HIST 308 09 Rome in the Renaissance–old

---

  Rome as a Renaissance center

• financial support, large networks for humanists
• need for rebuilding after schism
• interest in religious scholarship
• reassertion of central authority after Schism,

Conciliar Movement

Our time period: from Nicholas V to “Sack of Rome”(1527)

 Rome, its Campagna, the Papal States

 

Campagna: lords from leading Roman, regional families

farming vs herding

relative underdevelopment

City within Aurelian Walls

Schedel – De Temporis Mundi. Nuremberg 1493. View of Rome

Views of Rome from Vatican Library collections

More Maps of Rome

disabitato

Clusters of buildings:

basilicas of Santa Maria Maggiore, St. John Lateran

Forum: Campo Vaccino; Tarpeian Rock: Monte Caprino

Trastevere:  S. Maria in Trastevere

 

low infrastructure

Renaissance popes: modernizing city

administrative center for Church

respectable place for pilgrims

Old families

civic political structure moribund; replaced by papal bureaucracy

Papal States

taxation and revolts

solutions:  nepotism

Ex: Alexander VI (b. Rodrigo Borgia ca. 1431; pope 1492-1503)

son Cesare: Cardinal; Duke of Romagna 1502. d. 1507

daughter Lucrezia

Papal elections: Italian focus

Popes as regional Italian Leaders (Lodi and after)

cultural patronage

 

Roman Renaissance

Collecting Ex: Nicholas V (1447-55)

expansion of Vatican library

Rome Reborn: Vatican Library exhibit at Library of Congress

Arenas for hiring, cultural patronage

Church as institution: humanists as notaries, secretaries, bureaucrats.

“Papal States” infrastructure

Private households of pope, other clerics, old Roman families

villa building

“learned leisure:” otium

Villa Farnesina (1508-11), Peruzzi

university

arts; theology

Academies

Features of Roman humanist life

Latin

Ciceronian oratory

Latin poetry—our example: Brandolini

Life, work inter-relate

building and rebuilding

collecting antiquities; inscriptions; ancient architecture

statues

Augustan Age

Some examples at the papal level

Re-asserting traditional, central role of papacy in Europe

Crusade

moral, political arbitrator

interest in Portuguese, Spanish explorations.

ex: Treaty of Tordesillas 1494

expanded bureaucracy for better functioning

tension between Church bureaucratic functions, spiritual mission

Revivals and embellishing or traditional religious observance

“Roman stations”

Possesso

New papal residence: the Vatican

Heemskerck drawing: Old St. Peter’s and Vatican Palaces

 

Piazza S. Pietro ca. 1588

Theology

•      patristic revival
•      rhetorical approach to studying the Bible
•      humanist methods meet scholasticic theology
•      Thomas Aquinas; natural law; church hierarchy; sacraments

Imagery: Peter; Moses

Ex: Acqua Felice, 1580s

 

Pasquino and pasquinate 1501

 

Popes

• Martin V (Oddone Colonna)                        1417-31
• Eugenius IV (Gabriele Condulmer)            1431-47
• Nicholas V (Tommaso Parentucelli)           1447-55
• Callixtus III (Alfonso Borgia)                      1455-58
• Pius II (Enea Silvio Piccolomini)        1448-64
• Paul II (Pietro Barbo)                           1464-71
• Sixtus IV (Francesco dello Rovere)             1471-84
• Innocent VIII (Giovanni Battista Cibo)              1484-92
• Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia)                   1494-1503
• Pius III (Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini) Sept-Oct 1503
• Julius II  (Giuliano dello Rovere)               1503-13
• Leo X (Giovanni de’ Medici)                        1513-22
• Hadrian VI (Adrian Florensz)                      1522-23
• Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici)          1523-34