Chapter 51 Chapter 2 The Italian Renaissance

The modern view, which is contrary to the medieval view, originated in Italy with the movement called "Renaissance".At first this view was held by no more than a few persons, chiefly Petrarch; but during the course of the fifteenth century the modern view spread to the vast majority of educated men, both religious and secular, in Italy.In some respects the Italians of the Renaissance, with the exception of Leonardo and a few others, had no respect for science--a respect which has characterized most of the important innovators since the seventeenth century; , their emancipation from superstition, especially from the one of astrology, is very incomplete.Not a few of them still revered authority as did the medieval philosophers, but they substituted that of the ancients for that of the Church.This was a natural step toward liberation, since the ancients disagreed with one another, and deciding which one to follow required personal judgment.But among the Italians of the fifteenth century, I am afraid that few dared to hold opinions that could not be found in ancient times and church teachings.

In order to understand the Renaissance movement, it is necessary to briefly review the political situation in Italy.From the death of Friedrich II in 1250 until the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France in 1494, Italy was largely free from foreign interference.There are five important city-states in Italy: Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papacy, and Naples.In addition to these city-states there are many small principalities, each of which is in alliance with or subordinate to one of the great states. Genoa had been competing with Venice for trade and naval power until 1378, but since then Genoa has fallen under the dominion of the Milanese suzerainty.

Milan led the rebellion against feudalism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and after the final fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, it was ruled by the Visconti family - a capable family whose power was not feudal political power , but plutocratic political forces.The Visconti family ruled Milan for 170 years from 1277 to 1447.The republic was restored for another three years, and then a new family, the Sforzas, related to the Visconti, came to power, taking the name Duke of Milan.From 1494 to 1535 Milan was the battleground between the French and the Spaniards; the Sforzas were sometimes allied with one side, sometimes with the other.During this period, they sometimes lived in exile and sometimes ruled in name only.Finally in 1535, Milan was annexed by Emperor Charles V.

The Republic of Venice was somewhat of an outsider of Italian politics, especially during the early centuries of its power.Never conquered by barbarians, Venice initially regarded itself as a vassal of the Eastern Roman emperor.Thanks to this tradition, and the fact that Venice's trade was with the East, it was able to remain independent of Roman control; this continued until the time of the Council of Tulent (1545)—On the Council of Tulent, Venice The man Paolo Sarpi has written a very anti-pope history.As mentioned earlier, how Venice insisted on taking Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.This event promoted Venetian trade; in turn, it was harmed by the Turks taking Constantinople in 1453.For various reasons, more or less related to the problem of food supply, the Venetians felt the need to acquire large territories in mainland Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.This aroused animosity on all sides, and culminated in the League of Cambray in 1509, an association of great states, by which Venice was defeated.

Recovery from this misfortune might have been possible; but what was irreversible was the discovery of the sea route to India via the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco de Gama (1497-1498).This discovery, coupled with the power of the Turks, ruined Venice; but it always held on until Napoleon stripped it of its independence. Venice's political system was originally democratic, but gradually became undemocratic. After 1297, it became an exclusive oligarchy.The basis of political power was the "Grand Council", whose membership since that year was hereditary and restricted to prominent families.

Executive power belongs to the "Council of Ten", elected by the Grand Council.The official head of state, the Doge, is elected for life; the Doge has nominally limited powers, but in practice his influence is often decisive.Venetian diplomacy is recognized as the most cunning, and the reports of the Venetian ambassadors are surprisingly sharp.From Ranke onwards, historians have used such reports as the best sources for the events they study. Florence was the most civilized city in the world at that time, and it was the main birthplace of the Renaissance.Almost all the great names in Renaissance literature, as well as the names of the early and even some late masters of Renaissance art, are associated with Florence; but for now we are not talking about culture, but politics.In the thirteenth century, there were three competing classes in Florence: nobles, wealthy merchants and commoners.Most of the nobles are the emperor's party, and the other two classes are the pope's party.The emperor's party was finally defeated in 1266, and in the fourteenth century the populist party again gained the upper hand over the wealthy merchants.However, the struggle did not bring about a stable democracy, but it prompted the gradual rise of what the Greeks called a "tyranny".The Medici finally became the rulers of Florence, and they started out as political brokers on the democratic side.Cozimo de' Medici (1389-1464), the first of the family to attain a definite preeminence, had no official office; his influence depended on the art of electoral manipulation.He is insidious and cunning, may be kind when he is kind, and cruel and ruthless when necessary.After his death a short time later, his grandson Albert Lorenzo succeeded him and held the power from 1469 until his death in 1492.Both men's positions depended on financial means, their wealth mainly derived from business, but also from mining and other industries.They not only knew how to get rich, but also knew how to make Florence rich, so under the governance of these two people, the city of Florence prospered.

