Renaissance

Author: Will Durant
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-12-01
Features: The Renaissance restored classical culture and also ended the dominance of Eastern spirituality in Europe for millennia. Ideas, morals, and artistic trends flowed continuously from Italy northward for a century. In the chapter 1500–1600, all countries in Western Europe benefited from its grace. Today in Europe and America, the spirit of elegance and joy can be seen everywhere, echoing the song of the Renaissance forever. In this book, you will see: The brilliant and magnificent cities of Italy during the Renaissance—Florence, Venice, Mantua, Milan, Verona—the competition among sovereign states in commercial and artistic prosperity. Artists—Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Veronese, Tintoretto, Donatello, Titian, Gregorius, Liberi, Masaccio. The Medici family: Cosimo, the cool and witty Florentine cultural patron; Lorenzo, whose reign was hailed as the "Return of the Golden Age," with his son becoming Pope Leo X. Caesar Borgia, the powerful and ambitious autocratic ruler. Savonarola, the great moral reformer, who saw the moral decline of Italy under wealth and the fading of religious faith and bravely, fanatically, and in vain rose up against the contemporary senses and skepticism. He was eventually hanged and burned to ashes. Rome: the echo of imperial glory. Before being cruelly plundered by France and Germany, it was always called the "center of the world."