Page 288 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

renaissance 1589

Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can
Leonardo Da Vinci, accomplish. • Michelangelo (1475–1564)
Renaissance Man

The term Renaissance man has come to mean a
person with broad interests and abilities. No figure of trade.Florence was not a seaport but produced the finest
embodies the term more perfectly than Leonardo woollen cloth in Europe, a product greatly sought by
Da Vinci (1452–1519), as described by biogra- luxury-loving northern Europeans. The huge profits from
pher Giorgio Vasari. this trade permitted Florentine merchants to increase their
wealth by lending surplus capital at interest, that is, to
Truly admirable, indeed, and divinely endowed
become bankers as well as merchants.Their banks gave the
was Leonardo da Vinci; this artist was the son of
Italians a virtual monopoly over the money markets of
Ser Piero da Vinci; he would without doubt have
Europe from the twelfth to the beginning of the sixteenth
made great progress in learning and knowledge
century. A direct consequence of this monopoly was the
of the sciences, had he not been so versatile and
introduction of stable gold coins that could be used as reli-
changeful, but the instability of his character
able tender, free from the wild fluctuations of most
caused him to undertake many things which hav-
medieval European coinage. The Florentines introduced
ing commenced he afterwards abandoned. In
the florin in the 1250s; the Venetians introduced the ducat
arithmetic, for example, he made such rapid
in 1282. These currencies proceeded to dominate the
progress in the short time during which he gave
economies of Europe for the next 250 years.
his attention to it, that he often confounded the
This wealth precipitated social and political problems,
master who was teaching him, by the perpetual
however. Merchants did not fit easily into the medieval
doubts he started, and by the difficulty of the
worldview in which the clergy cared for souls and the
questions he proposed. He also commenced the
landed nobility provided security and government. Ten-
study of music, and resolved to acquire the art of
sions arose between the newly wealthy urban merchants
playing the lute, when, being by nature of an
—who were educated laymen but not noble—and the
exalted imagination and full of the most graceful
traditional ruling elite of the nobility.Venice escaped these
vivacity, he sang to that instrument most divinely,
tensions because it was surrounded by water with no
improvising at once the verses and the music.
landed territory dominated by nobles to cause friction;
Source: Vasari, G. (1892). Lives of the most eminent painters, sculptors, and archi- but Florence during the thirteenth century entered a
tects (Vol. 2, p. 366–367). London: George Bell and Sons.
period of great turmoil. The nobles resented the wealth
and influence of those whom they considered to be their
commerce, with Italian merchants dominating the carrying social inferiors, while the mercantile elite grew increas-
trade between Europe and the Crusader outposts in the ingly resentful of their lack of political control. The city
Levant (eastern shore of the Mediterranean), ferrying men, became a battleground between the old and new elites,
equipment, food, and goods across the Mediterranean.The a division made more vicious because it was character-
cities of Pisa, Genoa, Amalfi, and Venice dominated this ized by contemporaries as an ideological struggle
trade, which attracted large numbers of Europeans to the between those who supported the sovereignty of the
Levant and the Byzantine Empire in the Near East and a Holy Roman Empire in Italy (Ghibellines) and those
few to the Far East. The most dramatic episode in this whose allegiance was to the pope (Guelfs). The former
expansion of Italian trade and influence was the conquest were generally old noble, landed families; the latter were
of Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey) in 1204 by the cru- generally newly enriched families who benefited from
sader army of Baldwin of Flanders in northern Europe, an recent social mobility and the new mercantile economy.
episode that the Venetians used to gain greater influence in
the lucrative Eastern markets. Fragmented Italy
Other Italian cities benefited economically as well, again Italy had not been a united nation since the collapse of
driven by the vast explosion of money available as a result the Roman empire. North of the kingdom of Naples Italy