Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissance—in the "Age of Reason" of 17th-century thought and the 18th-century "Enlightenment". Some commentators consider the era of modernity to have ended by 1930, with World War II in 1945, or the 1980s or 1990s; the following era is called postmodernity. The term "contemporary history"
is also used to refer to the post-1945 timeframe, without assigning it
to either the modern or postmodern era. (Thus "modern" may be used as a
name of a particular era in the past, as opposed to meaning "the
current era".)
Depending on the field, "modernity" may refer to different time
periods or qualities. In historiography, the 17th and 18th centuries
are usually described as early modern, while the long 19th century corresponds to "modern history" proper. While it includes a wide range of interrelated historical processes and cultural phenomena (from fashion to modern warfare),
it can also refer to the subjective or existential experience of the
conditions they produce, and their ongoing impact on human culture,
institutions, and politics.
As an analytical concept and normative idea, modernity is closely linked to the ethos of philosophical and aesthetic modernism; political and intellectual currents that intersect with the Enlightenment; and subsequent developments such as existentialism, modern art, the formal establishment of social science, and contemporaneous antithetical developments such as Marxism. It also encompasses the social relations associated with the rise of capitalism, and shifts in attitudes associated with secularisation, liberalization, modernization and post-industrial life.
By the late 19th and 20th centuries, modernist art, politics, science and culture has come to dominate not only Western Europe and North America, but almost every civilized area on the globe, including movements thought of as opposed to the West and globalization. The modern era is closely associated with the development of individualism, capitalism, urbanization and a belief in the possibilities of technological and political progress.
Wars and other perceived problems of this era, many of which come
from the effects of rapid change, and the connected loss of strength of
traditional religious and ethical norms, have led to many reactions
against modern development. Optimism and belief in constant progress has been most recently criticized by postmodernism while the dominance of Western Europe and Anglo-America over other continents has been criticized by postcolonial theory.
In the context of art history, "modernity" (modernité) has a more limited sense, "modern art" covering the period of c. 1860–1970. Use of the term in this sense is attributed to Charles Baudelaire,
who in his 1864 essay "The Painter of Modern Life", designated the
"fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis", and the
responsibility art has to capture that experience. In this sense, the
term refers to "a particular relationship to time, one characterized by
intense historical discontinuity or rupture, openness to the novelty of
the future, and a heightened sensitivity to what is unique about the
present".
Etymology
The Late Latin adjective modernus, a derivation from the adverb modo "presently, just now", is attested from the 5th century, at first in the context of distinguishing the Christian era from the pagan era.
In the 6th century, Cassiodorus appears to have been the first writer to use modernus "modern" regularly to refer to his own age.
The terms antiquus and modernus were used in a chronological sense in the Carolingian era. For example, a magister modernus referred to a contemporary scholar, as opposed to old authorities such as Benedict of Nursia. In early medieval usage, modernus
referred to authorities younger than pagan antiquity and the early
church fathers, but not necessarily to the present day, and could
include authors several centuries old, from about the time of Bede, i.e. referring to the time after the foundation of the Order of Saint Benedict and/or the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
The Latin adjective was adopted in Middle French, as moderne, by the 15th century, and hence, in the early Tudor period, into Early Modern English.
The early modern word meant "now existing", or "pertaining to the present times", not necessarily with a positive connotation.
Shakespeare uses modern in the sense of "every-day, ordinary, commonplace".
The word entered wide usage in the context of the late 17th-century quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns within the Académie française, debating the question of "Is Modern culture superior to Classical (Græco–Roman) culture?"
In the context of this debate, the "ancients" (anciens) and "moderns" (modernes)
were proponents of opposing views, the former believing that
contemporary writers could do no better than imitate the genius of
classical antiquity, while the latter,
first with Charles Perrault (1687), proposed that more than a mere "Renaissance" of ancient achievements, the "Age of Reason" had gone beyond what had been possible in the classical period.
The term modernity,
first coined in the 1620s, in this context assumed the implication of a
historical epoch following the Renaissance, in which the achievements
of antiquity were surpassed.
Phases
Modernity has been associated with cultural and intellectual movements of 1436–1789 and extending to the 1970s or later.
According to Marshall Berman, modernity is periodized into three conventional phases dubbed "Early," "Classical," and "Late," respectively, by Peter Osborne:
Early modernity: 1500–1789 (or 1453–1789 in traditional historiography)
People were beginning to experience a more modern life (Laughey, 31).
Classical modernity: 1789–1900 (corresponding to the long 19th century (1789–1914) in Hobsbawm's scheme)
Consisted of the rise and growing use of daily newspapers,
telegraphs, telephones and other forms of mass media, which influenced
the growth of communicating on a broader scale (Laughey, 31).
Late modernity: 1900–1989
Consisted of the globalization of modern life (Laughey, 31).
In the second phase Berman draws upon the growth of modern
technologies such as the newspaper, telegraph and other forms of mass
media. There was a great shift into modernization in the name of
industrial capitalism. Finally in the third phase, modernist arts and
individual creativity marked the beginning of a new modernist age as it
combats oppressive politics, economics as well as other social forces
including mass media.
Some authors, such as Lyotard and Baudrillard, believe that modernity ended in the mid- or late 20th century and thus have defined a period subsequent to modernity, namely Postmodernity
(1930s/1950s/1990s–present). Other theorists, however, regard the
period from the late 20th century to the present as merely another phase
of modernity; Zygmunt Bauman calls this phase "liquid" modernity, Giddens labels it "high" modernity.
Definition
Political
Politically, modernity's earliest phase starts with Niccolò Machiavelli's
works which openly rejected the medieval and Aristotelian style of
analyzing politics by comparison with ideas about how things should be,
in favour of realistic analysis of how things really are. He also
proposed that an aim of politics is to control one's own chance or
fortune, and that relying upon providence actually leads to evil.
Machiavelli argued, for example, that violent divisions within political
communities are unavoidable, but can also be a source of strength which
lawmakers and leaders should account for and even encourage in some
ways.
Machiavelli's recommendations were sometimes influential upon
kings and princes, but eventually came to be seen as favoring free
republics over monarchies. Machiavelli in turn influenced Francis Bacon, Marchamont Needham, James Harrington, John Milton, David Hume, and many others
Important modern political doctrines which stem from the new Machiavellian realism include Mandeville's influential proposal that "Private Vices by the dextrous Management of a skilful Politician may be turned into Publick Benefits" (the last sentence of his Fable of the Bees), and also the doctrine of a constitutional "separation of powers" in government, first clearly proposed by Montesquieu. Both these principles are enshrined within the constitutions of most modern democracies.
It has been observed that while Machiavelli's realism saw a value to
war and political violence, his lasting influence has been "tamed" so
that useful conflict was deliberately converted as much as possible to
formalized political struggles and the economic "conflict" encouraged
between free, private enterprises.)
Starting with Thomas Hobbes, attempts were made to use the methods of the new modern physical sciences, as proposed by Bacon and Descartes, applied to humanity and politics. Notable attempts to improve upon the methodological approach of Hobbes include those of John Locke, Spinoza.Giambattista Vico, and Rousseau. David Hume made what he considered to be the first proper attempt at trying to apply Bacon's scientific method to political subjects, rejecting some aspects of the approach of Hobbes.
A second phase of modernist political thinking begins with
Rousseau, who questioned the natural rationality and sociality of
humanity and proposed that human nature
was much more malleable than had been previously thought. By this
logic, what makes a good political system or a good man is completely
dependent upon the chance path a whole people has taken over history.
This thought influenced the political (and aesthetic) thinking of Immanuel Kant, Edmund Burke
and others and led to a critical review of modernist politics. On the
conservative side, Burke argued that this understanding encouraged
caution and avoidance of radical change. However more ambitious
movements also developed from this insight into human culture, initially Romanticism and Historicism, and eventually both the Communism of Karl Marx, and the modern forms of nationalism inspired by the French Revolution, including, in one extreme, the German Nazi movement.
On the other hand, the notion of modernity has been contested
also due to its Euro-centric underpinnings. This is further aggravated
by the re-emergence of non-Western powers. Yet, the contestations about
modernity are also linked with Western notions of democracy, social
discipline, and development.
In sociology, a discipline that arose in direct response to the social problems of "modernity", the term most generally refers to the social conditions, processes, and discourses consequent to the Age of Enlightenment. In the most basic terms, Anthony Giddens describes modernity as
...a shorthand term for modern society, or industrial civilization.
Portrayed in more detail, it is associated with (1) a certain set of
attitudes towards the world, the idea of the world as open to
transformation, by human intervention; (2) a complex of economic
institutions, especially industrial production and a market economy; (3)
a certain range of political institutions, including the nation-state
and mass democracy. Largely as a result of these characteristics,
modernity is vastly more dynamic than any previous type of social order.
It is a society—more technically, a complex of institutions—which, unlike any preceding culture, lives in the future, rather than the past.
Other writers have criticized such definitions as just being a
listing of factors. They argue that modernity, contingently understood
as marked by an ontological formation in dominance, needs to be defined
much more fundamentally in terms of different ways of being.
The modern is thus defined by the way in which prior
valences of social life ... are reconstituted through a constructivist
reframing of social practices in relation to basic categories of
existence common to all humans: time, space, embodiment, performance and
knowledge. The word 'reconstituted' here explicitly does not mean
replaced.
This means that modernity overlays earlier formations of traditional and customary life without necessarily replacing them.
