Lesson video

Today's lesson is called The Background to the Renaissance, and it's from the unit, the Renaissance, what do the artefacts of Renaissance tell us about it? And by the end of today's lesson, we will be able to explain why the Renaissance began.

These are our key words for the lesson, Renaissance, classical, and humanist.

Let's have a quick check of what they mean.

From a French term for rebirth.

The Renaissance was a period of revival in European art and literature under the influence of classical ideas.

Something is classical when it relates to ancient Greece or Rome and humanists were people who are interested in the classical world and the potential of the human race.

We'll investigate three things in this lesson about the background of the Renaissance We're gonna investigate what Francesco Petrarca discovered in 1345.

We're going to investigate De rerum natura.

And we're gonna investigate Niccoli and the humanists.

Let's get started with answering this first question.

What did Francesco Petrarca discover in 1345? The summer of 1345, Francesco Petrarca finished his work with a sigh.

He'd worked quickly that he knew he'd done the best job possible, and the marks he had painstakingly made on the parchment lacked the artistry of those produced by monks who had spent their entire adult lives copying manuscripts.

However, he knew one thing for certain.

No monk would've been able to take such a dishevelled document and know what it said, let alone make a copy for future generations.

Petrarca or as historians often call him, Petrarch, could still barely believe the events of the previous weeks and months.

What luck to make such an incredible discovery.

A rare copy of Cicero's letters to Atticus.

Now piecing together where exactly Petrarch made his discovery as been very difficult for historians.

While Petrarch had discovered something that excited him greatly, he did not take great care in describing exactly where he found it.

We knew about his discovery from a letter that he wrote.

He describes his discovery as having been made, not where books are usually kept, that's all he wrote.

He wrote this letter from the Italian city of Verona, leading many historians to believe that he had made his discovery there, or at least nearby.

Now, the letter that he wrote from somewhere near Verona was almost as extraordinary as what he had found in the first place.

Because Petrarch didn't write this letter to a friend or to a relative.

He wrote it to Cicero, the long dead Roman philosopher whose writings he just rediscovered.

Cicero was an obsession of Petrarch's.

In fact, many of the classical Roman philosophers, poets, writers, and scientists were.

Cicero was a role model to Petrarch and his educated friends who loved to write in Latin.

He learned as much as they could from these ancient masters by reading their works, well when they could get their hands on them.

So many have been lost over the years.

No doubt, feeling that no one alive in 14th century Italy could match his burning desire to express his thoughts and feelings following his discovery.

Petrarch then wrote to Cicero and travelled widely through Europe.

Petrarch was at the forefront of a tiny group of southern Europeans who shared this obsession with classical art and literature from ancient Greece and Rome.

Wherever they went, they sought out crumbling Latin manuscripts from churches, monasteries, and abbeys where they lay rotting in ancient libraries ignored by priests and monks alike.

This group are now recognised by many historians as the men who started a period of artistic and scientific rebirth, which we now call the Renaissance.

When a burning desire to rediscover the writings of the classical world led to great change across Europe.

Okay, so I want to check that you understand what we've heard about when Francesco Petrarch made his discovery in 1345.

So I want you to look at this question.

Why was Petrarch so excited when he found a copy of Cicero's letters to Atticus? I want you to try and think of at least two reasons.

So pause the video and when you've got your two reasons, press play and you can check whether you were right.

Hey, so Cicero is excited because so many documents like that one, Cicero's letters to Atticus have been lost.

He was also excited because he loved reading classical texts to improve his own Latin.

This was an opportunity to read a Latin writer's text and learn how to improve his own.

I also want you to think about this question.

In what sorts of places did Petrarch and his friends try to find classical documents? So have a think and pause the video when you think you've got the answer, press play to check whether you were right.

So, yes, Petrarch and his friends tried to find classical documents in the libraries of churches, monasteries and abbeys.

Okay, so we're gonna attempt our first task now we're gonna take the knowledge and understanding that you've developed in that first learning cycle.

To have a go at this.

What I want you to do is I want you to complete the following sentences.

So each of these sentences is gonna give you an opportunity to write about Petrarch and his search for classical documents and the discovery that he made, but in slightly different way.

But notice they all start with the same stent, Petrarch searched for classical documents, then they have a different word that ends that part of the sentence, the ones in purpose because, but, so.

what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to complete each sentence and make sure that when you do it still makes sense.

So you've got to pay careful attention to the because, the but, and the so, those words still need to make sense within the whole sentence.

So pause the video, have a go at completing these sentences, using your knowledge from the first learning cycle, and then play when you want to compare your answers to mine.

So your sentences might have looked like this, Petrarch searched for classical documents because he was interested in the work of Roman philosophers, Petrarch searched for classical documents, but they were hard to find and many have been lost.

