Japanese history overview and major periods

Cultural and Construction History of the Renaissance (1450 to 1600)

Cultural Environment

The European Renaissance between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries began in Florence. It was not a sudden rebirth from the Dark Ages, but approximates more a refocusing outward politically and intellectually. Europe had become more than a series of small principalities vying for hegemony. There were larger cities, a more educated population, and a growing technology that allowed states to concentrate on growth and improvement. Italian cities were freed from feudalism, and were more mercantile and less hinged around a monarch (Skinner 69). On a cultural level, the Renaissance signalled a rebirth of learning and educational reform. People returned to classical works and revised their position on Christianity. There was a rise in realism among artists, who used light and perspective in a more natural way. Philosophers such as Machiavelli portrayed political life realistically rather than idealistically. The change in mindset affected the political structure and management of the European people. It was a three-centuries-long cultural, social, and political movement and a revolutionary period for art, architecture, and literature (Leonard da Vinci -- Renaissance Man).

1.2 Relationship to Previous Period

The Renaissance continued the medieval rediscovery of the Roman and Greek traditions. It advanced technologies that changed the way populations congregated so that the urbanizing trend continued and increased. In art, realism prospered. The move toward capitalism and away from feudalism made further progress. Europe expanded through colonisation and trade. The Italian city-states thrived. In all these qualities the Renaissance gradually evolved from and moved along the same trajectory as the earlier medieval period (Starn 122 -- 4).

The term Renaissance factually means rebirth. It refers particularly to the rebirth of learning that began in Italy in the fourteenth century, spread to the north, including England, by the sixteenth century, and ended in the north in the mid-seventeenth century. Throughout this age, there was a massive renewal of interest in and study of traditional antiquity. Yet the Renaissance was more than just a rebirth (the Renaissance Period (1400-1600 C.E.). It was also an age of new discoveries, both geographical in the exploration of the New World and intellectual. Both types of discovery resulted in alterations of remarkable significance for Western civilization. In science, for instance, Copernicus (1473-1543) tried to prove that the sun rather than the earth was at the center of the planetary system, therefore drastically changing the celestial world view that had dominated ancient times and the Middle Ages. In religion, Martin Luther (1483-1546) disputed and in the end caused the separation of one of the major institutions that had united Europe all through the Middle Ages, the Church. In fact, Renaissance thinkers frequently thought of themselves as escorting in the modern age, as different from the ancient and medieval eras (General Characteristics of the Renaissance).

Study of the Renaissance might well center on five interconnected issues. First, even though Renaissance thinkers frequently attempted to connect themselves with classical ancient times and to distance themselves from the Middle Ages, important connections with their recent past, such as belief in the Great Chain of Being, were still much in indication. Second, throughout this period, certain important political changes were taking place. Third, some of the noblest ideals of the period were best articulated by the movement known as Humanism. Fourth, and associated to Humanist ideals, was the literary doctrine of imitation, significant for its ideas about how literary works should be fashioned. Finally, what later probably became an even more sweeping influence, both on literary creation and on contemporary life in general, was the religious movement known as the Reformation (General Characteristics of the Renaissance).

1.3 Contribution to Western Civilisation

Much of the debate regarding the Renaissance swirls around whether it was an improvement over Medieval European culture. The cultural legacy of the Renaissance was to expand the European worldview. The world became a large, complex, and discoverable place. Exploration became a leading idea. On the other hand, there was warfare, political persecution, and disease. Still, most of the artists and writers within the culture fully believed their era was completely new and different than anything that had gone before (Woods and Elmer). The gradual re-examination of the Roman and Greek heritage led directly to the modern age, and thus represented a significant Renaissance legacy in contemporary culture and thought. Figures such as Leonardo da Vinci paved the way for modernity (Osborne).

At the start of this period, the artists of the sixteenth century began to question convention and investigate the potential of art for art's sake. Unlike the prior thousand years of Christian art these bold, new innovators began to paint and sculpt humanity for its inherent beauty alone; and their public demanded more. While this movement took place within the confines of Roman Catholic Christianity, it served to challenge a lot of ancient conventions of the Church. Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Rene Descartes, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton all encouraged heliocentric ideas, mechanical philosophy, and the scientific method within an academically ambitious Europe (Sayler).