Lorenzo's son Pietro lacked his father's virtues and was expelled in 1494.Then followed the four years of Savanarola's ascendancy, during which there was a Puritan revival that turned men against pleasure and luxury, and away from free thought, toward the piety which must have been characteristic of earlier, simpler times.In the end, however, largely for political reasons, Savanarola's enemies prevailed, and he was executed and his body burned (1498).The purpose of this republic was to promote democracy, but it was actually a plutocratic government. It lasted until 1512, and the Medici were restored.Lorenzo had a son who became a cardinal at the age of fourteen, and he was elected pope in 1513, named Leo X.

The Medici ruled Florence with the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany until 1737; But Florence, like the rest of Italy, was impoverished during this period. The secular authority of the Pope, having its origin in the unjust and spurious Donation of Constantine, was greatly expanded during the Renaissance; but the methods employed by the popes for this purpose destroyed the religious prestige of the papacy.The Synod movement, defeated in the struggle between the Bazel Synod and Pope Eugenius IV (1431-1447), represented the most zealous elements of the Church; Views of the church to the north.The victory of the Pope is also the victory of Italy, and (to a lesser extent) the victory of Spain.In the second half of the fifteenth century, Italian civilization was nothing like the civilizations of the northern countries, which still maintained the flavor of the Middle Ages.

The Italians were serious about culture, but not about morality and religion; even in the minds of priests, elegant Latin always covered up many sins. Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455), the first Pope who advocated humanism, assigned various positions in the Holy See to some scholars, only because he respected the knowledge of these people, regardless of other considerations; Lorenzo Valla ( Lorenzo Valla, an Epicurean, the very one who proved the "Donation of Constantine" to be a forgery, ridiculed the style of the Latin Popular Bible, and accused St. Augustine of heresy, Appointed as Secretary to the Pope.This policy of rewarding humanism over piety or orthodoxy continued until the Sack of Rome in 1527.

The rewarding of humanism, of course, outrages zealous northerners, is perhaps a merit in our point of view; but the militaristic policies and immoral lives of certain popes, unless viewed from the point of view of naked power politics, are of no consequence. Nor can it be defended from a point of view.Alexander VI (1492-1503) focused on expanding the power of himself and his family in his personal pope life.He had two sons: Duke Gandhia and Caesar Borgia, the former being his great preference.However, Duke Gandhi was killed, probably by his younger brother.So the pope's royal ambitions had to be poured into Caesar.Together they conquered Romagna and Oncona, which were expected to be duchies for Caesar.But at the time of the pope's death, Caesar was seriously ill and could not act immediately.Their conquests ended up being reincorporated into St. Peter's hereditary property.Rumors soon spread of the two men's misdeeds, and the innumerable murders attributed to them were difficult to dispute.However, it can never be doubted that they have carried out their treachery to an unprecedented degree.Julius II (1503-1513), Alexander VI's successor, was also unremarkably pious, but left less ground for scandal than his predecessor.He continued to expand the papacy; as a soldier, he had his advantages, but as a Christian head, he was not desirable.The Reformation, begun under his successor Leo X (1513-1521), was a natural consequence of the secular policies of the Renaissance popes.

