Humanism

Increased contact between east and west

• Merchants brought goods and ideas from the East that helped to reawaken interest in classical culture.
• In the 13th century, the Mongol conquests in Asia made it safer for traders to travel along the Silk Road to China.
• Cities, such as Venice and Genoa in Italy, were centrally located on the trade routes that linked the rest of western Europe with the East.
• They became bustling, prosperous trading centers that attracted merchants and customers, as did cities in northern Europe, such as Bruges and Brussels.
• Trade ships carried goods to England, Scandinavia, and present-day Russia by way of the English Channel and the Baltic and North seas.
• Towns along the routes connecting southern and northern Europe, such as Cologne and Mainz in Germany, provided inns and other services for traveling merchants.

• By the Renaissance, people were using coins to buy merchandise, creating a money economy.
• Coins came from many places, so money changers were needed to convert one type of currency [currency: the form of money used in a country] into another.
• Becuase of this craftspeople, merchants, and bankers became more important in society.
• Craftspeople produced goods that merchants traded across Europe. Bankers exchanged currency, loaned money to merchants and rulers, and financed their own businesses.
• Some merchants and bankers grew very rich.
• With their abundant wealth, they could afford to make their cities more beautiful.
• Wealthy patrons commissioned (ordered and paid for) new buildings and art.
• They also helped to found universities. Prosperous Renaissance cities grew into flourishing educational and cultural centers

A New Economy

Watch the video to learn more about the silk road!

The Silk Road

Click on the link to learn more about the influence of italian city-states

Influences

http://clic.cengage.com/uploads/08be3f8a67967085d79629d0301cd8bb_w_8374.pdf

https://www.ducksters.com/history/renaissance/italian_city-states.php

Italian City-States

• From roughly the 13th to 16th centuries, several Italian cities became wealthy and powerful enough to establish their own, independent governments, which we call city-states.
• Some of the first major city-states were port cities that acted as trade centers, like the republics of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice.
• Their wealth came from international trade routes we call the silk roads, connecting European and Asian markets thanks to the massive Mongol Empire that opened up Eurasian trade.
• Life for these city-states was a balance of competition with other merchants as well as cooperation with cities that controlled important trade routes, including many of the Byzantine Empire and those under Muslim control.

People's Abilities

People's Abilities

• Thanks to the plague and the rise of trade, the power of the Church and feudalism shrank and the importance of the individual grew.
• Man and human nature were no longer seen as totally sinful and in need of punishment but instead as independent, beautiful, and individual creations of God.
• This seen in the writings of Petrarch, the Father of Humanism, in which he states, 'Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure!'
• 'You're an individual - you're an independent - you're free!'

Study and Exploration

Study and Exploration

• Humanism developed in response to education at the time, which emphasized practical, scientific studies engaged for job preparation, and typically by only men.
• Humanists reacted against this approach, seeking to create a citizenry who were able to speak and write with eloquence and thus able to engage the civic life of their communities.
• This was to be accomplished through the study of the “studia humanitatis,” known today as the humanities: grammar, rhetoric, ancient art, history, poetry, architecture, government and moral philosophy.
• Humanism introduced a program to revive the cultural—and particularly the literary—legacy and moral philosophy of classical antiquity.

Renaissance LIfe

• Use the link to find out how humanism effected Renaissance life.

• Only Take notes on philosophy, great minds, and changes!

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Humanism-Effect-on-the-Renaissance

Renaissance Life

Check out the Video below to learn more about humanism

Growth of Humanism