The Renaissance Age in Literature and History

The Renaissance Age in Literature and History

The word Renaissance ( French for  'rebirth', or Rinascimento in Italian) was first used to define the historical sge in Italy – and in Europe in general- thst followed rge Middle Ages and preceded the Reformation, spanning roughly the 14^th through the 16^th century. The principal features were the revival of learning based on classical sources, the rise of courtly and papal patronage, the development of perspective, and the advancements of science. The word Renaissance is now often used to describe other historical and cultural moments ( e.g the Carolingian Renaissance, the Byzantine Renaissances).

Renaissance Self-awareness

By the fifteenth century, writers, artists, and architects in Italy were well aware of the transformations that were taking place and were using phrases like modi antichi (in the antique manner) or alle romana et alla antica (in manner of the Romans and the ancients) to describe their work. As to the term "rebirth", it seems that Albrecht Durer in 1523 was the first to use such a term when he uses Widererwachsung ( German: rebirth ) to describe Italian art. The term "la rinascita" first appeared, however, in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari's Vite de' piu eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italian ( The Lives of the Artists, 1550-68). Vasari divides the age into phases: the first phase contains Cimabue, Giotto and Arnolof di Cambio; the second phase contains Masaccio, Brunelleschi and Donatello; the third centers on Leonardo da Vinci, culminating with Michelangelo. It was not just the growing awareness of classical antiquity that drove this development, according to Vasari, but also the growing desire to study and imitate nature.

The Renaissance as a Historical Age.

The period did not become recognized as a historical age, however, until the early 19^th century during which time the word renaissance In French came to be used to describe it. The Renaissance was first defined by French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874), in his Histoire de France (History of France, 1885). For Michelet, the Renaissance was less a development in art and culture as in science. For him, it spanned the period from Columbus to Copernicus to Galileo, in other words from the end of the 15^th century to the middle of the 17^th century. The Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) in his Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italian ( The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, 1860) ( English translation, by SGC Middlemore, in 2 vols., London, 1878), by contrast, followed Vasari, defining the Renaissance as the period between the Italian painters Giotto and Michelangelo. His book was widely read and influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the Italian Renaissance. In architecture, the folio of measured drawings Edifices de Rome moderne; ou, Recueil des palais, maisons, eglises, couvents et autres monuments, ( The Buildings of Modern Rome) first published in 1840, by Paul Letarouilly (1795-1855) also played an important part in the revival odf interest in this period.

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