Cultural and philosophical
The
era of modernity is characterised socially by industrialisation and the
division of labour and philosophically by "the loss of certainty, and
the realization that certainty can never be established, once and for
all". With new social and philosophical conditions arose fundamental new challenges. Various 19th-century intellectuals, from Auguste Comte to Karl Marx to Sigmund Freud,
attempted to offer scientific and/or political ideologies in the wake
of secularisation. Modernity may be described as the "age of ideology."
For Marx, what was the basis of
modernity was the emergence of capitalism and the revolutionary
bourgeoisie, which led to an unprecedented expansion of productive
forces and to the creation of the world market. Durkheim
tackled modernity from a different angle by following the ideas of
Saint-Simon about the industrial system. Although the starting point is
the same as Marx, feudal society, Durkheim emphasizes far less the
rising of the bourgeoisie as a new revolutionary class and very seldom
refers to capitalism as the new mode of production implemented by it.
The fundamental impulse to modernity is rather industrialism accompanied
by the new scientific forces. In the work of Max Weber, modernity is closely associated with the processes of rationalization and disenchantment of the world.
Critical theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Zygmunt Bauman
propose that modernity or industrialization represents a departure from
the central tenets of the Enlightenment and towards nefarious processes
of alienation, such as commodity fetishism and the Holocaust.Contemporary sociological critical theory presents the concept of "rationalization"
in even more negative terms than those Weber originally defined.
Processes of rationalization—as progress for the sake of progress—may in
many cases have what critical theory says is a negative and
dehumanising effect on modern society.
Enlightenment, understood in the
widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating
human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly
enlightened earth radiates under the sign of disaster triumphant.
What prompts so many commentators
to speak of the 'end of history', of post-modernity, 'second modernity'
and 'surmodernity', or otherwise to articulate the intuition of a
radical change in the arrangement of human cohabitation and in social
conditions under which life-politics is nowadays conducted, is the fact
that the long effort to accelerate the speed of movement has presently
reached its 'natural limit'. Power can move with the speed of the
electronic signal – and so the time required for the movement of its
essential ingredients has been reduced to instantaneity. For all
practical purposes, power has become truly exterritorial, no longer
bound, or even slowed down, by the resistance of space (the advent of
cellular telephones may well serve as a symbolic 'last blow' delivered
to the dependency on space: even the access to a telephone market is
unnecessary for a command to be given and seen through to its effect.
Consequent to debate about economic globalization, the comparative analysis of civilizations, and the post-colonial perspective of "alternative modernities," Shmuel Eisenstadt introduced the concept of "multiple modernities".
Modernity as a "plural condition" is the central concept of this
sociologic approach and perspective, which broadens the definition of
"modernity" from exclusively denoting Western European culture to a culturally relativistic definition, thereby: "Modernity is not Westernization, and its key processes and dynamics can be found in all societies".
Modernity, or the Modern Age, is typically defined as a post-traditional, and post-medieval historical period. Central to modernity is emancipation from religion, specifically the hegemony of Christianity (mainly Roman Catholicism), and the consequent secularization. According to writers like Fackenheim and Husserl, modern thought repudiates the Judeo-Christian belief in the Biblical God as a mere relic of superstitious ages. It all started with Descartes' revolutionary methodic doubt,
which transformed the concept of truth in the concept of certainty,
whose only guarantor is no longer God or the Church, but Man's
subjective judgement.
Theologians have adapted in different ways to the challenge of modernity. Liberal theology,
over perhaps the past 200 years or so, has tried, in various
iterations, to accommodate, or at least tolerate, modern doubt in
expounding Christian revelation, while Traditionalist Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and fundamentalistProtestant thinkers and clerics have tried to fight back, denouncing skepticism of every kind. Modernity aimed towards "a progressive force promising to liberate humankind from ignorance and irrationality", but as of 2021, Hindu fundamentalism in India and Islamic fundamentalism
particularly in the Middle East remain problematic, meaning that
intra-society value conflicts are by no means an intrinsically Christian
phenomenon.
Scientific
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo
and others developed a new approach to physics and astronomy which
changed the way people came to think about many things. Copernicus
presented new models of the solar system which no longer placed humanity's home, on Earth,
in the centre. Kepler used mathematics to discuss physics and described
regularities of nature this way. Galileo actually made his famous proof
of uniform acceleration in freefall using mathematics.
Francis Bacon, especially in his Novum Organum, argued for a new methodological approach. It was an experimental based approach to science, which sought no knowledge of formal or final causes. Yet, he was no materialist. He also talked of the two books of God, God's Word (Scripture) and God's work (nature).
But he also added a theme that science should seek to control nature
for the sake of humanity, and not seek to understand it just for the
sake of understanding. In both these things he was influenced by
Machiavelli's earlier criticism of medieval Scholasticism, and his proposal that leaders should aim to control their own fortune.
Influenced both by Galileo's new physics and Bacon, René Descartes argued soon afterward that mathematics and geometry
provided a model of how scientific knowledge could be built up in small
steps. He also argued openly that human beings themselves could be
understood as complex machines.
One
common conception of modernity is the condition of Western history
since the mid-15th century, or roughly the European development of movable type and the printing press.
In this context the "modern" society is said to develop over many
periods, and to be influenced by important events that represent breaks
in the continuity.
Artistic
After modernist political thinking had already become widely known in France, Rousseau's re-examination of human nature led to a new criticism of the value of reasoning
itself which in turn led to a new understanding of less rationalistic
human activities, especially the arts. The initial influence was upon
the movements known as German Idealism and Romanticism in the 18th and 19th century. Modern art therefore belongs only to the later phases of modernity.
For this reason art history keeps the term "modernity" distinct from the terms Modern Age and Modernism – as a discrete "term applied to the cultural condition in which the seemingly absolute necessity of innovation
becomes a primary fact of life, work, and thought". And modernity in
art "is more than merely the state of being modern, or the opposition
between old and new".
In the essay
"The Painter of Modern Life" (1864), Charles Baudelaire gives a
literary definition: "By modernity I mean the transitory, the fugitive,
the contingent".
Advancing technological innovation, affecting artistic technique
and the means of manufacture, changed rapidly the possibilities of art
and its status in a rapidly changing society. Photography challenged
the place of the painter and painting. Architecture was transformed by
the availability of steel for structures.
Theological
From conservative Protestant theologian Thomas C. Oden's perspective, "modernity" is marked by "four fundamental values":
"Moral relativism (which says that what is right is dictated by culture, social location, and situation)"
"Autonomous individualism (which assumes that moral authority comes essentially from within)"
"Narcissistic hedonism (which focuses on egocentric personal pleasure)"
"Reductive naturalism (which reduces what is reliably known to what one can see, hear, and empirically investigate)"
Modernity rejects anything "old" and makes "novelty ... a criterion
for truth." This results in a great "phobic response to anything
antiquarian." In contrast, "classical Christian consciousness" resisted
"novelty".
Within Roman Catholicism, Pope Pius IX and Pope Pius X claim that Modernism (in a particular definition of the Catholic Church) is a danger to the Christian faith. Pope Pius IX compiled a Syllabus of Errors published on December 8, 1864 to describe his objections to Modernism.
Pope Pius X further elaborated on the characteristics and consequences
of Modernism, from his perspective, in an encyclical entitled "Pascendi dominici gregis" (Feeding the Lord's Flock) on September 8, 1907.
Pascendi Dominici Gregis states that the principles of Modernism, taken
to a logical conclusion, lead to atheism. The Roman Catholic Church was
serious enough about the threat of Modernism that it required all Roman
Catholic clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors
and seminary professors to swear an Oath Against Modernism from 1910 until this directive was rescinded in 1967, in keeping with the directives of the Second Vatican Council.
Defined
Of the available conceptual definitions in sociology, modernity is "marked and defined by an obsession with 'evidence'," visual culture, and personal visibility. Generally, the large-scale social integration constituting modernity, involves the:
increased movement of goods, capital, people, and information among formerly discrete populations, and consequent influence beyond the local area
increased formal social organization of mobile populaces,
development of "circuits" on which they and their influence travel, and
societal standardization conducive to socio-economic mobility
increased specialization of the segments of society, i.e., division of labor, and area inter-dependency
increased level of excessive stratification in terms of social life of a modern man
Increased state of dehumanisation, dehumanity, unionisation, as man
became embittered about the negative turn of events which sprouted a
growing fear.
man became a victim of the underlying circumstances presented by the modern world
Increased competitiveness amongst people in the society (survival of the fittest) as the jungle rule sets in.
Judicial activism
is a judicial philosophy holding that the courts can and should go
beyond the applicable law to consider broader societal implications of
its decisions. It is sometimes used as an antonym of judicial restraint. It is usually a pejorative term, implying that judges make rulings based on their own political agenda rather than precedent and take advantage of judicial discretion.
The definition of judicial activism and the specific decisions that are
activist are controversial political issues. The question of judicial
activism is closely related to judicial interpretation, statutory interpretation, and separation of powers.
The phrase has been controversial since its beginning. An article
by Craig Green, "An Intellectual History of Judicial Activism," is
critical of Schlesinger's use of the term; "Schlesinger's original
introduction of judicial activism was doubly blurred: not only did he
fail to explain what counts as activism, he also declined to say whether
activism is good or bad."
Even before this phrase was first used, the general concept already existed. For example, Thomas Jefferson referred to the "despotic behaviour" of Federalist federal judges, in particular Chief Justice John Marshall.
Definitions
A survey of judicial review in practice during the last three decades
shows that 'Judicial Activism' has characterised the decisions of the
Supreme Court at different times.
