Story of Civilization ~ Will & Ariel Durant

[Zulema]

"I want to know what were the steps by which
man passed from barbarism to civilization (Voltaire)"

What are our origins? Where are we now? Where are we headed? Share your thoughts with us!

   Volume Five (The Renaissance)

       
"Four elements constitute Civilization -- economic provision, political organization, moral traditions, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. "
 
"I shall proceed as rapidly as time and circumstances will permit, hoping that a few of my contemporaries will care to grow old with me while learning. "
       
"These volumes may help some of our children to understand and enjoy the infinite riches of their inheritance."
       
"Civilization begins where chaos and insecurity ends."

SAVONAROLA AND THE REPUBLIC

The Prophet
The Statesman
Literature: The Martyr
Architecture and Sculpture: The Republic and the Medici
Art Under the Revolution

In this volume the  term "Renaissance" refers only to Italy. Will Durant studies the growth of industry, the rise of banking families like the Medici, the conflicts of labor and capital and considers the reasons why Italy was the first nation, and Florence the first city in Italy, to feel the awakening of the modern mind. He follows the cultural flowering from Florence to Milan, Mantua, Ferrata, Verona and Venice, Padua and Parma, Bologna, Rimini, Urbino, Perugia, Siena, and Naples. 

In each city of Italy we witness a colorful pageant of princes, queeens, dukes, or doges -- of poets, historians, scientists, and philosophers -- of painters, sculptors, engravers, illuminators, potters, and architects -- of industry, education, manners, morals, crime, and dress -- of women and love and marriage -- of epidemics, famines, earthquakes, and death.

Dr. Durant draws vivid vignettes -- of Petrarch, Boccaccio, Cosimo de' Medici, Fra Angelico, Donatello, Beatrice and Isabella d'Este, Leonardo da Vinci, Piero della Francesca, Signorelli, Perugino, Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Aldus Manutius, Correggio, Alexander VI, Caesar and Lucrezia Borgia, Julius II, Leo X, Raphael, and Michelangelo.

The Renaissance, by recalling classic culture, ended the thousand year rule of the Oriental mind in Europe.

This volume, then, is about YOU. Join our group daily and listen to what Durant and the rest of us are saying. Better yet, share with us your opinions.

SeniorLearn Contact: JoanK & Discussion Facilitator: Trevor
 

I Have not been a participant in this discussion, and I am a day late, but I wanted to wish our dear Dr. Robby a very happy 90th birthday and many happy returns, needless to add.  Any 90th birthday is happy, especially for someone with Robby's outlook and attitude.  I hope he does still look in here sporadically.

My very best wishes to you, Robby, and as the Japanese saying goes, may you live 10,000 years.

Zulema

[Emily]

Happy Birthday Robby!

Emily

[JoanK]

Oh, my! HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY!

[ginny]

Happy Happy Birthday, Robby, and 90 more!!

[3kings(Trevor)]

At the end of my last posting, mention was made of Sixtus IV. So now we study Durant’s writing about him.

Story of Civilization
Volume V    Page 393
Sixtus IV:  1471-84.

Of the eighteen cardinals who met to choose a new pontiff fifteen were Italian, Rodrigo Borgia was Spanish, d’Estouteville was French, Bessarion was Greek. One participant later described the election of Cardinal Francesco della Rovere as due to “intrigue and bribery.” (ex artibus et coruptelis), but this seems to have meant only that various offices were promised to various cardinals for their votes. The new pope illustrated the admirable equality of opportunity (among Italians ) to reach the papacy. He was born of a peasant family at Percorile, near Savona.

Repeated ill as a child, he was consecrated to St. Francis by his mother in prayer for his recovery. At nine he was sent to a Franciscan convent, and later entered the Minorite order. For a while , he served as tutor in the della Rovere family, whose name he took as his own. He studied philosophy and thelogy at Pavia, bologna, and Padua, and taught them there and elsewhere to classes so crowded that almost every learned Italian of the next generation was said to have been his pupil.

