Chapter 11:

THE EARLY RENAISSANCE

1400-1494

 

In order to truly understand the Renaissance, we have to go back in history, and see the power of the Church.

 

Those of you who read The DaVinci Code,  may remember Gaius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus (272-337), who, in 325, at the Council of Nicea, selected the books to be included in The Bible, declared Christ God, and basically codified Christianity.

 

The Donation of Constantine declared the Pope to be sole ruler of western Rome, while Constantine himself ruled in the east.

 

As you all know, after the fall of Rome, Europe existed in “The Dark Ages.”

BUT HOW DARK WERE THEY?

 

Under the strict rule of the church, there was very little learning in the west, but European aristocrats sent their children to Spain and to the east, where they could be educated in Islamic mosques and universities.  Muslim educators did not share Europe’s distain for the “heathen scholars” of ancient Greece and Rome.

 

Despite the strict control of the church, true scholarship and the study of Greek sources and Islamic interpretation eventually spread to Europe. 

 

Important to the evolution of education was Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457), who proved in 1440 The Donation of Constantine was a forgery, thus weakening the rule of the Pope in Europe.  Martin Luther had a very high opinion of Valla and of his writings, and Cardinal Bellarmine calls him praecursor Lutheri.  Valla was accused of heresy and all kinds of lies were told about him.  He died on August 1, 1457, and was buried, curiously in Lateran Basilica in Rome (The Pope’s Cathedral).  The cause of his death remains a mystery.

 

Education and the study of Humankind was really the start of The Renaissance, which is very well defined by Sister Wendy Beckett.  “They stand on the earth and cast their own shadows . . .” Sister Wendy Beckett.  (1930—present), Order of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, 1987 supporter of Andres Serrano's Piss Christ, and freedom                      in artistic expression.

 

Let’s stay at the Brancacci Chapel with Sister Wendy and look more closely at Masaccio

Masaccio (1401-1427?), was the first great painter of the Italian Renaissance, whose innovations in the use of scientific perspective inaugurated the modern era in painting.

We have already seen how Giotto (1267-1337) used new textures in color and some perspective in his work.  Masaccio studied Giotto and perfected the use of perspective.

 

The great architect, Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) developed the mathematical perspective which Masaccio also used in his work.

 

In “Tribute Money” (1426-27), Masaccio has included the three different moments in the same scene: the tax collector's request, with Jesus' immediate response indicating to Peter how to find the money, is illustrated in the centre; Peter catching the fish in Lake Genezaret and extracting the coin is shown to the left; and, to the right, Peter hands the tribute money to the tax collector in front of his house.

The figures are arranged according to horizontal lines, but the overall disposition is circular, the geometric pattern symbolizing the perfection of the circle.

Trinity
1425-28

“Raising of the Son of Theophilus and St Peter Enthroned”
1426-27

Another of his great innovations was the use of light to define the human body and its draperies. Rather than bathing his scenes in flat uniform light, he paints as if they were illuminated from a single source of light, thus creating a play of light and shadow (chiaroscuro) that gave them a natural, realistic quality unknown in the art of his day.

 

Chiaroscuro shown in a DaVinci drawing

 

Masaccio: “Medallion”
1426-27

The Baptism of the Neophytes
1426-27
(Detail)

“The Distribution of Alms and the Death of Ananias” (detail)
1426-27

 

While the increased education and appreciation for Greek philosophy (studia hamanitatis) thrived, the growth of humanism in the Renaissance follows the same patterns as in past cultures: First, art is strictly religious; later it becomes more and more secular.

Sassetta: The Last Supper (1423)

Leonardo Da Vinci: The Last Supper (1495-1497)

Jacopo Bassano's Last Supper (1542)

Paolo Veronese:
Feast in the House of Levi
1573

Tintoretto: The Last Supper (1592-94)

Cornell Barnes: The last Supper

 

Filippo Brunelleschi’s mathematical genius was the basis of Renaissance architecture.  From the Greeks, he saw how the Golden Mean was used in design.  From the Roman, Vitruvius, he learned the virtues of proportion and symmetry in architecture, and (with the other artists) understood how the human body represented the beauty of proportion in nature.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with “The Golden Mean,” it is a perfect geometric proportion basically designed with a five-point design.

 

The Fibonacci Numbers from The DaVinci Code part of this mathematical design.

 

Renaissance architects, especially those in Italy, also went to the ruins of ancient buildings to measure them and learn how proportion and symmetry were applied in real structures. The result of these studies was a new philosophy of beauty in building. Gothic spires and decorations imitating movement towards heaven were replaced by elegant symmetry demonstrating the intellect of man.

 

Ospdale degli Innocenti, Italy, Firenze; 1421-24, by Filippo Brunelleschi at 1419

Cappella dei Pazzi, S. Croce, Firenze, Italy; 1430-61 by Filippo Brunelleschi

The altar is symmetrically placed with other arches in the interior.

 

Members of the Medici Family acted as patrons for much of the great art in the early renaissance.

Lorenzo de Medici (1492-1519)

 

Fra Angelico “Adoration of the Magi” 1433

Beheading of St. Cosmas and St. Damian (1438-40)

Deposition (Pala di Santa Trinita)
1437-40 (Details follow)

Fiesole Altarpiece (detail)
1428-30

Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
1440-41

 

Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506)

Mantegna’s interest in perspective led him to paint things from interesting points of view.

Ceiling Oculus 1471-74

The Lamentation over the Dead Christ
c. 1490

Agony in the Garden c. 1459

 

Sculptor Donatello (1386-1466) saw the beauty in classic sculpture and introduced it to the Renaissance public with a humanistic focus that was ahead of his time.

