Renaissance and Reformation

1. Renaissance and Reformation Europe from 14th Century to 17th Century

2. The 1450’s. The pace of change quickens • May 1453. The Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople. • July 1453. The Battle of Castillon. The last battle of the Hundred Years War. • April 1454. The Peace of Lodi. Peace breaks out in Florence, Milan and Naples. • 1454. Johann Gutenberg’s printing press opens for commercial work. • 1455. In ‘Romanuspontifex’ Pope Nicholas V allows the enslavement of Black Africans. • 1456. Advise Cadamosto discovers Cape Verde Islands.

3. Europe teems with new ideas • These events were unrelated but pivotal. • One followed another with dizzying rapidity. • Travel became easier. • Disseminating information was easier. • Developments in Art, Architecture, Economics, Science spread across national boundaries. • Europe was at peace and interest in new ideas spread rapidly.

4. The fall of Constantinople 1453 • Not a shock but a psychological blow. • The siege lasted only eight weeks. • The Turks quickly rebuilt the city as Istanbul. • Europe lost its greatest foothold in the East. • The upside was that many of the Greeks who fled brought out a treasure trove of learning. • The new love of Classical Greek was turned into a grand intellectual movement.

5. England at peace with France • Two distinct nations disentangled for the first time since 1066. • The English turned in on themselves. The War of the Roses kept them away from the continent for a generation. • The French found a new self-confidence and began to extend their influence by arms and by marriage.

6. The Peace of Lodi 1454 • ‘Italy’ was divided and quarrelsome. • The rulers of Florence, Milan and Naples feared the implications of the new national self-confidence of the French and the Turks. • The treaty recognised existing boundaries and the current balance of power. • It set up the ’Italic League’ to resist predators. • Relative peace and prosperity ensued for half a century, allowing creativity to flourish and be exported.

7. Johann Gutenberg and the first great information revolution • A goldsmith from Mainz who had developed the concept of printing with movable type. • His lasting fame was his finely crafted Bible of 1455. • However, it was the more mundane printing of indulgence certificates in 1454 that revealed the possibilities of this new tool of mass communication. • Printing costs fell, new ideas spread more quickly and literacy rates grew and languages began to be standardised.

8. Romanuspontifex • In his papal bull of 1455 Nicholas V removed any lingering qualms that impeded the expansion of European influence in the world. • He gave a green light to the slave trade. • In 1456 Cadamosto chanced upon the Cape Verde Islands. This would prove a key stepping stone in Europe’s discovery of the New World.

9. William Caxton • A London textile merchant who moved his business to Bruges in 1453. • He translated hand-written books as a hobby and his work was very popular with friends. • He became fascinated with the new printing press and set up a printing shop in Cologne. • In 1473 he produced copies of the Historyes of Troye, translated by himself. Demand soared. • It was the first book ever published in English.

10. Lorenzo de’ Medici 1449-1492 • Groomed from birth to rule Florence. • Skilled in politics and diplomacy and a patron of the arts. • Escaped an attempt on his life by a rival family and tightened his control as autocratic ruler of Florence and the balance of power in Italy. • Full-time patron of learning and the arts. • He bankrolled the new Florentine Golden Age and was known as ‘Il Magnifico’.

11. Next time • Botticelli, Raphael and Bellini. • Machiavelli. • Colombus. • Luther and the religious ‘earthquake’... The start of the Reformation.