God's Philosophers by Hannam James

Author:Hannam, James [Hannam, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: History/Science
Publisher: Icon Books
Published: 2011-05-12T03:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Humanism and the Reformation

By the time Constantinople fell in 1453, the Pope was back in Rome after his sojourn in Avignon and better still, there was only one of him. However, the popes of the late fifteenth century were among the worst in history. They battled for secular power in Italy while using the wealth of the Church to fund lavish parties and building projects. The Vatican was a den of vice and corruption. On the plus side, the profligacy of the papacy and the rest of the Italian nobility provided the funds necessary to produce the artistic jewels of quattrocento Italy as each city tried to outdo the others in flamboyance. The best painters, sculptors and architects were held in high esteem and the need to produce more and more remarkable art drove innovation. Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) designed the spectacular dome that tops Florence’s cathedral and was the first to codify the technique of perspective.1 Painting was further improved when vegetable oil became the medium of choice for artists. Oil paints allowed for a greater depth of colour than the earlier egg-based pigments. All these innovations resulted in art so dazzling that later generations dubbed the entire period the Renaissance.

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