1.2 Italian Renaissance

Humanism was an intellectual movement that studied ancient Greek and Roman texts in grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy. Humanists believed these subjects, called the studia humanitatis, trained people to live well and serve their communities.

Petrarch (1304–1374) is often called the father of humanism. He hunted for lost Latin manuscripts and wrote letters to long-dead Roman authors like Cicero as if they were friends. Leonardo Bruni, a chancellor of Florence, practiced civic humanism: the idea that educated citizens should take an active part in public life, as Roman republicans had.

Lorenzo Valla showed what close reading could do. In 1440 he studied the language of the Donation of Constantine, a document the papacy used to claim power in the West, and proved it was a forgery written centuries after Constantine. This kind of textual criticism later helped reformers question Church authority. Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486) argued that humans have the freedom to shape what they become.

Humanism also changed schooling. Teachers such as Vittorino da Feltre in Mantua built lessons around Latin and Greek authors, history and physical training instead of the theology and logic that dominated medieval universities. Because humanists judged a text by evidence, not by who stood behind it, their methods could undercut the authority of universities and the Church.

• Individualism: celebrating personal talent and achievement. Artists began signing works and writing about their own lives.
• Secularism: more attention to life in this world, such as politics, wealth and fame. Renaissance people were still Christians; secular here means a shift of focus, not a loss of faith.
• Classicism: copying Greek and Roman models in writing, architecture and art.

Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513, after he lost his job in the Florentine government. He described how rulers actually gain and keep power rather than how they ought to behave. He argued that a prince may need to be harsh or deceptive to keep the state safe and that it is safer to be feared than loved if you can't be both. That practical, secular view of politics shocked many readers.

Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier (1528) described the ideal courtier: educated in the classics, skilled in arms, graceful and able to make it all look effortless. It shows how humanist education became a mark of the elite.

Patronage means paying artists and scholars, usually to gain prestige. The Medici banking family ran Florence in practice from 1434 and funded artists and the scholar Marsilio Ficino, who translated Plato. Popes such as Julius II paid for Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508–1512) and Raphael's School of Athens (1509–1511) to show the power of Rome.

Renaissance art used linear perspective, a mathematical method of making a flat surface look three-dimensional, worked out by the architect Brunelleschi in the early 1400s. Artists studied anatomy, used light and shadow for depth, and painted classical as well as religious subjects. Key works include Masaccio's Holy Trinity, Leonardo's Last Supper, Michelangelo's marble David (1501–1504) and Botticelli's Birth of Venus.

The Renaissance mostly touched a small urban elite. A few women, such as Isabella d'Este, a major patron, gained fame, but most women's lives changed little. Historian Joan Kelly asked whether women had a Renaissance at all and argued that elite women actually lost some freedom. Other historians point to educated women as evidence of new chances. Either way, use specific examples.