People who made the Renaissance happen

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Renaissance People. Lives that Shaped the Modern Age

Robert C. Davis and Beth Lindsmith

The Renaissance is a formative period in the history of Western civilization. Marking the end of the mediaeval world and the start of the modern age, it was an era of change on a truly dramatic scale. The years 1400 to 1600 saw traditional certainties in politics, religion, culture and science swept away, to be replaced by the new and the unfamiliar. The revival of classical learning in the city-states of Italy inspired innovative developments in art, literature and science. The rise of powerful new dynasties in France, England, Spain and the Empire upset the balance of political power, bringing much of Italy under the control of foreign rulers.

North of the Alps, Protestant reformers radically altered the religious map of Europe – and their success owed much to the new technology of printing, which enabled speedy and cheap dissemination of their beliefs. In the East, an expansionist Turkish dominion not only challenged Italian trade in the Mediterranean but also threatened the imperial capital, Vienna. Europe was engulfed by war as these rival states and religions fought for supremacy – and warfare itself was transformed by the deadly weapons developed with gunpowder. Above all, the European mindset was changed forever when Columbus set sail from Spain on his epic voyage across the Atlantic to the New World. 

Renaissance Peoplecharts this formative era through 94 brief accounts of the lives of individuals. This is a novel approach among the hundreds of books on the subject, and one for which the authors should be congratulated. The biographies are divided into seven historical sections, each prefaced by a short introduction giving a general overview of the events of the period. Many of the names will be familiar to the general reader, though not all. Among the famous artists, scholars, political leaders, explorers and scientists, it is a pleasant surprise to find accounts of the lives of musicians, actors, pirates, cooks, printers, pilgrims, gamblers, and even a witch-hunter. The inclusion of 13 women provides a more domestic context – this is especially true of the Florentine matriarch, Alessandra Strozzi, who in no way could be said to ‘shape the modern world’ but her search for partners for her sons and daughters reveals much about the roles of women and marriage in Renaissance society.

Inevitably, given Italy’s pivotal role in the development of Renaissance culture, the book is dominated by men and women of the peninsula – the Italians themselves, foreigners who took up residence in Italy and Italians living abroad make up well over half of the lives. What is noteworthy about this book, however, is the extent to which non-Italians have been included in what is often seen as a purely Italian achievement: among the key figures of the period whose voices are rarely heard are the Turkish Sultan Mehmet II and the Turkish pirate Barbarossa, the German banker Jakob Fugger, the Portuguese King João II, the Spanish missionary St Francis Xavier, the Jewish businesswoman Gracia Mendes Nasi, the English printer William Caxton and Queen Elizabeth I’s jester Dick Tarlton.

The ambitious scope of the book has made these biographies very brief. Most cover only two pages, which is enough space to tell a good story but not enough to do more than sketch out complex careers. There are excellent chapters on St Bernardino of Siena, ‘the people’s preacher’; Filippo Brunelleschi, ‘realizing the impossible cathedral’ of Florence; Tommaso Inghirami, ‘hero of the Vatican, heroine of the stage’; and Bernard van Orley, ‘weaver of paintings’, though the authors lose their usually surefooted grasp of the historical facts to base their treatment of Machiavelli’s hero, Cesare Borgia, on lurid gossip.

The book is less successful in dealing with the lives of the giants of the Renaissance. It is understandably difficult to do justice in two pages to the artistic achievements of artists such as Michelangelo and Titian, to the political complexities of the reign of Emperor Charles V or to the revolutionary ideas of the Protestant reformer Martin Luther, and these biographies are unfortunately patchy. Moreover, the decision to place the lives in birth order has made for some strange historical anomalies – the autocratic and ascetic Paul IV, for example, precedes Charles V, who had become emperor in 1519 at the age of nineteen and had largely completed his life’s work when this pope was elected in 1555.

Despite its shortcomings, however, this book is a very welcome broadening of the traditional Renaissance story. By concentrating on people rather than events, it gives a more personal insight to the history of the period and its format is ideal for readers who like their history in bite-sized chunks.

Renaissance People. Lives that Shaped the Modern Age by Robert C. Davis and Beth Lindsmith is published by Thames and Hudson, 2011. 336 pp., 180 colour and 20 mono illus. ISBN 978-0-500-251775