Black's Law Dictionary
defines judicial activism as a "philosophy of judicial decision-making
whereby judges allow their personal views about public policy, among
other factors, to guide their decisions."
Political science professor Bradley Canon has posited six dimensions along which judge courts may be perceived as activist:
majoritarianism, interpretive stability, interpretive fidelity,
substance/democratic process, specificity of policy, and availability of
an alternate policymaker. David A. Strauss has argued that judicial
activism can be narrowly defined as one or more of three possible
actions: overturning laws as unconstitutional, overturning judicial precedent, and ruling against a preferred interpretation of the constitution.
Others have been less confident of the term's meaning, finding it instead to be little more than a rhetorical shorthand. Kermit Roosevelt III
has argued that "in practice 'activist' turns out to be little more
than a rhetorically charged shorthand for decisions the speaker
disagrees with"; likewise, the solicitor general under George W. Bush, Theodore Olson, said in an interview on Fox News Sunday, in regards to a case for same-sex marriage he had successfully litigated, that "most people use the term 'judicial activism' to explain decisions that they don't like." Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has said that, "An activist court is a court that makes a decision you don't like."
Debate
Detractors of judicial activism charge that it usurps the power of
the elected branches of government or appointed agencies, damaging the
rule of law and democracy. Defenders of judicial activism say that in many cases it is a legitimate form of judicial review, and that the interpretation of the law must change with changing times.
A third view is that so-called "objective" interpretation of the
law does not exist. According to law professor Brian Z. Tamanaha,
"Throughout the so-called formalist age, it turns out, many prominent
judges and jurists acknowledged that there were gaps and uncertainties
in the law and that judges must sometimes make choices." Under this view, any judge's use of judicial discretion
will necessarily be shaped by that judge's personal and professional
experience and his or her views on a wide range of matters, from legal
and juridical philosophy to morals and ethics. This implies a tension
between granting flexibility (to enable the dispensing of justice) and
placing bounds on that flexibility (to hold judges to ruling from legal
grounds rather than extralegal ones).
Some proponents of a stronger judiciary argue that the judiciary
helps provide checks and balances and should grant itself an expanded
role to counterbalance the effects of transient majoritarianism,
i.e., there should be an increase in the powers of a branch of
government which is not directly subject to the electorate, so that the
majority cannot dominate or oppress any particular minority through its
elective powers.
Other scholars have proposed that judicial activism is most
appropriate when it restrains the tendency of democratic majorities to
act out of passion and prejudice rather than after reasoned
deliberation.
Moreover, they argue that the judiciary strikes down both elected
and unelected official action, in some instances acts of legislative
bodies reflecting the view the transient majority may have had at the
moment of passage and not necessarily the view the same legislative body
may have at the time the legislation is struck down. Also, the judges
that are appointed are usually appointed by previously elected executive
officials so that their philosophy should reflect that of those who
nominated them, that an independent judiciary is a great asset to civil
society since special interests are unable to dictate their version of
constitutional interpretation with threat of stopping political
donations.
United States examples
The following rulings have been characterized as judicial activism.
Janus v. AFSCME
– a 2018 Supreme Court decision addressing whether unions can require
dues from all workers who benefit from collective bargaining agreements.
The decision overturned the 41-year old precedent of Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.
While the term was first coined and is often used in the United
States, it has also been applied in other countries, particularly common law jurisdictions.
India
India has a recent history of judicial activism, originating after the Emergency in India which saw attempts by the Government to control the judiciary.Public Interest Litigation was thus an instrument devised by the courts to reach out directly to the public, and take cognizance though the litigant may not be the victim. "Suo motu" cognizance allows the courts to take up such cases on its own. The trend has been supported as well criticized. New York Times author Gardiner Harris sums this up as
India’s judges have
sweeping powers and a long history of judicial activism that would be
all but unimaginable in the United States. In recent years, judges
required Delhi’s auto-rickshaws to convert to natural gas to help cut
down on pollution,
closed much of the country’s iron-ore-mining industry to cut down on
corruption and ruled that politicians facing criminal charges could not
seek re-election.
Indeed, India’s Supreme Court and Parliament have openly battled for
decades, with Parliament passing multiple constitutional amendments to
respond to various Supreme Court rulings.
All such rulings carry the force of Article 39A of the Constitution of India, although before and during the Emergency the judiciary desisted from "wide and elastic" interpretations, termed Austinian, because Directive Principles of State Policy are non-justiciable. This despite the constitutional provisions for judicial review and B R Ambedkar
arguing in the Constituent Assembly Debates that "judicial review,
particularly writ jurisdiction, could provide quick relief against
abridgment of Fundamental Rights and ought to be at the heart of the
Constitution."
Recent examples quoted include the order to Delhi Government to convert the Auto rickshaw to CNG, a move believed to have reduced Delhi's erstwhile acute smog problem (it is now argued to be back) and contrasted with that of Beijing.
Israel
The Israeli approach to judicial activism has transformed significantly in the last three decades, and currently presents an especially broad version of robust judicial review and intervention.
Additionally, taking into consideration the intensity of public life in
Israel and the challenges that the country faces (including security
threats), the case law of the Israeli Supreme Court touches on diverse and controversial public matters.
The United Kingdom
The
British courts were largely deferential towards their attitudes against
the government before the 1960s. Since then, judicial activism has been
well established throughout the UK. One of the first cases for this
activism to be present was the Conway v Rimmer (1968).
Previously, a claim like this would be defined as definitive, but the
judges had slowly begun to adopt more of an activist line approach.
This had become more prominent in which government actions were
overturned by the courts. This can inevitably lead to clashes between
the courts against the government as shown in the Miller case consisting of the 2016 Conservative government.
The perceptions of judicial activism derived from the number of
applications for judicial review made to the courts. This can be seen
throughout the 1980s, where there about 500 applications within a year. This number dramatically increased as by 2013, there were 15,594 applications.
This trend has become more frequent as time passes along, possibly
pointing to a greater influence in the UK courts against the government.
Along side with the amount of applications submitted to the courts, in
some instances it has attracted media attention. For instance, in 1993,
Jacob Rees-Mogg had challenged the Conservative government to ratify the
Maastricht Treaty, which eventually had formed into the European Union.
This was rejected by the Divisional Court and attracted large amounts
of media attention to this case. Through these components it is largely
evident that judicial activism should not be exaggerated. Ultimately,
Judicial activism is greatly established throughout the UK as the courts
are becoming more frequent to scrutinise at their own will, and at
times, reject government legislation that the deem to be not within
balance to the UK constitution and, becoming more visible.
Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of law and law's relationship to other systems of norms, especially ethics and political philosophy. It asks questions like "What is law?", "What are the criteria for legal validity?", and "What is the relationship between law and morality?" Philosophy of law and jurisprudence are often used interchangeably, though jurisprudence sometimes encompasses forms of reasoning that fit into economics or sociology.
Philosophy of law can be sub-divided into analytical jurisprudence and normative jurisprudence.
Analytical jurisprudence aims to define what law is and what it is not
by identifying law's essential features. Normative jurisprudence
investigates both the non-legal norms that shape law and the legal norms
that are generated by law and guide human action.
Analytical jurisprudence
Analytical jurisprudence seeks to provide a general account of the nature of law through the tools of conceptual analysis. The account is general in the sense of targeting universal features of law that hold at all times and places.
Whereas lawyers are interested in what the law is on a specific issue
in a specific jurisdiction, philosophers of law are interested in
identifying the features of law shared across cultures, times, and
places. Taken together, these foundational features of law offer the
kind of universal definition philosophers are after. The general
approach allows philosophers to ask questions about, for example, what
separates law from morality, politics, or practical reason.
Often, scholars in the field presume that law has a unique set of
features that separate it from other phenomena, though not all share the
presumption.
While the field has traditionally focused on giving an account of
law's nature, some scholars have begun to examine the nature of domains
within law, e.g. tort law, contract law, or criminal law. These
scholars focus on what makes certain domains of law distinctive and how
one domain differs from another. A particularly fecund area of research
has been the distinction between tort law and criminal law, which more
generally bears on the difference between civil and criminal law.
Several schools of thought have developed around the nature of law, the most influential of which are:
Natural law theory, which asserts that law is inherent in nature and constitutive of morality, at least in part.
On this view, while legislators can enact and even successfully enforce
immoral laws, such laws are legally invalid. The view is captured by
the maxim: an unjust law is not a true law, where 'unjust' means
'contrary to the natural law.' Natural law theory has medieval origins
in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. In late 20th century, John Finnis revived interest in the theory and provided a modern reworking of it.
Legal positivism, which is the view that law depends primarily on social facts.
Legal positivism has traditionally been associated with three
doctrines: the pedigree thesis, the separability thesis, and the
discretion thesis.
The pedigree thesis says that the right way to determine whether a
directive is law is to look at the directive's source. The thesis claims
that it is the fact that the directive was issued by the proper
official within a legitimate government, for example, that determines
the directive's legal validity—not the directive's moral or practical
merits. The separability thesis states that law is conceptually distinct
from morality.
While law might contain morality, the separability thesis states that
"it is in no sense a necessary truth that laws reproduce or satisfy
certain demands of morality, though in fact they have often done so."
Legal positivists disagree about the extent of the separability thesis.
