Hello, my name's Mr. Groom, and it's absolutely brilliant that you're joining me again to learn all about the science of the Renaissance today.

We're gonna find out so much together, so let's get started.

Today's lesson is called "The Italian Renaissance: science and anatomy," and it's from the unit The Renaissance: what do the artefacts of the Renaissance tell us about it? By the end of today's lesson, we will be able to explain what some artefacts show us about Renaissance science.

There are two keywords for today's lesson, Church and anatomy.

So let's make sure we know what they mean.

Refers to the institution of a Christian religion.

The scientific study of the body and how it functions is called anatomy.

Start today's lesson by looking at da Vinci's inventions.

During the Renaissance, the work of many of its leading figures shows us how the disciplines of art and science blurred together.

The statue of "David" in Florence is one example.

Painstakingly carved out of marble by Michelangelo, the statue boasts a huge number of details that could only be observed by someone with a significant understanding of anatomy.

You can see this on the hand in the image in front of you.

Incredible detail, all from an incredible understanding of anatomy.

Leonardo da Vinci's work also shows this.

Although he trained as an artist, the skill of his painting was underpinned by a scientific approach, and his adoption of new techniques was often based on scientific experimentation.

This combination of science and art can be seen in many of his surviving notebooks and manuscripts.

Da Vinci produced pages and pages of notes, observations, drawings, and plans.

One of his drawings, called the "Vitruvian Man," a study of the proportions of the human body, has come to symbolise this marriage of science and art.

Let's check you understand what we've just been hearing about.

What I want you to do is I want you to replicate on the right what we've done on the left.

So on the left, we've got an image.

We said that this image is a statue of "David." It was produced by Michelangelo.

What I want you to do is I want you to think what the image on the right is and who produced that image.

So have a think, press pause, and when you're ready to check your answer, press play again.

That's right.

This is the "Vitruvian Man." It was produced by Leonardo da Vinci.

One subject of invention that clearly captured da Vinci's imagination was flight.

Da Vinci produced multiple drawings of flying machines.

He recognised that one property of air was its resistance, writing that "An object offers as much resistance to the air as the air does to the object," and therefore reasoned that "a man with wings large enough and duly connected might learn to overcome the resistance of the air and, by conquering it, succeed in subjugating it and rising above it." In this, we can understand that da Vinci believed that, if provided with the right equipment, humans would be able to fly.

So, why can we be so sure that Leonardo da Vinci was very interested in flight? Think about your answer, pause the video, and press play when you're ready to see if you were right.

You might have said something like this: Da Vinci produced many drawings of flying machines in his notebooks.

He also wrote about the properties of air and how a man with the right wings might be able to fly.

So what I'd like you to do is to take your knowledge and understanding from the first learning cycle, and with your partner, or on your own, or speak to me, discuss the way in which art and science were linked during the Renaissance.

And I'd like you to focus on the works of da Vinci and Michelangelo that we've just seen in that first learning cycle.

Pause the video, have your discussion or speak aloud, and play the video again when you want to check whether your discussion matches the suggested one.

Great job.

I'm sure your discussion might have sounded a little bit like the following: Renaissance artists needed to know about anatomy so that they could paint or sculpt the human body accurately.

Just look at Michelangelo's "David" or da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man." Yes! And da Vinci also spent a lot of time thinking about the science behind how things fly and drew lots of flying machines in his notebook.

So, let's delve a little bit deeper into Renaissance science.

Now, Renaissance science was in no way confined to the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci.

Progress was made in mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, medicine, and geography.

Recently, some historians have argued that this took place in two distinct phases.

Firstly, in the time of Petrarch, Erasmus, and Bracciolini, early Renaissance humanists and scholars sought to recover and restore the natural knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans.

This knowledge was rediscovered and then spread widely by the use of the printing press in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Round about this time that Michelangelo became involved in the rebuilding of St.

Peter's Basilica.

This is the period that we call the Renaissance.

But historians argue that this knowledge was then built on a second phase, the 17th century Scientific Revolution.

So let's check your understanding of what you've just heard.

During which century did the Scientific Revolution take place? Was it A, the 16th century, B, the 17th century, or C, the 18th century? Pause the video while you think, and press play when you're ready to hear the right answer.

That's right, the Scientific Revolution took place in the 17th century.

