7.2 The Rinascita
In the time of Giotto, the European world changed. In Italy, the term Rinascita refers to a transformative time in which the Roman Catholic mindset changed character. We know this era as the Italian Renaissance. Two cultural developments triggered the birth of this era.
Renaissance Wealth
The first triggering development was wealth. In the 14th Century, Europe was transformed by explosive economic development. International trade imported spices and silks from Asia while sophisticated textile industries were emerging, especially in two regions:
Italy, especially Venice, trading hub connecting Europe to Asian spices and silks
The Low countries of Northern Europe, Flanders[1] and Holland, trading hubs for the Black Sea and purveyors of magnificent fabrics
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| Canaletto. (c. 1740). Venice: The Basin of San Marco on Ascension Day. Oil on canvas. |
[1] Flanders is today the northern districts of Belgium. In Medieval times, it included parts of what we know today as The Netherlands and France. Note: The Netherlands were split into Belgium (Catholic) and Holland (Reformed) by the Reformation.
Renaissance Humanism
The second development is suggested by the terms Rinascita and Renaissance, both of which mean rebirth. But of what? Especially in Italy, Renaissance culture grew out of a rebirth of Classical learning.
In Chapter 5, we discovered that the Western half of the Roman Empire—Europe—collapsed, its authority replaced by warlords with little interest in Classical learning. Dukes, counts, and earls conceded the tasks of administration and learning to Catholic clergy. Learned monks retained a limited store of ecclesiastical Latin texts but only the smallest sampling of Greek texts. Virtually no one in Europe could read Greek anyway.
Then, beginning in the 13th Century, a rich trove of Classical Latin and Greek texts, long preserved by Muslim, Jewish, and Eastern Orthodox scholars, began to work its way into Europe. By the 14th Century, Church and secular scholars were feasting on the Classical tradition.
Centuries later, the proliferation of classical lore in a mostly illiterate society was labelled humanistic learning. Humanist scholarship was sponsored by the Church and also by sophisticated, wealthy patrons who not only collected classical books (i.e. manuscripts!) but also learned to read and reflect on them.
Now beware! The term humanism is often used today to suggest an anti-Christian rejection of faith. The humanism of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries was by no means anti-Christian. It did re-conceptualize Christianity, as we will see. But humanism was deeply embraced by and influential in the Catholic Church.
Broadly speaking, Humanism may be defined as “any philosophy, or political stance which emphasizes or privileges the welfare of humans and assumes that only humans are capable of reason” (Humanism 2018). Humanism shifted the focus of Christian awareness from the Medieval obsession with sin, mortality, and the afterlife to an open-minded exploration of the current world and the nature of human beings.
Of course, our interest lies with art, and the impact of Humanistic learning on 15th Century artists was incalculable. Raphael’s Vatican fresco The School of Athens honors the heroes of Greek learning who so profoundly influenced the Renaissance: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Epicurus, Pythagoras, Pericles, Plotinus, Euclid, Ptolemy, etc.
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| Raphael da Urbino. (c. 1509-10). Stanza della Segnatura: School of Athens. Fresco. |
Raphael’s composition is fascinating on many levels. Its Form and Composition reward extensive observation. But as a testament to the Renaissance relationship between art and Classical learning, it is revelatory. Many of those figures representing famous classical scholars are at the same time mini-portraits of the artists that Raphael held in the highest esteem. The figure of Plato, his finger pointing upward to invoke his theory of the Ideal, is actually Leonardo. Heraclitus, head in hand, drawing on a table, is Michelangelo. On the far right, near the pillar, a face looks out at the viewer. By convention, such faces were usually self-portraits. Raphael quite literally saw Renaissance artists as inheritors of the achievement of Classical writers.
Vasari’s Three Eras
In 1568, a capable painter names Giorgio Vasari published a pioneering volume of art history: Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Vasari focused on the achievements of Artists in Italian states, with special attention paid to those of the Renaissance. He divided the time of the Rinascita into three periods, each, in his view, forming a developmental stage in the recovery of mimesis as a core value:
- The age of Giotto (13th Century): the rebirth of a commitment to imitating nature
- The age of Masaccio (15th Century): an innovative understanding of perspective and anatomy
- The age of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo: the “summit of perfection” in mastering and surpassing nature
So let’s return to the age of Cimabue and Giotto, the first stages of the classical rebirth.
References
Canaletto. (c. 1740). Venice: The Basin of San Marco on Ascension Day. [Painting]. London: National Gallery. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/canaletto-venice-the-basin-of-san-marco-on-ascension-day
Cimabue. (c. 1290). Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Peter. [Painting]. Washington, D.C.: The National Gallery of Art. Accession Number 1952.5.60. https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.41675.html
Humanism. (2003). [Article]. In G. Campbell, G. (Ed.s), The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.bethel.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780198601753.001.0001/acref-9780198601753-e-1889?rskey=wcfuUs&result=8.
Humanism. (2018). [Article]. In I. Buchanan (Ed.), A Dictionary of Critical Theory. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198794790.001.0001/acref-9780198794790-e-331.
Raphael da Urbino. (c. 1509-10). Stanza della Segnatura: School of Athens [Fresco]. Vatican: Vatican Museum. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.18122434
Renaissance. (2003). [Article]. In G. Campbell, G. (Ed.s), The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance. Oxford University Press. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198601753.001.0001/acref-9780198601753-e-3013.
Vasari, G. (1568). Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors & Architects. Trans. Gaston Du C. de Vere, Gaston du C. Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25326
A) an aesthetic valuing clarity, order, balance, unity, symmetry, and dignity, usually honoring a cultural tradition associated with some golden age of the past. B) in the Euro-American tradition, a reference to the works, styles, and themes of Greek and Roman antiquity.
A) a 14th Century shift in European culture from a narrow, exclusive focus on scripture and Church interests to a broader interest in cultural traditions, especially those of classical Egypt, Greece and Persia. B) a perspective that values and focuses on the capacities of human beings for knowledge, wisdom, and creativity.