that Masaccio had on painting might be
by comparing it to the state of video
game graphics in 1991 and 1992.
And then comparing this to what was
released in 1993…

Masaccio was the Myst of the 1420s.

Brunelleschi’s discovery of perspective and its initial
application by Masaccio inspired all subsequent
Italian art of the 15th century, and indeed, all art for
the next four hundred and fifty years.

Compare Ghiberti …
before Brunelleschi with after
…

Francesca, The Flagellation of Christ [1460s]

Andrea Mantegna , Ceiling of Spouses Chamber, Milan , c. 1473.

Andrea Mantegna , Dead Christ , c. 1500.

Why?
That is, why was perspective so important for the
artists of the Renaissance?

It did provide a relatively straight-forward technique
for reproducing reality …

Leonardo da Vinci , perspective study for the Adoration of the Magi , c. 1481.

Yet perspective was more than just a form of
representation … It was a moral statement about
humanity’s relationship to God, to the world, and to
each other.

By allowing the artist to accurately calculate a
human’s position in a 2D space, it seemed to
symbolically represent a belief that humans had a
new place in the order of things.

Perspective was a way of saying that the world
should be adapted not only to the eyes but to the
proportions of the human body.
That is, perspective signaled a characteristic belief
of the Renaissance: that through ideal aesthetic
proportion, humans might be able to reconcile the
two parts of human life, namely the intellectual and
the physical.

It is interesting that perspective was initially principally
used to represent civic spaces.

Examples of painted perspective civic scenes on furniture and in private rooms.

Francesco Di Giorgio Martini. Architectural Perspective, late 15th century;

For the artists (and those that viewed them) of the
Renaissance, perspective seemed to have been
associated with civic virtue … that somehow humans are
able to achieve their true and best nature when they live
within harmonious cities that are designed around human
nature. Thus perspective is also a statement about politics
and society as well …

The name of this work says it all: An Ideal City
(mid-15th century).

Perugino, Delivery of the Keys, 1481

It is worth remembering that the Italy of the 15th Century
was dominated by its cities, especially the Republic of
Florence.
In Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, he addresses the question,
why did his fellow Florentines create so many artistic
breakthroughs during the 15th century?
His answer: “Its air is free and thus there is a spirit of
criticism everywhere in Florence which does not allow its
people to be content with mediocrity …””

Perhaps no other work expressed
these Renaissance ideals better than
another extremely influential creation
of Brunelleschi …

Filippo Brunelleschi, interior Basilica di
San Lorenzo, Florence, started in 1419.

Filippo Brunelleschi, Pazzi Chapel, Cloister
of Santa Croce, Florence, ca. 1441-1460.

Filippo Brunelleschi,
Interior Pazzi Chapel,
1441-1460.

Brunelleschi “invented” a new style
generally referred to today as
Renaissance Architecture … a style
which became exceptional wide-spread.

To understand the innovation in
Brunelleschi’s architecture we have
to compare it to the dominant
architectural style of the day for
churches, French Gothic.

Gothic style cathedral 1200-1500s

York Cathedral [1230-1472] (High Gothic Style)

Cloister, Gloucester Cathedral [High Gothic]

Cloister, Santa Croce [Brunelleschi]

Regularity, symmetry, and human-sized
proportions are characteristic
of Brunelleschi's (and later
Renaissance) architecture

Filippo Brunelleschi. Interior of Santo Spirito,
Florence, planned 1421.

Notice the human-sized proportions of
Brunelleschi's architecture

For me, Brunelleschi's masterpiece is the
San Spirito Church (1444-1487).

Exterior of San Spirito Church.

Interior of San Spirito Church.

Brunelleschi's architecture of symmetry
and proportion was enthusiastically
adopted by other architects …

Façade of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence
By Leon Battista Alberti in 1470

Comparison to façade of Amiens Cathedral

Façade of Santa Maria Novella

Florence Cathedral (Duomo)
[1296-1426]
Dome [1420-6] by Brunelleschi

In 1367, Florence held a competition for designing the
dome. The winning entry called for a dome with a
diameter of 173 feet, significantly larger than any dome
in existence, as well as higher than any existing vault.
They didn’t know how to build it; they put their faith in
future progress, that an architect in the future would
figure out how to build it.

Pantheon, Rome built during the reign of Emperor
Hadrian around 126 CE.

Almost two thousand years after it was
built, the Pantheon's dome is still the
world's largest unreinforced concrete
dome.

Pantheon [126 CE] Hagia Sophia [ 537 CE] Gothic cathedrals Duomo
Rome
g p ]
Constantiople [1200-1400 CE] Florence

In 1418, the city held another competition, this time
for a solution to building the dome. One of the key
constraints was that the winning entry was not to
use wooden centering, the standard practice for
building arches and domes since the Romans.
Because of the height and size of the Dome, using
wooden centering would have completely
deforested Tuscany.

Brunelleschi was evidently a difficult man to
work with. He was very secretive and
refused to show his plans, worried that
someone else would steal them.

One story is that at a meeting of the selection
committee that was demanding to see detailed plans
and drawings for his proposed solution, Brunelleschi
said that the man who could stand an egg on its end
without it tipping over should have the job. One by
one the competitors tried but failed. Brunelleschi’s
solution?

The other architects complained saying that
they could have done that also. “Yes,” said
Brunelleschi, “and you would also be able
to build the dome if you had access to my
plans.”

Another complication are the downward and outward
compression pressures of a dome.
In the Roman Pantheon, the pressure is absorbed by
incredibly thick concrete walls and a progressively thinner
dome.
In Gothic style churches, those pressures are absorbed by
flying buttresses.

Brunelleschi’s solution was to make the dome hollow, and
use vertical and horizontal ribs made out of iron and
concrete to contain the stresses.
The horizontal ribs acts like a belt containing the outward
pressures.
The outside bricks are in a herringbone pattern and
““stapled”” with iron, thus eliminating the need for wooden
centering.

He also designed the two key
engineering inventions of the
Renaissance: the hoist and the crane.
He also invented the first paddle-wheel
boat (for shipping stone).

The architects of the great Gothic
cathedrals were by and large unknown.
Brunelleschi changed society’s esteem of
architecture and the architect.
With Brunelleschi, we see the word
“genius” applied to a living individual for the
first time since antiquity.

In Brunelleschi’s amazing brilliance
(invention of perspective, invention of
Renaissance architecture, solving the
Dome, and his engineering inventions), the
writers of the later Renaissance had their
““proof”” that contemporary humans could be
as great, and indeed greater, than those of
classical antiquity.

Brunelleschi also “invented” the personality
pattern that many subsequent creative
artists would try to emulate: moody,
unsociable, under-appreciated, suspicious
of others, poor hygiene, unconcerned with
personal riches, convinced of his own
brilliance, creating to achieve future glory,
etc.

For the writers and artists of the Renaissance,
Brunelleschi and the other greats that were to follow
him, provided an argument that maybe humans are
only a fingertip’s width away from divinity … An idea
that is very far away indeed from the Medieval
worldview.

The next generation of Renaissance artists
built upon the innovations of Brunelleschi,
Donatello, and Masaccio, and were self-consciously
aware of themselves as
Artists, as “special” people who were
different than others and who had a special
“role” to play in the advancement of human
culture.

Art and Culture - Module 07 - Renaissance (Early)

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