Response to: "Patronage and Popes: Saints or Sinners?" by Loren Partridge

            The pope was commonly portrayed in woodcut prints or other art as a great builder and a person who is dedicated to the arts.  It makes sense that the pope is commonly portrayed this way, because a great deal of art from that time was commissioned by either them or church officials they were close to.  I was surprised to read about corrupt the Renaissance church was.  In the reading “Patronage and Popes: Saints or Sinners?”, the author said, “Popes generally appointed family members to high office regardless of merit (neopotism) and often carved dynastic family states out of church lands (alienation).  Clerics were often poorly educated, lax in their vows, and undisciplined.  Officers were routinely bough and sold (simony), and a single church official could draw income from many offices and benefices (pluralism) without attending to the duties of any absenteeism).”  It seems as though people of the church were among this hierarchy that did not poses the need to obey all the rules.  They knew they were in a position of power and they commonly abused it.  That is not to say that all popes abused their power, however many did violate the churches expectations of them. 

            In the past, churches were held to a higher standard.  They were an important entity of the system that was made up of relationships between lords and vassals.  However, during the Renaissance reform, societies’ priorities changed.  They changed from holding importance on the past allegiances between lords and vassals, and instead placed importance on money.  This was a difficult change for the church and they had trouble adjusting to the new ways of life. 

Before the reform, the priests of the church were though of as to be religious teachers for the common class.  However, as money influenced their society and the people they once preached advice to changed, the priests came to see that they had less and less in common with the people, and didn’t know how to advise them anymore. 

Response to: "Cultural Introduction to Renaissance Rome" by Ingrid D. Rowland

            “Roma caput mundi”, meaning “Rome, head of the world” was a phrase written by a poet named Lucan.  It was the idea that encompassed Rome and which is thought to have helped turned Rome from ruins to a modern European capital in the time of just two centuries.  This phrase because a mantra used and praised by many different kinds of people, all whom it inspired.  This mantra helped evolve a way of studying among scholars called “studia humanitatis”, meaning “the study of humanity”.  This study of humanity was the creation of what is now known as humanists. 

            Rome was recorded to have been in the midst of it’s ruins until about the mid-fifteenth century.  It wasn’t until apparently a crucifix spoke to Francis of Assisi telling him to “rebuild my church” that the possibility of the reconstruction of Rome was even taken into consideration.  It was believed by those rebuilding Rome that what they were doing was an act of God.  According to the opinion of Petrarch, the most pivotal part of Rome’s change was the Papacy.  In order to make room for the new Rome, there was a the group of humanists who were part of the Curia which really seemed to have fueled the change.  Their beliefs and way of being was such a crucial part to the way Rome developed.

            What really was the final say that pushed forward the creation of Renaissance Rome was money.  The city was only in a position of power once they began to have financial stability in the mid-fifteenth century.  At that time the papacy was in place, which provided Rome with a main, stable source of employment. 

            In conclusion, it seemed as though the main factors in the recreation of Rome were the humanist agenda, religion, and money. 

response to beginning chapters of: "Michelangelo & The Pope's Ceiling" by Ross King

            In the year of 1503 Pope Julius II decided that he wanted to have his own tomb built.  Although he was a new Pope, this project had meaning to him, because it gave him an excuse to create a statue of himself while he was alive.  He believed that this would promote his career. 

            For the statue, Pope Julius II wanted it to be immense in size, and portray him as a god-like figure, along with large muscles and a heroic stance.  He commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to make this sculpture of himself because he knew that Michelangelo was the most talented of his time and that he enjoyed working in a large scale.  He knew this based on Michelangelo’s previous work, “David” who was seventeen feet tall and in the middle of Florence, Italy. 

            Pope Julius II summoned Michelangelo to come to Rome to begin this project.  When he proposed his original idea, Michelangelo insisted that it was not immense enough.  Michelangelo had many great ideas which included that the tomb would be pyramid-shaped and decorated with about forty figures sculpted by him.  He insisted that if the Pope would fund the project, Michelangelo would design and build the entire thing himself.  He promised that it would be the greatest tomb since ancient times.  The Pope agreed, and set Michelangelo up in a studio across the street from the Vatican palace.  He started his work, ordering and prepping large blocks of white marble.  He worked for two years just doing preparation work, and still hadn’t completed any statues.  Two years in, Pope Julius II started to see that Michelangelo had no intent on making this project a speedy one.  He would happily work at it his entire life until he had reached perfection. 

