2. of
Arts are ideal objects beauty or learning
3. abstract speculations and interest in life after death
3. Interest in the visible world, and the focus is the morality of human actions.
Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul’s judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine.”
(P74) On man when he came into life the Father conferred the seeds of all kinds and the germs of every way of life. Whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit.
Renaissance in Italy
1. Foreign trade brought contact with foreign culture and wealth
2. City-states 3. Printing invented 4. The Medici of Florence
Features of Renaissance Art
attempt to please the authority.
Important ideas in The Prince
1. Military strength counts when it comes to rule a country. 2. To seize and secure power, the ruler is justified in doing anything, good or evil, as long as it is to his advantage. 3. He tended to see human beings as evil. 4. Manipulation can be easily applied to an ignorant, superficial public. 5. since love and fear can hardly exist together, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
Key Points
Renaissance Chapter 5 1. Middle Ages vs. Renaissance 2. Features of Renaissance arts 3. The three masters 4. “Oration on the Dignity of Man”
(P73) according to thy longing and according to thy judgment thou mayest have and possess what abode, what form, and what functions thou thyself shalt desire. The nature of all other beings is limited and constrained within the bounds of laws prescribed by Us. Thou, constrained by no limits, in accordance with thine own free will, in whose hand We have placed thee, shalt ordain for thyself the limits of thy nature….
2. Italian philosopher and humanist
3. He defined the human place in God’s grand plan and man’s relation with God.
Pico’s ideals
1. Man is God’s masterpiece, a unique being, and that man has the free choice to shape his destiny.
2. Man makes the ultimate decision on the Day of Judgment whether he belongs to God or Satan.
1. According to Pico, what quality do human beings alone possess? What does its possession allow them to do?
(P73) At last the best of artisans ordained that the creature to whom He had been able to give nothing proper to himself should have joint possession of whatever had been peculiar to each of the different kinds of being. He therefore took man as a creature of indeterminate nature and, assigning him a place in the middle of the world, addressing him thus, “…
The Prince
(P76) Since a ruler, then, needs to know how to make good use of beastly qualities, he should take as his models among the animals both the fox and the lion, for the lion does not know how to avoid traps, and the fox is easily overpowered by wolves. So you must be a fox when it comes to suspecting a trap, and a lion when it comes to making the wolves turn tail.
If they be vegetative, he will be like a plant.
If sensitive, he will become brutish.
If rational, he will grow into a heavenly being.
If intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God…..
5. The Prince
The Reformation Chapter 6 1. Martin Luther’s ideas 2. John Calvin’s ideas
Renaissance
1. Renaissance: rebirth 2. 14th – 16th centuries 3. It removed conservatism in feudalist Europe 4. It lifted the restrictions set by the Roman
(P72) But, when the work was finished, the Craftsman kept wishing that there were someone to ponder the plan of so great a work, to love its beauty, and to wonder at its vastness. Therefore, when everything was done, He finally took thought concerning the creation of man. …. All was now complete; all things had been assigned to the highest, the middle, and the lowest orders….
architecture 5. Balance and symmetry. 6. Vanishing point
Three Masters Of the High Renaissance
Leonardo da Vinci 达芬奇
Michelangelo 米开朗基罗
Raphael
拉斐尔
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1515)
Last Supper and Mona Lisa
Michelangelo (1475-1564)
Sistine Chapel
Madonna
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494)
乔瓦尼 ·皮克 ·德拉 ·米兰德拉
1. “Oration on the Dignity of Man” 《论人的尊严》
(P72, 脚注9，chain of Being，存在的巨链)
Niccolo Machiavelli 马基雅维利 （1469-1527）
An Italian statesman, regarded as the first modern political theorist.
He wrote The Prince (《君主论》) with the