Exclusive legal positivists, notably Joseph Raz, go further than the
standard thesis and deny that it is possible for morality to be a part
of law at all. The discretion thesis states that judges create new law
when they are given discretion to adjudicate cases where existing law
underdetermines the result. The earliest proponent of legal positivism
was John Austin
who was influenced by the writings of Jeremy Bentham in the early 19th
century. Austin held that the law is the command of the sovereign backed
by the threat of punishment. Contemporary legal positivism has long
abandoned this view. In the twentieth century, two positivists had a
profound influence on the field: Hans Kelsen and H. L. A. Hart. Kelsen is most influential for his notion of 'grundnorm,' an ultimate and basic legal norm, which some scholars, especially in Europe, accept today. In the Anglophone world, Hart has been the most influential scholar.
Hart rejected the earlier claim that sanctions are essential to law and
instead argued that law is rule-based. According to Hart, law is a
system of primary rules that guide the conduct of law's subjects, and
secondary rules that regulate how the primary rules may be changed,
identified, and adjudicated. Hart's theory, although widely admired,
sparked vigorous debate among late twentieth century philosophers of law
including Ronald Dworkin, John Rawls, Joseph Raz, and John Finnis.
Legal realism,
which asserts that law is the product of decisions made by courts, law
enforcement, and attorneys, which are often decided on contradictory or
arbitrary grounds. According to legal realism, law is not a rational
system of rules and norms. Legal realism is critical of the idea that
law has a nature that can be analyzed in the abstract. Instead, legal
realists advocate an empirical approach to jurisprudence founded in
social sciences and the actual practice of law in the world. For this
reason, legal realism has often been associated with the sociology of law. In the United States, legal realism gained prominence in the late 19th century with Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Chipman Grey. Legal realism became influential in Scandinavia in the 20th century with Axel Hägerström.
Legal interpretivism,
which denies that law is source-based because law necessarily depends
on human interpretation that is guided by the moral norms of
communities. Given that judges have discretion to adjudicate cases in
more than one way, legal interpretivism says that judges
characteristically adjudicate in the way that best preserves the moral
norms, institutional facts, and social practices of the societies in
which they are a part. It is consistent with legal interpretivism that
one cannot know whether a society has a legal system in force, or what
any of its laws are, until one knows some moral truths about the
justifications for the practices in that society. In contrast with legal
positivism or legal realism, it is possible for the legal
interpretivist to claim that no one in a society knows what its
laws are (because no one may know the best justification of its
practices.) Legal interpretivism originated with Ronald Dworkin in the late 20th century in his book Law's Empire.
In recent years, debates about the nature of law have become
increasingly fine-grained. One important debate exists within legal
positivism about the separability of law and morality. Exclusive legal
positivists claim that the legal validity of a norm never depends on its
moral correctness. Inclusive legal positivists claim that moral
considerations may determine the legal validity of a norm, but
that it is not necessary that this is the case. Positivism began as an
inclusivist theory; but influential exclusive legal positivists,
including Joseph Raz, John Gardner, and Leslie Green, later rejected the
idea.
A second important debate, often called the "Hart–Dworkin debate",
concerns the battle between the two most dominant schools in the late
20th and early 21st century, legal interpretivism and legal positivism.
Normative jurisprudence
In
addition to analytic jurisprudence, legal philosophy is also concerned
with normative theories of law. "Normative jurisprudence involves
normative, evaluative, and otherwise prescriptive questions about the
law."
For example, What is the goal or purpose of law? What moral or
political theories provide a foundation for the law? Three approaches
have been influential in contemporary moral and political philosophy,
and these approaches are reflected in normative theories of law:
Utilitarianism
is the view that laws should be crafted so as to produce the best
consequences. Historically, utilitarian thought regarding law is
associated with the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. In contemporary legal theory, the utilitarian approach is frequently championed by scholars who work in the law and economics tradition.
Deontology
is the view that laws should reflect our obligation to preserve the
autonomy and rights of others. Historically, deontological thought
regarding law is associated with Immanuel Kant,
who formulated one particularly prominent deontological theory of law.
Another deontological approach can be found in the work of contemporary
legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin.
Aretaic moral theories such as contemporary virtue ethics emphasize the role of character in morality. Virtue jurisprudence
is the view that the laws should promote the development of virtuous
characters by citizens. Historically, this approach is associated with Aristotle. Contemporary virtue jurisprudence is inspired by philosophical work on virtue ethics.
Philosophers
of law are also concerned with a variety of philosophical problems that
arise in particular legal subjects, such as constitutional law, Contract law, Criminal law, and Tort law. Thus, philosophy of law addresses such diverse topics as theories of contract law, theories of criminal punishment, theories of tort liability, and the question of whether judicial review is justified.
The Renaissance (UK: /rɪˈneɪsəns/rin-AY-sənss, US: /ˈrɛnəsɑːns/(listen)REN-ə-sahnss) was a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It occurred after the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages and was associated with great social change.
In addition to the standard periodization, proponents of a "long
Renaissance" may put its beginning in the 14th century and its end in
the 17th century. The traditional view focuses more on the early modern
aspects of the Renaissance and argues that it was a break from the
past, but many historians today focus more on its medieval aspects and
argue that it was an extension of the Middle Ages.
The intellectual basis of the Renaissance was its version of humanism, derived from the concept of Roman humanitas and the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that of Protagoras,
who said that "man is the measure of all things". This new thinking
became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science and literature.
Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the revived knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of metal movable type
sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century, the
changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe: the first
traces appear in Italy as early as the late 13th century, in particular
with the writings of Dante and the paintings of Giotto.
As a cultural movement, the Renaissance encompassed innovative flowering of Latin
and vernacular literatures, beginning with the 14th-century resurgence
of learning based on classical sources, which contemporaries credited to
Petrarch; the development of linear perspective and other techniques of rendering a more natural reality in painting; and gradual but widespread educational reform. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, and in science to an increased reliance on observation and inductive reasoning.
Although the Renaissance saw revolutions in many intellectual and
social scientific pursuits, as well as the introduction of modern banking and the field of accounting, it is perhaps best known for its artistic developments and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance man".
The Renaissance has a long and complex historiography, and, in line with general scepticism of discrete periodizations,
there has been much debate among historians reacting to the
19th-century glorification of the "Renaissance" and individual cultural
heroes as "Renaissance men", questioning the usefulness of Renaissance as a term and as a historical delineation.
Some observers have called into question whether the Renaissance was a
cultural "advance" from the Middle Ages, instead seeing it as a period
of pessimism and nostalgia for classical antiquity, while social and economic historians, especially of the longue durée, have instead focused on the continuity between the two eras, which are linked, as Panofsky observed, "by a thousand ties".
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence was felt in art, architecture, philosophy, literature, music, science and technology,
politics, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry.
Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched
for realism and human emotion in art.
Renaissance humanists such as Poggio Bracciolini sought out in Europe's monastic libraries the Latin literary, historical, and oratorical texts of antiquity, while the Fall of Constantinople (1453) generated a wave of émigré Greek scholars bringing precious manuscripts in ancient Greek,
many of which had fallen into obscurity in the West. It is in their new
focus on literary and historical texts that Renaissance scholars
differed so markedly from the medieval scholars of the Renaissance of the 12th century, who had focused on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural sciences, philosophy and mathematics, rather than on such cultural texts.
In the revival of neoplatonism Renaissance humanists did not reject Christianity;
quite the contrary, many of the greatest works of the Renaissance were
devoted to it, and the Church patronized many works of Renaissance art.
However, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals
approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural
life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were brought back from Byzantium
to Western Europe and engaged Western scholars for the first time since
late antiquity. This new engagement with Greek Christian works, and
particularly the return to the original Greek of the New Testament
promoted by humanists Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus, would help pave the way for the Protestant Reformation.
Well after the first artistic return to classicism had been exemplified in the sculpture of Nicola Pisano, Florentine painters led by Masaccio strove to portray the human form realistically, developing techniques to render perspective and light more naturally. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli,
sought to describe political life as it really was, that is to
understand it rationally. A critical contribution to Italian Renaissance
humanism, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola wrote the famous text De hominis dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of Man,
1486), which consists of a series of theses on philosophy, natural
thought, faith and magic defended against any opponent on the grounds of
reason. In addition to studying classical Latin and Greek, Renaissance
authors also began increasingly to use vernacular languages; combined with the introduction of the printing press, this would allow many more people access to books, especially the Bible.
In all, the Renaissance could be viewed as an attempt by intellectuals to study and improve the secular and worldly, both through the revival of ideas from antiquity, and through novel approaches to thought. Some scholars, such as Rodney Stark, play down the Renaissance in favour of the earlier innovations of the Italian city-states in the High Middle Ages, which married responsive government, Christianity and the birth of capitalism.
This analysis argues that, whereas the great European states (France
and Spain) were absolutist monarchies, and others were under direct
Church control, the independent city republics of Italy took over the
principles of capitalism invented on monastic estates and set off a vast
unprecedented commercial revolution that preceded and financed the
Renaissance.
Many argue that the ideas characterizing the Renaissance had their origin in late 13th-century Florence, in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and Petrarch (1304–1374), as well as the paintings of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337). Some writers date the Renaissance quite precisely; one proposed starting point is 1401, when the rival geniuses Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi competed for the contract to build the bronze doors for the Baptistery of the Florence Cathedral (Ghiberti won). Others see more general competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio
for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance.
Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, and why
it began when it did. Accordingly, several theories have been put
forward to explain its origins.
During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand. Artists
depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster
artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th
centuries by expanding trade into Asia and Europe. Silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Muslim world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa and Venice.
Jules Michelet defined the 16th-century Renaissance in France
as a period in Europe's cultural history that represented a break from
the Middle Ages, creating a modern understanding of humanity and its
place in the world.
