The High Middle Ages

Monasticism
monasticism, an institutionalized religious practice or
movement whose members attempt to live by a rule
that requires works that go beyond those of either the
laity or the ordinary spiritual leaders of their religions.
Commonly celibate and universally ascetic, the
monastic individual separates himself or herself from
society either by living as a hermit or anchorite
(religious recluse) or by joining a community of others
who profess similar intentions. First applied
to Christian groups in antiquity, the
term monasticism is now used to denote similar,
though not identical, practices in religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Daoism.
The word monasticism is derived from the Greek monarchs (“living alone”), but this etymology
highlights only one of the elements of monasticism and is somewhat misleading, because a large
proportion of the world’s monastics live in cenobitic (common life) communities. The term
monasticism implies celibacy, or living alone in the sense of lacking a spouse, which became a
socially and historically crucial feature of the monastic life.

The University Scholasticism: The Influence of

Plato and Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas
Scholasticism, the philosophical systems and
speculative tendencies of
various medieval Christian thinkers, who, working
against a background of fixed religious dogma, sought
to solve anew general philosophical problems (as
of faith and reason, will and
intellect, realism and nominalism, and the provability
of the existence of God), initially under the influence
of the mystical and intuitional tradition of patristic
philosophy, especially Augustinianism, and later under that of Aristotle.
From the time of the Renaissance until at least the beginning of the 19th century, the term
Scholasticism, not unlike the name Middle Ages, was used as an expression of blame and
contempt. The medieval period was widely viewed as an insignificant intermezzo between
Greco-Roman antiquity and modern times, and Scholasticism was normally taken to describe a
philosophy busied with sterile subtleties, written in bad Latin, and above all subservient to
Roman Catholic theology. Even the German idealist philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel, in his Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie (1833–36; Lectures on the
History of Philosophy), declared that he would “put on seven-league boots” in order to skip over
the thousand years between the 6th and 17th centuries and, having at last arrived at René
Descartes, said that now he could “cry land like the sailor.” In those same first decades of the
19th century, on the other hand, the Romanticists swung the pendulum sharply to the opposite
side, to an indiscriminate overestimation of everything medieval.
During the twelfth century, most countries of the west had experienced a true ‘scholastic
revolution’. Cathedral schools of the traditional type and new schools were spreading at that
time, attracting an ever-increasing number of students. This growth was evidently a response to
an increasing social demand for accomplished learned men, but it was also a concrete
manifestation of the considerable expansion of the field of erudite culture, and the new
curiosities this culture aroused. Even if the global perspectives remained those which had been
established in the patristic era (subordination of profane knowledge to the more proper goal of
the sacra pagina, and rejection of the ‘mechanical arts’), the very great expansion of the stock in
trade of the ‘authorities’ which was then accessible (texts translated from Greek and Arabic,
Roman law) gave true autonomy to the teaching of certain secular disciplines, such as law or
medicine. The revival of grammar and especially the rapid success of dialectics had established a
new form of pedagogy in which the compilation of ‘sentences and the formulation of ‘theoretical
questions’ supplanted traditional exegesis. Even theology, from Anselm of Canterbury and
Abelard onwards, had not escaped profound re-examination.

Romanesque Art: Churches, Sculpture

About 1000 CE the influence of Christianity had
spread to all parts of Europe. Although the course of
history, during this process, was not untroubled, and
although the Middle Ages were disturbed by violent
conflicts between Emperor and Pope, and by the
Crusades, yet one cannot fail to realize the power and
the unity of the feelings quietly at work behind the
turmoil.
Followers of a faith which taught them to worship the
Sun as the life-giving Power and personified the forces of Nature as gods, yet fearing life in spite
of all their magic, the heathens encountered the Christian philosophy. It seemed to them that
there was great magic in the Christian scriptures, and they painted the letters as living creatures.
Knowledge of Latin taught them the values of a high and ancient civilization, to which they
dedicated their unspoiled energies. For these peoples Christianity was not a refuge for the weary,
but a new assurance of life, an ordering of the universe such as they had not found in the old
doctrine. Since there was a Judge in heaven, who looked into the hearts of mankind, and since
the new faith told them, even to the least particulars, what was right and wrong, the young
Christian could really look up to God as to a loving father in heaven.
 Romanesque art emerged simultaneously in various
regions of Europe during the 11th century. That is
why it is the first international art. It owes its
expansion to the establishment of the Way of Saint
James as a pilgrimage route and to the economic
wealth it promoted.
The Romanesque is an art at the service of religion.
The most outstanding architectural monuments of
this period are the churches, cathedrals, and
monasteries. However, inside, and outside them, the
main protagonist is the sculpture.
Romanesque figures fulfilled a decorative function, serving to decorate the interior of the
buildings. But they also have a didactic and pedagogical role. The sculptures of this art
transformed the inside of the temples into an illustrated Bible. They served to communicate the
fundamentals of Christianity to the faithful.
Pilgrim can find some examples in the capitals of privileged places such as crypts, choirs or
around the ambulatory. However, Romanesque sculpture reached its peak of splendor on the
façade of churches. The iconographic programmes represented a point of transition between the
earthly and the spiritual world.
The sculpture of this period was dedicated to showing how Christianity understood the world.
They also used to induce penitence in all those who wanted to enter the house of God.

Gothic Art the Influence of Women, Cathedral

‘Art
Gothic art, the painting, sculpture, and architecture
characteristic of the second of two great international
eras that flourished in western and central Europe
during the Middle Ages. Gothic art evolved from
Romanesque art and lasted from the mid-12th century
to as late as the end of the 16th century in some areas.
The term Gothic was coined by classicizing Italian
writers of the Renaissance, who attributed the
invention (and what to them was the nonclassical
ugliness) of medieval architecture to the barbarian Gothic tribes that had destroyed the Roman
Empire and its classical culture in the 5th century CE. The term retained its derogatory overtones
until the 19th century, at which time a positive critical revaluation of Gothic architecture took
place. Although modern scholars have long realized that Gothic art has nothing in truth to do
with the Goths, the term Gothic remains a standard one in the study of art history.
The name gives it away–Romanesque architecture is based on Roman architectural elements. It
is the rounded Roman arch that is the literal basis for structures built in this style.
All through the regions that were part of the ancient Roman Empire are ruins of Roman
aqueducts and buildings, most of them exhibiting arches as part of the architecture. (You may
make the etymological leap that the two words are related, but the Oxford English Dictionary
shows arch as coming from Latin arcus, which defines the shape, while arch-as in architect,
archbishop and archenemy-comes from Greek arkhos, meaning chief. Tekton means builder.)
The remains of Roman civilization are seen all over the continent of Europe, and legends of the
great empire would have been passed down through generations. So, in the ninth century when
Emperor Charlemagne wanted to unite his empire and validate his reign, he began building
churches in the Roman style–particularly the style of Christian Rome in the days of Constantine,
the first Christian Roman emperor.

