Beginning of the Renaissance

Raiy · Jan 22, 2020

What is the event or approximate date that begins the Renaissance? Some historians place it after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, thus beginning the Modern Era; some others place it between the last and the middle ages. In addition we also speak about an early renaissance still immersed in the Middle Ages before it is finished.

What official historiography tell us today?

Dan Howard · Jan 22, 2020

There is no "official historigraphy". Best we can do is come to a general consensus but that changes whenever new evidence comes to light. The problem with your question is that there has never been a set definition of "Renaissance". The word means "rebirth" but it has never been satisfactorily defined. You need to define the term before trying to work out when it started because the definition sets the parameters.

Tulius · Jan 22, 2020

Dan Howard said:
There is no "official historigraphy". Best we can do is come to a general consensus but that changes whenever new evidence comes to light. The problem with your question is that there has never been a set definition of "Renaissance". The word means "rebirth" but it has never been satisfactorily defined. You need to define the term before trying to work out when it started because the definition sets the parameters.

I was going to answer... then I saw Dan's post... so... I will only say that I make his words mine.

Raiy · Jan 22, 2020

Dan Howard said:
There is no "official historigraphy". Best we can do is come to a general consensus but that changes whenever new evidence comes to light. The problem with your question is that there has never been a set definition of "Renaissance". The word means "rebirth" but it has never been satisfactorily defined. You need to define the term before trying to work out when it started because the definition sets the parameters.

It is true.There is no official historiography. But what has not been determined is the exact start date of this period, not its definition as the set of social, political and artistic phenomena that it implies. Renaissance obviously means rebirth; It is almost tautological. But the correct term to talk about this period is Renaissance.

robto · Jan 22, 2020

The Renaissance was first and foremost, a cultural movement that started in Italy around the 14th century, and fully blossomed around the 15th century.
You are probably confusing "early modern era", as a specific period in western history, with the cultural movement of the Renaissance. Both of these terms are used interchangeable, but they are not synonymous of one another.

Dan Howard · Jan 22, 2020

The original concept of the Renaissance stemmed from the misconception that the so called "Dark Ages" was a period of regression and barbarity. This is now known to be largely false so the whole idea of a "rebirth" needs to be reconsidered.

Raiy · Jan 23, 2020

robto said:
The Renaissance was first and foremost, a cultural movement that started in Italy around the 14th century, and fully blossomed around the 15th century.
You are probably confusing "early modern era", as a specific period in western history, with the cultural movement of the Renaissance. Both of these terms are used interchangeable, but they are not synonymous of one another.

I never said "early modern era". I said "early renaissance" still immersed in the Middle Ages, in the last decades of this or probably in its last century, 1400 b.e.
And when I mentioned "modern era", I was naturally referring to "modern age".

Raiy · Jan 23, 2020

Raiy said:
I never said "early modern era". I said "early renaissance" still immersed in the Middle Ages, in the last decades of this or probably in its last century, 1400 b
And when I mentioned "modern era", I was naturally referring to "modern age".

1400. No 1400 b.e.... Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

robto · Jan 24, 2020

Raiy said:
I never said "early modern era". I said "early renaissance" still immersed in the Middle Ages, in the last decades of this or probably in its last century, 1400 b.e.

I didn't say you literally said "early modern era", but you mentioned the fall of Constantinople as being the beginning of "modern era". That "modern era" is "early modern era", because it's literally the beginning, hence the name "early".

Raiy said:
And when I mentioned "modern era", I was naturally referring to "modern age".

Me too.

howard38 · Jan 24, 2020

I think there are different dates for different aspects of the Renaissance. Since my degree is in art history I have always thought of it as the early 1400s when Masaccio, Donatello & Brunelleschi among others were reviving classical style in painting, sculpture & architecture. I have heard Dante, Petrarch & Boccaccio referred to as Renaissance writers so the literary Renaissance may have been as much as 100 years earlier.

AlpinLuke · Jan 25, 2020

In Italy we say that the Renaissance begun, at intellectual level, in the XIV century CE. Petrarch is usually indicated as one of the first fathers of Renaissance. Overall because he developed the conception of "Dark Ages", so that he realized that something was changing, that a new era was going to begin. If we consider the cultural / social level, we have to differentiate geographically. At Florence it's not wrong to say that Renaissance begun in the last decades of the XIV century CE. This cultural change had exported by artists to other Italian states. Rome and Venice represented the second wave.

