Changing Cultural Traditions
❇️ Renaissance :-
🔹A French word meaning rebirth. The Renaissance first started in Italy. Then it started in Rome, Venice and Florence.
🔹The Renaissance created a sense of equality among the people and attacked the superstitions and customs prevalent in the society.
🔹The literature of the Renaissance period brought about a great change in the political thinking of the people.
❇️️ Renaissance Man :-
🔹A person with many interests and skills.
❇️️ Documentation of documents :-
🔹A document issued by the Church guaranteeing a written promise to absolve the holder of all his sins.
❇️️ Printing Press :-
🔹In 1455, the printing press was invented by Gutenberg.
🔹The first printing press was established in Europe by Caxton in 1477.
🔹The number of books increased with the invention of the printing press. It also helped in the spread of education.
❇️️ Leonardo da Vinci :-
🔹Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest painters. He was born in the year 1452 in Florence.
🔹Leonardo da Vinci was a famous artist. His interests ranged from botany, anatomy to mathematics and art, he composed paintings such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
🔹The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper were Leonardo da Vinci's most famous paintings.
❇️️ Galileans :-
🔹Galileo was a great Italian scientist, he invented the telescope instrument and discovered many facts and mysteries of astronomy.
️❇️ Society of Jesus :-
🔹The Society of Jesus was founded by Ignatius Loyala in 1540. It attempted to counter Protestantism.
️❇️ Andrews Vesalius :-
🔹Belgian-born Andrews Vesalius (1514 – 1564) was a professor of medicine at the University of Padua. He was the first person who started tearing the human body for subtle tests.
❇️️ Humanism :-
🔹Humanism was one of the movements started in Italy in the 14th century. Petrarch is known as the 'Father of Humanism'. He criticized the superstitions and way of life of the clergy.
🔹Humanists argued that "in the Middle Ages, the Church had so clogged the thinking of the people that all the knowledge of the Greeks and Romans had gone out of their minds."
🔹Humanists believed that man was created by God, but he has complete freedom to run his life freely. Man should find his happiness in this world only in the present.
🔹Due to the flourishing of trades, Milan, Naples, Venice and Florence got the status of trade centers.
❇️Characteristics of Humanistic Thoughts :-
🔹Under the humanism ideology, emphasis was given on the happiness and prosperity of human life.
🔹Through humanism, the fact became clear that man is not only for religion and God, but also for our own sake.
🔹Human beings have their own special importance.
🔹Emphasis should be laid on improving human life and solving the problems of his material life, respect should be given to human beings. The reason for this is that man is one of the best creations of God.
🔹In the works and sculptures of great artists in the Renaissance period, Jesus Christ is depicted as a human child and Mary as a loving mother. Undoubtedly, there is a decline of religious sentiments in humanistic works.
🔹In the Renaissance period, great writers have analyzed the feelings, weaknesses and strengths of human beings in their works. He placed man in the place of religion and God as the center of his creations. Divine Comedy, Utopia, Hamlet etc. are famous among the major literary works of this era.
❇️ Features of humanistic thought :-
🔹The humanists were those teachers who taught grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and moral philosophy.
🔹He emphasized that law should be studied in the context of the culture of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
🔹He taught that individuals themselves can shape their lives by means other than religion, power and money.
🔹Christian humanists such as Thomas More in England and Erasmus in Holland criticized the Church and its greedy practices for extorting money from the common people.
🔹Some humanists believed that more money was virtuous and criticized Christianity for making moral culpability against happiness.
🔹He also believed that the study of history makes man strive for a life of perfection. He used the term 'modern' for the period of the fifteenth century.
❇️Status of women in the sixteenth century :-
🔹Women did not have the right to give advice etc. in business. Due to lack of dowry, girls were made nuns.
🔹The participation of women in public life was low. Women in merchant families had the right to run shops.
🔹Some women did intellectually creative work such as: Cassandra Fedele, a resident of Venice, who was a scholar of Greek and Latin languages.
🔹Marchese Isabella de Iste of Mantua who ruled her kingdom in the absence of her husband.
❇️️ Italy Architecture :-
🔹Italian architecture developed with the revival of the city of Rome in the fifteenth century. The ruins in Rome were carefully excavated by archaeologists. This inspired a new style in architecture, the revival of the Imperial Roman style – now called 'Classical'.
🔹The city of Rome was built very grandly in the fifteenth century. Many magnificent buildings and buildings were constructed here.
🔹The forms of Italian architecture are visible to us in the form of churches, palaces and forts.
🔹The style of architecture of Italy was called classical style. Classical architects decorated the buildings with paintings, sculptures and various types of figures.
🔹As a feature of the architecture of Italy, we see grand circular domes, interior decoration of buildings, round arched doors etc.
️❇️ Islamic Architecture :-
🔹Islamic architecture used geometric maps and stone mosaic work for decoration of buildings, buildings and mosques.
🔹Religious buildings were the greatest external symbol of Islamic architecture. Mosques, shrines and tombs from Spain to Central Asia featured the same basic design – arches, domes, minarets and open courtyards – and expressed the spiritual and practical needs of Muslims.
🔹Islamic architecture was at its peak during this period. The towering buildings have bulb-shaped domes, small minarets, horse hoof-shaped arches and twisted (curved) pillars astonishingly.
🔹The use of high minarets and open courtyards is seen in the buildings of Islamic architecture.
️❇️ Italian city first person to experience the ideas of humanism :-
🔹Italian cities were the first to experience the ideas of humanism as the first European universities were established there. The Universities of Padua and Bologna were major centers of legal studies from the eleventh century.
🔹Hence, law was a popular subject of study. However, there was a change in this; Now, it was first studied in the context of Roman culture.
🔹This educational program suggested that religious teaching alone could not impart knowledge, and that other areas of society and nature should be analysed. This culture was 'Humanism'.
️❇️ Debates under Christianity :-
🔹Asked to give up unnecessary rituals. He called upon the Christians to follow the religion in the manner of their old religious texts. Man was considered a free rational doer. Man has complete freedom to run his life freely.
️❇️ Its results :-
🔹Confession document was criticized.
🔹After translating the Bible into the local language, people came to know that the practices of looting money are not compatible with religion.
🔹The taxes imposed by the Church on the farmers were opposed.
🔹The king was also annoyed by the interference of the church in the work of the state.