When, at fifty-seven, he became Sixtus IV, his reputation was that of a scholar distinguished for learning and integrity. Almost over night, by one of the strangest transformations in papal history, he became a politician and a warrior. Finding Europe too divided, and its goverments too corrupt, for a crusade against the Turks, he decided to confine his secular efforts to Italy. There too, of course he found  division - in the Papal States the authority of the pope largely flouted by local rulers, in Latium  rule by noble violence ignoring the papal power, and in Rome a mob so disorderly that at his coronation it stoned his litter in anger at a crush caused by a stoppage of the cavalcade. Sixtus proposed to restore order in Rome, to reinvigorate legatine authority in the Papal States, and to bring Italy under the unifying rule of the pope.

[These] plans of Sixtus to strengthen the Papal States disturbed the other Goverments of Italy. Lorenzo de’ Medici schemed to get Imola for Florence; Sixtus outplayed him, and replaced the Medici with the Pazzi as bankers for the papacy;  Lorenzo tried to ruin the Pazzi, they tried to kill him. Sixtus agreed to the conspiracy but depricated murder; “go and do what you will,” he told the plotters, “provided there be no killing.”The result was a war that lasted (1478-80) until the Turks threatened to overrun Italy.

 When that danger subsided, Sixtus was free to resume his liberation of the Papal States. Late in 1480 the Ordelaffi line of dictators died out at Forli, and the people asked the Pope to take over the city; Sixtus bade Girolamo govern Imola and Forli together. Girolamo suggested taking Ferrara next, and persuaded Sixtus and Venice join in war upon Duke Ercole.(1482) Ferrante of Naples sent troops to defend his son-in-law; Florence and Milan also helped Ferrara; and the Pope, who had begun his reign with plans for European peace, found that he had plunged Italy into war. Harassed by Naples in the south, by Florence in the north, and by disturbences in Rome, Sixtus came to terms with Ferrara after a year of chaos and bloodshed . When the Venetians refused to follow suit he excommunicated them, and joined Florence and Milan in war upon his late ally.

[JoanP]

A bit late, but never too late for cake!

Happy Birthday, Robby dear!

[3kings(Trevor)]

Sixtus' instruction:“go and do what you will,” he told the plotters, “provided there be no killing.”The result was a war that lasted (1478-80) until the Turks threatened to overrun Italy.

A war with no killing ? Of course the papal order "No killing!" referred only to the bankers and other worthys. Meantime, the peasants' function was to die in the battles, or to grow the food on which the upper class dined. Life for them, under the church's control was short, and very, very brutal. How the church could equate these deplorable facts with Christianity, I do not know. ++  Trevor

[Frybabe]

I never heard of the Minorite Order. I'll have to look them up.

Hope you had a wonderful Birthday, Robby.

[Emily]

Trevor, your comment about the difference between church doctrine and its implementation by church leaders is still going on today, 2,000 years from its founding.

With Sixtus we have reached almost 1,500 years of Christianity and still there is a great divide between what the church preaches, and what it actually does. Nothing seems to have changed very much since Sixtus, or before him for that matter.

Those who seek power, even if they are sincere in their belief, seem to be willing to compromise, look the other way, to hold on to office. The 'power' becomes more important than the doctrine.

Sixtus seems to be no different than his predessors. Say one thing and do another.

Emily

[3kings(Trevor)]

Durants' SoC
Volume V  Pages 395- 397.

Sixtus was in many ways a preview of Julius II. A stern imperial priest who loved war and art and power, Sixtus persued his purposes without scruple or finesse, but with wild energy and unhesitating courage to the end.. Like latter warior popes he made enemies who tried to weaken his arms by blackening his name. Some gossips accounted for his lavish support of Pietro and Girolamo Riario by calling them his sons; others, like Infessura, called them his lovers, and did not hesitate to term the pope “a sodomite”.* The picture is bad enough without these incredible and unsupported allegations.

After exhausting on his nephews the treasury that Paul II had left full, Sixtus financed his wars by selling ecclesiastical offices to the highest bidder. A hostile Venetian ambassador quotes him as saying “that a pope needs only pen and ink to get whatever sum he wishes”; but this is equally true of most modern governments, whose interest-bearing bonds correspond in many ways with the salary-bearing sinecures sold by the popes. Sixtus, however, was not content with this scheme.