Medieval Music: Gregorian Chant, Polyphony, Perotinus, Drinking Songs Troubadours

and Trouvères, Minnesingers
Instruments used to perform medieval music still
exist, but in different forms. The flute was once made
of wood rather than silver or other metal, and could
be made as a side-blown or end-blown instrument.
The recorder has more or less retained its past form.
The gemshorn is similar to the recorder in having
finger holes on its front, though it is actually a
member of the ocarina family. One of the flute’s
predecessors, the pan flute, was popular in medieval
times, and is possibly of Hellenic origin. This
instrument’s pipes were made of wood, and were
graduated in length to produce different pitches.
Gregorian Chant
Gregorian chant, monophonic, or unison, liturgical music of the Roman Catholic Church, used to
accompany the text of the mass and the canonical hours, or divine office. Gregorian chant is
named after St. Gregory I, during whose papacy (590–604) it was collected and codified.
Charlemagne, king of the Franks (768–814), imposed Gregorian chant on his kingdom, where
another liturgical tradition—the Gallican chant—was in common use. During the 8th and 9th
centuries, a process of assimilation took place between Gallican and Gregorian chants; and it is
the chant in this evolved form that has come down to the present.
Perotinus
Pérotin, Latin Perotinus, (died 1238, Paris? France), French composer of sacred polyphonic
music, who is believed to have introduced the composition of polyphony in four parts into
Western music.
Nothing is known of Pérotin’s life, and his identity is not clearly established. He worked
probably at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, and his compositions are considered to belong
to the Notre-Dame, or Parisian, school, of which he and Léonin are the only members known by
name.
Drinking Songs Troubadours and Trouvères
The tradition of singing raucous lyrics in pubs has a long history. There are a few drinking songs
from the Middle Ages, including those found in the Carmina Burana, a collection of poems and
texts created in Germany during the first half of the thirteenth-century.
The Carmina Burana includes songs dating back to the 11th century, and were collected from
various parts of Europe. Many were created by university students, and includes works of
mockery, love songs and at least forty songs about gambling and drinking. As one scholar points
out this “collection is full of that excitement, that daring, that laughing-at-convention which
characterizes independently minded youth.”
In the 12th and 13th centuries, the troubadours in Occitanic and the trouvères in northern France
composed songs with texts in the vernacular and monophonic melodies. For the troubadours, the
vernacular was Old Occitan; for their northern counterparts, Old French. This difference in idiom
is sometimes held to mark a distinction between two separate but analogous traditions of
medieval song. The medieval practices of compiling multilingual lyric anthologies and of
borrowing melodies seem instead to affirm the contiguity of song culture across different
languages. The term “lyric” during this period typically designates a text set to melody, but not
all manuscripts of troubadour and trouvère lyric preserve song melodies. Music survives for
nearly half of the trouvère repertory (about three thousand songs) but only about 10 percent of
the twenty-six hundred extant troubadour songs. The compositional period for troubadours and
trouvères is conventionally defined rather rigidly as 1100–1300, and the songs themselves as
strophic and monophonic.
Minnesingers
minnesinger, German Minnesinger or Minnesinger, any of certain German poet-musicians of the
12th and 13th centuries. In the usage of these poets themselves, the term Minnesang denoted
only songs dealing with courtly love (Minne); it has come to be applied to the entire poetic-
musical body, Sprüche (political, moral, and religious song) as well as Minnesang.
The songs of courtly love, like the concept, came to Germany either directly from Provence or
through northern France. The minnesingers, like their Romance counterparts, the troubadours
and trouvères, usually composed both words and music and performed their songs in open court,
so that their art stood in an immediate relationship to their public. Some were of humble birth; at
the other end of the social scale were men such as the emperor Henry VI, son of Frederick I
Barbarossa. Most, however, were ministerialists, or members of the lower nobility, who
depended on court patronage for their livelihood; from the vicissitudes of such an existence come
many of the motifs in their poetry.
Medieval Literature: Beowulf, Northern Epics, British and French Epics, Romances,
Chaucer, Dante
Medieval literature is defined broadly as any work
written in Latin or the vernacular between c. 476-
1500 CE, including philosophy, religious treatises,
legal texts, as well as works of the imagination. More
narrowly, however, the term applies to literary works
of poetry, drama, romance, epic prose, and histories
written in the vernacular (though some histories were
in Latin). While it may seem odd to find histories
included with forms of fiction, it should be
remembered that many 'histories' of the Middle Ages
contain elements of myth, fable, and legend and, in
some cases, were largely the product of imaginative
writers.
Beowulf
Beowulf, heroic poem, the highest achievement of Old English literature and the earliest
European vernacular epic. The work deals with events of the early 6th century, and, while the
date of its composition is uncertain, some scholars believe that it was written in the 8th century.
Although originally untitled, the poem was later named after the Scandinavian hero Beowulf,
whose exploits and character provide its connecting theme. There is no evidence of a historical
Beowulf, but some characters, sites, and events in the poem can be historically verified. The
poem did not appear in print until 1815. It is preserved in a single manuscript that dates to circa
1000 and is known as the Beowulf manuscript (Cotton MS Vitellius A XV).
British
In medieval England (12th–15th century), the ascendancy of Norman-French culture in the post-
Conquest era, followed by the re-emergence of native English works – by such authors as
Chaucer, Langland, and Malory, and numerous anonymous authors, – marked the Middle
English period of English literature. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, more lay people were
literate, and the Paston Letters form one of the first records of one family's ordinary lives. These,
together with a growing number of financial and legal records, sermons, chronicles, poems, and
charters, form the basis of modern historical knowledge of the period.
French Epics
By 50 BC, when the Roman occupation of Gaul under Julius Caesar was complete, the region’s
population had been speaking Gaulish, a Celtic language, for some 500 years. Gaulish, however,
gave way to the conquerors’ speech, Vulgar Latin, which was the spoken form of Latin as used
by the soldiers and settlers throughout the Roman Empire. In different regions, local
circumstances determined Vulgar Latin’s evolution into the separate tongues that today
constitute the family of Romance languages, to which French belongs. This linguistic
development was speeded by the empire’s collapse under the impact of the 5th-century-AD
barbarian invasions and isolation from Rome. Gaul was overrun by Germanic tribes, in the north
principally by the Franks (who gave France its name) and by the Visigoths and Merovingians in
the south. But the Latin speech survived: not only was it the language of the majority of the
population, but it was also backed by its associations with the old Roman culture and with the
new Christian religion, which used Low Latin, its own form of the Roman tongue. While it
retained relatively few Celtic words, the developing language had its vocabulary greatly enriched
by Germanic borrowings, and its phonetic development was influenced by Germanic speech
habits.
Romances
Have you ever seen the movie The Princess Bride? If so, you might recall its swashbuckling
scenes and its story of love and daring exploits. Although it was adapted from a book published
in the 1970s, The Princess Bride shares a lot in common with medieval romance literature, a
literary genre comprised of fictional works of chivalry and adventure from the Middle Ages.
Works of medieval romance literature were widely popular between the 5th and 16th centuries,
and represented the bulk of major literary output at the time. There are examples of the genre
composed in prose as well as in verse, with some of the earliest being poetic works closely
resembling the verse epics of Ancient Greece and Rome in both form and content.
By the 17th century, the popularity of the genre was already dwindling, and writers were
beginning to explore other avenues of expression. You might say that medieval romance
literature received its final deathblow in 1605 and 1615 when the two parts of Don Quixote were
published. The most notable work of Miguel de Cervantes is actually a satire that contrasts the
chivalrous deeds performed in previous romance works with the bounds of reality. Let's take a
look now at some of the characteristics of medieval romance literature that Cervantes would
have satirized.
Chaucer
Along with William Shakespeare and John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) is the third
name in the pantheon of most-influential English writers. Best known for the Canterbury Tales,
Chaucer was considered by admirers as the founding figure of English poetry as early as the 15th
century. Shakespeare and Spenser, among others, were influenced by him. Chaucer has been
praised for his irony, learning, understanding of human nature, geniality, humor, mastery of the
classical and continental literary traditions, but particularly for his ability to create rounded,
living, believable characters, who seemingly have lives and thoughts of their own.
Dante
Dante, in full Dante Alighieri, (born c. May 21–June 20, 1265, Florence [Italy]—died September
13/14, 1321, Ravenna), Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and
political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La
divina commedia (The Divine Comedy).
Dante’s Divine Comedy, a landmark in Italian literature and among the greatest works of all
medieval European literature, is a profound Christian vision of humankind’s temporal and
eternal destiny. On its most personal level, it draws on Dante’s own experience of exile from his
native city of Florence. On its most comprehensive level, it may be read as an allegory, taking
the form of a journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise

