WYH2010HF Christianity 843–1648

The Renaissance

Links and resources

Krista Dowdeswell and Jasmine Shantz' summary of Erasmus' Praise of Folly.

 

What's the Renaissance?

As a historical period, the Renaissance overlaps with the late middle ages.

  • In southern Europe, especially Italy, it begins in 1350 or 1400. Some date the origins earlier, but it's agreed that it flowers in the 1400s (the quattrocento). It declines around 1500 or 1525.
  • North of the Alps, the Renaissance begins about 1500. Its flowering in England comes during the Elizabethan period (1558-1603), the "age of Shakespeare."

"Renaissance" means "rebirth," and what was reborn in this period was classicism: Greek and Roman literature, art, and architecture. Renaissance thinkers, writers, and artists aimed to transfer the "glory of Rome" to Christian western Europe.

In art, a good early example is Donatello, the greatest sculptor of his time; here is his bronze David, triumphant over Goliath (ca. 1425). This probably stood in Cosimo de Medici's garden in Florence (it's now in a Florence museum). It's "the first freestanding lifesize nude statue" since antiquity (Janson, History of Art, 6th ed.). Its form is classical, its substance is Scriptural, and its subtext is probably political: little Florence had just beaten off the goliath Milan when Donatello sculpted this.

For Renaissance sensibilities, the big problem was that people felt separated from the classical age. It seemed deeply regrettable that medieval history had moved in its own directions, abandoning the classical heritage. The Italian writer Petrarch (1304-1374), the father of Renaissance humanism, was the first to call the middle ages "the dark age". The task of the Renaissance, therefore, was to rediscover what classicism was all about. This task required going ad fontes, "to the sources" — reading classical literature and appreciating classical art afresh. Ad fontes was the watchword of the Renaissance. Retrieving classical sources (so that they could be transferred into modern culture) involved an effort of critical historical scholarship. Philology and history were important Renaissance disciplines.

The characteristic sensibility of the Renaissance was humanism. This partly meant the study of the humanities, but it also meant focusing on human beings, their "freedom, power, uniqueness, and individuality" (Bard Thompson, Humanists and reformers). Some say that the Renaissance began in 1336 when Petrarch climbed the tallest mountain in southern France, not as a metaphor for spiritual ascent, not to build a monastery or to commune with God, but to see the view — and write about it. (But the review reminds him of Augustine's Confessions!)

The Renaissance papacy

In the years leading up to 1417, the papacy had been weakened by: —

  • the great schism;
  • conciliarism;
  • the success of several papal states in throwing off papal authority;
  • the commercial development of Venice, Florence, and Milan without concern for the Church's interests;
  • the increasing power of England and France, which sought to limit papal authority;
  • a public image of weakness and poverty, symbolized by deteriorating and rotting buildings in Rome, including the Constantinian basilica of St. Peter's.

After Martin V was elected pope by the Council of Constance in 1417, he decided to move his administration to Rome (the French wanted him in Avignon, and the Germans wanted him in a German city). He found the Lateran Palace in such bad repair that he moved the papal administration to Vatican Hill, where it remains today.

The Renaissance popes aimed to restore the honour and authority of the papacy, and their tasks included : —

  • repairing old buildings, and constructing splendid new ones;
  • commissioning impressive works of art;
  • winning back the papal states, which might involve political intrigue and military force;
  • increasing papal authority relative to the powers of European national governments, which might involve canny diplomacy;
  • strengthening revenues and improving the papal treasury.

Nicholas V (1447-1455) was the first clear Renaissance pope; his best-known project was the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, which began during his reign. Julius II (1503-1513) was the most successful of the Renaissance popes; posterity particularly recalls his commissioning of Michelangelo to decorate the Sistine Chapel (pictured here). The Renaissance popes, drawn from important Italian families, weres known for their sponsorship of the arts, their expensive entertainments, their political machinations, and their intrigues, but not for their ecclesiastical policies, theology, morality, or spirituality. The symbolic end of the Renaissance papacy is the invasion of Rome by the armies of the Emperor Charles V in 1527, who probably did more damage than even the barbarians of 410.

 

The Renaissance and reform

Erasmus (1466-1536), pictured here. This influential Dutch humanist priest, scholar, and teacher critiqued the ecclesiastical power structure, promoted an accessible lay theology free of scholastic subtleties, and published the first scholarly edition of the New Testament in Greek. He wrote Praise of Folly.

Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (c.1450-1536) was a French humanist priest and teacher at the University of Paris, a commentator on Paul, and the first translator of the Bible into French (1530). John Colet (c. 1467-1519) was a humanist priest and teacher at Oxford, and then dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. His sermon preached in 1512 to the convocation of the Church of England satirized the wealth and laziness of the clergy, and called for serious reform; it caused a controversy, and was immediately published.

The Renaissance had several influences on the Protestant and Catholic reformations.

  • The attitude ad fontes was applied to Christianity too. Christian leaders returned to Scripture, which they re-edited and re-translated according to up-to-date philological principles, and which they interpreted afresh.
  • Medieval legends and superstitions were exploded by Renaissance historians armed with new critical methods. The best example is the exposure of the fraudulent Donation of Constantine by Lorenzo da Valla (1405-1457).
  • Renaissance sensibilities of freedom collided with authoritarian social structures, such as the Church. Writers sharply satirized ecclesiastical corruption and hypocrisy.
  • Renaissance writers (Petrarch and Erasmus are examples) despised scholastic theology, as did Protestant and Catholic reformers.
  • A general goal of the Renaissance, to connect classical form with Christian faith, helped people see Christianity afresh. Classical literature was used to strengthen the faith, and critique ecclesiastical abuses.
  • An educational task of the Renaissance was to promote reading and study among the laity. Protestant and Catholic reformers recognized the value of improving Christian education.