Renaissance Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Historiography== ===Conception=== [[File:Vite.jpg|thumb|A cover of the ''Lives of the Artists'' by [[Giorgio Vasari]] ]] The Italian artist and critic [[Giorgio Vasari]] (1511–1574) first used the term ''rinascita'' in his book ''[[Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects|The Lives of the Artists]]'' (published 1550). In the book Vasari attempted to define what he described as a break with the barbarities of [[Gothic art]]: the arts (he held) had fallen into decay with the collapse of the [[Roman Empire]] and only the [[Tuscany|Tuscan]] artists, beginning with [[Cimabue]] (1240–1301) and [[Giotto]] (1267–1337) began to reverse this decline in the arts. Vasari saw ancient art as central to the rebirth of Italian art.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/renaissance2/defining.htm |title=Defining the Renaissance, Open University |publisher=Open.ac.uk |access-date=31 July 2009}}</ref> However, only in the 19th century did the French word ''renaissance'' achieve popularity in describing the self-conscious cultural movement based on revival of Roman models that began in the late 13th century. French [[historian]] [[Jules Michelet]] (1798–1874) defined "The Renaissance" in his 1855 work ''Histoire de France'' as an entire historical period, whereas previously it had been used in a more limited sense.<ref name=mur>Murray, P. and Murray, L. (1963) ''The Art of the Renaissance''. London: [[Thames & Hudson]] (World of Art), p. 9. {{ISBN|978-0500200087}}. "...in 1855 we find, for the first time, the word 'Renaissance' used – by the French historian Michelet – as an adjective to describe a whole period of history and not confined to the rebirth of Latin letters or a classically inspired style in the arts."</ref> For Michelet, the Renaissance was more a development in science than in art and culture. He asserted that it spanned the period from [[Christopher Columbus|Columbus]] to [[Copernicus]] to [[Galileo]]; that is, from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 17th century.<ref name="Michelet, Jules 1847"/> Moreover, Michelet distinguished between what he called, "the bizarre and monstrous" quality of the Middle Ages and the [[democracy|democratic]] values that he, as a vocal [[Republicanism|Republican]], chose to see in its character.<ref name="brotton" /> A French nationalist, Michelet also sought to claim the Renaissance as a French movement.<ref name="brotton" /> The [[Switzerland|Swiss]] historian [[Jacob Burckhardt]] (1818–1897) in his ''[[The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy]]'' (1860), by contrast, defined the Renaissance as the period between [[Giotto]] and [[Michelangelo]] in Italy, that is, the 14th to mid-16th centuries. He saw in the Renaissance the emergence of the modern spirit of [[individualism|individuality]], which the Middle Ages had stifled.<ref>Burckhardt, Jacob. ''[http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/burckhardt.html The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080921145058/http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/burckhardt.html |date=21 September 2008 }}'' (trans. S.G.C. Middlemore, London, 1878)</ref> His book was widely read and became influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the [[Italian Renaissance]].<ref>Gay, Peter, ''Style in History'', New York: Basic Books, 1974.</ref> More recently, some historians have been much less keen to define the Renaissance as a historical age, or even as a coherent cultural movement. The historian Randolph Starn, of the [[University of California Berkeley]], stated in 1998: {{blockquote|Rather than a period with definitive beginnings and endings and consistent content in between, the Renaissance can be (and occasionally has been) seen as a movement of practices and ideas to which specific groups and identifiable persons variously responded in different times and places. It would be in this sense a network of diverse, sometimes converging, sometimes conflicting cultures, not a single, time-bound culture.<ref name="starn" /> }} ===Debates about progress=== {{see also|Continuity thesis}} There is debate about the extent to which the Renaissance improved on the culture of the Middle Ages. Both Michelet and Burckhardt were keen to describe the progress made in the Renaissance toward the [[modern age]]. Burckhardt likened the change to a veil being removed from man's eyes, allowing him to see clearly.<ref name="burckhardt-individual" /> {{blockquote|In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness – that which was turned within as that which was turned without – lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues.<ref>{{cite web |last=Burckhardt |first=Jacob |author-link=Jacob Burckhardt |url=http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/2-1.html |title=The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy |access-date=August 31, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081003000844/http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/2-1.html |archive-date=October 3, 2008 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>|Jacob Burckhardt|''The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy''}} [[File:La masacre de San Bartolomé, por François Dubois.jpg|thumb|left|Painting of the [[St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre]], an event in the [[French Wars of Religion]], by [[François Dubois]]]] On the other hand, many historians now point out that most of the negative social factors popularly associated with the medieval period{{snd}}poverty, warfare, religious and political persecution, for example{{snd}}seem to have worsened in this era, which saw the rise of [[Machiavellianism (politics)|Machiavellian politics]], the [[French Wars of Religion|Wars of Religion]], the corrupt [[House of Borgia|Borgia]] [[List of popes from the Borgia family|Popes]], and the intensified [[witch-hunt]]s of the 16th century. Many people who lived during the Renaissance did not view it as the "[[golden age]]" imagined by certain 19th-century authors, but were concerned by these social maladies.