The southern tip of Italy is owned by the Kingdom of Naples, and most of the time, Sicily and Naples are united together.Naples and Sicily were originally the special private kingdom of the Emperor Friedrich II; he created an absolute monarchy in the Mohammedan style, enlightened but despotic, leaving no power to the feudal aristocracy. After Friedrich's death in 1250, Naples and Sicily belonged to his illegitimate son Manfried, but Manfried also inherited the injustice of the church and was expelled by the French in 1266.The French were so unpopular that they were massacred in the Sicilian Vespers incident (1282); after that the kingdom belonged to Peter III of Aragon and his successors.After various intricate disputes, Naples and Sicily were temporarily divided, and then reunited in 1443 under the famous literary rewarder Alphonso the Magnificent.From 1495 onwards, three French kings tried to conquer Naples, but the kingdom was finally captured by Ferdinand of Aragon (1502).Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I, these French kings all insisted on their right to rule Milan and Naples (with little legal basis); they all invaded Italy and received temporary success, but In the end, they were all defeated by the Spaniards.The Spanish victory and the Counter-Reformation ended the Italian Renaissance.Pope Clement VII was an obstacle to the Counter-Reformation, and he was a Medici, an associate of France, so in 1527 Charles V had a mostly Protestant army sack Rome.From then on, the popes turned to the path of piety, and the Italian Renaissance came to an end. The power politics at play in Italy are unbelievably complex.Most of the lords of small states are self-made overlords. They are allied with one big state at one time and with another at another time;There were constant wars, but until the arrival of the French in 1494 they were almost bloodless: the soldiers were mercenaries, eager to minimize their occupational hazards. These purely Italian wars did not greatly hinder trade, nor prevent Italy from increasing its wealth.There were many strategies of statecraft, but no semblance of political wisdom; when the French came, the country was almost defenseless.French troops literally killed in engagements and terrified the Italians.The subsequent wars between the French and the Spaniards were serious wars, bringing misery and poverty.However, the Italian city-states did not care about national unity at all, and continued to conspire against each other, asking for assistance from France or Spain in the middle of the civil strife, and in the end they all died together. With the discovery of America and the sea route to the East through the Cape of Good Hope, Italy was bound to lose its importance, no doubt; The Renaissance was not a period of great achievements in philosophy, but it also did some things, which were necessary preparations for the great seventeenth century.First, the Renaissance destroyed the rigid system of scholasticism, which had become an intellectual fetter.The study of Plato was revived, thus requiring at least the independent thinking necessary to choose between Plato and Aristotle. The Renaissance promoted an immediate real knowledge of these two men, free from the commentaries of Neoplatonists and Arab commentators.More importantly, the Renaissance encouraged the habit of seeing intellectual activity as a fun social activity rather than a solitary contemplation designed to preserve a pre-determined orthodoxy. Contact with Byzantine knowledge made Plato replace Aristotle, who was interpreted by the scholastics, early.Already at the Synod of Ferrara (1438), which nominally reunited the Eastern and Western Churches, there had been a debate in which the Byzantines had favored Plato over Aristotle.Gemistus Pletho, an ardent Platonist with questionable orthodoxy in Greece, contributed greatly to the revitalization of Platonic philosophy in Italy; and Besali, a Greek who became a cardinal So did Bessarion.Cozimo de' Medici and Lorenzo de' Medici were both enamored of Plato; Cozimo founded the Florentine Academy, which devoted extensive research to Plato, and Lorenzo continued it.Cozimo died listening to a dialogue by Plato.However, the humanists at that time were busy acquiring ancient knowledge, so they could not produce anything original in philosophy. The Renaissance was not a popular movement; it was the movement of a few scholars and artists, sponsored by some generous literary rewards, especially by the Medicis and humanist popes.If it hadn't been for these rewarders in the first place, it might have achieved much less success.Petrarch and Boccaccio in the fourteenth century belonged to the Renaissance era in spirit, but due to the different political conditions at that time, their direct influence was not comparable to that of the humanists in the fifteenth century. The attitude of Renaissance scholars towards the church is difficult to describe simply.There are people who are outspoken free thinkers, but even such people are usually "finally anointed" to reconcile with the Church when they feel death is imminent.Most scholars felt the guilt of the pope at that time, but they were