Political Aspects of the Italian

¶ … political aspects of the Italian Renaissance which was a time that witnessed the birth of new art new attitudes within the socio-political realm of Italy.

Italian Renaissance Machiavelli Timeline

Leo X asked Machiavelli for political

Advice

Machiavelli wrote the Art of War and the Life of Castruccio.

Machiavelli began his History of Florence under a commission from the officers of the Studio pubblico.

Machiavelli's play Mandragola was printed.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, composer was born in the town of Palestrina, Southeast of Rome. He is best known as a master of polyphonic music.

The Victory of Virtue over Brute

Force, a marble group by Michelango that was eventually placed in the Hall of the Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence, is completed.

1526 - Machiavelli employed by Clement VII to inspect the fortification in Florence.

1526 - Painter Federico Barocci was born in Urbino.

1527 - June 22 Niccolo Machiavelli died. He Was buried in the church of Santa Croce.

1528 - Genoa created its first nobility roster" listing the families which were considered noble.

1532 - Prince, a book on political science by Niccolo' Machiavelli, was published 5 years after the author's death.

RENAISSANCE ART

The above painting was a work of a painter, sculptor, and architect born in Crete who settled in Spain. El Greco (the Greek) or Domenikos Theotokopoulos was regarded as the first great genius of the Spanish School. The work represented above is named "The Dormition of the Virgin" This piece was finished before 1567 Tempera and gold on panel measuring 61.4x45cm. Holy Cathedral of the Dormition of the Virgin, Ermoupolis Syros. This is an icon that functions in the nature of a cult object on the Island of Syros in the Aegean Sea in the Church of the Dormition. It is believed that this was brought to Syros in the year of 1824 during the Greek Revolution from the Holy Mountain of the Dormition of the Virgin Monastery on the island of Psara'.

FAST FACTS

The fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy were a time of economic and political uncertainty. New cultural, social and intellectual developments were that which constructed a "new European monoculture identity" with its' focus on 'humanistic studies, science and the arts."

The growth in trade and then the resulting wealth resulted in a series of city-states which were individual regions ruled centrally from one city.

These cities under that rule were afforded a great deal of autonomy thereby their political influence experienced expansion to the surrounding areas.

The Italian Renaissance then can be stated to have been a time of artistic and intellectual growth with a renewal born in appreciation of Greek and Roman antiquities which propelled creative works in the fields of, painting, sculpture, architecture, as well as in the areas of history and linguistics.

At the Renaissance's beginning there were five major players in the politics of the city-states which were: (1) the Papal States (Romagna) ruled by the Pope (2) the Republics of Firenze (Florence) and (3) Venezia (Venice) (4) the Kingdom of Napoli (Naples); and (5) the Duchy of Milano (Milan) health and power was concentrated in these cities which resulted in a new set of social class that had effects all across Europe.

Wealth was both produced but also redistributed.

A new commercial class was born.

The society of the Renaissance consisted of five classes which were: (1) the old nobility and the merchant class, (2) the emergent capitalist and banker class (3) the merchants and trades people, (4 the poor and destitute; and (5) Domestic slaves.

Annotated Bibliography

1. Muhlberger, Steve (1999) History 2155 -- Early Modern Europe Renaissance Thought and Politics in Fifteenth-Century Italy Online available at http://histclo.hispeed.com/chron/med/renas.html

Muhlberger sates that, "the Italian Renaissance was a movement that was quite critical of the international clerical establishment that had dominated intellectual life and all discussions of morality for centuries." The use of oil paints was important in Italy during the Renaissance as well as the printing press which came out of Germany. Italy, according to Muhlberger (1999) and specifically the city of Florence took the lead in "setting styles in thought, literary expression, art and education." The Renaissance was a "movement of self-assertion." (Muhlberger, 1999) in this work the two legacies of Petrarch are explained as well as the view of the humanists. The art of the renaissance is characterized by its "interest in the individual" as well as by the development of technique that made that depiction possible."

2. The Renaissance: Part I online at http://www.blackstudies.ucsb.edu/antillians/renaissance1.html

The challenge of the method of the interpretation of Roman Law did not result in that law being overthrown by Renaissance Theorists who contended that the government's function or their primary task was the maintenance of security and peace. It was maintained by Machiavelli that the virtu or the creative force of the one who ruled was key to the survival of his position and his subjects' well being. The city-states in Italy were transformed from communes to territorial states and all sought expansion at the others' expense. Unification in the territories of Spain, France and England occurred.

3. Burckhardt, Jacob (2000) the Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: The Development of the Individual: Part II the World Wide School, Publication Date: May 2000

Explaining that this was a time when the usual distinguishing differences expressed in the education and social status of the individual were not separated by a clear line of division, Burkhardt explains socio-political changes experienced at this time in history both in terms of the position of the individual as well as the governance of those socio-political dimensions.