The famous "Venetian Renaissance" started in early XV century CE. It was the presence of artists from Florence in the religious construction sites to allow the initial cultural pollution. Anyway also for Venice it's difficult to indicate a date.

sparky · Jan 25, 2020

Petrarch is usually taken as a marker for the classic renaissance
however there was a "Carolingian renaissance" in the ninth century
this resulted in a flourishing industry of fake documents ,
the most famous being the "Donation of Constantine" wherein the emperor Constantine gifted the whole western world to the papacy !!!
the demonstration that this text was a forgery by learned clerics saw humanist studies as established over medieval canons

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Donation of Constantine

By this name is understood, since the end of the Middle Ages, a forged document of Emperor Constantine the Great, by which large privileges and rich possessions were conferred on the pope and the Roman Church

www.newadvent.org

several monastic orders were specialized in finding original or translation of texts which were then painfully copied and distributed through their order monastical houses
the 12th century saw a revival of knowledge helped by the Italians traders and crusades contact with the Near East

Tulius · Jan 25, 2020

Raiy said:
But what has not been determined is the exact start date of this period, not its definition as the set of social, political and artistic phenomena that it implies.

Historical periods are created to chop history in smaller parts so it can be better studied. The problem is when it comes to define the boundaries of those time periods. There is not only one date: a year, a month or a day, fully defined. Different Historians can point to different events, different authors, for different reasons.

So it is easy to point to a century, a wide period, to its beginning: the 14th, or better the “Trecento”: Trecento - Wikipedia

Even if the Trecento is basically a Italian cultural movement (or even only in parts of Italy) and was absent in most of Europe. In the following two centuries that trend expanded to other regions of Europe and merged itself with the concept of Early Modern Period. Like Robto said “Both of these terms are used interchangeable, but they are not synonymous of one another.”

I recall ages ago there were two groups of students in the college, one in the Master in the Medieval Period, the other in the Master in the Modern Period (Early Modern in English), and when we talked, about what we were thinking to write the thesis, there was comments like this: “You can’t pick that theme: That is not from your period, that is from mine…”

Raiy · Jan 28, 2020

robto said:
I didn't say you literally said "early modern era", but you mentioned the fall of Constantinople as being the beginning of "modern era". That "modern era" is "early modern era", because it's literally the beginning, hence the name "early".

It makes a lot of sense what you're saying, but I've never read any historian who used the term "early modern era."
But well, I haven't read all the historians in the world either, of course

Raiy · Jan 28, 2020

AlpinLuke said:
In Italy we say that the Renaissance begun, at intellectual level, in the XIV century CE. Petrarch is usually indicated as one of the first fathers of Renaissance. Overall because he developed the conception of "Dark Ages", so that he realized that something was changing, that a new era was going to begin. If we consider the cultural / social level, we have to differentiate geographically. At Florence it's not wrong to say that Renaissance begun in the last decades of the XIV century CE. This cultural change had exported by artists to other Italian states. Rome and Venice represented the second wave.

The famous "Venetian Renaissance" started in early XV century CE. It was the presence of artists from Florence in the religious construction sites to allow the initial cultural pollution. Anyway also for Venice it's difficult to indicate a date.

While it is true that the renaissance began in Italy (and when we think of it is impossible not to think on names like Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, Petrarch or Botticelli) and then expanded to other regions of Europe; how much is known about this period in, say, Brandenburg, the principality of Lithuania, the kingdom of Hungary ?

Tulius · Jan 28, 2020

Raiy said:
It makes a lot of sense what you're saying, but I've never read any historian who used the term "early modern era."
But well, I haven't read all the historians in the world either, of course

Early Modern period or Early Modern Hisoty in English is quite common. Era not that much.

Just two links:

Early modern period - Wikipedia

Early Modern History 1500-1700 | Faculty of History

Raiy said:
While it is true that the renaissance began in Italy (and when we think of it is impossible not to think on names like Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, Petrarch or Botticelli) and then expanded to other regions of Europe; how much is known about this period in, say, Brandenburg, the principality of Lithuania, the kingdom of Hungary ?