However, even the recovery of ancient knowledge could cause outrage.

For centuries, the Ptolemaic theory that the Sun and other celestial bodies orbited around the Earth had been accepted and taught across Europe's universities.

Ptolemy believe that celestial bodies like the Sun orbited the Earth.

Let's check that you understand what Ptolemy believed.

Ptolemy believed that A, the Sun orbited the Earth, B, the Earth orbited the Sun, or C, the Sun and the Earth orbited the Moon? Which do you think is right? Pause the video, and press play when you're ready to see if you were correct.

That's right; Ptolemy believed that the Sun and everything else in our solar system orbited the Earth.

Ptolemy's ideas had been accepted for hundreds of years until Nicolaus Copernicus sought to revive the ideas of Aristarchus.

Aristarchus had argued that in fact, it was the Sun around which the Earth and other planets orbited.

Copernicus spent much of his life in the early and mid-16th century attempting to prove his theory through mathematical calculation.

Let's check you understand what Copernicus believed.

Did he believe that, A, the Sun orbited the Earth, B, the Earth orbited the Sun, or C, the Sun and the Earth orbited the Moon? Pause the video, and press play when you're ready to see if you were right.

That's right, Copernicus was seeking to revive the ideas of Aristarchus, the idea that the Earth and other planets orbited the Sun.

Now, Copernicus was not alive to witness the controversy his work caused some 60 years after his death when other Renaissance astronomers, such as Galileo, sought to improve upon the model he had proposed.

The result was a religious backlash against this new model of the planets, with Copernicus's works banned by both the Catholic Church and various new Reformed Protestant Churches that had begun to develop in Europe during the late 16th century.

But it was not just celestial bodies that these Renaissance scientists were intrigued by, but the human body as well, as we shall find out soon.

Let's check we understand what we've just heard.

Copernicus himself was attacked by the Catholic Church.

Is that true, or is that false? Pause the video to think about your answer, and press play when you're ready to check whether you were right.

So the answer was false.

But why was that? Was it because Copernicus's theory supported ideas that the Church had also supported? Or was it that Copernicus's work was attacked by the Church after his death, when Galileo tried to improve them? So do you think it's A, or do you think it's B? Pause the video.

When you're ready, press play to check your answer.

That's right.

Well done.

Copernicus himself wasn't attacked by the Catholic Church because it was his work that was attacked by the Church after his death, when Galileo tried to improve his ideas.

What I'd like you to do now is I want you to think about what we've learned about Copernicus and his ideas, and I want you to think about what it tells us about Renaissance science.

So I'd like you to look at that statement, "Sometimes Renaissance science was.

." And I'd like you to complete that statement.

I'd like you to complete it with one of the words below in the boxes, either challenging, inspirational, or dangerous.

And I want you to explain why you chose that word to complete the sentence and refer to Copernicus's ideas in your answer.

So, when you're ready, complete the statement below with one of the words from the boxes, and explain why you chose it with reference to Copernicus's ideas.

Pause the video, and hit play when you're ready to check your answer.

So, you might have said that sometimes Renaissance science was challenging.

This is because it challenged older ideas about things, like the idea that the Sun orbited the Earth.

You might have said that sometimes Renaissance science was inspirational, and this is because it inspired other humanists to keep improving their knowledge of the world, such as Galileo trying to improve Copernicus's theories.

Or you might have said, sometimes Renaissance science was dangerous.

This is because it could lead to opposition from the Church.

Galileo was put on trial, and Copernicus's works were banned.

So I said just before that it wasn't just celestial bodies that these Renaissance scientists were intrigued by, but the human body as well.

So let's find out more about that in our third learning cycle all about anatomy.

It is sometime around the year 1535.

It is a dark and rainy night in Paris.

A solitary figure creeps through the eerie Cemetery of the Holy Innocents.

It is a vast place, full of mass graves and big charnel houses where the bones of long since dead residents are stored, having been uncovered during grave digging.

Carefully sorting through these bones is Andries van Wezel.

The skeletons do not scare him.

To Andries, later known as Vesalius, these bones hold the key to understanding the human body.

He is looking for just the right one to take home to study.

One day, with the knowledge he gains from these bones, he is going to publish a book that will revolutionise European understanding of anatomy.

