Homework
HUM2232
Chapter 15 Study Questions
Wallman/2013
The Roman Renaissance
1. Describe Rome in 1402. How did Rome begin to change once the papacy returned to Rome? Why did the papacy rebuild the city? What affect did the papal palaces have on pilgrims according to Paolo Cortesi?
When Brunelleschi arrive in Rome in 1402, shortly after the competition for the Baptistery door in Florence, the city must have seemed a pitiful place. Its population had shrunk from around 1 million in 100 CE to under 20,000 as a result of the Black Death. It was located in a relatively tiny enclave across the Tiber from the Vatican and Saint Peter’s Basilica and was surrounded by the ruins of a once-great city.
After 1420, when Pope Martin V (papacy 1417-31) brought the papacy back the Rome for good, it became something of a papal duty to restore the city to its former greatness. Because as many as 100,000 visitors might swarm into Rome during religious holidays, it was important that they be “moved by its extraordinary sights,” as one pope put it, and thus find their “belief continually confirmed and daily corroborated by great buildings … seemingly made by the hand of God.” In other words, the popes were charged with the sacred duty of becoming great patrons of the arts and architecture of Rome.
As the humanist scholar and literary historian Paolo Cortesi argued, “attractively designed and sumptuously executed” palaces served to bring “the ignorant mob” into submission to the Church’s authority and might. The fresco of Sixtus IV illustrates these aspirations. The room in which he and his retinue gather is richly appointed. Column capitals are trimmed in gold, the ceiling is coffered, marble covers almost every surface, and an elaborate Corinthian capital supporting a large, arched space in the background sits at the vanishing point of the painting’s carefully conceived perspective.
2. We will spend some time in class discussing the following works of Roman
Chapter 15 Study Questions
Wallman/2013
The Roman Renaissance
1. Describe Rome in 1402. How did Rome begin to change once the papacy returned to Rome? Why did the papacy rebuild the city? What affect did the papal palaces have on pilgrims according to Paolo Cortesi?
When Brunelleschi arrive in Rome in 1402, shortly after the competition for the Baptistery door in Florence, the city must have seemed a pitiful place. Its population had shrunk from around 1 million in 100 CE to under 20,000 as a result of the Black Death. It was located in a relatively tiny enclave across the Tiber from the Vatican and Saint Peter’s Basilica and was surrounded by the ruins of a once-great city.
After 1420, when Pope Martin V (papacy 1417-31) brought the papacy back the Rome for good, it became something of a papal duty to restore the city to its former greatness. Because as many as 100,000 visitors might swarm into Rome during religious holidays, it was important that they be “moved by its extraordinary sights,” as one pope put it, and thus find their “belief continually confirmed and daily corroborated by great buildings … seemingly made by the hand of God.” In other words, the popes were charged with the sacred duty of becoming great patrons of the arts and architecture of Rome.
As the humanist scholar and literary historian Paolo Cortesi argued, “attractively designed and sumptuously executed” palaces served to bring “the ignorant mob” into submission to the Church’s authority and might. The fresco of Sixtus IV illustrates these aspirations. The room in which he and his retinue gather is richly appointed. Column capitals are trimmed in gold, the ceiling is coffered, marble covers almost every surface, and an elaborate Corinthian capital supporting a large, arched space in the background sits at the vanishing point of the painting’s carefully conceived perspective.
2. We will spend some time in class discussing the following works of Roman