After the14th century we begin to have much sources in several places of Europe, since the kings begin to pay to chroniclers. Not so sure about the regions that you are mentioning since they are usually out of my scope.

deaf tuner · Jan 28, 2020

Raiy said:
... But the correct term to talk about this period is Renaissance. ...

Actually, the very use of "period" is problematic.

Going just for the bluntest reflex nowadays (= looking into wikipedia ...

), You've got already very different interpretations on Renaissance being or not being a historical period:

the English page: "The Renaissance (UK: /rɪˈneɪsəns/ rin-AY-sənss, US: /ˈrɛnəsɑːns/ (listen) REN-ə-sahnss)[2][a] was a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries. In addition to the standard periodization, proponents of a long Renaissance put its beginning in the 14th century and its end in the 17th century "

the Italian page: "Il Rinascimento è un periodo artistico e culturale della storia d'Europa, che si sviluppò in Italia, soprattutto a Firenze, tra la fine del Medioevo e l'inizio dell'età moderna, in un arco di tempo che va all'incirca dalla metà del XIV secolo fino al XVI secolo [1], con ampie differenze tra discipline e aree geografiche.[2] "

( The Renaissance is an artistic and cultural period in the history of Europe, which developed in Italy, especially in Florence, from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the modern age, in a period of time that goes from about the middle of the fourteenth century until the sixteenth century , with wide differences between disciplines and geographies.)

the French page: "La Renaissance est une période de l'époque moderne associée à la redécouverte de la littérature, de la philosophie et des sciences de l'Antiquité, qui a pour point de départ la Renaissance italienne "

(Renaissance is a period of Modern era/age associated to rediscovering of literature, philosophy and sciences of the Ancient times, having as starting point the Italian Renaissance)

Is "Renaissance" really a historical period ?

Not in my opinion. It's a cultural movement, like Romanticism, for example.

deaf tuner · Jan 28, 2020

Raiy said:
While it is true that the renaissance began in Italy (and when we think of it is impossible not to think on names like Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, Petrarch or Botticelli) and then expanded to other regions of Europe; how much is known about this period in, say, Brandenburg, the principality of Lithuania, the kingdom of Hungary ?

I am not sure I understand Your question (is it "how much is known about Renaissance in other regions these days" or "how known was Renaissance in other regions at the time" ).

So I'll answer on the two possible interpretations of Your question:

- "how much is known about the Renaissance in other regions"- by the "general public" not that much. Petrarca, Michelangelo, Gesualdo, Italy in general, are occupying the front stage, hiding a lot of very valuable Renaissance elswhere.

- "how known was Renaissance in other regions at the time"

In Hungary's case, it isn't about how known was Renaissance: Hungary was fully into. Hungarian historiography even talks about Hungary being the first country affected/adopting the Italian Renaissance. And there is some truth into it as Hungary of the time had extremely close links to Italy, a lot of its intellectuals came from Italy or studied in Italy, plus (and that is important) had the mecena needed. It was rich country and governed by King Matthias, educated by Italian preceptors, married to an Italian, speaking Italian, open-minded, cultivated and ... extremely rich, as other magnates in the kingdom were too.

An example:

Girolamo Diruta publishes in 1593 "Il Transilvano - Dialogo sopra il vero modo di sonar organi & stromenti da penna " (The Transylvanian - dialogues on the true way of playing organs and pinched instruments" - it remains even today an important landmark in musicology). What would seem nowadys a somehow odd title for a Venetian musical treaty comes from his collocutor, a certain Istvan de Jósika (a Hungarian), envoy of Zsigmond Báthory in Italy, prince of Transylvania, duke of Opole (Silezia), nephew of the Polish King.

_______
On Hungary, You have a small presentation here: Google Traduction , original in Hungarian here: Magyarországi reneszánsz

Raiy · Jan 29, 2020

Tulius said:
Early Modern period or Early Modern Hisoty in English is quite common. Era not that much.

Just two links:

Early modern period - Wikipedia

Early Modern History 1500-1700 | Faculty of History

I don't usually trust in sources like wikipedia. In the sources I consult, this name is not usually used.

grammaticq · Jan 29, 2020

I don't know this date, but it approximately coincides with maximum of ferocity of the inquisition and censorship
it seems renaissance more correctly named decadance

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Beginning of the Renaissance

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Donation of Constantine

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