In the late fourteenth century, the Renaissance began to emerge in Italy.� This chapter surveys the developments in thought and art that transformed Italian culture and ultimately redefined the course of Western civilization.

The Renaissance revived classical learning in a way that broke with the medieval Christian outlook.� Though not anti-Christian, Renaissance individuals embraced the possibilities of this life rather than focusing on the hereafter.� Further, instead of renouncing earthly endeavors for contemplation of God, these elites cultivated personal excellence, sought the recognition of their achievements, and explored their own personalities.� This individualism was expressed through mastery of the classics.� Like the thinkers of the Twelfth-Century Awakening, Renaissance scholars valued classical learning.� However, unlike their medieval precursors, these scholars delved more deeply into classical texts and appreciated them for their own sake.� Renaissance scholars assumed that classical authors could teach them much about life, civic duty, and graceful self-expression.� However, these thinkers, unlike their medieval forebears, did not take the classics as timeless wisdom, but studied them critically in their historical context.�

The Renaissance unfolded in a politically fragmented Italy.�� Except for forty years of relative peace, the peninsula was torn by warfare among the Italian states and, from 1494 to 1559, between France and Spain.� During the early fifteenth century, humanism emerged in Florence and became the principal vehicle of the classical revival.� With the patronage of the powerful Medici family, Coluccio Salutati and Leonardo Bruno defined the studia humanitatis as an educational program based on the study of Greek and Roman authors.� The goal of their civic humanism was to train aristocratic men for public affairs.� Glorifying Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio as crucial forebears, both men stressed the study of classical languages, grammar, religion, moral philosophy, history, and poetry.� Men and women alike could study these subjects, but only men could take up rhetoric, science, and mathematics.

Though humanism was not itself a philosophy, it prompted notable works of philosophy, history, and political and social thought.� Instructed by Byzantine scholars, many humanists mastered Greek and explored Platonism and Aristotle in the original.� Under the influence of Greek philosophy, humanists including Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Pompanazzi developed increasingly secular ideas about ethics, the human soul, and the power of reason.� Humanists often consulted ancient historians for moral and political guidance, cultivating a critical historical awareness that they applied in their own historical writings.� Florentine secular humanism suffered a short but violent Christian reaction led by Savonarola.� After his fall, humanism found two of its most important expressions in the work of Machiavelli and Castiglione.� Scrutinizing history and contemporary politics, Machiavelli developed a secular theory of the state in which rulers maintain civil order through coldly pragmatic policies.� This political ideal addressed the realities of sixteenth-century politics, as did Castiglione's social ideal.� By defining the broad, versatile attributes of the courtier and court lady, Castiglione put the humanist ideal of well-rounded individuality at the service of princely rule.

Renaissance art broke with the medieval past by emphasizing the human form and the natural world.� Alberti and Vasari articulated this break by, respectively, establishing the principles of mathematical perspective and defining the Renaissance as a distinct age, a cultural rebirth after the period of medieval decay.� During the Early Renaissance, sculptors, architects, and painters all made the human figure and its proportions the center of their work.� Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Masaccio all adapted the principles of linear perspective to their respective arts, while Donatello revived the classical tradition of free-standing sculpture.� To capture further how the eye sees the world, Masaccio developed aerial perspective, while both he and Donatello realistically modeled the shapes of their figures.� Brunelleschi embodied Renaissance ingenuity by creating an innovative dome for the Florence Cathedral.� Other painters�including Fra Fillipo Lippi, Botticelli, and Ghirlandaio�experimented with a variety of techniques, including the use of sensual color, sculptural precision of line, and Flemish-influenced realism.

High Renaissance artists absorbed their precursors' innovations and adapted them to a style marked by classical balance, simplicity, and harmony.� Leonardo da Vinci pioneered the new style in painting, developing circular motion and pyramidal design to arrange figures both realistically and harmoniously.� Michelangelo introduced a new degree of emotional and physical tension into sculpture and, as painter of the Sistine Chapel, skillfully adapted the proportions of his figures to fit the contours of the space while giving them monumental weight and definition.� He also excelled as a poet and an architect, executing his revision of Bramante's plan for St. Peter's in Rome.� Raphael brought harmonious pyramidal design to its highest refinement in his Madonna-and-Child paintings and monumental School of Athens.� The Venetian style revolutionized color by introducing oil paints.� Titian developed this style by modeling his figures through color rather than line, using tone to create individualized portraits.� Tintoretto pointed toward Mannerism with his unusual perspective lines and unearthly light.

Fueled by sixteenth-century political and religious upheaval, Mannerism fractured High Renaissance harmony and balance.� Painters including Parmagianino and El Greco cultivated discord and instability, distorted human proportions, and employed eccentric colors.� Sofonsiba Anguissola gained fame as a painter of psychologically insightful portraits, and Vasari distinguished himself as both a painter and architect.

During this period, music underwent no profound transformation.� Italian composers produced sacred and secular music in medieval polyphonic styles.� However, in the sixteenth century, intermezzi, initially composed as interludes during plays, emerged as a distinct form that pointed the way toward opera.� Further steps toward opera were taken by the members of the Florentine camerata, who experimented with music that would both facilitate and emotionally complement the recitation of texts.

Renaissance art and thought decisively broke with the medieval world view.� By embracing secular reason and emphasizing earthly human achievement, Renaissance thinkers introduced the modern outlook still familiar to us today.� Further, by envisioning history as an evolution from bloom to decay to rebirth, these thinkers established the idea of progress that continues to shape our notions of history.