Historiography
editConception
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The Italian artist and critic Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) first used the term rinascita retrospectively in his book 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 Tuscan artists, beginning with Cimabue (1240–1301) and Giotto (1267–1337) began to reverse this decline in the arts. Vasari saw antique art as central to the rebirth of Italian art.[1]
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.[2] For Michelet, the Renaissance was more a development in science than in art and culture. He asserted that it spanned the period from Columbus to Copernicus to Galileo; that is, from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 17th century.[3] Moreover, Michelet distinguished between what he called, "the bizarre and monstrous" quality of the Middle Ages and the democratic values that he, as a vocal Republican, chose to see in its character.[4] A French nationalist, Michelet also sought to claim the Renaissance as a French movement.[4]
The 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 individuality, which the Middle Ages had stifled.[5] His book was widely read and became influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the Italian Renaissance.[6] However, Buckhardt has been accused[by whom?] of setting forth a linear Whiggish view of history in seeing the Renaissance as the origin of the modern world.[7]
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:
"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".[7]
Debates about progress
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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 towards the modern age. Burckhardt likened the change to a veil being removed from man's eyes, allowing him to see clearly.[8]
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.[9]
— Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
On the other hand, many historians now point out that most of the negative social factors popularly associated with the medieval period – poverty, warfare, religious and political persecution, for example – seem to have worsened in this era, which saw the rise of Machiavellian politics, the Wars of Religion, the corrupt Borgia Popes, and the intensified witch-hunts 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.[10] 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.[11] Some 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 towards capitalism, resulting in a bourgeois class with leisure time to devote to the arts.[12]
Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) acknowledged the existence of the Renaissance but questioned whether it was a positive change. In his book The Waning of the Middle Ages, he argued that the Renaissance was a period of decline from the High Middle Ages, destroying much that was important.[13] The 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 Latin revert to its classical form. Robert S. Lopez has contended that it was a period of deep economic recession.[14] Meanwhile, George Sarton and Lynn Thorndike have both argued that scientific progress was perhaps less original than has traditionally been supposed.[15] Finally, Joan Kelly argued that the Renaissance led to greater gender dichotomy, lessening the agency women had had during the Middle Ages.[16]
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", the Middle Ages. Most historians now prefer to use the term "early modern" for this period, a more neutral designation that highlights the period as a transitional one between the Middle Ages and the modern era.[17] 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.[18]
- ^ "Defining the Renaissance, Open University". Open.ac.uk. Retrieved July 31, 2009.
- ^ Murray, P. and Murray, L. (1963) The Art of the Renaissance. London: Thames & Hudson (World of Art), p. 9. ISBN 978-0-500-20008-7. "...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."
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Michelet, Jules 1847was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
brottonwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy Archived September 21, 2008, at the Wayback Machine (trans. S.G.C Middlemore, London, 1878)
- ^ Gay, Peter, Style in History, New York: Basic Books, 1974.
- ^ a b Starn, Randolph (1998). "Renaissance Redux". The American Historical Review. 103 (1): 122–124. doi:10.2307/2650779. JSTOR 2650779.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
burckhardt-individualwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Burckhardt, Jacob. "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy". Archived from the original on October 3, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2008.
- ^ 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
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
panofskywas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Renaissance Forum at Hull University, Autumn 1997 (Retrieved on May 10, 2007)
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
huizingawas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Lopez, Robert S. & Miskimin, Harry A. (1962). "The Economic Depression of the Renaissance". Economic History Review. 14 (3): 408–26. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.1962.tb00059.x. JSTOR 2591885.
- ^ Thorndike, Lynn; Johnson, F. R.; Kristeller, P. O.; Lockwood, D. P.; Thorndike, L. (1943). "Some Remarks on the Question of the Originality of the Renaissance". Journal of the History of Ideas. 4 (1): 49–74. doi:10.2307/2707236. JSTOR 2707236.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Stephen Greenblatt Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, University of Chicago Press, 1980.
- ^ Osborne, Roger (November 1, 2006). Civilization: a new history of the Western world. Pegasus Books. pp. 180–. ISBN 978-1-933648-19-4. Retrieved December 10, 2011.