The Renaissance

The Early Renaissance: Vittorio’s School, Guarino’s School, Sculpture, Architecture,

Painting, Music, Literature
At the beginning of the 15th century, Italy
experienced a cultural rebirth, a renaissance that
would massively affect all sectors of society. Turning
away from the preceding Gothic and Romanesque
periods' iconography, Florentine artists spurred a
rejuvenation of the glories of classical art in line with
a more humanistic and individualistic emerging
contemporary era. Based in this flourishing new
environment that empowered people to fully immerse
themselves in studies of the humanities, Early
Renaissance artists began to create work intensified
by knowledge of architecture, philosophy, theology,
mathematics, science, and design. The innovations that emerged in art during this period would
go on to cause reverberations, which continue to influence creative and cultural arenas today.
This Early Renaissance is also known as the Quattrocento, derived from the Italian Mille
quattrocento, meaning 1400, and refers primarily to the period dominating the 15th century in
Italian art. It was the forebear to the following High Renaissance, North European Renaissance,
Mannerism, and Baroque periods that followed.
Vittorio’s School
Also known as Vittorio de' Rambaldoni; Humanist, scholar, and educator; b. Feltre, Italy, 1378;
d. Mantua, 1446. In 1396 Vittorino entered the University of Padua, an institution famed not
only in Italy, but beyond the Alps. He was associated with Padua as student and teacher for
nearly 20 years. During this period, he studied grammar and Latin letters with Gasparino
Barzizza, the greatest Latin scholar of the age, as well as dialectic, philosophy, rhetoric, and
Canon Law. After receiving his doctorate, he obtained private instruction in mathematics and
Greek, and soon became known for his knowledge of mathematical and literary subjects. His
attractive personality made him one of the outstanding scholars in Padua. As his fame grew
steadily, his teaching was much in demand. A competent scholar and an exemplary Catholic
layman, he continually tried to harmonize Christian principles with ancient learning. More than
any other humanist, he helped to systematize the new studies.
Guarino’s School
Guarino Veronese, also called Guarino Guarini and Guarino da Verona, (born 1374, Verona,
March of Verona [Italy]—died December 14, 1460, Ferrara, Duchy of Ferrara), Italian humanist
and Classical scholar, one of the pioneers of Greek studies in Renaissance western Europe and
foremost teacher of humanistic scholars.
Following studies in Italy and the establishment of his first school in Verona in the 1390s,
Guarino studied at Constantinople (1403–08), where he was a pupil of Manuel Chrysoloras.
Returning to Italy with a valuable collection of Greek manuscripts, he taught Greek at Florence
(1410) and Venice (1414) and compiled Regulate grammaticales (1418), the first Renaissance
Latin grammar. It appeared in numerous editions and was used well into the 17th century. After
two terms as master of rhetoric in Verona, Guarino became tutor to Leonello, son of Nicolò
d’Este, lord of Ferrara, in 1430. Guarino prepared new editions of various Latin authors and
translated works of Strabo and Plutarch. His linguistic talents were employed by Greek and Latin
churchmen at the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–45). With his colleague Gasparino da
Barzizza and former pupil Vittorino da Feltre, Guarino helped set the pattern for studies in
humanism.
Sculpture
Renaissance sculpture proper is often thought to begin with the famous competition for the doors
of the Florence baptistery in 1403, from which the trial models submitted by the winner, Lorenzo
Ghiberti, and the runner up, Filippo Brunelleschi, still survive. Ghiberti’s bronze doors consist of
28 panels depicting scenes from the life of Christ, the four evangelists, and the Church Fathers
Saints Ambrose, Jeromy, Gregory, and Augustine. They took 21 years to complete and still stand
at the northern entrance of the baptistery, although they are eclipsed by the splendor of his
second pair of gates for the eastern entrance, which Michelangelo dubbed “the gates of
paradise.” These new doors were commissioned in 1425 and built over a 27-year period. They
consist of 10 rectangular panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament and employ a clever
use of the recently discovered principles of perspective to add depth to the composition. They are
surrounded by a richly decorated gilt framework of fruit and foliage, statuettes of prophets, and
busts of the sculptor and his father.
Architecture
Renaissance architecture is European architecture between the early 15th and early 17th
centuries. It demonstrates a conscious revival and development of certain elements of classical
thought and material culture, particularly symmetry and classical orders. Stylistically,
Renaissance architecture came after the Gothic period and was succeeded by the Baroque.
During the High Renaissance, architectural concepts derived from classical antiquity were
developed and used with greater surety.