Petrarch searched for classical documents so that he could learn from classical writers like Cicero.

Right then we're gonna learn about another discovery.

Discovery of something called De rerum natura.

So I want you to imagine It's 1417, more than 70 years have passed since Petrarch rediscovered Cicero's letters.

Long since dead, the movement he started was now even more popular than he might have imagined.

There were now many more manuscript hunters who carried on his legacy with discoveries of their own.

Chief among them was Poggio Bracciolini.

Now Bracciolini was inspired by Petrarch to scour Europe's monastic libraries and archives, his own discoveries, and certainly matched those of the man who had started it all.

But now Bracciolini has discovered something that was certain to eclipse Petrarch's finds.

Lucretius's, De rerum natura, the nature of things Written roughly fitting hundred years before Bracciolini found this copy in the dusty library of a German monastery.

This poem was both terrifying and exciting.

Now in De rerum natura, Lucretius put forward the idea that the known universe was made up of tiny things, atoms. He wrote that everything that has ever happened or will happen is down to the movement of these atoms. Lucretius went on to argue that in a universe governed by the movement of atoms, there was no plan set out for humans by the gods.

Humans were just another set of atoms that are bumped into one another.

He even went so far as to suggest that this meant the human soul was not immortal.

There was no afterlife.

Now in Europe dominated by the Catholic church, which very much preached about the afterlife.

This was a deeply unsettling and worrying idea.

So let's check what you've understood from that learning cycle about Bracciolini and his rediscovery of De rerum natura.

So I want you to think about this question.

In De rerum natura, Lucretius argued that the universe is made out of tiny things called what? A, objects, B, particles or C, atoms. Have a think, pause the video, and when you're ready to check your answer, press play.

That's right, the answer was C, atoms. Well done if you've got that, and let's check your understanding a little bit further.

I want you to consider this statement and think about whether it's true or false.

De rerum natura contained ideas that were unsettling and worrying to many people.

Do you think that's true or false? Pause the video while you're making up your mind and then play when you want to find out the answer.

So the answer was true, well done if you got that.

If you did, let's try and piece together why that statement is true.

So is it true because it argued that there was no God? Or was it true because it argued that the human soul was not immortal? I want you to consider which of those is the best justification for the fact that that statement is true.

So think about that hard, pause the video and play when you are ready to see the answer.

That's right, so in De rerum natura, Lucretius argued that the human soul was not immortal and that was particularly unsettling and worrying to many people at the time.

He didn't argue that there was no God or Gods.

He acknowledged their existence, or at least the belief in their existence.

But he argued that in De rerum natura that they had no impact, no influence on the affairs of men.

This was governed by the atoms that he talked about, and it was actually that he argued that the human soul was immortal.

Okay, so what I'd like you to have a go at doing now is showing your knowledge and understanding from this learning cycle about Bracciolini and his rediscovery of De rerum natura.

Now we've got a statement here that someone has written, and I'm gonna tell you straight away it's incorrect because this person has written that Bracciolini rediscovery De rerum natura was an insignificant event.

So they're saying that it was an unimportant event, and that's incorrect.

So what I want you to do is I want you to explain why that statement is incorrect, and I've got a bit of a challenge for you.

What I want you to try and do is I want you to try include the following words in your answer.

So, Lucretius, universe, atoms, immortal, ideas, and Catholic church.

See if you can include all of those in your explanation for why the statement at the top of the screen is incorrect.

So pause the video, have a go and play when you are ready to check your answer.

So your answer might have looked a little bit like this, your explanation of why that statement was incorrect.

Bracciolini rediscovery of De rerum natura a was not insignificant.

Lucretius's poem contained many challenging ideas about the universe.

He argued that everything in it was made up of atoms, including humans.

This meant that the human soul was not immortal.

This challenge some of the ideas taught by the Catholic church.

if your answer looks similar to that and you managed to include all of the words, well done great job.

We're going to move on now to look at our final learning cycle, which is all about Niccoli and the humanists.

So it's actually unlikely that Bracciolini had the time to read the majority of De rerum natura Shortly after finding his copy, he sent it to his friend and fellow Renaissance man, Niccolo Niccoli.

Now, Niccoli was famous among this group as the greatest collector of Roman and Greek classical artefacts in Europe.

One of the first things Niccoli did with Bracciolini's copy of De rerum natura was to copy it.

He did so by hand just as the monks and scribes did.

Now as more and more scholars interested in the classical world known as humanists came to visit Niccoli they made their own copies.

Some 15 years after Bracciolini discovery, there were two copies of their De rerum natura.

Soon after there were close to 50, all of them copied out by hand a few pages a day.

Soon though, there would be tens of thousands copied not by human hands, but by machine.