In stark contrast to the High Middle Ages, when Latin scholars focused almost entirely on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural science, philosophy and mathematics,
Renaissance scholars were most interested in recovering and studying
Latin and Greek literary, historical, and oratorical texts. Broadly
speaking, this began in the 14th century with a Latin phase, when
Renaissance scholars such as Petrarch, Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), Niccolò de' Niccoli (1364–1437) and Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) scoured the libraries of Europe in search of works by such Latin authors as Cicero, Lucretius, Livy and Seneca.
By the early 15th century, the bulk of the surviving such Latin
literature had been recovered; the Greek phase of Renaissance humanism
was under way, as Western European scholars turned to recovering ancient
Greek literary, historical, oratorical and theological texts.Unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in
Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts
was very limited in medieval Western Europe. Ancient Greek works on
science, maths and philosophy had been studied since the High Middle Ages in Western Europe and in the Islamic Golden Age (normally in translation), but Greek literary, oratorical and historical works (such as Homer, the Greek dramatists, Demosthenes and Thucydides) were not studied in either the Latin or medieval Islamic worlds; in the Middle Ages these sorts of texts were only studied by Byzantine scholars. Some argue that the Timurid Renaissance in Samarkand and Herat, whose magnificence toned with Florence as the center of a cultural rebirth, were linked to the Ottoman Empire, whose conquests led to the migration of Greek scholars to Italian cities.
One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring
this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for
the first time since late antiquity.
Muslim logicians, most notably Avicenna and Averroes, had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Iberia and Sicily,
which became important centers for this transmission of ideas. From the
11th to the 13th century, many schools dedicated to the translation of
philosophical and scientific works from Classical Arabic to Medieval Latin were established in Iberia, most notably the Toledo School of Translators.
This work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned
and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of
ideas in history.
The movement to reintegrate the regular study of Greek literary,
historical, oratorical and theological texts back into the Western
European curriculum is usually dated to the 1396 invitation from
Coluccio Salutati to the Byzantine diplomat and scholar Manuel Chrysoloras (c. 1355–1415) to teach Greek in Florence. This legacy was continued by a number of expatriate Greek scholars, from Basilios Bessarion to Leo Allatius.
The unique political structures of late Middle AgesItaly
have led some to theorize that its unusual social climate allowed the
emergence of a rare cultural efflorescence. Italy did not exist as a political entity in the early modern period. Instead, it was divided into smaller city states and territories: the Kingdom of Naples controlled the south, the Republic of Florence and the Papal States at the center, the Milanese and the Genoese to the north and west respectively, and the Venetians to the east. Fifteenth-century Italy was one of the most urbanised areas in Europe.
Many of its cities stood among the ruins of ancient Roman buildings; it
seems likely that the classical nature of the Renaissance was linked to
its origin in the Roman Empire's heartland.
Historian and political philosopher Quentin Skinner points out that Otto of Freising
(c. 1114–1158), a German bishop visiting north Italy during the 12th
century, noticed a widespread new form of political and social
organization, observing that Italy appeared to have exited from
Feudalism so that its society was based on merchants and commerce.
Linked to this was anti-monarchical thinking, represented in the famous
early Renaissance fresco cycle The Allegory of Good and Bad Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti
(painted 1338–1340), whose strong message is about the virtues of
fairness, justice, republicanism and good administration. Holding both
Church and Empire at bay, these city republics were devoted to notions
of liberty. Skinner reports that there were many defences of liberty
such as the Matteo Palmieri
(1406–1475) celebration of Florentine genius not only in art, sculpture
and architecture, but "the remarkable efflorescence of moral, social
and political philosophy that occurred in Florence at the same time".
Even cities and states beyond central Italy, such as the Republic of Florence at this time, were also notable for their merchant Republics, especially the Republic of Venice. Although in practice these were oligarchical, and bore little resemblance to a modern democracy, they did have democratic features and were responsive states, with forms of participation in governance and belief in liberty. The relative political freedom they afforded was conducive to academic and artistic advancement. Likewise, the position of Italian cities such as Venice as great trading centres made them intellectual crossroads. Merchants brought with them ideas from far corners of the globe, particularly the Levant. Venice was Europe's gateway to trade with the East, and a producer of fine glass,
while Florence was a capital of textiles. The wealth such business
brought to Italy meant large public and private artistic projects could
be commissioned and individuals had more leisure time for study.
Black Death
Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death (c. 1562) reflects the social upheaval and terror that followed the plague that devastated medieval Europe.
One theory that has been advanced is that the devastation in Florence caused by the Black Death, which hit Europe
between 1348 and 1350, resulted in a shift in the world view of people
in 14th century Italy. Italy was particularly badly hit by the plague,
and it has been speculated that the resulting familiarity with death
caused thinkers to dwell more on their lives on Earth, rather than on spirituality and the afterlife. It has also been argued that the Black Death prompted a new wave of piety, manifested in the sponsorship of religious works of art.
However, this does not fully explain why the Renaissance occurred
specifically in Italy in the 14th century. The Black Death was a pandemic
that affected all of Europe in the ways described, not only Italy. The
Renaissance's emergence in Italy was most likely the result of the
complex interaction of the above factors.
The plague was carried by fleas on sailing vessels returning from
the ports of Asia, spreading quickly due to lack of proper sanitation:
the population of England,
then about 4.2 million, lost 1.4 million people to the bubonic plague.
Florence's population was nearly halved in the year 1347. As a result of
the decimation in the populace the value of the working class
increased, and commoners came to enjoy more freedom. To answer the
increased need for labor, workers traveled in search of the most
favorable position economically.
The demographic decline due to the plague had economic
consequences: the prices of food dropped and land values declined by
30–40% in most parts of Europe between 1350 and 1400.
Landholders faced a great loss, but for ordinary men and women it was a
windfall. The survivors of the plague found not only that the prices of
food were cheaper but also that lands were more abundant, and many of
them inherited property from their dead relatives.
The spread of disease was significantly more rampant in areas of poverty. Epidemics
ravaged cities, particularly children. Plagues were easily spread by
lice, unsanitary drinking water, armies, or by poor sanitation. Children
were hit the hardest because many diseases, such as typhus and
syphilis, target the immune system, leaving young children without a
fighting chance. Children in city dwellings were more affected by the
spread of disease than the children of the wealthy.
The Black Death caused greater upheaval to Florence's social and
political structure than later epidemics. Despite a significant number
of deaths among members of the ruling classes, the government of
Florence continued to function during this period. Formal meetings of
elected representatives were suspended during the height of the epidemic
due to the chaotic conditions in the city, but a small group of
officials was appointed to conduct the affairs of the city, which
ensured continuity of government.
It has long been a matter of debate why the Renaissance began in Florence,
and not elsewhere in Italy. Scholars have noted several features unique
to Florentine cultural life that may have caused such a cultural
movement. Many have emphasized the role played by the Medici, a banking family and later ducal ruling house, in patronizing and stimulating the arts. Lorenzo de' Medici
(1449–1492) was the catalyst for an enormous amount of arts patronage,
encouraging his countrymen to commission works from the leading artists
of Florence, including Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Michelangelo Buonarroti. Works by Neri di Bicci, Botticelli, da Vinci and Filippino Lippi had been commissioned additionally by the Convent of San Donato in Scopeto in Florence.
The Renaissance was certainly underway before Lorenzo de' Medici
came to power – indeed, before the Medici family itself achieved
hegemony in Florentine society. Some historians have postulated that
Florence was the birthplace of the Renaissance as a result of luck,
i.e., because "Great Men" were born there by chance: Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli and Michelangelo were all born in Tuscany.
Arguing that such chance seems improbable, other historians have
contended that these "Great Men" were only able to rise to prominence
because of the prevailing cultural conditions at the time.
In some ways, Renaissance humanism was not a philosophy but a method of learning. In contrast to the medieval scholastic
mode, which focused on resolving contradictions between authors,
Renaissance humanists would study ancient texts in the original and
appraise them through a combination of reasoning and empirical evidence. Humanist education was based on the programme of Studia Humanitatis, the study of five humanities: poetry, grammar, history, moral philosophy and rhetoric.
Although historians have sometimes struggled to define humanism
precisely, most have settled on "a middle of the road definition... the
movement to recover, interpret, and assimilate the language, literature,
learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome". Above all, humanists asserted "the genius of man ... the unique and extraordinary ability of the human mind".
Humanist scholars shaped the intellectual landscape throughout the early modern period. Political philosophers such as Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas More
revived the ideas of Greek and Roman thinkers and applied them in
critiques of contemporary government, following the Islamic steps of Ibn Khaldun. Pico della Mirandola wrote the "manifesto" of the Renaissance, the Oration on the Dignity of Man, a vibrant defence of thinking. Matteo Palmieri (1406–1475), another humanist, is most known for his work Della vita civile ("On Civic Life"; printed 1528), which advocated civic humanism, and for his influence in refining the Tuscan vernacular to the same level as Latin. Palmieri drew on Roman philosophers and theorists, especially Cicero, who, like Palmieri, lived an active public life as a citizen and official, as well as a theorist and philosopher and also Quintilian. Perhaps the most succinct expression of his perspective on humanism is in a 1465 poetic work La città di vita, but an earlier work, Della vita civile,
is more wide-ranging. Composed as a series of dialogues set in a
country house in the Mugello countryside outside Florence during the
plague of 1430, Palmieri expounds on the qualities of the ideal citizen.
The dialogues include ideas about how children develop mentally and
physically, how citizens can conduct themselves morally, how citizens
and states can ensure probity in public life, and an important debate on
the difference between that which is pragmatically useful and that
which is honest.