still happy to be employed by the pope.The historian Guicciardini wrote in 1529: "No one loathes priestly ambition, avarice, and debauchery more than I; not only because each of these vices is hateful in its own right, but because each of them is wholly disproportionate to a man who professes a special relationship with God, and at the same time For these vices are so opposed to each other that they can only co-exist in men of very eccentric nature. Nevertheless, my position in the courts of several Popes compels me to desire greatness for their own sake. But if it is not For this reason, I have already loved Martin Luther as myself; not for my personal freedom from the imposition of Christianity as it is generally understood and interpreted, but to see these rascals driven back to their place , so that they would have to live without sin or power." This is blissfully frank, and clearly shows why humanists cannot initiate religious innovations.Moreover, most of them saw no compromise between orthodoxy and free thought; they had lost their medieval sensibility for theological subtleties, so a position like Luther's was not possible for them. of.Mazu begged to talk about the wickedness of monks, nuns and monks, saying: "Perhaps the best punishment for them would be for the gods to abolish purgatory; then they would no longer receive charity, but would have to go back to the life of spades." But it did not occur to him, like Luther, to deny purgatory while retaining much of Catholicism. Rome's wealth depended only a little on revenues from the papal estates, mainly in donations collected from all the Catholic world through a theological system in which the pope held the keys to the kingdom of heaven.Any Italian who expresses dissent against this system and achieves actual results cannot guarantee that it will not impoverish Italy and cause it to lose its position in the Western world.The heresy in Renaissance Italy was therefore a purely spiritual heresy, which did not cause a schism in the church, nor did it provoke any popular movement to secede from the church.The only exception, and still a very partial one, is the spiritually medieval Savannarola. Most humanists have preserved those superstitions which were maintained in antiquity.Magic and witchcraft may be evil, but don't think such things are out of the question.Innocent VIII issued an anti-witchcraft edict in 1484, which resulted in a shocking persecution of witches in Germany and elsewhere.Astrology is especially valued by free thinkers and has reached a popularity unprecedented since ancient times.The first effect of emancipation from the Church was not to make people think rationally, but to open their minds to all the absurdities of antiquity. In moral terms, the initial results of emancipation were no less tragic.The old moral laws are no longer respected; more than half of the city-state leaders gained status through treachery and betrayal, and maintained their rule by ruthless and cruel means.When cardinals were invited to the pope's coronation, they brought their own wine and drinking boys for fear of poisoning.With the exception of Savanarola, it was rare during this period for an Italian to risk any sacrifice for the public good.The scourge of papal corruption was obvious to all, but there was nothing to counter it.The benefits of Italian unity are obvious, but the sovereigns will not unite.The danger of alien domination was at hand, yet every Italian sovereign was willing to beg the aid of any foreign power, even the Turks, in any dispute with any other Italian sovereign.Apart from the destruction of ancient manuscripts, I cannot think of a single crime that was not often committed by the people of the Renaissance. Outside the realm of morality, the Renaissance has done great things.It has always maintained a good reputation in architecture, painting and poetry.The Renaissance movement produced great figures such as Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli.The movement which liberated the educated man from the narrowness of medieval culture, and which, if still a slave to the cult of antiquity, has always informed scholars that, on almost every subject, different opinions have been held by reputable authorities .By reviving the knowledge of the Greek age, the Renaissance created a spiritual climate in which it was again possible to match the achievements of the Greeks, and where individual genius could flourish in conditions of freedom that had been extinct since the time of Alexander.The political conditions of the Renaissance were conducive to personal development, but unstable; and, as in ancient Greece, instability and individual expression were closely linked.It is necessary to have stable social institutions, but all the stable institutions that I can think of now hinder the development of special values ​​​​in art or intellect.How much murder and chaos are we prepared to endure for the greatness of the Renaissance?In the past, it was willing to endure a lot; in modern times, it is much less.Although this problem is becoming increasingly urgent with the expansion of social organization, a solution has not been found to this day.