The Renaissance is the name given to the vast cultural and artistic movement that Europe experienced from the 14th century to the end of the 16th century, following the rediscovery of the cultural, intellectual and scientific heritage of Antiquity. Born in Italy, the Renaissance movement will shake up the whole continent. The great families, such as the Medici, will use artists and scholars to build rich, powerful and literate cities, like Florence. During this period, artists and intellectuals expressed the wish to free themselves from the shackles of the Middle Ages to favor the practical, the beautiful and access knowledge.
Beginning of the Renaissance:the Byzantine heritage
Heir to the ancient Roman Empire, the Byzantine world also has its roots in the knowledge of classical and Hellenistic Greece, as well as in the Christian Scriptures. Until 1453, scholars tried to preserve this triple heritage. Greek knowledge, in particular philosophy, science, music, rhetoric and logic, is preserved through compendiums, anthologies, compilations and more or less selective corpuses.
From the 7th to the 9th century, many collections intended to preserve the last traces of the ancient literary heritage were carried out throughout the Empire. From the 11th century, the Byzantine school was increasingly controlled by the clerical authorities, which favored training for administrative duties rather than a teaching of ancient culture alone. Nevertheless, thanks to the development of monastic institutions, ancient knowledge spread throughout the Empire.
The fall of Constantinople and the exile of Westerners
History textbooks usually start Modern Times with the fall of Byzantium and the beginnings of great discoveries. On May 29, 1453, the end of the siege of Constantinople, the Byzantium of the Eastern Roman Empire, led to the establishment of a new political and spiritual balance, following the victory of the Turkish sultan Mehmet II Fatih over the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. Driven out by the Ottoman and Muslim Turks of the Eastern Mediterranean, the representatives of the Western Christian world, both Venetian and Genoese merchants and traders and the last surviving knights of the military orders from the Crusades, such as the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem* , see the territories once belonging to the glorious Byzantine Empire close in front of them. Greece and the Balkans, vast expanses victims of the assaults of the Sultan's troops, fell for a long time under the control of the Turks.
Not only the Eastern Church, of Greek Orthodox obedience since the schism of the East, but also the Byzantine administration, whose political and religious structures are precious supports to the establishment of the Ottoman regime, however, benefited from the benevolence of the sultans. The Silk Road, one of whose outlets remains Constantinople-Istanbul, still continues to supply all the Mediterranean coasts with food and precious objects. The once nomadic Turkish tribes finally learn, under the reign of Mehmet II, to adopt a definitively sedentary life and to administer the great metropolis.
The very cultured Sultan Mehmet II in person was interested in the writings of ancient authors, both in Arabic manuscripts and the sacred texts of Islam, and in Byzantine compilations works by Greek and Latin authors rarely preserved since late classical antiquity. Founding in particular the first great "university" of the Muslim world, his reign and that of his successors are conducive to the dissemination of Islam and the enormous heritage bequeathed by Constantinople.
Settled in the Frankish Quarter of Constantinople, Italian and Spanish merchants and traders made the city a prosperous city, struggling through alliances with or against the Byzantine emperors. The Amalfitans, the Genoese, the Florentines and the Venetians finally constitute, in the city itself, veritable colonies. After the fall of Constantinople, the Italian cities welcomed their refugees who, carrying away the remains of the library collections, also contributed to the dispersion of the Byzantine heritage and to the appearance, on the peninsula, of the Renaissance. Thanks to the arrival of Byzantine compilations, Vegetius, Pythagoras, Euclid are again available in their Greek manuscripts.
The Italian Renaissance:an artistic revival
From the earliest years, the Italian Renaissance was intended to be a new stage in complete rupture with the medieval past. This movement of cultural renewal affects not only the sciences, literature and philosophy, but also, and above all, the arts. This revival is characterized by significant advances, themselves serving as an emulation of techniques and systems of representation.
Italian Renaissance craftsmen reinvented the techniques of perspective, architectural conventions and the rules prevailing in the production of paintings. A fundamental difference appears between medieval art and the arts of the Renaissance, called modern. Far from copying undisputed examples and models, the artists on the contrary make a work of reason, drawing inspiration from ancient models to propose new techniques and new representation schemes even before the realization of their masterpieces.
A rational return to antiquity
The men of the Renaissance partly stigmatized the role of the Church which stifled, from the end of the Antiquity, inventiveness and freedom of creation and expression of artists. The artistic Renaissance, on the contrary, uses ancient mythological themes, placing man at the center of the universe, human values above all others. It advocates a return to ancient sources, both Christian and, above all, pagan.
Indeed, archaeological discoveries, such as the excavations of the Baths of Caracalla, inspired Renaissance men. The study of ancient texts allows architects to abandon Gothic forms. They use the teachings of Pythagoras and Vitruvius to craft their plans. In the plastic arts, the nude is used more than in the Middle Ages and the movement is rendered by the swaying.
