Lecture notes for Mr. English's World History class.

1. Renaissance Men/
Women
What it takes to be a maestro

2. Objectives
❖ Students will discuss aspects of Renaissance figures and
identify what it means to be a Renaissance Person
❖ Students will analyze the changes in European thought and
culture resulting from the Renaissance.

3. Vocabulary
❖ Francesco Petarch
❖ Filippo Brunelleschi
❖ Leonardo da Vinci
❖ Michelangelo Buonarroti
❖ Niccolo Machiavelli

4. Francesco Petarch (1304-1374)
❖ Considered the earliest humanist
❖ Poet & scholar
❖ Assembled library of Greek & Roman writings
❖ Revived interest and admiration for great Roman and Greek
writers - Cicero, Homer, Virgil, etc.

5. Greek & Roman Influence
❖ Renaissance artists still continued to portray religious
scenes
❖ Used Greek or Roman backgrounds to set them
❖ Focus was on realism and perspective
❖ Mixture of Greek and Roman influence with
contemporary imagery

6. Change from
Gothic Architecture
❖ Renaissance architecture into a ‘social art’.
❖ From height and arches to a reflection of classical style of
columns, arches and domes
❖ Cathedrals and other important buildings reflected this
ideal

7. Filippo Brunelleschi
(1377-1446)
❖ Renaissance architect
❖ Most famous for designing the Florence
cathedral
❖ Also created bronze artwork,
mathematician, engineering, and ship
design
❖ Challenged classical approach to
architecture
❖ Began to use linear perspective

9. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
❖ Driving force: curiosity; Wanted to
understand how the world around him
worked
❖ By observing world around him and
sketching things as he saw them, his art
reflected a more striking realism.
❖ Art was only one of his passions: anatomy,
botany, optics, architecture and
engineering.

10. Video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6kVqMb8pk

11. Michelangelo Buonarroti
(1475-1564)
❖ Sculptor, engineer, painter, architect and
poet
❖ Focus of his art was to capture humanist
perspective on biblical themes
❖ Sculpture of “David” emphasizes
harmony and grace from Greek
tradition
❖ Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel - took 4
years for the ceiling and 6 years for the
wall

15. Literature and Writing
❖ Number of writers emphasized
humanities ideals
❖ Baldassare Castiglione developed a
guidebook for what a good man and
woman should be like
❖ Niccolo Machiavelli would write on
how best to gain control and power by
those in power
❖ ‘Ends justify the means.’

16. Video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s25kX24j250