The humanists believed that it is important to transcend to the
afterlife with a perfect mind and body, which could be attained with
education. The purpose of humanism was to create a universal man whose
person combined intellectual and physical excellence and who was capable
of functioning honorably in virtually any situation. This ideology was referred to as the uomo universale,
an ancient Greco-Roman ideal. Education during the Renaissance was
mainly composed of ancient literature and history as it was thought that
the classics provided moral instruction and an intensive understanding
of human behavior.
Humanism and libraries
A unique characteristic of some Renaissance libraries is that they
were open to the public. These libraries were places where ideas were
exchanged and where scholarship and reading were considered both
pleasurable and beneficial to the mind and soul. As freethinking was a
hallmark of the age, many libraries contained a wide range of writers.
Classical texts could be found alongside humanist writings. These
informal associations of intellectuals profoundly influenced Renaissance
culture. Some of the richest "bibliophiles" built libraries as temples
to books and knowledge. A number of libraries appeared as manifestations
of immense wealth joined with a love of books. In some cases,
cultivated library builders were also committed to offering others the
opportunity to use their collections. Prominent aristocrats and princes
of the Church created great libraries for the use of their courts,
called "court libraries", and were housed in lavishly designed
monumental buildings decorated with ornate woodwork, and the walls
adorned with frescoes (Murray, Stuart A.P.)
Art
Renaissance art marks a cultural rebirth at the close of the Middle
Ages and rise of the Modern world. One of the distinguishing features of
Renaissance art was its development of highly realistic linear
perspective. Giotto di Bondone
(1267–1337) is credited with first treating a painting as a window into
space, but it was not until the demonstrations of architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and the subsequent writings of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) that perspective was formalized as an artistic technique.
The development of perspective was part of a wider trend towards realism in the arts. Painters developed other techniques, studying light, shadow, and, famously in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, human anatomy. Underlying these changes in artistic method was a renewed desire to depict the beauty of nature and to unravel the axioms of aesthetics, with the works of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael representing artistic pinnacles that were much imitated by other artists. Other notable artists include Sandro Botticelli, working for the Medici in Florence, Donatello, another Florentine, and Titian in Venice, among others.
In the Netherlands, a particularly vibrant artistic culture developed. The work of Hugo van der Goes and Jan van Eyck was particularly influential on the development of painting in Italy, both technically with the introduction of oil paint and canvas, and stylistically in terms of naturalism in representation. Later, the work of Pieter Brueghel the Elder would inspire artists to depict themes of everyday life.
In architecture, Filippo Brunelleschi was foremost in studying
the remains of ancient classical buildings. With rediscovered knowledge
from the 1st-century writer Vitruvius
and the flourishing discipline of mathematics, Brunelleschi formulated
the Renaissance style that emulated and improved on classical forms. His
major feat of engineering was building the dome of the Florence Cathedral. Another building demonstrating this style is the church of St. Andrew in Mantua, built by Alberti. The outstanding architectural work of the High Renaissance was the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, combining the skills of Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, Sangallo and Maderno.
During the Renaissance, architects aimed to use columns, pilasters, and entablatures as an integrated system. The Roman orders types of columns are used: Tuscan and Composite.
These can either be structural, supporting an arcade or architrave, or
purely decorative, set against a wall in the form of pilasters. One of
the first buildings to use pilasters as an integrated system was in the
Old Sacristy (1421–1440) by Brunelleschi. Arches, semi-circular or (in the Mannerist
style) segmental, are often used in arcades, supported on piers or
columns with capitals. There may be a section of entablature between the
capital and the springing of the arch. Alberti was one of the first to
use the arch on a monumental. Renaissance vaults do not have ribs; they
are semi-circular or segmental and on a square plan, unlike the Gothic vault, which is frequently rectangular.
Renaissance artists were not pagans, although they admired antiquity and kept some ideas and symbols of the medieval past. Nicola Pisano (c. 1220 – c. 1278) imitated classical forms by portraying scenes from the Bible. His Annunciation, from the Baptistry at Pisa, demonstrates that classical models influenced Italian art before the Renaissance took root as a literary movement.
Applied innovation extended to commerce. At the end of the 15th century Luca Pacioli published the first work on bookkeeping, making him the founder of accounting.
Science and art were intermingled in the early Renaissance, with
polymath artists such as Leonardo da Vinci making observational drawings
of anatomy and nature. Da Vinci set up controlled experiments in water
flow, medical dissection, and systematic study of movement and
aerodynamics, and he devised principles of research method that led Fritjof Capra to classify him as the "father of modern science".
Other examples of Da Vinci's contribution during this period include
machines designed to saw marbles and lift monoliths, and new discoveries
in acoustics, botany, geology, anatomy, and mechanics.
A suitable environment had developed to question classical scientific doctrine. The discovery in 1492 of the New World by Christopher Columbus challenged the classical worldview. The works of Ptolemy (in geography) and Galen (in medicine) were found to not always match everyday observations. As the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation clashed, the Northern Renaissance
showed a decisive shift in focus from Aristotelean natural philosophy
to chemistry and the biological sciences (botany, anatomy, and
medicine).
The willingness to question previously held truths and search for new
answers resulted in a period of major scientific advancements.
Another important development was in the process for discovery, the scientific method, focusing on empirical evidence and the importance of mathematics,
while discarding much of Aristotelian science. Early and influential
proponents of these ideas included Copernicus, Galileo, and Francis Bacon. The new scientific method led to great contributions in the fields of astronomy, physics, biology, and anatomy.
During the Renaissance, extending from 1450 to 1650, every continent was visited and mostly mapped by Europeans, except the south polar continent now known as Antarctica. This development is depicted in the large world map Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Tabula made by the Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu in 1648 to commemorate the Peace of Westphalia.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain seeking a direct route to India of the Delhi Sultanate. He accidentally stumbled upon the Americas, but believed he had reached the East Indies.
In 1606, the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon sailed from the East Indies in the VOC ship Duyfken and landed in Australia. He charted about 300 km of the west coast of Cape York Peninsula
in Queensland. More than thirty Dutch expeditions followed, mapping
sections of the north, west and south coasts. In 1642–1643, Abel Tasman circumnavigated the continent, proving that it was not joined to the imagined south polar continent.
By 1650, Dutch cartographers had mapped most of the coastline of the continent, which they named New Holland, except the east coast which was charted in 1770 by Captain Cook.
The long-imagined south polar continent was eventually sighted in 1820. Throughout the Renaissance it had been known as Terra Australis,
or 'Australia' for short. However, after that name was transferred to
New Holland in the nineteenth century, the new name of 'Antarctica' was
bestowed on the south polar continent.
Music
From this changing society emerged a common, unifying musical language, in particular the polyphonic style of the Franco-Flemish school. The development of printing
made distribution of music possible on a wide scale. Demand for music
as entertainment and as an activity for educated amateurs increased with
the emergence of a bourgeois class. Dissemination of chansons, motets, and masses
throughout Europe coincided with the unification of polyphonic practice
into the fluid style that culminated in the second half of the
sixteenth century in the work of composers such as Palestrina, Lassus, Victoria and William Byrd.
The new ideals of humanism, although more secular in some aspects, developed against a Christian backdrop, especially in the Northern Renaissance. Much, if not most, of the new art was commissioned by or in dedication to the Church. However, the Renaissance had a profound effect on contemporary theology, particularly in the way people perceived the relationship between man and God. Many of the period's foremost theologians were followers of the humanist method, including Erasmus, Zwingli, Thomas More, Martin Luther, and John Calvin.
The Renaissance began in times of religious turmoil. The late Middle Ages was a period of political intrigue surrounding the Papacy, culminating in the Western Schism, in which three men simultaneously claimed to be true Bishop of Rome. While the schism was resolved by the Council of Constance (1414), a resulting reform movement known as Conciliarism sought to limit the power of the pope. Although the papacy eventually emerged supreme in ecclesiastical matters by the Fifth Council of the Lateran (1511), it was dogged by continued accusations of corruption, most famously in the person of Pope Alexander VI, who was accused variously of simony, nepotism and fathering four children (most of whom were married off, presumably for the consolidation of power) while a cardinal.
Churchmen such as Erasmus and Luther proposed reform to the Church, often based on humanist textual criticism of the New Testament. In October 1517 Luther published the 95 Theses, challenging papal authority and criticizing its perceived corruption, particularly with regard to instances of sold indulgences. The 95 Theses led to the Reformation, a break with the Roman Catholic Church that previously claimed hegemony in Western Europe.
Humanism and the Renaissance therefore played a direct role in sparking
the Reformation, as well as in many other contemporaneous religious
debates and conflicts.
By the 15th century, writers, artists, and architects in Italy were
well aware of the transformations that were taking place and were using
phrases such as modi antichi (in the antique manner) or alle romana et alla antica (in the manner of the Romans and the ancients) to describe their work. In the 1330s Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua (ancient) and to the Christian period as nova (new). From Petrarch's Italian perspective, this new period (which included his own time) was an age of national eclipse.
Leonardo Bruni was the first to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People (1442).
Bruni's first two periods were based on those of Petrarch, but he added
a third period because he believed that Italy was no longer in a state
of decline. Flavio Biondo used a similar framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire (1439–1453).
Humanist historians argued that contemporary scholarship restored
direct links to the classical period, thus bypassing the Medieval
period, which they then named for the first time the "Middle Ages". The
term first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas (middle times). The term rinascita (rebirth) first appeared, however, in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, 1550, revised 1568. Vasari divides the age into three phases: the first phase contains Cimabue, Giotto, and Arnolfo di Cambio; the second phase contains Masaccio, Brunelleschi, and Donatello; the third centers on Leonardo da Vinci and culminates with Michelangelo.