David, 1430-1432)

David
1409

Annunciation
c. 1435

Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata
1447-50

 

The Greek Influence made art more secular, more humanistic.

Alessandro Botticelli

(1444/45 - 1510)

Venus and Mars. 1483 

Madonna of the Pomegranate. c.1487

The Birth of Venus. c.1485

1477-78; "Allegory of Spring"

Botticelli’s favorite model, Simonetta, has the same, rather bored look in all these paintings.  Could this be related to the fact that she was also his mistress?

 

Botticelli did a series of paintings illustrating The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti from Decameron, which tells the story of the young Nastagio from Ravenna, who cunningly uses a horrific event in order to persuade his beloved to marry him

The Encounter with the Damned in the Pine Forest. Nastagio, rejected by the lady he admires, retires in the pine forest. There he suddenly comes upon a knight on horseback who is hunting a naked woman with his hounds. Nastagio seizes a branch in order to protect the defenseless woman.

The Infernal Hunt. Nastagio watches with dismay as the knight tears out the woman's heart and entrails and feeds them to his dogs. Then the armed rider is once again hounding his victim along the shores of the ocean. The chase is hell's punishment for the hunter, whose despairing love caused him to commit suicide, and for the naked woman, who was cruel to her lover; it is a punishment that will be repeated eternally.

The Banquet in the Pine Forest. Nastagio made up a cunning plan. He has invited guests to the pine forest in order to show them the horrible chase. The woman he desires, wearing the white dress, has always rejected his advances but now watches the events in dismay. As she is afraid of suffering a similar fate, she sends a servant to Nastagio, as we can see in a second scene on the right, and agrees to become his wife.

The Wedding Banquet. Nastagio's wedding is celebrated on a splendid scale under a monumental loggia. The coats of arms suggest that the cycle of painting was commissioned on the occasion of a wedding in Florence between the Pucci and Binni families.

 

Agony in the Garden c. 1459

 

Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516)

Baptism of Christ
1500-02

Drunkenness of Noah c. 1515

Madonna of the Meadow 1505

The Feast of the Gods 1514

 

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

Madonna and Child with a Pomegranate
1472-76

Madonna Litta
c. 1490-91

Leda and the Swan
1505-10

Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani (Lady with an Ermine)
1483-90

Portrait of Ginevra de' Benci
1474-46

St John in the Wilderness (Bacchus)
1510-15

The Battle of Anghiari (detail) 1503-05

 

John Dunstable    (c. 1390-1453) made important contributions to Renaissance music.

He introduced more melodic music and outlined chords as a part of the melody. This incorporated a more tonal center in the his works and in the music as a whole. He also introduced leaps of a third or even the sixth as consonant and pleasing sounds to the ear.

One such piece by Dunstable is the secular song “O Rosa Bella” which as Grout says in A History of Western Music, can “illustrate the expressive lyrical melodies and the clear harmonic profile of the English music of his time.”

The presence of chant in this time period is still rather common. Dunstable is well known for his combination of the sequence “Veni sancte spiritus” with the hymn “Veni creator.” This four-part motet is one of his most famous pieces.

Dunstable has also received credit for writing a number of carols. Carols are uniquely English compositions, that although not folksongs, have the quality of simple two- or three-part harmonies and melodies that emphasize the text. They also contain a refrain between each stanza. The text is either English or Latin, or both.

A carol based on “Song of Solomon”:

 

How fair and how pleasant art thou,

   O love, for delights!

Thy stature is like to a palm-tree,

  and thy breasts are clusters of grapes.

Thy head is Mount Carmel

Thy neck is a tower of ivory

Come, my beloved, let us go into the field,

Let us see if the vine-blossom be opened,

and the pomegranates be in flower;

There will I give thee my breast

 

Guillaume Dufay (1397 – 1474) was the most famous and influential composer in Europe in the mid-15th century.

Dufay can be considered as the founding member of the Netherlands school which dominated European music for the next 150 years.

            He wrote eight complete Masses with one based on the most popular secular cantus firmus, "L'homme armé", one on his own secular ballade "Se la face ay pale" and another on his "Marian antiphon Ave regina caelorum".

His isorhythmic motet, a work using a particular rhythmic structural device developed in the previous century, "Nupervrosarum flores", was performed at the opening ceremony of the Brunelleschi dome in Florence in 1436.

His motet "O très piteulx - Omnes amici", a lament for the fall of Constantinople in 1453, was probably sung at the extravagant Banquet of the Oath of the Pheasant given by Philippe the Good of Burgundy at Lille in 1454, when an attempt was made to raise a Crusade to free the old Eastern capital of the Roman Empire.

Dufay represents the generation influenced by the English composer John Dunstable. His warm harmonies and expressive melodies prefigure the music of the Renaissance.

 

Josquin Des Prez (c. 1450-1521) of the Netherlandish School of music, which focused on a cappella singing and masses.

Ave Maria Virgo Serena

Mass for Easter This is a composite recording of the Missa Pange Lingua sung by the Philippe Caillard Choir (1960s) and the Missa in Dominica Resurrectionis sung by the choir of monks of the Benediktiner-Erzabtei St. Martin, Beuron. P. Dr. Maurus Pfaff, director (1953). Josquin, as all composers have done, set only the Proper of the mass. It was assumed that the ordinary would be sung from Chant books.

On March 15, 1493 Christopher Columbus returned to Spain with the news that he had discovered the New World.

He had indeed proved that Men “stand on the earth and cast their own shadows . . .” The western world moved to the heights of humanism and to the High Renaissance.