Music
Music was an essential part of civic, religious, and courtly life in the Renaissance. The rich
interchange of ideas in Europe, as well as political, economic, and religious events in the period
1400–1600 led to major changes in styles of composing, methods of disseminating music, new
musical genres, and the development of musical instruments. The most important music of the
early Renaissance was composed for use by the church—polyphonic (made up of several
simultaneous melodies) masses and motets in Latin for important churches and court chapels. By
the end of the sixteenth century, however, patronage had broadened to include the Catholic
Church, Protestant churches and courts, wealthy amateurs, and music printing—all were sources
of income for composers.
Literature
The 13th century Italian literary revolution helped set the stage for the Renaissance. Prior to the
Renaissance, the Italian language was not the literary language in Italy. It was only in the 13th
century that Italian authors began writing in their native vernacular language rather than in Latin,
French, or Provençal. The 1250s saw a major change in Italian poetry as the Dolce Still Novo
(Sweet New Style, which emphasized Platonic rather than courtly love) came into its own,
pioneered by poets like Guittone d’Arezzo and Guido Guinizelli. Especially in poetry, major
changes in Italian literature had been taking place decades before the Renaissance truly began.\

High Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture

High Renaissance art was the dominant style in Italy
during the 16th century. Mannerism also developed
during this period. The High Renaissance period is
traditionally taken to begin in the 1490s, with
Leonardo’s fresco of The Last Supper in Milan, and
to end in 1527, with the Sack of Rome by the troops
of Charles V. This term was first used in German
(“Hoch renaissance”) in the early 19th century. Over
the last 20 years, use of the term has been frequently
criticized by academic art historians for
oversimplifying artistic developments, ignoring
historical context, and focusing only on a few iconic
works.
The term “High Renaissance” denotes a period of artistic production that is viewed by art
historians as the height, or the culmination, of the Renaissance period. Artists such as Leonardo
da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael are considered High Renaissance painters. While the term
has become controversial, with some scholars arguing that it oversimplifies artistic developments
and historical context, it is hard to ignore the works of these High Renaissance artists as they
remain so iconic even into the 21st century.

Sculpture
During the Renaissance, an artist was not just a painter, or an architect, or a sculptor. They were
typically all three. As a result, we see the same prominent names producing sculpture and the
great Renaissance paintings. Additionally, the themes and goals of High Renaissance sculpture
are very much the same as High Renaissance painting. Sculptors during the High Renaissance
were deliberately quoting classical precedents and they aimed for ideal naturalism in their works.
Michelangelo (1475–1564) is the prime example of a sculptor during the Renaissance; his works
best demonstrate the goals and ideals of the High Renaissance sculptor.
Architecture
Renaissance architecture is characterized by symmetry and proportion, and is directly influenced
by the study of antiquity. While Renaissance architecture was defined in the Early Renaissance
by figures such as Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), the
architects most representative of the High Renaissance are Donato Bramante (1444–1514) and
Andrea Palladio (1508–1580).

High Renaissance Music

The overall musical style of this era has its roots in
Medieval music: polyphony (music with multiple,
independent melodic lines). However, like
throughout all of history, technology changes
resulted in new musical ideas. In 1440 came the
printing press. This revolutionized the public
distribution of music, as it allowed for more music to
be printed and shared at a lower cost. Because more
people had access to printed music, polyphony
developed into a complex form of music known as
counterpoint (a set of established rules for setting
multiple melodies against each other; basically, an
established technique for writing polyphony) as composers wanted to smooth out the sound
between all of the voices.
Renaissance Sacred Music still played a very prominent role in the church during the
Renaissance Most church music was in a cappella style (vocal music without instrumental
accompaniment) Polyphony based on principle of imitation – musical ideas exchanged between
vocal lines Harmonies based on “sweeter” sounds of thirds and sixths as compared to the fifths
and octaves of medieval music Use of fixed melody (cantus firmus) and triple meter to
symbolize the holy Trinity.

High Renaissance Literature

The Renaissance in Europe was in one sense an
awakening from the long slumber of the Dark Ages.
What had been a stagnant, even backsliding kind of
society re-invested in the promise of material and
spiritual gain. There was the sincerely held belief
that humanity was making progress towards a noble
summit of perfect existence. How this rebirth – for
Renaissance literally means rebirth – came to
fruition is a matter of debate among historians. What
cannot be debated is that humanity took an
astounding leap forward after hundreds of years of
drift. The fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries
in Europe witnessed a deliberate break with feudal modes of living. Aristocratic landowners lost
their hegemony over the lower classes, as opportunities for growth and enrichment beckoned
from the swelling urban centers. In Italy, for example, educated citizens rediscovered the grace
and power of their classical, pagan traditions. Greek and Roman mythologies and philosophies
served as the inspirational material for a new wave of artistic creation. Intellectuals adopted a
line of thought known as “humanism,” in which mankind was believed capable of earthly
perfection beyond what had ever been imagined before. The overwhelming spirit of the times
was optimism, an unquenchable belief that life was improving for the first time in anyone’s
memory. Indeed, the specter of the Dark Ages and the Black Death were still very fresh in
people’s minds, and the promise of moving forward and away from such horrors was
wholeheartedly welcome.

Effects of the Italian Renaissance on the West

France
12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of
France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the
son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin once
removed and father in-law Louis XII, who died without a son. A prodigious patron of the arts, he
promoted the emergent French Renaissance by attracting many Italian artists to work for him,
including Leonardo da Vinci, who brought the Mona Lisa with him, which Francis had acquired.
Francis' reign saw important cultural changes with the growth of central power in France, the
spread of humanism and Protestantism, and the beginning of French exploration of the New
World. Jacques Cartier and others claimed
lands in the Americas for France and paved the way for the expansion of the first French colonial
empire.
German Renaissance
In Germany, beyond the Alps, which acted as a kind
of barrier to any incoming information, and far
removed from the culture of Classical Antiquity that
had been fertile soil for modern ideas in Italy, the
transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age
was delayed by almost 100 years. By 1500, Italy had
already experienced its Early Renaissance (1400-90)
and was well into its High Renaissance (1490-1530).
In contrast, German art was still attached to the
stylistic forms of Gothic art and International Gothic.
Thus, representations of Mary always stood out
against a gold background, a technique long since
abandoned in the other European countries. It was not
until the beginning of the 16th century that German art began to free itself from Medieval
consciousness: even then, it would evolve in its own distinctive way.
England Renaissance
The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic
movement in England dating from the late 15th to
the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-
European Renaissance that is usually regarded as
beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. Like most
of northern Europe, England saw little of these
developments until more than a century later. The
beginning of the English Renaissance is often taken,
as a convenience, to be 1485, when the Battle of
Bosworth Field ended the Wars of the Roses and
inaugurated the Tudor Dynasty. Renaissance style
and ideas, however, were slow to penetrate England,
and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th
century is usually regarded as the height of the English Renaissance. The English Renaissance is
different from the Italian Renaissance in several ways. The dominant art forms of the English
Renaissance were literature and music. Visual arts in the English Renaissance were much less
significant than in the Italian Renaissance. The English period began far later than the Italian,
which is usually considered to begin in the late 14th century, and was moving into Mannerism
and the Baroque by the 1550s or earlier. In contrast, the English Renaissance can only be said to
begin, shakily, in the 1520s, and continued until perhaps 1620.

