Based on A History of Music in Western Culture, Mark Evan Bonds

1. Part Two:
The
Renaissance
A Cultural Movement
AND
A Historical Period
~1420-1600

2. Overview
• Renaissance = “rebirth” in French
• A revival of attitudes and ideals rooted in classical
antiquity, primarily Greek
• Greek writings were lost in Europe, but preserved in
Islamic and Byzantine libraries in Constantinople
• 1453, Islamic incursion into Constantinople –
manuscripts flooded western Europe with fleeing
scholars seeking refuge

3. Renaissance Regions

4. Italy
The Italian peninsula was
particularly hospitable to
the growth of city-states
based on industry,
commerce, banking
Contemporary Florence

5. Cosimo de’ Medici
(1389-1464)
•A banker who nurtured the arts in Florence
•Assembled the largest library in Europe, including
many newly recovered Greek manuscripts
•Grandson: Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-1492)
increased the city’s stature for poetry, painting,
architecture, and music

6. The Medici Family: Then and Now
Lorenzo de’ Medici Lorenzo de’ Medici

7. France – Joan of Arc, d. 1431

8. England –
Battle of
Bosworth
Field, 1485

9. Habsburg
Dynasty
• Holy Roman Empire and Iberian Peninsula
• Germany, Austria, northern Italy
• By marriage expanded to Burgundy (France),
Spain, Portugal, the Low Countries (Holland)

10. Spain: the Spanish
Inquisition
• 1492 – Spain united under Ferdinand of
Aragon and Isabella of Castille
• They conquered Granada, the last
Muslim stronghold in Spain
• That same year, Spain expelled all Jews
who refused to convert to Christianity;
in 1502 they required Muslims to
convert
Francisco Padrilla, 1882: The Surrender of Grenada

11. Spanish Colonization
of the Americas
1492 Columbus “discovered” America by landing in the Caribbean island of
San Salvador
Other countries quickly followed: Portugal, France, England, Netherlands

12. Renaissance Humanism
• Sudden abundance of pre-Christian
sources from classical antiquity
introduced Western minds to another
worldview
• Ancient Greeks had measured the
universe in terms of human values and
reason; scholars created a philosophical
movement known as humanism
• Independent reasoning, study of classics
in Greek, basic dignity of humankind,
sought to understand religion through
reason as much as by faith

13. Johannes Gutenberg (~1400-1468)
~ 1440 – invented the mechanical printing press

14. Protestant
Reformation
•Humanism and printing ignited
the Protestant Reformation
•Martin Luther (1483-1546) nailed
the 95 Theses to the castle church
door in Wittenberg in 1517, naming
his grievances with the Roman
Catholic Church

15. Renaissance Arts and
Sciences
Leonardo Da Vinci – interest in human anatomy and machinery

16. Humanist Sculpture
•Luca della Robbia carved seven figures between
1431-1438 into the cantoria of the Florence
Cathedral showing figures singing and playing
musical instruments

17. Music in the Renaissance
•Composers did NOT strive to emulate antiquity’s ideals!
•Humanism in music shows itself in the new stylistic developments
with the expansion of polyphony
•This image shows Queen Elizabeth I playing the lute