Taking the achievements of Greco-Roman Antiquity as an example, the Renaissance people wanted to surpass everything that had already been built. The dissemination of ancient knowledge is therefore essential, but it is accompanied by many comments and multiple interpretations. The Renaissance artist, if he must have obvious knowledge of theology, also turned to geometry, perspective and history, as well as astronomy, astrology and poetry. In the field of architecture, for example, the translations of Vitruvius, after having been studied and analyzed in the smallest details, spread in Italy and then throughout Europe.
The difference between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is thus the introduction of a greater spirit of method, which gradually encourages the importance of masterpieces to be diminished medieval. The architect emerges from anonymity and benefits from a social promotion never before known.
Florence and patrons
The cradle of the Italian Renaissance is, unquestionably, the Tuscan city of Florence, where the unrelenting passion for antiquity, the political interests of the rulers and the great erudition of the elite play a crucial role in the artistic creation process. In the Tuscan city, the influence of antiquity is felt in many artists. Florentine public competitions maintain a certain emulation among artists, while large-scale public buildings are built in a climate of beneficial economic prosperity. Urban palaces, villas and even entire cities are born.
Renaissance academies, which appeared gradually throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, proved to be a decisive importance, such as the Accademia platonica of Marsilio Ficino and Pico de la Mirandola, founded in Florence in 1462 under the reign of Lorenzo the Magnificent, or the Accademia fiorentina, desired in 1540 by Cosimo de' Medici. Organized like true artistic associations, they collect from the political elites the funds necessary to produce works of art, acting in the form of patronage.
Sponsors, insofar as their finances permit, are becoming more cautious and soliciting the most famous artists, no longer contenting themselves with local productions. The protection of sponsors normally ensures a climate of security and a certain opulence for the creators whom they generously remunerate. Private commissions, carried out both for buildings of worship and for private homes, exercised a fundamental influence on iconography and style. The sponsors thus manage to be represented before the saints.
The contradictions of the Roman Church
The Catholic Church, on the basis of the principles established at the Council of Trent, first subscribed to a largely Aristotelian framework of thought, little inclined to accept the new concepts generated by humanism, which often seem difficult to reconcile with the medieval conception of Christian doctrine and the holy texts. However, within the curia itself, the evolution of thought does not leave anyone indifferent.
Because far from denying their Christian roots, humanists remain attached to divine belief. But they simply recommend making the holy precepts more accessible, fighting against ignorance. In short, they are more opposed to the practices and conceptions of ecclesiastics than to religion itself. The Galileo affair, the repercussions and the scandal it engenders therefore portrays a Church more divided in its values and traditions than truly opposed to the progress of science.
Most of the artistic commissions paradoxically concern the ecclesiastical universe. With the emergence of a bourgeois elite, the problem of the transmission of wealth and goods arises. Indeed, the acquisition of these through trade or usury is frowned upon by the Church. Public donations, considered as acts of devotion, therefore flourish, especially as they contribute to the salvation of the soul. From then on, the private chapels were decorated by the best painters, even before the choir chapels.
The evolution of arts and techniques during the Renaissance
In the field of painting, the role of Italy is essential, in particular thanks to the innovations introduced by Leonardo da Vinci. Painting nature and humans at all hours of the day, he gives light, shadows, reflections and all the contrasts a special place. Its vanishing lines and gradient lines now open the door to perspective. At the same time, sculpture asserts itself outside the traditional forms of representation, favoring movement and the monumental aspect. The sculpture regains its freedom borrowed from ancient models. We find the bronze statuary, the fusion of metals and the colossal works of Verrocchio and Michelangelo, which enliven the bodies and accentuate the contrasts.
For architecture, the influence of models and techniques is just as decisive. Bramante reintroduced the use of stylistic principles of the Doric and Ionic orders, then Corinthian, which spread abundantly in all constructions. Ancient masonry techniques, such as Opus tessellatum, adorn Alberti's rich creations. During the pontificates of Julius II and Leo X, the motif of the building with a central plan becomes the reference model for the largest religious buildings.
Palace and public buildings are now distinguished by the use of trompe-l'oeil and decorations of columns and motifs directly inspired by Antiquity. Finally, the gardens, left to the imagination of architects and landscape architects, are designed as a gigantic decor, conducive to the staging of sculpted works thanks to the multiplication of stairs, fountains and terraces.
A period of intellectual ferment that was to lay the foundations of what was to constitute modern thought and science, the Renaissance remained above all a great artistic period; his contribution to Western art is immense.
To go further
- The European Renaissance, by Peter Burke. Threshold Points, 2002.
- The Renaissances (1453-1559), by Philippe Hamon. Belin, 2014.