Money from the new middle classes went towards hiring artists and architects to create masterpieces in number and scale unrivaled till then. Artists such as Giotto, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio, Lippi, Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Lotto, da Vinci, Michelangelo, to name a few, elevated art to a new height and shape of cultural expression. The Renaissance began to thrive in the kingdoms to the north of Florence as well, with new ideas and drive of change spreading along trade routes. Venetian Italy and the areas of the Netherlands also were altered by new ideas, aesthetics, and trade (the Renaissance - a Rebirth of Culture and Classical Ideas).

New academic movements stirred Western Europe as well during this time. Authors such as Sir Thomas More and Erasmus of Rotterdam made distinguished contributions to a growing standard of western intellectual thought on humanism and the capacities of the person to reason and vie for themselves with the depths of the human spirit. A growing intellectual need took place to balance a world image dominated and directed by religion with a notion of a mankind's experience on earth as a breathing, thinking being exercising a measure of self determinism. The Renaissance looked to the past, to the established period, in order to push itself forward. An attraction to art and literature and thought from a previous age added to an era of new literary, artistic, and intellectual development for the Europeans (the Renaissance - a Rebirth of Culture and Classical Ideas).

Scientific Environment

The single greatest achievement of the Renaissance period could be said to be not a discovery or a theory, but the scientific method (Brotton). This emphasized observable empirical evidence as the way towards discovering and understanding natural laws and true causes. Use of the scientific method advanced biology, astronomy, and physics during the Renaissance. For example, dissection and a mechanistic view of anatomy gained popularity with Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica. Many of the Renaissance discoveries remain basic to today's knowledge.

Although a religious perspective still held sway during the Renaissance, as seen in its artwork, many Renaissance theologians were influenced by the rising tide of humanism. Humanists expanded the study of texts to incorporate Greek, reading them in the original languages. This led to a more precise understanding of Greek philosophy. Significantly, Renaissance humanism shaped the intellectual landscape through the humanities, such disciplines as moral philosophy, history, and rhetoric. Humanism and Christianity merged in a fruitful and harmonious union. Pope Pius II was an example of this unity in which the teaching of humanism and Christianity were reconciled (Loffler 538 -- 42). Translations of the Bible were improved and less Catholic orthodoxy was used to interpret the texts. This laid the foundation for the rise of vernacular translations and the Protestant Reformation, which turned toward individualism.

Galileo Galilei (1564 -- 1642) was an influential mathematical scientist. In his book, II Saggiatore, he validates experimental empiricism. He writes,

"philosophy [i.e., physics] is written in this grand book -- I mean the universe -- which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering around in a dark labyrinth" (237 -- 8).

Galileo promoted knowledge for knowledge's sake and discovered, contrary to Catholic teaching, that the Earth was not the centre of the universe. This finding revolutionized astronomy, although he was persecuted for it (Singer 217).

Galileo used experiments as a research tool to verify truths rather than following the Aristotelian practise of demonstrating science from first principles. He gave mathematical demonstrations of his arguments. As mathematics did not readily lead to the discovery of causes, Aristotelian science's main concern, its usefulness was not immediately obvious (Feldhay 80 -- 133). He shied away from presenting his experimental results, but gave them in supplementary Italian dialogues on the theory of motion. Charles Van Doren has concluded that the Copernican Revolution is actually the Galilean Revolution because of the scale of change introduced by Galileo's work.

The technological innovation of the Renaissance era started with the invention of the printing press (the Renaissance). Even though the printing press, a mechanical device for printing multiple copies of a text on sheets of paper, was first invented in China, it was reinvented in the West by a German goldsmith and eventual printer, Johann Gutenberg, in the 1450s. Before Gutenberg's invention, each part of metal type for printing presses had to be individually engraved by hand. Gutenberg developed molds that permitted for the mass production of individual pieces of metal type. This permitted a widespread use of movable type, where each character is a separate block, in mirror image, and these blocks are assembled into a frame to form text. Because of his molds, a complete upper case and lower case alphabet set could be made much more rapidly than if they were individually hand carved (Science and Technology).

Prior to the invention of the printing press, books in Europe were copied mainly in monasteries, or in commercial scriptoria, where scribes wrote them out by hand. For that reason, books were a scarce resource. The rise of printed works was not right away popular, however. Not only did the papal court contemplate making printing presses an industry requiring a license from the Catholic Church, but as early as the 15th century, some nobles refused to have printed books in their libraries, thinking that to do so would sully their valuable hand copied manuscripts (Science and Technology). Similar conflict was later come across in much of the Islamic world, where calligraphic traditions were tremendously important, and also in the Far East. Despite this resistance, Gutenberg's printing press spread quickly, and within thirty years of its invention, towns and cities across Europe had working printing presses (the Printing Press).

