This document discusses key figures of the Renaissance period and what it meant to be a Renaissance person. It provides brief biographies of prominent Renaissance figures including Francesco Petrarch, Filippo Brunelleschi, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo, noting their contributions and influences. These individuals reflected the shift from medieval Gothic styles to a new emphasis on classical Greco-Roman ideals, realism, humanism, and a focus on subjects like architecture, art, science, and literature.

1. Renaissance Men/
Women
What it takes to be a maestro

2. Objectives
❖ Students will discuss aspects of Renaissance figures and
identify what it means to be a Renaissance Person
❖ Students will analyze the changes in European thought and
culture resulting from the Renaissance.

3. Vocabulary
❖ Francesco Petarch
❖ Filippo Brunelleschi
❖ Leonardo da Vinci
❖ Michelangelo Buonarroti
❖ Niccolo Machiavelli

4. Francesco Petarch (1304-1374)
❖ Considered the earliest humanist
❖ Poet & scholar
❖ Assembled library of Greek & Roman writings
❖ Revived interest and admiration for great Roman and Greek
writers - Cicero, Homer, Virgil, etc.

5. Greek & Roman Influence
❖ Renaissance artists still continued to portray religious
scenes
❖ Used Greek or Roman backgrounds to set them
❖ Focus was on realism and perspective
❖ Mixture of Greek and Roman influence with
contemporary imagery

6. Change from
Gothic Architecture
❖ Renaissance architecture into a ‘social art’.
❖ From height and arches to a reflection of classical style of
columns, arches and domes
❖ Cathedrals and other important buildings reflected this
ideal

7. Filippo Brunelleschi
(1377-1446)
❖ Renaissance architect
❖ Most famous for designing the Florence
cathedral
❖ Also created bronze artwork,
mathematician, engineering, and ship
design
❖ Challenged classical approach to
architecture
❖ Began to use linear perspective

9. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
❖ Driving force: curiosity; Wanted to
understand how the world around him
worked
❖ By observing world around him and
sketching things as he saw them, his art
reflected a more striking realism.
❖ Art was only one of his passions: anatomy,
botany, optics, architecture and
engineering.

10. Video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6kVqMb8pk

11. Michelangelo Buonarroti
(1475-1564)
❖ Sculptor, engineer, painter, architect and
poet
❖ Focus of his art was to capture humanist
perspective on biblical themes
❖ Sculpture of “David” emphasizes
harmony and grace from Greek
tradition
❖ Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel - took 4
years for the ceiling and 6 years for the
wall

15. Literature and Writing
❖ Number of writers emphasized
humanities ideals
❖ Baldassare Castiglione developed a
guidebook for what a good man and
woman should be like
❖ Niccolo Machiavelli would write on
how best to gain control and power by
those in power
❖ ‘Ends justify the means.’

16. Video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s25kX24j250