The Civilization of the Renaissance

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THE CIVILIZATION OF THE RENAISSANCE

By

JAMES WESTFALL THOMPSON

GEORGE ROWLEY

FERDINAND SCHEVILL

GEORGE SARTON

Table of Contents

Contents

Table of Contents 6

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 7

FOREWORD 8

EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY DURING THE RENAISSANCE — JAMES WESTFALL THOMPSON 9

THE SOCIETY OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE — FERDINAND SCHEVILL 24

SCIENCE IN THE RENAISSANCE — GEORGE SARTON 35

THE ART OF THE RENAISSANCE — GEORGE ROWLEY 43

I. GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE 44

II. THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE 47

III. THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 54

IV. RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE 56

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 66

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece: LEONARDO DA VINCI: ADORATION OF THE MAGI

PLATE

I. TITIAN: THE PESARO MADONNA

II. JAN VAN EYCK: ARNOLFINI AND HIS WIFE

III. ROGER VAN DER WEYDEN: LAST JUDGMENT (DETAIL)

IV. MASACCIO: THE TRINITY

V. BRUEGHEL THE ELDER: AUTUMN (DETAIL)

FOREWORD

The real meaning and significance of a great civilization is not to be discovered in any one expression of its life. Neither its art nor its business nor its science nor even its literature alone can reveal the heart of its life. To find this the student must study all of its parts so that he may see it whole.

When the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College made possible the Mary Tuttle Bourdon Lectures, the College decided that the first year should be devoted to the Renaissance, and invited a group of scholars, each distinguished for his contributions to some one aspect of the field, to present successively the civilization we have learned to call a new birth.

The enthusiasm with which the project was undertaken by the several participants made a vivid picture which proved stimulating in its contrasts. The lectures are reproduced here substantially as they were given.

EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY DURING THE RENAISSANCE — JAMES WESTFALL THOMPSON

IN THE immortal prologue to Herodotus’ immortal History these words may be read: These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus which he publishes in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful deeds of the Greeks and Barbarians from losing their due meed of praise.

It is in this spirit that I come before you this evening, with the wish to relate the tale of discovery and exploration in the pulsing period of the Renaissance as briefly and clearly as I may. And may I express the hope, borrowing a sentence from the noble Prologue of Froissart’s Chronicle, that I may continue and persevere in such wise that whoso this process readeth or heareth, may take paustance, pleasure and ensample therefrom.

In a very famous sentence the French historian Michelet described the Renaissance as the discovery of the world and of man. By it he meant to say that the mind of the Renaissance had ceased to be supremely interested in heaven and hell, as men were in the Age of Faith, but instead that men were ardently interested in the immediate world around them; that thought had become secularized; that theology and the scholastic philosophy, in so far as they continued to hold the boards, did so in virtue of authority and tradition, but that the normal man was more absorbed with his own individual experience and with experiential methods than with otherworldliness.

It is possible, however, to use Michelet’s phrase in another sense, namely, as one descriptive of geographical discovery and exploration of new lands and new peoples. This is the sense in which I shall employ it. For one of the most important and striking manifestations of the Renaissance was its passionate interest in remote and hitherto unknown lands and peoples, and the courageous and adventurous spirit which emboldened Europe to penetrate into them. Central and Far Asia, Mongolia, Cathay, India, the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago, Central and seaboard Africa became part of the immediate and concrete knowledge of cultured Europe. Even Australia was not unknown, and its modern discovery actually was but rediscovery. Between 1250 and 1500 the physical horizon of mankind was widened far beyond the achievements of any previous or subsequent period of discovery. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that the progress of geographical discovery and exploration, with the simultaneous broadening of the intellectual horizon, forms one of the most important manifestations of the Renaissance.

Like every other great historical movement this movement, too, had varied and remote sources of origination. Politics and religion, commerce and trade, zeal for the acquisition of new scientific knowledge, the sheer spirit of adventure, which Tennyson has so admirably described in Ulysses, all entered into and promoted the movement. Before the eyes of these bold spirits gleamed an untravelled world whose margin fades forever and forever. To find Cathay was the hope of all their dreams. Some sought it by going eastward across Asia. Others sought to find it by the sea-route westward—to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars.

The inception of the movement of discovery and exploration must be found in the Crusades, the earliest great expansion of Christian Europe, which for the first time brought the West into intimate contact with new lands and new peoples. The Crusades introduced the period of discovery and exploration which ultimately led to the finding of a new world. More intimate knowledge of the Near East created a craving for more knowledge of the Far East, whether Cathay or India.

The initiative in the thirteenth century, however, did not emanate from merchants or conquerors, nor even from adventurers, but from the Franciscan friars. It may seem grotesque to say, yet I say it seriously, that St. Francis of Assisi did more to initiate the age of discovery and exploration than any other single person. By 1200 the futility of the Crusades was abundantly manifest. The Holy Land had been lost in 1187. The kingdom of Jerusalem was a thing of shreds and patches. It was evident that Christendom could not hold its own in a military capacity against Islam. Untold blood and treasure had been spent in vain. Moreover, the Crusades had given birth to appalling bloodshed and intolerance, and the bad blood between West and East was black with hatred. The condition shocked St. Francis, who loved all mankind, even heathen and infidels, and to whom war was the basest of human activities. For St. Francis is the greatest of all pacifists.

In the heart of St. Francis was born the hope to make the Crusades unnecessary by peaceful and loving effort to convert the Mohammedans to Christianity. Thereby St. Francis also became the patron saint of all missionaries. Accordingly in 1219, having divided the world among his disciples and reserved Syria and the Holy Land for himself, St. Francis embarked for Egypt. From this base the Grey Friars began their missionary labors in the Mohammedan world. The Franciscans were the first Europeans who acquired immediate and