The finding and organization of the printing of books with movable type marks a paradigm change in the way information was conveyed in Europe. The impact of printing is similar to the development of language, and the creation of the alphabet, as far as its effects on the society. They also led to the founding of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries, bringing on the scientific revolution. It can also be disputed that printing changed the way Europeans thought. With the older illuminated manuscripts, the stress was on the images and the loveliness of the page. Early printed works highlighted principally the text and the line of argument. In the sciences, the introduction of the printing press marked a move from the medieval language of metaphors to the implementation of the scientific method. In general, knowledge came nearer to the hands of the people, since printed books could be sold for a portion of the cost of illuminated manuscripts. There were also more copies of each book accessible, so that more people could talk about them (the invention of the printing press and its effects).

A lot of great thinkers of this era developed and initiated concepts that form the foundation of modern scientific theory. For instance, Galileo Galilei, an Italian physicist, astronomer, and philosopher, made major improvements to the telescope, as well developed an assortment of astronomical observations, the first law of motion, and the second law of motion. He has been referred to as the father of modern astronomy, as the father of modern physics, and as father of science (Science and Technology). The Renaissance revitalized science, religion, and art. Many of the theories and discoveries of the time had an enormous impact; they have endured to the present day.

Economic Environment

3.0 Background

The civilization of the Renaissance was the formation of affluent cities and of rulers who drew considerable income from their urban subjects in the Italian city-states and the countries of England and France. The trade that kept cities alive also provided the capital and the flow of ideas that helped construct Renaissance culture. Throughout the early Middle Ages foreign trade had nearly come to a halt. By the 11th century, though, population growth and contact with other cultures by way of military efforts such as the Crusades helped revitalize commercial movement (Renaissance). Trade slowly improved with the exchange of luxury goods in the Mediterranean area and various commodities such as fish, furs, and metals across the North and Baltic seas. Commerce soon moved inland, bringing new affluence to the citizens of towns along major trade routes. As traffic along these routes augmented, existing settlements grew and new ones were founded.

3.1 Medici -- the Banking Family

While the Medici family has all the power, Florence became the cultural center of Europe and also became the cradle of new Humanism. The Medici family was perhaps the richest family in Italy and thus had a lot of influence. In the 13th century the family began to increase their wealth through banking. At the end of the thirteenth century, the family's wealth enlarged when one of the members of the family served as gonfalero or bearer of a high ceremonial office. In the fourteenth century their wealth increased again (the Medici Family). With this wealth the Medici family was very helpful.

While this family ruled the city of Florence they did many unbelievable acts, such as spending money on their city, and making it the most influential state in Italy. They also made it the world's most stunning city. It turned into the cultural center of Europe and was known as an art center and the cradle of New Humanism. They also spent some of their wealth on putting together the largest library in all of Europe. And because of this they brought in a lot of Greek sources. They founded the Platonic Academy and supported many artists by feeding them, educating them, and providing them with the necessities that they needed in order to be successful. Some of those artists included Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael. The family also did a lot of charitable acts such as cultivating literature and the arts all throughout Europe (History of the Medici).

3.2 Mercantilism (300 words)

Mercantilism is the economic system of the major trading nations throughout the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, based on the idea that national wealth and power were best served by growing exports and collecting valuable metals in return. It outdated the medieval feudal organization in Western Europe, particularly in Holland, France, and England. The era 1500 -- 1800 was one of religious and commercial wars, and large revenues were required to uphold armies and pay the mounting expenses of civil government. Mercantilist nations were overwhelmed by the fact that the precious metals, particularly gold, were in universal demand as the ready means of getting hold of other commodities; therefore they tended to recognize money with wealth. As the best means of attaining bullion, foreign trade was favored above domestic trade, and manufacturing or processing, which provided the goods for foreign trade, was favored at the cost of the extractive industries like agriculture (the Renaissance and Reformation-Rise of Nation-State and Mercantilism).

State action, a necessary characteristic of the mercantile system, was used to achieve its purposes. Under a mercantilist policy a nation sought to sell more than it bought so as to mount up bullion. Besides bullion, raw materials for domestic manufacturers were also wanted, and duties were charged on the importation of such goods in order to offer revenue for the government. The state exercised much control over financial life, predominantly by way of corporations and trading companies. Production was cautiously regulated with the object of securing goods of high quality and low cost, therefore facilitating the nation to hold its place in foreign markets. Treaties were made to get hold of exclusive trading privileges, and the trade of colonies was exploited for the benefit of the mother country. In England mercantilist policies were successful in creating a skilled industrial population and a large shipping industry (Mercantilism).

