Origins
Many argue that the ideas that characterized the Renaissance had their origin in late
13th century Florence, in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321)
and Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), as well as the painting of Giotto di Bondone (1267
–1337).[19] Some writers date the Renaissance quite precisely; one proposed starting
point is 1401, when the rival geniuses Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi
competed for the contract to build the bronze doors for the Baptistery of the Florence
Cathedral (Ghiberti won).[20] Others see more general competition between artists and
polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic
commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated
why the Renaissance began in Italy, and why it began when it did. Accordingly, several
theories have been put forward to explain its origins.
During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand. Artists depended totally on
patrons while the patrons needed money to sustain geniuses. Wealth was brought to Italy
in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia and Europe. Silver
mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought
home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa and Venice.[21]
Michelet defined the 16th-century Renaissance in France as a period in Europe's
cultural history that represented a break from the Middle Ages, creating a modern
understanding of humanity and its place in the world.[22]
Latin and Greek phases of Renaissance humanism
In stark contrast to the High Middle Ages, when Latin scholars focused almost entirely
on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural science, philosophy and mathematics,[23]
Renaissance scholars were most interested in recovering and studying Latin and Greek
literary, historical, and oratorical texts. Broadly speaking, this began in the 14th
century with a Latin phase, when Renaissance scholars such as Petrarch, Coluccio
Salutati (1331–1406), Niccolò de' Niccoli (1364–1437) and Poggio Bracciolini (1380–
1459 AD) scoured the libraries of Europe in search of works by such Latin authors as
Cicero, Livy and Seneca.[24] By the early 15th century, the bulk of such Latin
literature had been recovered; the Greek phase of Renaissance humanism was now under
way, as Western European scholars turned to recovering ancient Greek literary,
historical, oratorical and theological texts.[25]
Unlike the case of those Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western
Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in
medieval Western Europe. Ancient Greek works on science, maths and philosophy had been
studied since the High Middle Ages in Western Europe and in the medieval Islamic world
(normally in translation), but Greek literary, oratorical and historical works (such as
Homer, the Greek dramatists, Demosthenes and Thucydides and so forth), were not studied
in either the Latin or medieval Islamic worlds; in the Middle Ages these sorts of texts
were only studied by Byzantine scholars. One of the greatest achievements of
Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into
Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity. This movement to reintegrate
the regular study of Greek literary, historical, oratorical and theological texts back
into the Western European curriculum is usually dated to Coluccio Salutati's invitation
to the Byzantine diplomat and scholar Manuel Chrysoloras (c.1355–1415) to Florence to
teach Greek.[26]
没有评论:
发表评论