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Question: Anybody know much about the renaissance period!?
i have to write a 7-day journal from the point of view of a noble lady for history!. i hate projects!!!! well, i just need some backround info so that i can start writing!. thanks! :DWww@QuestionHome@Com


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The Renaissance began in Italy, specifically in Florence!. There was a period of relative calm after the Medici were thrown out!. The Medici were a banking family who controlled Florence with an iron fist!. These artists derrived their inspiration from classical art!. Michelangelo's David is the first colossal nude statue since antiquity (ancient Greece and Rome)!. They started paying more attention to anatomy and detail and making people look realistic and alive as opposed to the 2-dimensional figures of the Middle Ages, which have poses which are not dynamic!. They started building churches in plans that followed the temples of ancient Rome (like a plus-sign or Greek cross as opposed to a t, or Latin cross)!. Symmetry became important!. For the first time, female portraits were allowed to address the viewer, as opposed to the old wedding portraits, in which the woman was always a profile!.

The Florentine ideas spread to other cities in Italy, such as Rome under Popes Julius II and Clement VII, both of the Medici family, which eventually retook Florence!. Rome was sacked in 1527, and the artists who didn't die fled to the Northern Courts in cities like Genoa and Padua, where the main income was in mercenary soldiers to more powerful city-states, and the artistic emphasis was far less religious than it was for the Papal commissions in Rome!. The art of the Northern Courts tended to focus on mythological subjects!. The Holy Roman Emperor once asked to be left alone in front of a fresco known as The Wedding of Cupid and Psyche so he could admire the women in the painting!. These courts were visited by very important people travelling from Northern and Western Europe through to Rome!.

The Renaissance reached Venice relatively late!. Venice also lacks fresco as a medium due to its wet environment!. The Venitians pioneered a technique known as colorito!. The Florentines prefered designo!. They translate as "color" and "design," but those are not accurate to what they mean in art!. Colorito is painting directly onto the canvas!. Designo means sketching the design before adding the color!.

The Renaissance later spread to France and Germany through their nobles who visited Italy frequently!. For the first time since the fall of Rome in the 500s (yes, about 1000 years earlier), science was considered!. Humanism was a huge movement that basically meant that in order to be holy, one must study man as God's creation because man was made in the image of God!.

Two books from Italy in this era that are important to note are Machiavelli's The Prince, in which he details how a ruler should appear to have morals, whether he really does or not!. It is a manual on how to rule!. Castiglione wrote The Book of the Courtier, which basically details ettiquette for those serving the rulers closely!. The idea of a Renaissance man was someone who was basically good at everything!. He had to be an athelete!. Many participated in jousts or wrestling!. He had to be a musician or a singer!. He had to write poetry and love and respect women (basically buy them things and court them)!. He had to be able to dance!. He had to read and write!. He had to have some basic artistic skill in drawing or painting!. He had to have manners!. He had to be capable at mathematics!.

A woman's job, particularly a noblewoman's job, was to bear a healthy male heir, look pretty, and please her husband!. Queen Elizabeth I of England famously painted her face with makeup containing white lead to keep her looking young!. It ate away her skin and aged her immensely, but from the distance at which most people would view the aging queen, nobody would notice!. She also went to great lenghths to keep her hair red!. The poisonous herb Deadly Nightshade is also known as Belladonna, or "pretty lady" because Italian women would drop the juice into their eyes to enlarge the pupils for a dreamy look that was considered very attractive during the Renaissance!.

Just think of the clothing!. Neck ruffles, puffy pants, codpieces, tights, and whalebone corsets are not comfortable!. The more material used in your wardrobe and the richer the colors, the wealthier you were!. Peasants wore simple hues of brown, green, and black, which are easy to produce!. Red, purple, gold, yellow, and blue all come from very expensive dyes, some rare, some imported, some both!. Only the wealthiest patrons could afford to have their portraits painted in blue because the pigment was made from lapis lazuli, a semiprecious stone!. also, some portraits include actual gold paint made from ground up gold dust!. Women were typically painted for wedding portraits, and they were typically painted in massive amounts of gold jewelry and very elaborate dresses!.

The life of a noble lady in the Renaissance isn't very interesting!. Remember that the church=life at this point!. Plagues are still occasionally ravaging Europe!. One such plague drove a large amount of artists to hide in monestaries!. Monestaries were usually safe from plague becauseWww@QuestionHome@Com

Renaissance was whenever Europe started wondering about the world beyond their own!.
They kept finding out about new inventions and decided to travel to new places!.
This basically led to Christopher Columbus's journey to Asia, but turned out to be America!.
That's all I can remember, but hope it helps!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Renaissance
http://library!.thinkquest!.org/15413/hist!.!.!.
http://search!.yahoo!.com/search!?ei=UTF-8&!.!.!.
LOTS of information!!!!! I hope i helped a bunch!!! :]
Happy Thanksgiving!! (Even though tis 2morrow!.) lolWww@QuestionHome@Com