It was not just the growing awareness of classical antiquity that drove
this development, according to Vasari, but also the growing desire to
study and imitate nature.
Spread
In the 15th century, the Renaissance spread rapidly from its
birthplace in Florence to the rest of Italy and soon to the rest of
Europe. The invention of the printing press by German printer Johannes Gutenberg
allowed the rapid transmission of these new ideas. As it spread, its
ideas diversified and changed, being adapted to local culture. In the
20th century, scholars began to break the Renaissance into regional and
national movements.
"What
a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in
faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how
like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!" – from William Shakespeare'sHamlet.
The word "Renaissance" is borrowed from the French language, where it
means "re-birth". It was first used in the eighteenth century and was
later popularized by French historianJules Michelet (1798–1874) in his 1855 work, Histoire de France (History of France).
In 1533, a fourteen-year-old Caterina de' Medici (1519–1589), born in Florence to Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino and Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, married Henry II of France,
second son of King Francis I and Queen Claude. Though she became famous
and infamous for her role in France's religious wars, she made a direct
contribution in bringing arts, sciences and music (including the
origins of ballet) to the French court from her native Florence.
In the second half of the 15th century, the Renaissance spirit spread to Germany and the Low Countries, where the development of the printing press (ca. 1450) and Renaissance artists such as Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) predated the influence from Italy. In the early Protestant areas of the country humanism became closely linked to the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, and the art and writing of the German Renaissance frequently reflected this dispute. However, the Gothic style and medieval scholastic philosophy remained exclusively until the turn of the 16th century. Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg (ruling 1493–1519) was the first truly Renaissance monarch of the Holy Roman Empire.
Hungary
After Italy, Hungary was the first European country where the Renaissance appeared. The Renaissance style came directly from Italy during the Quattrocento
to Hungary first in the Central European region, thanks to the
development of early Hungarian-Italian relationships—not only in
dynastic connections, but also in cultural, humanistic and commercial
relations—growing in strength from the 14th century. The relationship
between Hungarian and Italian Gothic styles was a second
reason—exaggerated breakthrough of walls is avoided, preferring clean
and light structures. Large-scale building schemes provided ample and
long term work for the artists, for example, the building of the Friss
(New) Castle in Buda, the castles of Visegrád, Tata and Várpalota. In
Sigismund's court there were patrons such as Pipo Spano, a descendant of
the Scolari family of Florence, who invited Manetto Ammanatini and
Masolino da Pannicale to Hungary.
The new Italian trend combined with existing national traditions
to create a particular local Renaissance art. Acceptance of Renaissance
art was furthered by the continuous arrival of humanist thought in the
country. Many young Hungarians studying at Italian universities came
closer to the Florentine
humanist center, so a direct connection with Florence evolved. The
growing number of Italian traders moving to Hungary, specially to Buda, helped this process. New thoughts were carried by the humanist prelates, among them Vitéz János, archbishop of Esztergom, one of the founders of Hungarian humanism. During the long reign of emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg the Royal Castle of Buda became probably the largest Gothic palace of the late Middle Ages. King Matthias Corvinus (r. 1458–1490) rebuilt the palace in early Renaissance style and further expanded it.
After the marriage in 1476 of King Matthias to Beatrice of Naples, Buda became one of the most important artistic centres of the Renaissance north of the Alps. The most important humanists living in Matthias' court were Antonio Bonfini and the famous Hungarian poet Janus Pannonius. András Hess set up a printing press in Buda in 1472. Matthias Corvinus's library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana,
was Europe's greatest collections of secular books: historical
chronicles, philosophic and scientific works in the 15th century. His
library was second only in size to the Vatican Library. (However, the Vatican Library mainly contained Bibles and religious materials.)
In 1489, Bartolomeo della Fonte of Florence wrote that Lorenzo de'
Medici founded his own Greek-Latin library encouraged by the example of
the Hungarian king. Corvinus's library is part of UNESCO World Heritage.
Matthias started at least two major building projects. The works in Buda and Visegrád began in about 1479. Two new wings and a hanging garden were built at the royal castle of Buda, and the palace at Visegrád was rebuilt in Renaissance style. Matthias appointed the Italian Chimenti Camicia and the Dalmatian Giovanni Dalmata to direct these projects. Matthias commissioned the leading Italian artists of his age to embellish his palaces: for instance, the sculptor Benedetto da Majano and the painters Filippino Lippi and Andrea Mantegna worked for him. A copy of Mantegna's portrait of Matthias survived. Matthias also hired the Italian military engineer Aristotele Fioravanti to direct the rebuilding of the forts along the southern frontier. He had new monasteries built in Late Gothic style for the Franciscans in Kolozsvár, Szeged and Hunyad, and for the Paulines in Fejéregyháza. In the spring of 1485, Leonardo da Vinci travelled to Hungary on behalf of Sforza to meet king Matthias Corvinus, and was commissioned by him to paint a Madonna.
Matthias enjoyed the company of Humanists and had lively discussions on various topics with them. The fame of his magnanimity encouraged many scholars—mostly Italian—to settle in Buda. Antonio Bonfini, Pietro Ranzano, Bartolomeo Fonzio, and Francesco Bandini spent many years in Matthias's court. This circle of educated men introduced the ideas of Neoplatonism to Hungary.
Like all intellectuals of his age, Matthias was convinced that the
movements and combinations of the stars and planets exercised influence
on individuals' life and on the history of nations.
Galeotto Marzio described him as "king and astrologer", and Antonio
Bonfini said Matthias "never did anything without consulting the stars". Upon his request, the famous astronomers of the age, Johannes Regiomontanus and Marcin Bylica, set up an observatory in Buda and installed it with astrolabes and celestial globes. Regiomontanus dedicated his book on navigation that was used by Christopher Columbus to Matthias.
The Renaissance in Northern Europe has been termed the "Northern
Renaissance". While Renaissance ideas were moving north from Italy,
there was a simultaneous southward spread of some areas of innovation,
particularly in music. The music of the 15th-century Burgundian School defined the beginning of the Renaissance in music, and the polyphony of the Netherlanders, as it moved with the musicians themselves into Italy, formed the core of the first true international style in music since the standardization of Gregorian Chant in the 9th century. The culmination of the Netherlandish school was in the music of the Italian composerPalestrina.
At the end of the 16th century Italy again became a center of musical
innovation, with the development of the polychoral style of the Venetian School, which spread northward into Germany around 1600.
The paintings of the Italian Renaissance differed from those of
the Northern Renaissance. Italian Renaissance artists were among the
first to paint secular scenes, breaking away from the purely religious
art of medieval painters. Northern Renaissance artists initially
remained focused on religious subjects, such as the contemporary
religious upheaval portrayed by Albrecht Dürer. Later, the works of Pieter Bruegel
influenced artists to paint scenes of daily life rather than religious
or classical themes. It was also during the Northern Renaissance that Flemish brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck perfected the oil painting technique, which enabled artists to produce strong colors on a hard surface that could survive for centuries.
A feature of the Northern Renaissance was its use of the vernacular in
place of Latin or Greek, which allowed greater freedom of expression.
This movement had started in Italy with the decisive influence of Dante Alighieri
on the development of vernacular languages; in fact the focus on
writing in Italian has neglected a major source of Florentine ideas
expressed in Latin.
The spread of the printing press technology boosted the Renaissance in
Northern Europe as elsewhere, with Venice becoming a world center of
printing.
An early Italian humanist who came to Poland in the mid-15th century was Filippo Buonaccorsi. Many Italian artists came to Poland with Bona Sforza of Milan, when she married King Sigismund I the Old in 1518. This was supported by temporarily strengthened monarchies in both areas, as well as by newly established universities. The Polish Renaissance lasted from the late 15th to the late 16th century and was the Golden Age of Polish culture. Ruled by the Jagiellon dynasty, the Kingdom of Poland (from 1569 known as the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth)
actively participated in the broad European Renaissance. The
multi-national Polish state experienced a substantial period of cultural
growth thanks in part to a century without major wars – aside from
conflicts in the sparsely populated eastern and southern borderlands.
The Reformation spread peacefully throughout the country (giving rise to the Polish Brethren),
while living conditions improved, cities grew, and exports of
agricultural products enriched the population, especially the nobility (szlachta) who gained dominance in the new political system of Golden Liberty. The Polish Renaissance architecture has three periods of development.
Although Italian Renaissance had a modest impact in Portuguese arts,
Portugal was influential in broadening the European worldview,
stimulating humanist inquiry. Renaissance arrived through the influence
of wealthy Italian and Flemish merchants who invested in the profitable
commerce overseas. As the pioneer headquarters of European exploration, Lisbon
flourished in the late 15th century, attracting experts who made
several breakthroughs in mathematics, astronomy and naval technology,
including Pedro Nunes, João de Castro, Abraham Zacuto and Martin Behaim. Cartographers Pedro Reinel, Lopo Homem, Estêvão Gomes and Diogo Ribeiro made crucial advances in mapping the world. Apothecary Tomé Pires and physicians Garcia de Orta and Cristóvão da Costa collected and published works on plants and medicines, soon translated by Flemish pioneer botanist Carolus Clusius.
São Pedro Papa, 1530–1535, by Grão Vasco Fernandes. A pinnacle piece from when the Portuguese Renaissance had considerable external influence.