3.3 New World and International Trade (1450-1600)

In 1492, a trip to the East, made by sailing westward around the world, brought Columbus to the New World and the lands known today as the Americas. Columbus had initially set out to find an all-water route to the East Indies. When he saw the Americas, he believed he had arrived at his planned destination. It was ten years later than the Europeans comprehended that he had found a new land. These new continents offered riches other than spices, in the appearance of gold and silver. The finding of silver led to the beginning of silver mining in Mexico and South America. Other finds in the New World introduced Europeans to corn, tomatoes, tobacco, and chocolate (the Age of Discovery).

The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, certain Atlantic and Pacific oceanic islands to which the closest continental shelf is that of the Americas and sometimes Oceania. The term began in the early 16th century, shortly after America was discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European Middle Ages, who had thought of the world as being made up of Europe, Asia, and Africa only which was collectively now referred to as the Old World (Renaissance Explorers).

The gains of overseas travelling around of the New World were huge. Gold and silver flooded into Europe, particularly into Spain and eventually into the hands of Italian and German bankers and merchants. Economic conditions seemed to be improving and the population was growing. The other gain was the straightforward fact of a consciousness of new parts of the world. This finding of the New World as well as its examination appeared at a fitting moment. If the Age of Discovery did anything, it reinstated the self-confidence of Europe, and in turn, Europe rediscovered itself (Briney).

2. General Management

4.0 Background

The invention of modern printing by Johannes Gutenberg (ca. 1398 -- 1468) was an inestimable moment for the Renaissance and all subsequent human history. His mechanized process of movable type allowed books to be mass produced. This invention laid the foundation for a modern knowledge-based economy (Eisenstein). It accelerated the accessibility of learning within society and had an immediate impact on education, communication, and the organisation of information. Thus it was crucial for general management.

4.1 Niccolo Machiavelli's the Prince

In political theory, Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 -- 1527) simultaneously revived the idea of a republican government and proposed a new way of viewing political leadership. His concept of virtue in the Prince (1513) reversed traditional moral values by placing self-interest and political power at its core. His realistic theory urged rulers to act without a moral view if that would lead to the downfall of the state. Rather they should use arms, deceit, or any other expedient means to acquire and maintain their authority, but without neglecting to present an image of traditional virtue. This did not entail the mistreatment of constituents, for the prince must above all avoid being hated by the populace. Equally, Machiavelli believed that being feared was politically safer than being loved. For instance, having a reputation for cruelty was not bad if it kept the troops and people in a cohesive and powerful unity. He justified rule by force rather than by law, or at least thought that law was worthless without backing by force (Anglo). He asserted, in addition, that the prince must dedicate himself wholly to the discipline of war. From the management perspective, the Prince was a book about social cohesiveness, power, and leadership in organisations (George). It has been an influential theory of management style and effectiveness since its publication.

4.2 Protestant work Ethic

The Protestant Reformation, which followed closely on the Renaissance, was also important for management ideas. In his book, the History of Management Thought, Daniel Wren points out that the Protestant work ethic, a sociological concept developed by Max Weber, had a significant influence on the historical development of modern management (25 -- 8). This refers to the Calvinist stress on hard work as a route to salvation. Work was an individual and social duty, just as worldly success was the outward sign of personal salvation. The Protestant reformers in this way effectively transferred the notion of good works into the obligation of hard work to prove that a person had received divine grace (Weber 9 -- 12). In economic terms this meant that work was not evil when done in the service of God. Nor was there a division between secular and sacred work. Anything a person did was both secular and sacred. It was accompanied by earthly benefits and it glorified God when the attitude toward work was joyful. This moral style gave work an intrinsic and positive value, inverting the notion of work as a necessary evil. It led directly, according to Weber, into capitalism, since it allowed people to endorse the idea that hard work paid dividends in wealth without contradicting spirituality.

4.3 John Calvin's Punctuality -- Time Management

In 1541, the Protestant reformer John Calvin arrived in Geneva. He proceeded to lay down his law, which entailed imposing punctuality as a cardinal virtue. Observing this precept was made easier as one of Calvin's first acts had been to order the jewelers and goldsmiths who had forged the reputation of this small town of 12,000 to find new work. They must no longer use their talent to produce crucifixes, chalices and other instruments serving papacy and idolatry, nor even to circle the heads or embellish the throats of wealthy and frivolous beauties. Instead they must apply their knowledge to the noble art of watch making (How Calvin invented punctuality, 500 years ago).