He kept throughout the papal states a monopoly on the sale of corn; he sold the best abroad, and the rest to his people, at a goodly profit. He learned this trick from the other rulers of his time, like Ferrante of Naples; presumable he charged no more than private engrossers would have done, since it is an unwritten law of economics that the price of a product depends on the gullibility of the purchaser; but the poor grumbled forgivably at the thought that their hunger fed the luxuries of the Riarios. Despite these and other devices for raising revenues, Sixtus left debts totaling 150,000 ducats.

[Meantime] the nobles of the capital felt justified, by the example of a warlike pontiff, in renewing their exhilarating feuds. It was one of the polite customs of Rome to plunder the palace of a cardinal just elected to the papacy. In so handling the palace of one of the della Rovere cardinals, a young aristocrat, Fracessco di Santa Croce, had been wounded by a member of the della Valle family. The youth revenged himself by cutting the tendon of della Valle’s heel; della Valle’s relatives revenged him by cleving Francesco’s head; Prospero di Santa Crose revenged Francesco by killing Piero Margani. The feud spread through the city, the Orsini and the papal forces supporting the Santa Croce, the Colonna defending the Valle. Lorenzo Oddone Colonna was captured, tried, tortured into a confession, and put to death in Sant’ Angelo, though his brother Fabrizio surrendered two Colonna fortresses to Sixtus in the hope of having Lorenzo spared.

Prospero Colonna joined Naples in war on the pope, ravaged the Campagna, raided Rome. Sixtus engaged Roberto Malatesta of Rimini to come and lead the papal troops. Roberto defeated the Neapolitan and Colonna forces  at Campo Morto, returned to Rome victorious, and died of fever contracted in the Campagna swamps. Girolamo took his place, and Sixtus officially blessed the artillary that  his nephew directed against the Colonna citadels.  But while the pope’s spirit willed war, his body collapsed inder the strain of successive crises. In June, 1484, he too came down with fever.

On August 11 news came to him that his allies had made peace with Venice over his protests; he refused to ratify it. The next day he died.

* Stefano Infessura composed a Diario della citta di Roma, a history of fifteenth-century Rome from family records and personal observation. He was an ardent republican who looked upon the popes as despots; he was also a partisan of the Colonna; he cannot be trusted when he retails stories, not elsewhere confirmed, about the wickedness of the popes.

[JoanK]

"he cannot be trusted when he retails stories, not elsewhere confirmed, about the wickedness of the popes."

Even without unconfirmed rumors of "wickedness", things are bad enough. I assume all these fights took place in the streets of Rome while ordinary people like us cowered in corners.

[mabel1015j]

Joan - I think often about the "bystanders" in all the wars. It is a segment of history often ignored. I saw a great  show-maybe it was part of the Civil War series by Ken Burns- about the civilians at Gettysburg. It included the necessity to bury not only the dead soldiers but the dead horses. I live in NJ and when I've taught about the Revolutionary War I've talked about how often geographical segments of the state changed sides. Property and food caches would be devoured by one side and then the other side. It's amazing that any civilians survived at all.

Jean

[mabel1015j]

Wikipedia's summary of Sixtus' life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Sixtus_IV

He did do some positive things, including building the Sistine Chapel and the Sistine Bridge. ( is Donald Trump Catholic? He seems to have taken a page from S IV book on acquiring property and naming things for himself). The Catholic Encyclopedia sums his pluses up tis way:

"Nevertheless, there is a praiseworthy side to his pontificate. He took measures to suppress abuses in the Inquisition, vigorously opposed the Waldenses, and annulled the decrees of the Council of Constance. He was a patron of arts and letters, building the famous Sistine Chapel, the Sistine Bridge across the Tiber, and becoming the second founder of the Vatican Library. Under him Rome once more became habitable, and he did much to improve the sanitary conditions of the city. He brought down water from the Quirinal to the Fountain of Trevi, and began a transformation of the city which death alone hindered him from completing. In his private life Sixtus IV was blameless. The gross accusations brought against him by his enemy Infessura have no foundation; his worst vice was nepotism, and his greatest misfortune was that he was destined to be placed at the head of the States of the Church at a time when Italy was emerging from the era of the republics, and territorial princes like the pope were forced to do battle with the great despots........."

Jean

[3kings(Trevor)]

"But while the pope’s spirit willed war, his body collapsed under the strain of successive crises. In June, 1484, he too came down with fever.---- On August 11 news came to him that his allies had made peace with Venice over his protests; he refused to ratify it. The next day he died."

