Monthly Archives: July 2025

Advancement of Renaissance Art, The Northern Renaissance, and Renaissance Popes

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Pope Julius II.

During the High Renaissance (late 1400s – early 1500s) sculptors often modeled their work after ancient Roman and Greek sculptures. These sculptors influenced the Church, with Pope Julius II (r.1503-1513) treating his Roman statues as prized possessions and consequently the antiquity-inspired sculptures eventually became part of the Vatican museum. Famous artists such as Michalangelo often used ancient Roman and Greek works as an influence for their creations. 

Raphael (1483-1520) made numerous self-portraits as well as two paintings of Saint George. Famous works of his include The Entombment of Christ (1508) and The School of Athens, which took him two years to complete between 1509 and 1511. Raphael’s painting Transfiguration (1520) is one of his most complicated and realistic paintings. 

Leonardo Da Vinci.

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) was an architect, inventor, scientist, engineer, and painter, making him one of the most influential figures of the Renaissance and all of Western Civilization. One of his most famous paintings, The Last Supper, portrayed a simple yet beautiful portrait of Jesus and his disciples. 

Michelangelo (1474-1564) was a marble carver at heart, but he had innumerable other skills in the field of art. Pieta (1498-1499) was a sculpture made by Michelangelo depicting in great detail the Virgin Mary holding Jesus after His death of the Cross. In 1501, Michelangelo started his work on his 15-foot-tall Statue of David. He was also commissioned by Pope Julius II to build a tomb for him. Michelangelo made Julius’s tomb large and intricate, with three marble statues adorning it. After refusing multiple offers, Michelangelo agreed to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In the same cathedral he also painted a massive fresco of the Last Judgement on the altar wall.

The painted walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, by Michelangelo.

One of the most sought after painters in Europe during the early 16th century was Titian (1485-1576), who made the painting David and Goliath, which was revolutionary because it made the viewer seem as if they were watching the fight from below. Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was a painter, woodcutter, and engraver. His art remained thoroughly medieval, so he is considered one of the great painters of the Renaissance. Durer’s famous works include The Knight, Death, and The Devil, as well as The Four Apostles. 

The Northern Renaissance (late 15th century – 16th century) was the time period when Renaissance ideas were imported from Italy north to France, Germany, and England. Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522) was a key figure of this era in Germany, and he studied Greek and Hebrew. Erasmus (1466-1536) was from the Netherlands and was ordained a priest in 1492. One of the first clergy to promote Sola Scriptura, he heavily influenced Protestants such as Martin Luther. Erasmus condemned the Catholic Church and thought that Christianity needed to be simpler. 

Pope Martin V (r. 1417-1431) restored order in Rome after the papacy had returned there and safeguarded the city for pilgrims and merchants. Order had been lost during the Avignon Papacy when individual cities had usurped papal privileges and refused to give them up even after facing excommunication. Instead of using religious power, Pope Martin V and other popes after him used political and military power to restore order instead of religious power after this. 

Pope Martin V.

Pope Nicholas V (r.1447-1455) used alliances with the Italian city-states of Venice, Milan, and Florence to ensure direct Papal rule of Italy. Nicholas also invited scholars from across Europe to Rome to make sure the city became the center of literature and arts on the continent. Under the reigns of Calixtus III (r.1455-1458) and Pious II (r.1458-1464) most of the Papacy’s time was spent handling the growing threat of Ottoman muslims in Eastern Europe. 

Instead of dealing with the Ottomans like previous popes, Paul II (r.1464-1471) concerned himself with the growth of humanism while Sixtus IV (r.1471-1484) elected his relatives to influential positions thus scandalizing the Vatican. Pope Sixtus’ lackluster reign caused humanists (who had been dismissed by Paul II) to come back into positions in the Church. Popes Innocent VIII (r.1484-1492) and Alexander VI (r.1492-1503) both had love affairs during their rule and had children while in the Vatican, causing even more scandal. 

Julius II (1503-1513) restored order to the Catholic Church by dismantling strongmen who had taken power and returned papal control over Italian city states. Leo X (r.1513-1521) tried to institute much-needed reforms, but was not a formidable enough leader to enforce them. 

Boccaccio’s Decameron, Part 1

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Giovanni Boccaccio.

In the mid 14th century, the Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death, spread from Central Asia to Southern Europe via Italian merchant ships. Every region of Europe was ravished by this horrible plague, which killed every kind of people, not discriminating against class or status. This marked the end of the Church’s complete dominance over Western culture, because some people believed that God had abandoned them in a time of crisis. 

Boccaccio wrote “Decameron” about the effect the Black Death had on the ordinary people of Europe. Composed in the form of a short story, the book is about a group of 10 people who escaped to a secluded villa to hide from the disease. In the book, the group of people eventually fell into debauchery, but because they’ve lost hope they think they are going to die.

Boccaccio wrote that the plague killed hundreds of thousands and nothing hampered its progress, turning society upside down and causing people to abandon their moral norms. He explained that castles were abandoned, fields were left uncultivated, and whole families died out. 

In Florence, Italy, a group of 10 people fled the city and traveled to the country to escape the plague. Once they arrived at a villa in the countryside, one of the members of the group, Pampinea, said they needed to defend themselves from outsiders and let no one else in. Making an abandoned castle their new home, the group set up their own rules and government. 

They told each other stories to pass the time. Another member of the group, Pamfilo, told a story about a man who lied to a friar on his deathbed. The man deceived the monk and told him that he was a saint, causing people to praise the fraudulent man after his death even though he was wicked. Pamfilo ended the story by advising listeners to be careful not to mistake enemies of God as your friend. 

The Hundred Years’ War

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Despite being called the Hundred Years’ War, the bloody struggle was not a continuous war lasting a century. Rather, it consisted of different conflicts between England and France that continued on but were interspersed with small breaks throughout the Fourteenth-Century. Throughout most of the conflict, England dominated the battlefield, inflicting their first major defeat of France at the Battle of Crecy in 1346. 

After again being dominated at Poitiers in 1356, the French King John “the Good” was captured. France was further humiliated in 1360, after signing a treaty which made over a third of France pay feudal taxes to the English. 

However, Charles V of France slowly pushed back the English, eventually reducing their presence in France to only outposts around Bordeaux and Calais. The next French King, Charles “the Mad” lived up to his name by going insane, and reducing France to infighting and civil strife. The English took this opportunity to attack a weakened France, as the second phase of the war started in the early 15th-Century. 

Battle of Agincourt - Wikipedia
Battle of Agincourt.

Henry V of England decisively defeated the French at Agincourt with a smaller, but better equipped and trained army. After this loss and the Burgundians joining the war on the side of the English, the French were forced to capitulate again. French King Charles VI’s daughter was pressured to marry Henry V, ensuring that their children would be born into the English royal family and therefore inherit both the French and English throne. 

Both kings would die in 1422, leaving the crown of France and England to Henry’s infant son. The French were furious at this, especially Charles VII, who would have inherited the French throne if he hadn’t been disinherited. In order to reclaim his lost inheritance, Charles VII accepted help from French sympathizers including Joan of Arc, the heroine from the major battle at the Siege of Orleans. Swaying the momentum of the war towards the French, they won increased victories over the English. Eventually, Charles VII was declared the rightful King of France, but deceitfully abandoned Joan of Arc in order to appease the English. At the age of 19, Joan was burnt at the stake in 1431, and would go on to become a Saint of the Catholic Church in 1920. 

In the end, the Hundred Years’ War accomplished basically nothing, with the English failing to complete their goal of conquering France. At the end of the war in 1453 they had lost all of their holdings in France except for Calais, which they would lose in 1558.