The intense international exchange produced several cosmopolitan humanist scholars, including Francisco de Holanda, André de Resende and Damião de Góis, a friend of Erasmus who wrote with rare independence on the reign of King Manuel I. Diogo and André de Gouveia made relevant teaching reforms via France. Foreign news and products in the Portuguese factory in Antwerp attracted the interest of Thomas More and Albrecht Dürer to the wider world. There, profits and know-how helped nurture the Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age, especially after the arrival of the wealthy cultured Jewish community expelled from Portugal.
Renaissance trends from Italy and Central Europe influenced Russia in
many ways. Their influence was rather limited, however, due to the
large distances between Russia and the main European cultural centers
and the strong adherence of Russians to their Orthodox traditions and Byzantine legacy.
Prince Ivan III introduced Renaissance architecture to Russia by inviting a number of architects from Italy,
who brought new construction techniques and some Renaissance style
elements with them, while in general following the traditional designs
of Russian architecture. In 1475 the Bolognese architect Aristotele Fioravanti came to rebuild the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Moscow Kremlin, which had been damaged in an earthquake. Fioravanti was given the 12th-century Vladimir Cathedral
as a model, and he produced a design combining traditional Russian
style with a Renaissance sense of spaciousness, proportion and symmetry.
In 1485 Ivan III commissioned the building of the royal residence, Terem Palace, within the Kremlin, with Aloisio da Milano as the architect of the first three floors. He and other Italian architects also contributed to the construction of the Kremlin walls and towers. The small banquet hall of the Russian Tsars, called the Palace of Facets because of its facetted upper story, is the work of two Italians, Marco Ruffo and Pietro Solario, and shows a more Italian style. In 1505, an Italian known in Russia as Aleviz Novyi
or Aleviz Fryazin arrived in Moscow. He may have been the Venetian
sculptor, Alevisio Lamberti da Montagne. He built twelve churches for
Ivan III, including the Cathedral of the Archangel,
a building remarkable for the successful blending of Russian tradition,
Orthodox requirements and Renaissance style. It is believed that the
Cathedral of the Metropolitan Peter in Vysokopetrovsky Monastery, another work of Aleviz Novyi, later served as an inspiration for the so-called octagon-on-tetragon architectural form in the Moscow Baroque of the late 17th century.
Between the early 16th and the late 17th centuries, an original tradition of stone tented roof
architecture developed in Russia. It was quite unique and different
from the contemporary Renaissance architecture elsewhere in Europe,
though some research terms the style 'Russian Gothic' and compares it
with the European Gothic architecture
of the earlier period. The Italians, with their advanced technology,
may have influenced the invention of the stone tented roof (the wooden
tents were known in Russia and Europe long before). According to one
hypothesis, an Italian architect called Petrok Maly may have been an author of the Ascension Church in Kolomenskoye, one of the earliest and most prominent tented roof churches.
By the 17th century the influence of Renaissance painting resulted in Russian icons becoming slightly more realistic, while still following most of the old icon painting canons, as seen in the works of Bogdan Saltanov, Simon Ushakov, Gury Nikitin, Karp Zolotaryov and other Russian artists of the era. Gradually the new type of secular portrait painting appeared, called parsúna (from "persona" – person), which was transitional style between abstract iconographics and real paintings.
In the mid 16th-century Russians adopted printing from Central Europe, with Ivan Fyodorov being the first known Russian printer. In the 17th century printing became widespread, and woodcuts became especially popular. That led to the development of a special form of folk art known as lubok printing, which persisted in Russia well into the 19th century.
A number of technologies from the European Renaissance period
were adopted by Russia rather early and subsequently perfected to become
a part of a strong domestic tradition. Mostly these were military
technologies, such as cannoncasting adopted by at least the 15th century. The Tsar Cannon, which is the world's largest bombard by caliber, is a masterpiece of Russian cannon making. It was cast in 1586 by Andrey Chokhov and is notable for its rich, decorative relief. Another technology, that according to one hypothesis originally was brought from Europe by the Italians, resulted in the development of vodka, the national beverage of Russia. As early as 1386 Genoese ambassadors brought the first aqua vitae ("water of life") to Moscow and presented it to Grand DukeDmitry Donskoy. The Genoese likely developed this beverage with the help of the alchemists of Provence, who used an Arab-invented distillation apparatus to convert grapemust into alcohol. A Moscovite monk called Isidore used this technology to produce the first original Russian vodka c. 1430.
The Italian artist and critic Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) first used the term rinascita in his book The Lives of the Artists (published 1550). In the book Vasari attempted to define what he described as a break with the barbarities of Gothic art: the arts (he held) had fallen into decay with the collapse of the Roman Empire and only the Tuscan artists, beginning with Cimabue (1240–1301) and Giotto (1267–1337) began to reverse this decline in the arts. Vasari saw ancient art as central to the rebirth of Italian art.
However, only in the 19th century did the French word renaissance
achieve popularity in describing the self-conscious cultural movement
based on revival of Roman models that began in the late 13th century.
French historianJules Michelet (1798–1874) defined "The Renaissance" in his 1855 work Histoire de France as an entire historical period, whereas previously it had been used in a more limited sense.
For Michelet, the Renaissance was more a development in science than in
art and culture. He asserted that it spanned the period from Columbus to Copernicus to Galileo; that is, from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 17th century. Moreover, Michelet distinguished between what he called, "the bizarre and monstrous" quality of the Middle Ages and the democratic values that he, as a vocal Republican, chose to see in its character. A French nationalist, Michelet also sought to claim the Renaissance as a French movement.
The Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) in his The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), by contrast, defined the Renaissance as the period between Giotto and Michelangelo in Italy, that is, the 14th to mid-16th centuries. He saw in the Renaissance the emergence of the modern spirit of individuality, which the Middle Ages had stifled. His book was widely read and became influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the Italian Renaissance. However, Buckhardt has been accused of setting forth a linear Whiggish view of history in seeing the Renaissance as the origin of the modern world.
More recently, some historians have been much less keen to define
the Renaissance as a historical age, or even as a coherent cultural
movement. The historian Randolph Starn, of the University of California Berkeley, stated in 1998:
Rather than a period with
definitive beginnings and endings and consistent content in between, the
Renaissance can be (and occasionally has been) seen as a movement of
practices and ideas to which specific groups and identifiable persons
variously responded in different times and places. It would be in this
sense a network of diverse, sometimes converging, sometimes conflicting
cultures, not a single, time-bound culture.
Debates about progress
There is debate about the extent to which the Renaissance improved on
the culture of the Middle Ages. Both Michelet and Burckhardt were keen
to describe the progress made in the Renaissance towards the modern age. Burckhardt likened the change to a veil being removed from man's eyes, allowing him to see clearly.
In the Middle Ages both sides of
human consciousness – that which was turned within as that which was
turned without – lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The
veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through
which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues.
— Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
On the other hand, many historians now point out that most of the
negative social factors popularly associated with the medieval
period—poverty, warfare, religious and political persecution, for
example—seem to have worsened in this era, which saw the rise of Machiavellian politics, the Wars of Religion, the corrupt Borgia Popes, and the intensified witch hunts of the 16th century. Many people who lived during the Renaissance did not view it as the "golden age" imagined by certain 19th-century authors, but were concerned by these social maladies.
Significantly, though, the artists, writers, and patrons involved in
the cultural movements in question believed they were living in a new
era that was a clean break from the Middle Ages. Some Marxist historians
prefer to describe the Renaissance in material terms, holding the view
that the changes in art, literature, and philosophy were part of a
general economic trend from feudalism towards capitalism, resulting in a bourgeois class with leisure time to devote to the arts.
Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) acknowledged the existence of the Renaissance but questioned whether it was a positive change. In his book The Autumn of the Middle Ages, he argued that the Renaissance was a period of decline from the High Middle Ages, destroying much that was important. The Latin language,
for instance, had evolved greatly from the classical period and was
still a living language used in the church and elsewhere. The
Renaissance obsession with classical purity halted its further evolution
and saw Latin revert to its classical form. Robert S. Lopez has
contended that it was a period of deep economic recession. Meanwhile, George Sarton and Lynn Thorndike have both argued that scientific progress was perhaps less original than has traditionally been supposed. Finally, Joan Kelly argued that the Renaissance led to greater gender dichotomy, lessening the agency women had had during the Middle Ages.
Some historians have begun to consider the word Renaissance to be unnecessarily loaded, implying an unambiguously positive rebirth from the supposedly more primitive "Dark Ages", the Middle Ages. Most historians now prefer to use the term "early modern"
for this period, a more neutral designation that highlights the period
as a transitional one between the Middle Ages and the modern era.
Others such as Roger Osborne have come to consider the Italian
Renaissance as a repository of the myths and ideals of western history
in general, and instead of rebirth of ancient ideas as a period of great
innovation.
It is perhaps no accident that the factuality of the Italian Renaissance
has been most vigorously questioned by those who are not obliged to
take a professional interest in the aesthetic aspects of civilization –
historians of economic and social developments, political and religious
situations, and, most particularly, natural science – but only
exceptionally by students of literature and hardly ever by historians of
Art.
Other periods of cultural rebirth have also been termed "renaissances", such as the Bengal Renaissance, Tamil Renaissance, Nepal Bhasa renaissance, al-Nahda or the Harlem Renaissance.
The term can also be used in cinema. In animation, the Disney
Renaissance is a period that spanned the years from 1989 to 1999 which
saw the studio return to the level of quality not witnessed since their
Golden Age or Animation. The San Francisco Renaissance was a vibrant period of exploratory poetry and fiction writing in that city in the mid-20th century.
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