The End of the Renaissance

In art history, the sixteenth century sees the styles
we call the High Renaissance followed by
Mannerism, and at the end of the century the
emergence of the Baroque style. Naturally, these
styles are all shaped by historical forces, the most
significant being the Protestant Reformation’s
successful challenge to the spiritual and political
power of the Church in Rome. For the history of art
this has particular significance since the use (and
abuse) of images was the topic of debate. In fact,
many images were attacked destroyed during this
period, a phenomenon called iconoclasm.
The Age of Mannerism
Mannerism is the name given to a style of art in
Europe from c. 1520–1600. Mannerism came after
the High Renaissance and before the Baroque. Not
every artist painting during this period is considered
a Mannerist artist, however, and there is much
debate among scholars over whether Mannerism
should be considered a separate movement from the
High Renaissance, or a stylistic phase of the High
Renaissance. Mannerism will be treated as a
separate art movement here as there are many
differences between the High Renaissance and the
Mannerist styles.
Historical Background
Mannerism is an artistic style and movement that
developed in Europe from the later years of the
Italian High Renaissance, around the 1520s, to the
end of the 16th century when Baroque started to
replace it. In that period, after the death of Raphael,
art experienced a period of crisis. The work of the Renaissance masters Leonardo, Michelangelo
and Raphael was credited with having arrived at a formal perfection and an ideal beauty difficult
to overcome. Renaissance artworks were perfectly composed up to the last detail, thanks to
artists having mastered anatomy, light and perspective. This led young artists to believe that
there was nothing worth pursuing in art, that had not been achieved yet. From this point of view,
Mannerism was born with the aim to develop a new kind of art that worked in a new direction,
without pretending to imitate nature anymore, but instead was turned against the traditional
artistic canon. This new style over the years became a distortion of the Renaissance perfection
and an exaggeration of the previous movement's qualities. Even Michelangelo himself turned to
Mannerism in the last years of his activity, especially in his Last Judgment fresco painted in the
Sistine Chapel between 1536 and 1541.Additionally, the virtuosity, the technical artificiality over
the composition and the exaggerated representation of moods and intense subjects of Mannerism
reflected the Italian and European historical and social period of the 16th century. The most
recent scientific discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo, and the geographical discoveries of
Ferdinand Magellan and Christopher Columbus, who had challenged the canonical view of the
world proving that the Earth is not flat and Europe was not the centre of the world as it was
believed to be, created in men an insecurity, instability and uncertainty that Mannerism managed
to express in art. Painters began to think that the laws of art such as the rational basis of balance
and harmony were no longer sufficient to illustrate a world that had been torn from its axis.
Mannerism in Fine Arts