The sixteenth-century Protestant reformers of Geneva, France, London, and Bern internalized a new notion of time. Utilizing a moral and spiritual code to the course of the day, they regulated their connection with time, which was, in spirit, a new association with God. As Calvin continually reminded his followers, God watches his faithful every minute. Come Judgement Day, the faithful in turn will have to account for each minute. Engammare argues that the population of Calvin's Geneva made-up the new habit of being on time, a practice unknown in ancient times. It was also essentially different from notions of time in the simple world of the medieval period and unidentified to contemporaries such as Erasmus, Vives, the early Jesuits, Rabelais, Ronsard, or Montaigne (Engammare).

While both contemporary and ancient societies have held distinctly secular views of time and being on time, Swiss scholar Max Engammare's (2004) work has focused on a fundamental episode in world history, where religious passion and revolutionary new understandings of the scriptures have led to an overall new conception of time, contributing to the creation of punctuality as an ethical virtue.

According to this theory, reformed Protestants, took and adopted for the first time as an integral part of their attitudes and beliefs an original conception of time, applying this very particular ethic to the recounting of their days. Constrictions of a spiritual order firmly determined their association with time, which was first and foremost envisioned of as a connection to God. They believed that God kept watch over his followers, and at the end of time that each would provide an account of their every minute, as John Calvin preached continuously in his sermons. Punctuality is not thought to have come from technical innovations; but rather, it was first and foremost a spiritual, social and disciplinary good quality, to which John Calvin endorsed. It was in Geneva, that community structures of provocation and control were first put into practice, that a new calendar was developed; that a new financial system of time and its division was shaped; and that submissions of punctuality were conceived to which the Protestants, and in particular those of Calvinist faith, are still today obliged (Engammare).

Calvin's notion of destiny was revolutionary at the time. Central to Calvinist belief was the Elect, those persons chosen by God to come into eternal life. All other people were damned and nothing could alter that since God was unchanging. While it was not viable to know for certain whether a person was one of the Elect, one could have a sense of it founded on his own personal encounters with God. Externally the only confirmation was in the person's daily life and deeds, and success in one's worldly activities was a sign of potential inclusion as one of the Elect. A person who was uncaring and exhibited idleness was most positively one of the damned, but a person who was lively, serious, and hard-working gave proof to himself and to others that he was one of God's chosen ones. Selection of a job and pursuing it to attain the greatest profit possible was measured by Calvinists to be a religious duty (Hill).

4.4. From Puritanism to Scientific Management

Besides the Protestant work ethic, reductionism and individualism took hold during this time. These were the precursors of modern management. Reductionism entails, first, removing unnecessary elements of a process and, second, reducing it to its smallest tasks in order to grasp how the process works. Individualism assumes that humans are independent agents with the ability to manage risks and come up with ideas. Social actions turn such ideas into reality as long as there is an available descriptive language. According to Patrick Weaver, these three major ideas -- reductionism, individualism, and the Protestant work ethic -- were incorporated into seventeenth-century scientific Newtonianism and eighteenth-century liberalism and capitalism (Weaver 2). Thus they had an impact on both the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. In addition, he argues in his important research paper, "The Origins of Modern Project Management," that Frederick Taylor's classic school of Scientific Management is rooted in this same philosophical tradition.

3. Architectural Principles

5.1 Background (200words)

In building churches, Renaissance architects no longer used the shape of a cross as a foundation for their structures. Instead, they founded them on the circle. Believing that ancient mathematicians associated circles with geometric excellence, architects utilized the circle to symbolize the perfection of God. In constructing their homes, wealthy people of the Renaissance often took on a Roman style, building the four sides of their homes around a courtyard. Straightforward, balanced decorations, that were often imitations of classical ones, were applied to the facades of buildings, and some structures also featured columns indicative of ancient temples (Architecture).

Renaissance architects based their theories and practices on Classical Roman cases. The Renaissance revitalization of Classical Rome was as significant in architecture as it was in literature. A pilgrimage to Rome to study the ancient buildings and ruins, particularly the Colosseum and Pantheon, was thought to be essential to an architect's training. Classical guidelines and architectural fundamentals such as columns, pilasters, pediments, entablatures, arches, and domes form the vocabulary of Renaissance buildings. Vitruvius's writings on architecture also influenced the Renaissance definition of beauty in architecture. As in the Classical world, Renaissance architecture is distinguished by harmonious shape, mathematical proportion, and a unit of measurement based on the human scale (Architecture in Renaissance Italy).