<ref>[[Girolamo Savonarola]]'s popularity is a prime example of the manifestation of such concerns. Other examples include [[Philip II of Spain]]'s censorship of Florentine paintings, noted by Edward L. Goldberg, "Spanish Values and Tuscan Painting", ''Renaissance Quarterly'' (1998) p. 914</ref> Significantly, though, the artists, writers, and patrons involved in the cultural movements in question believed they were living in a new era that was a clean break from the Middle Ages.<ref name="panofsky" /> Some [[Historical materialism|Marxist historians]] prefer to describe the Renaissance in material terms, holding the view that the changes in art, literature, and philosophy were part of a general economic trend from [[feudalism]] toward [[capitalism]], resulting in a [[bourgeois]] class with leisure time to devote to the arts.<ref>[http://www.hull.ac.uk/renforum/v2no2/siar.htm Renaissance Forum] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120614012823/http://www.hull.ac.uk/renforum/v2no2/siar.htm |date=14 June 2012 }} at [[Hull University]], Autumn 1997 (Retrieved 10 May 2007)</ref> [[Johan Huizinga]] (1872–1945) acknowledged the existence of the Renaissance but questioned whether it was a positive change. In his book ''[[The Autumn of the Middle Ages]]'', he argued that the Renaissance was a period of decline from the [[High Middle Ages]], destroying much that was important.<ref name="huizinga" /> The [[Medieval Latin]] language, for instance, had evolved greatly from the classical period and was still a living language used in the church and elsewhere. The Renaissance obsession with classical purity halted its further evolution and saw [[Neo-Latin|Latin]] revert to its classical form. This view is however somewhat contested by [[Neo-Latin studies|recent studies]]. Robert S. Lopez has contended that it was a period of deep [[economic recession]].<ref>{{cite journal|author1=Lopez, Robert S. |author2=Miskimin, Harry A. |name-list-style=amp |title=The Economic Depression of the Renaissance|journal=Economic History Review|jstor=2591885|volume= 14 |year=1962|pages=408–426|doi=10.1111/j.1468-0289.1962.tb00059.x|issue=3}}</ref> Meanwhile, [[George Sarton]] and [[Lynn Thorndike]] have both argued that [[Science|scientific]] progress was perhaps less original than has traditionally been supposed.<ref>{{cite journal|author-link=Lynn Thorndike|author=Thorndike, Lynn|year=1943|title=Some Remarks on the Question of the Originality of the Renaissance|pages=49–74|journal=Journal of the History of Ideas|jstor=2707236|volume= 4|issue=1|doi=10.2307/2707236|last2=Johnson|first2=F.R.|last3=Kristeller|first3=P. O.|last4=Lockwood|first4=D.P.|last5=Thorndike|first5=L.}}</ref> Finally, [[Joan Kelly]] argued that the Renaissance led to greater gender dichotomy, lessening the agency women had had during the Middle Ages.<ref>Kelly-Gadol, Joan. "Did Women Have a Renaissance?" ''Becoming Visible: Women in European History''. Edited by Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.</ref> Some historians have begun to consider the word ''Renaissance'' to be unnecessarily loaded, implying an unambiguously positive rebirth from the supposedly more primitive "[[Dark Ages (historiography)|Dark Ages]]", the Middle Ages. Most political and economic historians now prefer to use the term "[[Early Modern Europe|early modern]]" for this period (and a considerable period afterwards), a designation intended to highlight the period as a transitional one between the Middle Ages and the modern era.<ref>[[Stephen Greenblatt]] ''Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare'', [[University of Chicago Press]], 1980.</ref> Others such as Roger Osborne have come to consider the Italian Renaissance as a repository of the myths and ideals of western history in general, and instead of rebirth of ancient ideas as a period of great innovation.<ref>{{cite book|author=Osborne, Roger |title=Civilization: a new history of the Western world|url=https://archive.org/details/00book2095698803|url-access=registration |access-date=10 December 2011|year= 2006|publisher=Pegasus Books|isbn=978-1933648194|pages=[https://archive.org/details/00book2095698803/page/180 180]–}}</ref> The [[Art history|art historian]] [[Erwin Panofsky]] observed of this resistance to the concept of "Renaissance": <blockquote>It is perhaps no accident that the factuality of the [[Italian Renaissance]] has been most vigorously questioned by those who are not obliged to take a professional interest in the aesthetic aspects of civilization – historians of economic and social developments, political and religious situations, and, most particularly, natural science – but only exceptionally by students of literature and hardly ever by historians of Art.<ref>Panofsky, ''Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art'' 1969:38; Panofsky's chapter "'Renaissance – self-definition or self-deception?" succinctly introduces the historiographical debate, with copious footnotes to the literature.</ref></blockquote> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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