"What is Renaissance humanism? How did it transform the way Europeans looked at the world? "How did Ideology, religion, politics, and economics drive and enable European exploration?" Each answer shou

“What is Renaissance humanism? How did it transform the way Europeans looked at the world?

“How did Ideology, religion, politics, and economics drive and enable European exploration?”

Each answer should be around 300 words and based on the April 13 lecture.

note The lecture is the down started from Agenda

Agenda for today:

• The Renaissance: why it was a significant moment for the evolution of politics, arts, and science in Europe and for exploration.

• The Renaissance changes how Europeans think about the world and gives them a fresh incentive to go exploring

• We’ll look at the role ideology, economics, politics, religion and technology played in allowing Europeans to explore the world.

• We’ll talk about spices: the role they played in European culture and in the Age of Exploration.

Questions for today

• What is Renaissance humanism? How did it transform the way Europeans looked at the world?

• What role did virtù play in the European Age of Exploration?

• How did Ideology, religion, politics, and economics drive and

enable European exploration?

• What is the significance of the Reconquista?

• What are spices? Why did Europeans value them so much? What role did they play in the Age of Exploration?

My sources:

• These are some of the sources I’m using to build your lectures. They include your textbook so expect to hear moments when I am quoting the textbook or flagging that I’m drawing from it.

• Brian Levack, Edward Muir, Meredith Veldman, The West: Encounters and Transformations: Fifth Edition.

• Lynn Hunt, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, Bonnie G. Smith. The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures: Sixth edition. Volume 1 to 1750

• Katharine J. Lualdi, Sources of The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures, Sixth Edition: Volume I.

The Renaissance (1300-1600)

• The Renaissance: Rebirth

• The Renaissance kicked off in Northern Italy.

• The political culture and economic vibrancy of the Italian city states encouraged wealthy patrons to support art and learning.

Source: Brian Levack, et al, The West, Page 314 Copyright Dale Barbour 2022

The Renaissance (1300-1600)

• Florentine banker Cosimo de’ Medici (1389–1464) is probably the most famous Renaissance patron

• Venice: Trade links and a cosmopolitan city encouraged artistic endeavor.

• The Fall of Constantinople drove Greek Christian artists and scholars towards Venice: they brought a renewed respect for Greek art and literature with them

Cosimo de’ Medici

(1389–1464)

Workshop of Bronzino, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What is Renaissance humanism?

• Renaissance Humanists sought to uplift their fellow citizens, improve civic life, and persuade others towards more virtuous actions

• They drew on ancient Greek and Roman writers and philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Socrates.

What is Renaissance humanism?

• Promoters of Renaissance humanism promoted “secularism”, a word that comes from the Latin word, saecula, meaning “of the world, worldly”

• Secularism DID NOT mean a separation of Church and State as we use it today.

• They believed religion was not just a matter for the afterlife: rather humanists asserted God had made a world full of beauty, so we were obliged to enjoy it .

Renaissance Humanists believed in virtù:

• Virtù means the ability to make an impact in your chosen field

• The idea of Virtù pushed artists, architects, and explorers forward

Michelangelo’s David (1501-1504) captures the Renaissance ideal of virtù and captures the Renaissance Humanist idea that beauty was to be found in the world: even in humankind.

The Renaissance created a flowering in European art

Lorenzo

Ghiberti, The

Sacrifice of Isaac Museao Nazionale del

Bargello, Florence, Italy/Bridgeman Images

Sandro Botticelli, The

Birth of Venice Galleria degli Uffiza, Florence, Florence, Italy/Bridgeman Images

Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo, Martyrdom of St.

Sebastian

National Gallery, London/Bridgeman Images

Jan van Eyck, The Virgin

of Chancellor Rolin Musee du Louvre, Paris, France, Erich Lessing/Art Resources, NY

Why did Europeans want to explore the world?

• Humanism and the related ideal of virtù.

• The desire to spread the Christian religion

• (Spanish Reconquista is an example of this religious zeal)

• Competition between states

• The desire for trade goods, especially spices.

The Spanish Reconquista: 700-1492

The effort to drive Islamic forces out of the Iberian Peninsula unified Spain under the Catholic Church. With the Reconquista completed in 1492 Spain looked outward to see where it could spread the Catholic religion next.

What are spices?

• Spices are dried seeds, fruit, root, bark, or vegetable unlike herbs, which are taken from the leafy part of a plant.

• Spices include pepper, cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg, ginger and cloves, saffron (it’s the stigma (the centre stem) of the saffron flower) and grains of paradise, a type of ginger.

• Their origins were mysterious: they were seen as having come from “The East.”

• Spices had a spiritual, medicinal, and status symbol role for Europeans.

Spices and the age of exploration

• Getting spices was an economic reason driving exploration. • Europeans valued spices for culinary reasons, spiritual

reasons, and as a status symbol.

• But getting them was a challenge.

The Mongol Empire at its peak in the 13th century

The Mongol Empire had enabled trade to move across the continent.

As the Mongol Empire broke up, Europe looked to sea routes to reach India and China.

Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed on January 6, 2019,

https://www.britannica.com/place/Mongol-empire/media/389325/235959

How Did Spices Arrive to Europe? They had to go through the Middle East

But what’s the challenge of going through the Middle East? The Ottoman Empire

• After 1450 the Ottoman Empire made getting goods from the East more expensive. Europe needed a work

around.