Notes

Have you ever come across an old school exercise book, or something else you once wrote and, on
leafing through it, been amazed at how much you have changed in such a short time? Amazed by
your mistakes, but also by the good things you had written? Yet at the time you hadn’t noticed that
you were changing. Well, the history of the world is just the same.
How nice it would be if, suddenly, heralds were to ride through the streets crying: ‘Attention
please! A new age is beginning!’ But things aren’t like that: people change their opinions without
even noticing. And then all of a sudden they become aware of it, as you do when you look at your
old school books. Then they announce with pride: ‘We are the new age.’ And they often add:
‘People used to be so stupid!’
Something of the sort happened after 1400 in the cities of Italy. Especially in the large and
prosperous cities of central Italy, and in Florence in particular. They had guilds there too and had
built a great cathedral. But Florence had none of the noble knights that were to be found in France
and Germany. For a long time Florentine burghers had ignored the commands of their German
emperors, and by now they were as free and independent as the citizens of ancient Athens. And as
the years went by these free and prosperous burghers, shopkeepers and craftsmen had come to
care about entirely different things from those that had mattered to the knights and craftsmen of
the Middle Ages.
To be a warrior or a craftsman and dedicate one’s life to the service and glory of God was no
longer every man’s aim. What mattered was to be someone in your own right, to have a head on
your shoulders and know how to use it. To think and judge for yourself. To act on your own
authority, without the need to consult others. And, rather than resorting to old books to find out
how things were done in the past, to use your own eyes and act accordingly. That’s what it really
came down to: using your eyes and acting accordingly. Independence, ability, intellect, knowledge

Social Studies Year 8

Learning objective: to identify the main characteristics of the Renaissance.

Estimated time to complete this: two periods.

Contents: The transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Instructions: Read the text and answer the questions.

and skill were what counted. People no longer asked first about your rank, your profession, your
religion or what country you came from. They said: tell us what you can do.
And suddenly, in about 1420, the Florentines noticed that they were no longer the people they had
been in the Middle Ages. They had different concerns. They found different things beautiful. To
them the old cathedrals and paintings seemed gloomy and rigid, the old traditions irksome. And, in
their search for something more to their liking, something free, independent and unconstrained,
they discovered antiquity. And I mean literally discovered. It mattered little to them that the
people of those times had been heathens. What astonished them was what those people could do.
How they had freely and openly debated and discussed, with arguments and counter-arguments,
everything in nature and the world. How everything interested them. These people were to serve
as their models.
A great search for books written in Latin began, and people strove to write Latin that was as clear
and as precise as that of the ancient Romans. They also learnt Greek and so discovered the
wonderful works of the Athenians of the time of Pericles. Soon people were more interested in
Themistocles and Alexander, in Caesar and in Augustus than in Charlemagne or Barbarossa. It was
as if the entire period since antiquity had been nothing but a dream, as if the free city of Florence
were about to become an Athens or a Rome. People suddenly felt they were witnessing a rebirth of
the ancient, long-gone era of Greek and Roman culture. They themselves felt born again through
the discovery of these ancient works. And this is why this period in history came to be known in
Italy as the Rinascimento, or as we know it from the French, the Renaissance – the re-birth.
Everything that had happened in between they blamed on the barbarian Germanic tribes who had
destroyed the empire. The Florentines were determined to do all they could to revive the spirit of
antiquity.
They were enthusiasts for everything Roman, for the superb statues and the magnificent and
imposing buildings whose ruins lay all over Italy. Previously dismissed as ‘heathen ruins’, these had
been shunned and feared. Now people suddenly rediscovered their beauty. And the Florentines
once more began to build with columns.
But people didn’t just seek out old things. They looked at nature again, this time with the fresh
and unprejudiced eyes of the Athenians, two thousand years before them. And when they did so
they discovered a new beauty in the world, in the sky and trees, in human beings, flowers and
animals. They painted these things as they saw them. The solemn grandeur and spirituality of the
illustrations to sacred texts in monks’ books and cathedral windows now gave way to a style that
was natural and spontaneous, full of colour and vitality, yet accurate and true to life as they
intended. Using your eyes and acting accordingly also made for the best art. Which might explain
why the greatest painters and sculptors were to be found in Florence at this time.