Tintoretto
Tintoretto, byname of Jacopo Robusti, (born c.
1518, Venice [Italy]—died May 31, 1594, Venice),
great Italian Mannerist painter of the Venetian
school and one of the most important artists of the
late Renaissance. His paintings include Vulcan
Surprising Venus and Mars (c. 1555), the Mannerist
Christ and the Adulteress (c. 1545–48), and his
masterpiece of 1592–94, the Last Supper of San
Giorgio Maggiore. Increasingly concerned with the
drama of light and space, he achieved in his mature
work (e.g., The Adoration of the Golden Calf, c.
1560) a luminous visionary quality. Little is known
of Tintoretto’s life. In a will of 1539, he called himself an independent professional man—not a
surprising description in view of his imposing and forceful personality. No documents have
survived regarding Jacopo’s artistic education. His biographers, among them Carlo Ridolfi,
whose book was published in 1648, speak of an apprenticeship with Titian that was broken off
because of the master’s resentment of the pupil’s proud nature and exceptional accomplishment.
On the other hand, a contemporary pointed out that Tintoretto’s style was formed by studying
formal elements of the Tuscan school, especially those of Michelangelo, and pictorial elements
derived from Titian.
El Greco
El Greco, byname of Domenico’s Economopoulos,
(born 1541, Candia [Iraklion], Crete—died April 7,
1614, Toledo, Spain), master of Spanish painting,
whose highly individual dramatic and
expressionistic style met with the puzzlement of his
contemporaries but gained newfound appreciation
in the 20th century. He also worked as a sculptor
and as an architect. El Greco never forgot that he
was of Greek descent and usually signed his
paintings in Greek letters with his full name,
Domenico’s Economopoulos. He is, nevertheless,
generally known as El Greco (“the Greek”), a name
he acquired when he lived in Italy, where the custom of identifying a man by designating country
or city of origin was a common practice. The curious form of the article (El), however, may be
the Venetian dialect or more likely from the Spanish. Because Crete, his homeland, was then a
Venetian possession and he was a Venetian citizen, he decided to go to Venice to study. The
exact year in which this took place is not known; but speculation has placed the date anywhere
from 1560, when he was 19, to 1566. In Venice he entered the studio of Titian, who was the
greatest painter of the day. Knowledge of El Greco’s years in Italy is limited. A letter of
November 16, 1570, written by Giulio Clovio, an illuminator in the service of Cardinal
Alessandro Farnese, requested lodging in the Palazzo Farnese for “a young man from Candia, a
pupil of Titian.” On July 8, 1572, “the Greek painter” is mentioned in a letter sent from Rome by
a Farnese official to the same cardinal. Shortly thereafter, on September 18, 1572, “Domenico
Greco” paid his dues to the guild of St. Luke in Rome. How long the young artist remained in
Rome is unknown, because he may have returned to Venice, about 1575–76, before he left for
Spain.
Correggio
Correggio, byname of Antonio Allegri, (born
August 1494, Correggio [now in Emilia-Romagna,
Italy]—died March 5, 1534, Correggio), most
important Renaissance painter of the school of
Parma, whose late works influenced the style of
many Baroque and Rococo artists. His first
important works are the convent ceiling of San
Paolo (c. 1519), Parma, depicting allegories on
humanist themes, and the frescoes in San Giovanni
Evangelista, Parma (1520–23), and the cathedral of Parma (1526–30). The Mystic Marriage of
St. Catherine (c. 1526) is among the finest of his poetic late oil paintings. His father was
Pellegrino Allegri, a tradesman living at Correggio, the small city in which Antonio was born
and died, and whose name he took as his own. He was not, as it
is often alleged, a self-taught artist. His early work refutes the theory, for it shows an educated
knowledge of optics, perspective, architecture, sculpture, and anatomy. His initial instruction
probably came from his uncle, Lorenzo Allegri, a painter of moderate ability, at Correggio.
About 1503 he probably studied in Modena and then went to Mantua, arriving before the death
in 1506 of the famed early Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna. It has traditionally been said
that he completed the decoration of Mantegna’s family chapel in the church of Sant ’Andrea at
Mantua after the artist’s death. It seems certain that the two round paintings, or tondi, of the
Entombment of Christ and Madonna and Saints are by the young Correggio. Although his early
works are pervaded with his knowledge of Mantegna’s art, his artistic temperament was more
akin to that of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), who had a commanding influence upon almost
all of the Renaissance painters of northern Italy. Where Mantegna uses tightly controlled line to
define form, Correggio, like Leonardo, prefers chiaroscuro, or a subtle manipulation of light and
shade creating softness of contour and an atmospheric effect. It is also fairly certain that early in
his career he visited Rome and came under the influence of the Vatican frescoes of Michelangelo
and Raphael.
Bronzino
Bronzino, original name Agnolo di Cosimo di
Mariano Tori, Agnolo also spelled Agniolo, (born
November 17, 1503, Florence [Italy] died
November 23, 1572, Florence), Florentine painter
whose polished and elegant portraits are
outstanding examples of the Mannerist style.
Classic embodiments of the courtly ideal under the
Medici dukes of the mid-16th century, they
influenced European court portraiture for the next
century. Bronzino studied separately under the
Florentine painters Raffaellino del Garbo and
Jacopo da Pontormo before beginning his career as
an artist. His early work was greatly influenced by Pontormo. He adapted his master’s eccentric,
expressive style (early Mannerism) to create a brilliant, precisely linear style of his own that was
also partly influenced by Michelangelo and the late works of Raphael. Between 1523 and 1528,
Bronzino and Pontormo collaborated on interior decorations for two Florentine churches. In
1530 Bronzino moved to Pesaro, where he briefly painted frescoes in the Villa Imperiale before
returning to Florence in 1532 From 1539 until his death in 1572, Bronzino served as the court
painter to Cosimo I, duke of Florence. He was engaged in a variety of commissions, including
decorations for the wedding of the duke to Eleonora of Toledo (1539) as well as a Florentine
chapel in her honor (1540–45). Frescoes he painted there include Moses Striking the Rock, The
Gathering of Manna, and St. John the Evangelist. He also created mythological paintings such as
The Allegory of Luxury (also called Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time; c. 1544–45), which reveals
his love of complex symbolism, contrived poses, and clear, brilliant colors. By the 1540s he was
regarded as one of the premier portrait painters in Florence. His Eleonora of Toledo with Her
Son Giovanni and Portrait of a Young Girl with a Prayer Book (c. 1545) are preeminent
examples of Mannerist portraiture: emotionally inexpressive, reserved, and noncommittal yet
arrestingly elegant and decorative. Branzino’s great technical proficiency and his stylized
rounding of sinuous anatomical forms are also notable. His many other portraits of the royal
family include Cosimo in Armor (1543), Giovanni with a Goldfinch (1545), and Cosimo at Age
Thirty-Six (1555–56). Bronzino’s last Mannerist painting was Noli me tangere (1561). As Italian
artists abandoned Mannerism in the 1560s, Bronzino attempted to adjust his characteristic style
by adding clarity to his work. This can be seen in his final paintings, including a Pietà (c. 1569)
and Raising of the daughter of Jairus (c. 1571–72), an altarpiece.
Veronese
Paolo Veronese, byname of Paolo Caliari, (born
1528, Verona, Republic of Venice [Italy]—died
April 9, 1588, Venice), one of the major painters of
the 16th-century Venetian school. His works
usually are huge, vastly peopled canvases depicting
allegorical, biblical, or historical subjects in
splendid color and set in a framework of
classicizing Renaissance architecture. A master of
the use of color, he also excelled at illusionary
compositions that extend the eye beyond the actual
confines of the room.
The early years
Caliari became known as Veronese after his birthplace. Though first apprenticed as a stonecutter,
his father’s trade, he showed such a marked interest in painting that in his 14th year he was
apprenticed to a painter named Antonio Badile, whose daughter Elena he later married. From
Badile Veronese derived a sound basic painting technique as well as a passion for paintings in
which people and architecture were integrated. The style of his first known work, the
Bevilacqua-Lazise Altarpiece, reflects Badile’s influence. Veronese was also influenced by a
group of painters that included Domenico Brusasorci, Giambattista Zelotti, and Paolo Farinati;
attracted by Mannerist art, they studied the works of Giulio Romano, Raphael, Parmigianino, and
Michelangelo. Fragments of a fresco decoration executed by Veronese in 1551 for the Villa
Soranza in Treville, with their elegant decorative figures, suggest that he was already creating a
new idiom. The influence of Michelangelo is evident in a splendid canvas, Temptation of St.
Anthony, painted in 1552 for the cathedral of Mantua.
Brueghel
Pieter Bruegel, the Elder, byname Peasant Bruegel,
Dutch Pieter Bruegel De Oudere or Boeren
Bruegel, Bruegel also spelled Brueghel or
Breughel, (born c. 1525, probably Breda, duchy of
Brabant [now in the Netherlands]—died Sept. 5/9,
1569, Brussels [now in Belgium]), the greatest
Flemish painter of the 16th century, whose
landscapes and vigorous, often witty scenes of
peasant life are particularly renowned. Since
Bruegel signed and dated many of his works, his
artistic evolution can be traced from the early
landscapes, in which he shows affinity with the
Flemish 16th-century landscape tradition, to his
last works, which are Italianate. He exerted a strong influence on painting in the Low Countries,
and through his sons Jan and Pieter he became the ancestor of a dynasty of painters that survived
into the 18th century. There is but little information about his life. According to Carel van
Mander’s Het Schilderboeck (Book of Painters), published in Amsterdam in 1604 (35 years after
Bruegel’s death), Bruegel was apprenticed to Pieter Coecke van Aelst, a leading Antwerp artist
who had located in Brussels. The head of a large workshop, Coecke was a sculptor, architect, and
designer of tapestry and stained glass who had traveled in Italy and in Turkey. Although
Bruegel’s earliest surviving works show no stylistic dependence on Coecke’s Italianate art,
connections with Coecke’s compositions can be detected in later years, particularly after 1563,
when Bruegel married Coecke’s daughter Mayken. In any case, the apprenticeship with Coecke
represented an early contact with a humanistic milieu. Through Coecke, Bruegel became linked
indirectly to another tradition as well. Coecke’s wife, Maria Verhulst Bessemers, was a painter
known for her work in watercolour or tempera, a suspension of pigments in egg yolk or a
glutinous substance, on linen. The technique was widely practiced in her hometown of Mechelen
(Malines) and was later employed by Bruegel. It is also in the works of Mechelen’s artists that
allegorical and peasant thematic material first appear. These subjects, unusual in Antwerp, were
later treated by Bruegel. In 1551 or 1552 Bruegel set off on the customary northern artist’s
journey to Italy, probably by way of France. From several extant paintings, drawings, and
etchings, it can be deduced that he traveled beyond Naples to Sicily, possibly as far as Palermo,
and that in 1553 he lived for some time in Rome, where he worked with a celebrated miniaturist,
Giulio Clovio, an artist greatly influenced by Michelangelo and later a patron of the young El
Greco. The inventory of Clovio’s estate shows that he owned a number of paintings and
drawings by Bruegel as well as a miniature done by the two artists in collaboration. It was in
Rome in 1553 that Bruegel produced his earliest signed and dated painting, Landscape with
Christ and the Apostles at the Sea of Tiberias. The holy figures in this painting were probably
done by Maarten de Vos, a painter from Antwerp then working in Italy.

Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini, (born Nov. 1, 1500, Florence
—died Feb. 13, 1571, Florence), Florentine
sculptor, goldsmith, and writer, one of the most
important Mannerist artists and, because of the
lively account of himself and his period in his
autobiography, one of the most picturesque figures
of the Renaissance. Cellini, resisting the efforts of
his father to train him as a musician, was
apprenticed as a metalworker in the studio of the
Florentine goldsmith Andrea di Sandro Marcone.
Banished to Siena as a result of a brawl in 1516,
he returned to Florence during 1517–19 and then
moved to Rome. Prosecuted for fighting in Florence in 1523 and condemned to death, he fled
again to Rome, where he worked for the bishop of Salamanca, Sigismondo Chigi, and Pope
Clement VII. Cellini participated in the defense of Rome in 1527, during which, by his own
account, he shot the constable of Bourbon as well as the Prince of Orange. After the sack of
Rome, he returned to Florence and in 1528 worked in Mantua, making a seal for Cardinal
Gonzaga (Episcopal Archives of the City of Mantua). Moving back to Rome in 1529, he was
appointed maestro delle stampe (“stamp master”) at the papal mint and in 1530–31 executed a
celebrated morse (clasp) for Clement VII. Like so many of Cellini’s works in precious metals,
this was melted down, but its design is recorded in three 18th-century drawings in the British
Museum, London. The only survivors of the many works he prepared for the Pope are two
medals made in 1534 (Uffizi, Florence). Guilty of killing a rival goldsmith, Cellini was absolved
by Pope Paul III; but in the following year, having wounded a notary, he fled from Rome and
settled in Florence, where he executed a number of coins for Alessandro de’ Medici (now in the
Cabinet des Médailles in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris). After a further year in Rome, he
paid a brief visit to France, where he was received by Francis I, a portrait medal of whom (1538;
Bargello, Florence) is the sole relic of the journey. On his return to Rome in 1537, he was
accused of embezzlement and imprisoned. He escaped, was once more imprisoned, and was
finally released in 1539 at the insistence of Cardinal d’Este of Ferrara, for whom he executed a
seal (c. 1540; original lost; lead impression in Lyon). Again, invited to France by Francis I, he
arrived at Fontainebleau in 1540, carrying with him an unfinished saltcellar, which he completed
in gold for the King in 1540. This, Cellini’s only fully authenticated work in precious metal
(Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), is the supreme example of the Renaissance goldsmith’s
work. In 1542 Cellini was granted letters of naturalization by the King and in 1544 received a
royal commission for 12 silver candlesticks decorated with figures from mythology. The design
of one of these, representing Juno, is recorded in a drawing in the Louvre, Paris. Also, in 1543–
44 he modeled and cast his first large-scale work, a large bronze lunette of the Nymph of
Fontainebleau for the entrance to the palace (Louvre). For a projected fountain at Fontainebleau,
he prepared a model in 1543 for a colossal figure of Mars (lost).

Palladio Church
Andrea Palladio, original name Andrea di Pietro
della Gondola, (born Nov. 30, 1508, Padua,
Republic of Venice [Italy]—died August 1580,
Vicenza), Italian architect, regarded as the greatest
architect of 16th-century northern Italy. His
designs for palaces (palazzi) and villas, notably the
Villa Rotonda (1550–51) near Vicenza, and his
treatise I quattro libri dell’architettura (1570; The
Four Books of Architecture) made him one of the
most influential figures in Western architecture.
Palladio was born in the northern Italian region of
the Veneto, where, as a youth, he was apprenticed
to a sculptor in Padua until, at the age of 16, he moved to nearby Vicenza and enrolled in the
guild of the bricklayers and stonemasons. He was employed as a mason in workshops
specializing in monuments and decorative sculpture in the style of the Mannerist architect
Michele Sanmicheli of Verona. Between 1530 and 1538 Count Gian Giorgio Trissino, a
Humanist poet and scholar, was rebuilding his villa at Cricoli outside Vicenza in the ancient
Roman, or classical, style. Palladio, working there as a mason, was noticed by Trissino, who
undertook to expand his practical experience with a Humanist education. The Villa Trissino was
rebuilt to a plan reminiscent of designs of Baldassarre Peruzzi, an important High Renaissance
architect. Planned to house a learned academy for Trissino’s pupils, who lived a semimonastic
life studying mathematics, music, philosophy, and classical authors, the villa represented
Trissino’s interpretation of the ancient Roman architect and theorist Vitruvius (active 46–30
BC), whom Palladio was later to describe as his master and guide. The name Palladio was given
to Andrea, after a Humanist habit, as an allusion to the mythological figure Pallas Athena and to
a character in Trissino’s poem “Italia liberata dai goti.” It indicates the hopes Trissino had for his
protégé. At the Villa Trissino, Palladio met the young aristocracy of Vicenza, some of whom
were to become his patrons. By 1541 he had stylistically assimilated the Mannerist works of
Michele Sanmicheli and the High Renaissance buildings of Jacopo Sansovino, whose library of
St. Mark’s in Venice had been begun in 1536. He had probably been introduced in Padua to
Alvise Cornaro, whose designs were the first to import the Roman Renaissance style to northern
Italy. Palladio may also have met a prominent Mannerist architect and theoretician, Sebastiano
Serlio, who was in Venice at that time and whose third and fourth books on architecture
(L’architettura; 1540 and 1537, respectively) were to be an inspiration to him.
Mannerism in Music
ABSTRACT Mannerism was an artistic style that
flourished in the sixteenth century between the
High Renaissance and the emergence of the
Baroque era. ... In music, the Italian madrigal is
the purest expression of the Mannerist style. From
roughly 1600 until 1900, the dominant critical
view of Mannerism was negative.

Giovanni Pier Luigi da Palestrina

Giovanni Pier Luigi da Palestrina (c. 1525 - 2
February 1594) was an Italian Renaissance
composer of sacred music and the prominent
representative of the 16th -century Roman School
of musical composition. He had a lasting
influence on the development of ecclesiastical and
secular music in Europe, especially on the
development of counterpoint, and the works are
said to be the epicenter of the Renaissance
polyphonia.