Having studied for years at Leuven, Paris, and then Padua, Vesalius's commitment to understanding the structure of the human body was second to none.

Not just fascinated with bones, he dissected any corpse that he could get his hands on, cutting away skin, muscle, and sinew with painstaking care.

Dissections had been carried out for hundreds of years, but Vesalius was dissecting these bodies himself.

For most of the mediaeval period, those interested in the human body had barber-surgeons cut up the bodies for them, often failing to recognise that what was taking place in front of them was contrary to the theories in their textbooks.

Vesalius was different.

By conducting these dissections himself, he gained a crucial insight into what the ancient writers of Greece and Rome had got right and wrong.

Crucially, he made sure that his discoveries were spread far and wide.

So let's check you understand what we've just heard about Vesalius.

What made Vesalius's dissections different to the dissections of many other scientists? Was it A, that he carried them out himself? Was it B, they were carried out by barber-surgeons? Or was it C, they were carried out on living animals? Hit pause while you think about your answer, and press play when you're ready to see if you were right.

That's right, the thing that made Vesalius's dissections different to those of many other scientists is that he carried them out himself.

Now, in spreading his discoveries far and wide, the printing press played a huge role.

Dissection, whilst necessary for any budding medical student, was also difficult.

Bodies were tricky to come by and began to decompose long before aspiring physicians had unlocked all their secrets.

Vesalius's most influential work sought to combat this problem, providing medical students with a window into the world of dissection by presenting his anatomical drawings in a unique manner.

Whilst "On the Fabric of the Human Body" could be bought and read as a normal book, with thousands of copies produced by the great printing presses of the age, there was another way in which they could be used.

Vesalius produced careful instructions for the book's readers to cut out the illustrations on particular pages and stick them onto others, creating paper flaps that could be lifted to reveal ever-more complex renditions of the body's organs and their position relative to one another.

Furthermore, medical students with little money, unable to afford a copy of Vesalius's book, were able to purchase single-flapped pages named fugitive sheets because of their common habit of ending up lost or damaged.

Here again, we see how science and art have met one another during the Renaissance.

So let's check your understanding.

What could the readers of Vesalius's "On the Fabric of the Human Body" do to gain greater anatomical understanding? Have a think about what I've just said about his book.

Pause the video.

Press play when you think you've got your answer.

That's right, to gain greater anatomical understanding, the readers of Vesalius's book, "On the Fabric of the Human Body," could cut out the illustrations and stick them onto others, creating paper flaps that could be lifted up to show where different organs were in comparison with each other.

Good job.

So what we want to do now is take some of the artefacts that we've looked at today and explain what they show us about Renaissance science.

Now, we've completed an example for you.

We've taken the artefact Copernicus's map of planetary orbits around the Sun, you saw it earlier, and this tells us how Renaissance science both revived and challenged classical knowledge.

Copernicus has drawn the solar system with the Sun at its centre, challenging the ideas of Ptolemy that had been accepted for hundreds of years in Europe.

What I'd like you to do is I'd like you to take Michelangelo's "David," we looked at it at the beginning of the lesson, and a page from Vesalius's "On the Fabric of the Human Body," which we just looked at in this learning cycle, and explain what those two artefacts show us about Renaissance science.

Video, when you're ready to check your answers, press play.

So your answers might have been like this.

For Michelangelo's "David," it shows us how Renaissance artists were very interested in science, especially anatomy.

Michelangelo's "David" has many anatomical details that only someone with an expert understanding of the human body would include.

Now, the page from Vesalius's "On the Fabric of the Human Body," this shows us how knowledge of anatomy grew during the Renaissance.

Vesalius carried out many dissections and wrote a widely printed book that presented his findings.

Medical students could buy single pages, fugitive sheets, so that they could improve their anatomical knowledge with little money.

Well done.

Great job today.

Let's summarise what we've learned.

So during the Renaissance, classical scientific knowledge was rediscovered and then built on in a later Scientific Revolution.

Leonardo da Vinci was particularly interested in human flight.

Some rediscovered knowledge was controversial, such as Copernicus's theories, which were eventually attacked by the Church.

A greater understanding of anatomy developed during the Renaissance.

I've had a great time learning about all this with you, and I hope you have too.

Great job today.

I hope to see you again in the future.