Chapter 13 Questions Essay

Submitted By tcondensa
Words: 1517
Pages: 7

1. The Renaissance began in Florence, Italy, in the 14th century because at the time, the middle class were in power instead of the nobility. Wealthy textile merchants began to invest their money in the banking sector to increase their profit they were gaining from trading. These merchants became the new rich class, gradually taking power from all the nobility. Within this class of merchants, wealth was very commonly held within families. The people of this new rich class were the ones who saw a need for constant improvement and wanted to advertise their importance to the rest of the world.

2. Italian city states didn’t extend their influence over a larger portion of the world because they were constantly fighting each other in a balance-of-power. This balance-of-power prevented any state from being more powerful than any of the other city states. When one Italian city state couldn’t be more powerful than the rest of the states, that prevented them from gaining influence from any of the other states.

3. The concepts of individualism, humanism, and secularism were necessary to the Renaissance because it made people believe that they could do great things. Humans thought that by fulfilling their talents, god would be happy that all humans were living up to their full potential. Since everyone was living up to their true talents, all people would go to heaven because they were doing great things.

4. Secularism is linked to the economic growth because secularism equals more focus on global pleasures which then brings in more money. When more money is brought in, that enables the ability to have even more global pleasures. There were two Shakespeare plays that both focused heavily on secularism. Those two plays are called Hamlet and Richard III. Most of Shakespeare’s work were secular and not focused very much towards religion.

5. Artistic greatness really manifested during the Renaissance because of the rise of individualism and rise of individual wealth. The merchants had a lot of money and they wanted to make themselves look good while spending their money. So the merchants than hire artists to paint and do sculpture for them. Art soon becomes more and more popular due to the merchants hiring them for art.

6. An artistic development that helped create the new style of Renaissance art is called the international style. This new form of art featured new styles such as rich color decorative detail, curvilinear rhythms, and saying forms. Narrative artists started to depict the body in a more scientific and natural manner and also the perspective in painting changed. The linear representation of distance and space on a flat surface became more realistic.

7. When Da Vinci says “intellectual passion drives out sensuality”, he is saying that you can’t multitask between love and your knowledge. If you want to be great at something, you have to focus on that one thing and you don’t have any time for anything else. This was true for Leonardo himself, because he never had a relationship that went anywhere for example, with his interest, Francesco Melzi. However, I don’t think Da Vinci is correct with his quote to the general public. I think you can find time to be good at two things at the same time. Like for my dad, he has time to be a good businessman while at the same time, being able to hold a long marriage with my mom for 17 years.

8. The ideal “Renaissance man” impacts our world today because all schools in the United States teach like how an ideal “renaissance man” is described. Our schools teach mathematics, poetry and English, and we have all types of extracurricular courses that students can take such as dance, choir, etc. The schools help create this human that would be well welcomed back in the Renaissance days that could do all the things that Castiglione wrote about in his book, The Courtier.

9. Machiavelli challenged and altered the ideal government as described by St.