Although it had begun in the 14th century by the 15th century, the Renaissance was well and true (indistinct).

So let's check your understanding of Niccoli and the humanists now.

I want you to look at the question and think about the correct answer.

What did Niccoli do with Bracciolini's copy of De rerum natura? You think he sold it? That's option A.

You think he destroyed it? That's option B.

You think he copied it? That's option C.

Pause the video, think about your answer, and press play when you're ready to see if you were right.

So that's right.

Niccoli copied it.

He copied Bracciolini's copy of De rerum natura.

I want you to think a little bit more about this and about Niccolo Niccoli.

I want you to think, why was Niccolo Niccoli famous among the humanists? What was it that made him stand out among that group of people interested in classical writing? Pause the video, when you're ready, press play to check your answer.

So yes, Niccolo Niccoli was famous among the humanists because he had a great collection of ancient Greek and Roman archives.

He had the biggest collection in Europe some people said.

Excellent.

Well done.

Okay, so we're going to take our knowledge from this learning cycle and the whole lesson and use it to do a few things in this task that are gonna explain why the Renaissance started.

So the first thing is we're gonna try and expand this sentence.

So when we want to expand the sentence, we want to take historical detail and add it to the sentence to make it a better one.

So we've got the sentence here, the Renaissance started.

We want to expand it.

And how do we go about that? Well, one of the best ways to do that is to consider the questions, who, when, where, and why.

If we answer those questions in relation to that statement, that sentence, we can use that information to expand the sentence.

So we've done one for you.

If we think about the Renaissance started and we think about the question who, we would say scholars such as Petrarch, Bracciolini and Niccoli.

And some of those scholars, some of the people who helped at the start of the Renaissance.

What I want you to do now is I want you to think about everything you've learned and think about when did the Renaissance start? Where did it start and why did it start? So have a go answering those questions.

Pause the video.

When you are ready to check your answers, press play.

Hey, excellent, so if we're answering those questions, when did the Renaissance start? During the 14th and 15th Centuries.

Where? In Southern Europe.

It could be even more specific and say in Italy really.

And why? Well the Renaissance started to rediscover classical knowledge.

So now we've answered these questions.

We can use the information that we've put together by answering them to expand that sentence.

We can make that sentence longer and more detailed with some of the knowledge that we've used in answering these questions.

So that's what I want you to have a go at now.

I want you to expand the following sentence, the Renaissance started.

I want you to use your answers to part one, to expand the sentence with more historical detail.

Try and include them all.

Pause the video.

And when you want to check your expanded sentence against an example, press play.

Okay, so here's that example.

Hopefully yours look like this.

If it did, well done.

The Renaissance started during the 14th and 15th centuries.

When scholars in Southern Europe such as Petrarch, Bracciolini, and Niccoli rediscovered classical knowledge.

I think we can all agree that is a much better sentence than the Renaissance started.

It's chock full of historical detail.

Beautiful knowledge in there, a much better sentence all around.

So I've got a bit more of a challenge for you now.

I want you to take the same approach and expand this sentence.

I want you to consider the actions of the humanists you have learned about and expand the sentence, they searched.

So it says they searched.

We're talking about the humanists.

So I want you to think about who they were, which humanists, where they were searching, why they were searching, and what they were searching for? To try to use those techniques that you used in parts one and two of this task to expand this sentence with as much historical detail as possible.

Pause the video, try your best, and then when you're ready to check your answer against the model answer, press play.

Well done.

That was hard, but I think you've managed it.

So if we were to expand this sentence, they searched, considering the actions of the humanist.

A model sentence might look like this.

During the Renaissance humanists searched through the libraries of monasteries, churches and abbeys in order to find lost classical documents so that they could rediscover the knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome.

You notice that that expanded sentence tells us about who searched, the humanists, what they were searching for, and lost classical documents Where, in the libraries and monasteries churches and abbeys.

And why, so they could rediscover the knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome.

And what's so hard in today's lesson with lots of complicated ideas.

So let's just summarise what we've learned about.

So during the 14th and 15th centuries, Italians like Petrarch, Bracciolini and Niccoli tried to revive classical knowledge.

And these men became known as humanists.

They were interested in those classical ideas, and they were interested in trying to improve things, thinking about the potential of the human race through the rediscovery of this knowledge.

And in particular, they were fascinated by the writing of the ancient Greeks and Romans.

People like Cicero and Lucretius.

And their actions in trying to find these manuscripts and rediscover this knowledge and copy them and share the ideas led to a period of revival in European art and literature called the Renaissance.

And we'll be going on to look in more detail, particularly at the Art of the Renaissance.

So once again, excellent job today.

Hope you enjoyed the lesson.

Can't wait to see you again for another lesson.

Looking about the artefacts of the Renaissance and what they can tell us about it.