            From what I read and researched, it seemed as though Bramante urged Pope Julius against letting Michelangelo have this commission to fuel his own agenda.  The other theory I read was that the Pope was not able to continue funding the project Michelangelo had started because once the rebellion began in the two Papal States of Italy he was short on money.  It was said that the states of Perugia and Bologna declared their independence from Roman and refused to pay taxes.  To retaliate this, the Pope had to organize a Vatican military, which was known as the Swiss Guards.  Regardless of the reasons, Michelangelo’s project came to a halt, and he was not reimbursed for the marble he had been preparing.  This made Michelangelo very upset.  He did not believe that he did anything to deserve this treatment, so he left Rome.  Although the Pope sent people to retrieve Michelangelo, he would not return.  Instead he sent a letter explaining his reasoning for not coming back in his place. 

Response to Charles Nicholl's, "Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind"

             The time of the Renaissance is widely known as a time of great intellectual transformations.  It is known as sort of a new beginning.  However in Charles Nicholl's book "Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind", he brings up an interesting perspective that is, what was it like during this time?  Although there were many great changes happening, they must have also been counteracted with uncertainty.  It was an exciting time, but it must have also been accompanied with worry and danger for those immersed in it.  The author does not discount the great accomplishments of the Renaissance man though.  In one section after talking about how he believes it was not all perfection, he says about Leonardo, “With the dream of flying comes the fear of falling, and we understand this Renaissance man better if we see him also as a trader in doubts and questions, and with them self-doubts and self-questionings”.  This statement brings to light a good point.  We can learn to appreciate the genius and talent that is Leonardo da Vinci if we understand him more as a real man.  He is so widely known just as that, a genius, that perhaps the magnitude of his accomplishments have not been fully appreciated or understood. 

            Leonardo da Vinci was born in the year of 1452, in the small town Vinci in Tuscany.  His family was the da Vinci family.  They were a respected family who had professional ties to Florence.  There has been quite a bit of research and documentation done on the house which Leonardo supposedly grew up in.  It has been proven however that he was not actually born in this house. 

             There are about 7,000 pages of manuscript that are still around today which are written by Leonardo.  Some of his most well known texts are the Codex Atlanticus, which consisted of 481 folios, the Codex Arunndel, the Codex Urbinas, and the Codex Huygens.  Although his texts are great bodies of work, it is through viewing his notebooks that we come to have a real insight into Leonardo.  There are about 25 books which are intact today, which are left just about exactly as Leonardo left them.  He bound them with a vellum or leather wrap-around cover.  They were closed shut with a small wooden dowel, which went through a loop.  In one entry of his notebook he writes “onde del mare di Piombio, tutta d’acua sciumosa, dell’acqua che risalta del sito, dove chadano li gran pesi perchussori delle acque”, which translates to, “Waves of the sea at Piombino; all the water spumy; water which rears up from the place where great percussive weights of water fall.”

            Through his notebooks comes a great understanding of Leonardo.  His interests have no limits, and this is shown in his notebooks.  His pages are occupied with subjects anywhere from architecture, to music, to philosophy, and much more.  In the book the author quotes Kenneth Clark describing Leonardo as “the most relentlessly curious man in history”.  I think this quote is so marvelous because it sums up the major identity of him.  He was so passionately curious, and I am sure that it must have been that trait alone which drove him to pursue so many different paths, and become the talented “genius” that he is now known as. 

            Other important documentation of Leonardo’s life is his paintings.  The author of the reading says however, “A Renaissance painting is not a personal statement in the way that a modern painting can be, but it can still tell us things about the man who painted it and about the circumstances in which he was working.  It carries messages, both on the two-dimensional picture-plane (with the usual caveats about interpreting works of art biographically) and in the mysterious third dimension of the paint surface, with its micron-tick layers of suspended pigments which tell the story of a painting’s composition just as the stratifications of a rock tell a geological story.”  In the case of Leonardo’s paintings there have been traces of his hand recorded on the surface.  There have been finger smudges, smoothings, and occasionally a thumbprint discovered.  This tells us about his style as an artist.  It shows what an innovative person he was, because using the human hand in drawing and painting was not a technique that was even used yet at that time. 

Humanism reading thoughts

Humanism is so fascinating to me because although it was intended as an educational way of being, it was designed not only as that.  It was really brought together to benefit those who were, or at some point were to hold social positions.  It was meant to be a way of study, and never meant to be spread throughout the classes.  The people who studied humanism were those such as princes, noblemen, statesmen and citizens.  The ultimate goal was to achieve Eloquence in every area possible.  Those teaching and leaning the humanistic approach placed a high importance on the use of grammar.  They believed that grammar led to rhetoric, and rhetoric in turn led to eloquence, which gave one "the art of persuasion". 

Throughout humanism there seemed to be a dividing line between the "divine" quality of language and culture, verses the lesser "regal" quality of arms & government.