User:Yezi Fang/Italian Renaissance

Origins and background

Religious background (I add the religious background which does not include in the original article.)

After the destruction of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD, the Roman Catholic Church became the ruler of Europe. As the gatekeepers of heaven, their ruling power applied from the king to the common people.In the Middle Ages, the Church was considered to be conveying the will of God, and it regulated the standard of behavior in life. The word of God was written in the Bible, and ordinary people were considered to be unable to read the Bible. The ordinary people must rely on the priest’s explanation.

However, in the Middle Ages, the Church carried out cultural persecutions against secular society in order to consolidate its rights. In the eleventh century, the Church persecuted pagans, Jews, and lepers in order to eliminate irregularities in society and strengthen its rights.In these persecutions and response to Laity’s challenge to Church authority, bishops played an important role, as they gradually lost control of secular authority, and in order to regain the power of discourse, they adopted extreme control methods, such as persecuting infidels.

Besides, the Roman Church collected wealth from believers in the Middle Ages, such as the sale of indulgences, which were papers the Church declared that people who buy the indulgences, their sins could be forgiven. The Church accumulated wealth but did not pay taxes, making the Church's wealth even more than some kings.

Development

Renaissance end (I add this sentence in this section.)

Under the suppression of the Catholic Church and the ravages of war, humanism became "akin to heresy".

Culture

Literature and poetry (I add three sentences in this section.)

There were many Italian Renaissance humanists who praised and affirmed the beauty of the body in poetry and literature. In Baldassare Rasinus's panegyric for Francesco Sforza, Rasinus considered that beautiful people usually have virtue. In northern Italy, humanists had discussions about the connection between physical beauty and inner virtues. In Renaissance Italy, virtue and beauty were often linked together to praise men.

Science and technology

According to some recent scholarship, the 'father of modern science' is Leonardo da Vinci, whose experiments and clear scientific method earn him this title, Italian universities such as Padua, Bologna and Pisa were scientific centres of renown and with many northern European students, the science of the Renaissance moved to Northern Europe and flourished there, with such figures as Copernicus, Francis Bacon, and Descartes. Galileo Galilei, a contemporary of Bacon and Descartes, made an immense contribution to scientific thought and experimentation, paving the way for the scientific revolution that later flourished in Northern Europe. Bodies were also stolen from gallows and examined by many like Andreas Vesalius, a professor of anatomy. This allowed him to create more accurate skeleton models by making more than 200 corrections to the works of Galen who dissected animals.

·Mathematics (I add this section about mathematics.)

During the Renaissance, algebra made important developments and spread successfully in Europe, especially Italy.Luca Pacioli published a book on mathematics at the end of the fifteenth century, in which he first published positive and negative signs. Basic mathematical symbols were introduced by Simon Stevin in the 16th and early 17th centuries.Symbolic algebra was established by the French mathematician Vieta in the 16th century. He published "Introduction to Analytical Methods" in 1591, systematically sorting out algebra, and for the first time consciously used letters to represent unknown and known numbers. In his other book "On the Recognition and Correction of Equations," Vieta improved the solution of the third degree and fourth degree equations, and also established the relationship between the roots and coefficients of quadratic and cubic equations, which is called “Vieta's formulas” now. Trigonometry also achieved greater development during the Renaissance. The German mathematician Regiomontanus’s "On Triangles of All Kinds" was Europe's first trigonometric work independent of astronomy. The book systematically elaborated plane triangles and spherical triangles, as well as a very precise table of trigonometric functions.

Architecture（I add the last two sentences.)

Main article: Italian Renaissance architecture

See also: History of Italian Renaissance domes

Bramante's Tempietto in San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, 1502

In Florence, the Renaissance style was introduced with a revolutionary but incomplete monument by Leone Battista Alberti. Some of the earliest buildings showing Renaissance characteristics are Filippo Brunelleschi's church of San Lorenzo and the Pazzi Chapel. The interior of Santo Spirito expresses a new sense of light, clarity and spaciousness, which is typical of the early Italian Renaissance. Its architecture reflects the philosophy of Renaissance humanism, the enlightenment and clarity of mind as opposed to the darkness and spirituality of the Middle Ages. The revival of classical antiquity can best be illustrated by the Palazzo Rucellai. Here the pilasters follow the superposition of classical orders, with Doric capitals on the ground floor, Ionic capitals on the piano nobile and Corinthian capitals on the uppermost floor. Soon, Renaissance architects favored grand, large domes over tall and imposing spires, doing away with the Gothic style of the predating ages.

In Mantua, Alberti ushered in the new antique style, though his culminating work, Sant'Andrea, was not begun until 1472, after the architect's death.

The High Renaissance, as we call the style today, was introduced to Rome with Donato Bramante's Tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio (1502) and his original centrally planned St. Peter's Basilica (1506), which was the most notable architectural commission of the era, influenced by almost all notable Renaissance artists, including Michelangelo and Giacomo della Porta. The beginning of the late Renaissance in 1550 was marked by the development of a new column order by Andrea Palladio. Giant order columns that were two or more stories tall decorated the facades.

Because during the Italian Renaissance, mathematics was greatly developed and spread. Therefore, some Renaissance architects used mathematical knowledge like calculation in their drawings, such as Baldassarre Peruzzi.He analysis of Peruzzi’s drawings revealed that he made extensive use of numbers and calculations, making mathematics inseparable from his creation.