Alexandrina Victoria
(Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January
1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her
death in 1901. Known as the Victorian era, her
reign of 63 years and seven months was longer
than any previous British monarch. It was a period
of industrial, political, scientific, and military
change within the United Kingdom, and was
marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant
her the additional title of Empress of India.
Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of
King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father
and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her
comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers
died without surviving legitimate issue. Though a constitutional monarch, privately, Victoria
attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a
national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.
Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. Their children
married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet "the
grandmother of Europe" and spreading hemophilia in European royalty. After Albert's death in
1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her
seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign,
her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.
She died on the Isle of Wight in 1901. The last British monarch of the House of Hanover, she
was succeeded by her son Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Orlando de Lassus
Orlando de Lassus (also Roland de Lassus,
Orlando di Lasso, Orlando’s Lassus, Orlando de
Lattre or Roland de Lattre; 1532, possibly 1530 –
14 June 1594) was a composer of the late
Renaissance, chief representative of the mature
polyphonic style of the Franco-Flemish school,
and considered to be one of the three most famous
and influential musicians in Europe at the end of
the 16th century (the other two being Palestrina
and Victoria)

Luca Marenzio
(Also, Marentio; October 18, 1553 or 1554 –
August 22, 1599) was an Italian composer and
singer of the late Renaissance.
He was one of the most renowned composers of
madrigals, and wrote some of the most famous
examples of the form in its late stage of
development, prior to its early Baroque
transformation by Monteverdi. In all, Marenzio
wrote around 500 madrigals, ranging from the
lightest to the most serious styles, packed with word-painting, chromaticism, and other
characteristics of the late madrigal style. Marenzio was influential as far away as England, where
his earlier, lighter work appeared in 1588 in the Music Transalpine, the collection that initiated
the madrigal craze in that country.
Gioseffo Zarlino
Gioseffo Zarlino (31 January or 22 March 1517 –
4 February 1590) was an Italian music theorist and
composer of the Renaissance. He made a large
contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well
as to musical tuning.
Zarlino was born in Chioggia, near Venice. His
early education was with the Franciscans, and he
later joined the order himself. In 1536 he was a
singer at Chioggia Cathedral, and by 1539 he not
only became a deacon, but also principal organist.
In 1540 he was ordained, and in 1541 went to
Venice to study with the famous contrapuntist and
maestro di cappella of Saint Mark's, Adrian Willaert.
In 1565, on the resignation of Cipriano de Rore, Zarlino took over the post of maestro di cappella
of St. Mark's, one of the most prestigious musical positions in Italy, and held it until his death.
While maestro di cappella he taught some of the principal figures of the Venetian school of
composers, including Claudio Merulo, Girolamo Diruta, and Giovanni Croce, as well as
Vincenzo Galilei, the father of the astronomer, and the famous reactionary polemicist Giovanni
Artusi.
Development of Harmony
The roots of harmony
1650 to c. 1900 evolved from earlier musical practices: from the polyphony—music in several
voices, or parts—of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance and, ultimately, from the strictly
melodic music of the Middle Ages that gave rise to polyphony.
Four-part harmony is a traditional system of organizing chords for 4 voices: soprano, alto, tenor
and bass (known together as SATB). The term 'voice' or 'part' refers to any musical line whether
it is a melody sung by singers, a long note played on an instrument or anything in between.
Opera and Oratorio
Opera and oratorio are two types of performance in Western music tradition. ... The main
difference between opera and oratorio is that opera uses costumes, scenery, and dramatic action
whereas oratorio uses none of these elements. In other words, oratorio is a concert piece whereas
opera is musical theater
An oratorio is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. ... However, opera is
musical theatre, while oratorio is strictly a concert piece—though oratorios are sometimes staged
as operas, and operas are sometimes presented in concert form.

Church Music in Mannerism

ABSTRACT Mannerism was an artistic style that flourished in the sixteenth century between the
High Renaissance and the emergence of the Baroque era. ... In music, the Italian madrigal is the
purest expression of the Mannerist style. From roughly 1600 until 1900, the dominant critical
view of Mannerism was negative
Mannerism in Literature
Mannerism in literature and music is notable for its
highly florid style and intellectual
sophistication. ... The term is also used to refer to
some late Gothic painters working in northern
Europe from about 1500 to 1530, especially the
Antwerp Mannerists—a group unrelated to the
Italian movement.
The definition of a mannerism is a habit, gesture or
other speech or dress characteristic that someone
does often. The way you talk and gesture are
examples of mannerisms. When you are constantly
twirling your hair to an extreme extent, this is an
example of a mannerism.
Michael de Montaigne
Montaigne was born in the Aquitaine region of
France, on the family estate Château de Montaigne
in a town now called Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne,
close to Bordeaux. The family was very wealthy;
his great-grandfather, Ramon Felipe Eyquem, had
made a fortune as a herring merchant and had
bought the estate in 1477, thus becoming the Lord
of Montaigne. His father, Pierre Eyquem, Seigneur
of Montaigne, was a French Catholic soldier in
Italy for a time and had also been the mayor of
Bordeaux.
Although there were several families bearing the
patronym "Eyquem" in Guyenne, his father's family is thought to have had some degree of
Marrano (Spanish and Portuguese Jewish) origins, while his mother, Antoinette López de
Villanueva, was a convert to Protestantism. His maternal grandfather, Pedro Lopez, from
Zaragoza, was from a wealthy Marrano (Sephardic Jewish) family that had converted to
Catholicism. His maternal grandmother, Honorette Dupuy, was from a Catholic family in
Gascony, France.
During a great part of Montaigne's life, his mother lived near him and even survived him, but she
is mentioned only twice in his essays. Montaigne's relationship with his father, however, is
frequently reflected upon and discussed in his essays.
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 29 September 1547
(assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was a Spanish
writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the
Spanish language and one of the world's pre-
eminent novelists. He is best known for his novel
Don Quixote, a work often cited as both the first
modern novel and one of the pinnacles of world
literature.
Much of his life was spent in poverty and
obscurity, while the bulk of his surviving work
was produced in the three years preceding his
death, when he was supported by the Count of
Lemos and did not have to work. Despite this, his influence and literary contribution are
reflected by the fact that Spanish is often referred to as "the language of Cervantes".
In 1569, Cervantes was forced to leave Spain and moved to Rome, where he worked in the
household of a cardinal. In 1570, he enlisted in a Spanish Navy infantry regiment, and was badly
wounded at the Battle of Lepanto in October 1571. He served as a soldier until 1575, when he
was captured by Barbary pirates; after five years in captivity, he was ransomed, and returned to
Madrid.
His first significant novel, titled La Galatea, was published in 1585, but he continued to work as
a purchasing agent, then later a government tax collector. Part One of Don Quixote was
published in 1605, Part Two in 1615. Other works include the 12 Novelas ejemplares
(Exemplary Novels); a long poem, the Viaje del Parnaso (Journey to Parnassus); and Ocho
comedias y ocho entremeses (Eight Plays and Eight Interludes). Los trabajos de Persiles y
Sigismunda (The Travails of Persiles and Sigismunda), was published posthumously in 1616.
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23
April was an English playwright, poet and actor,
widely regarded as the greatest writer in the
English language and the world's greatest
dramatist. He is often called England's national
poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard").[5][b] His extant works, including
collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, [c] 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few
other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major
living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. They also
continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he
married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and
Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor,
writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as
the King's Men. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died
three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated
considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his
religious beliefs and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.