What a terrible indictment of a Christian leader. "The pope's spirit willed war; he refused to ratify the peace that the warring parties had arranged."

I can think of nothing less human, or less Christian than that.

However, there were some worthy achievements in his life, as Durant, in my next post, will  itemise.   ++ Trevor

[mabel1015j]

Sorry Trevor, didn't mean to jump the gun on you.........Jean

[3kings(Trevor)]

Jean. No problem . I'm pleased to have you jump in when ever you feel the urge. It's the comments of others that make these pages interesting. Far better than reading the book alone, with no input from others. I hope everyone joins in.. ++ Trevor

[Emily]

The effects of war on Joan's 'ordinary people' and Jean's 'citizens' is a story that is rarely told. Durant concerns himself here with the power brokers such as the Colonna and the Pope. There is no record of the suffering these two imposed on the ordinary people, who actually fought the wars or the citizens who endured the conflict.

During the war between the States in this country, one young private from the South said and I paraphrase, "It was a rich mans war, and a poor mans fight."

A friend came in possession of her great-great grandfather's diary of the Civil War in 2001. She had it transcribed and printed, and gave me a copy. He was a private and kept his diary until Dec. 1864 when he finally was allowed to go home after the battle of Nashville. He kept a record of where they were, what happened daily and the hardships they suffered. He also wrote about the 'civilians' who suffered loss of both home and food at the hands of friend and foe alike, especially the women and children left to 'tend home and field.'

He was often hungry and cold, and once marched twenty two miles barefoot. He was one of those ordinary people who fight the power brokers wars. Since many of his battles and travels go through the area where I live today, my interest in his journey was hightened.

After reading a transcription of my own ancestor's diary of the war as a young girl (the actual diary is in the State Archives), I have preferred to get my history from those who were in the trenches, a first hand account without historians. I have read transcripts, books (both published and self printed) of many accounts of the same battles and marches, movement and retreat.

I like my history served hot, told by those who actually fought it, not the planners and plotters like the Pope and the Colonna.

Emily

 

[mabel1015j]

Does any one know if soldiers are encouraged to keep diaries? I have one that my Dad kept while in France in WWI. I didn't see it until after he died. It seemed so unlike him to have done so and I've seen mention of diaries so often. Maybe it's a "fad" among soldiers and they encourage each other?....jean.   

[Emily]

Jean, you might consider transcribing or coping (if the pages are not too fragile) your father's diary and donating it to your state archives or the national archives.

There was a program just a few years ago asking for diaries, letters, remembrances and etc. of WW11 to be sent to the National archives for permanent storage. This was to become a permanent record of those 'ordinary citizens' you and Joan wrote about in your posts. Not only from the soldier, but also from the homefront.

In my reading of soldiers diaries, there is a lot of boredom and waiting for things to happen. Many spent this time writing letters home or recording the events that happened that day.

Emily 

[JoanK]

I have (self printed by my mother) both a diary of an ancester who fought in the civil war and one of my great-great grandfather who participated in the California gold rush. The latter one, especially, really gives you the feeling of having been there.

I doubt if much like that exists for the time period we are studying: since ordinary people couldn't read or write. And I don't think we've quite gotten to the invention of the printing press.

[Emily]

Joan, the printing press was there during Sixtus time, but it was slow and what got printed was for the most part those scripts already written and in circulation. As you say most people could not read and write, only those who had the leisure time to learn and write were published.

The religious myths consumed most of the early printing. The printing of the New Testament will lead to the split in the Roman Catholic church. Wikipedia on printing...........

A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. Typically used for texts, the invention and spread of the printing press are widely regarded as the most influential event in the second millennium AD, revolutionizing the way people conceive and describe the world they live in, and ushering in the period of modernity.

Modern paper and print technology first originated in China. In 105 A.D., Ts’ai Lun invented the process for manufacturing paper, introducing the first use in China. The paper was superior in quality to the baked clay, papyrus and parchment used in other parts of the world.

By 593 A.D., the first printing press was invented in China, and the first printed newspaper was available in Beijing in 700 A.D. It was a woodblock printing. And the Diamond Sutra, the earliest known complete woodblock printed book with illustrations was printed in China in 868 A.D.

Chinese printer Pi Sheng invented movable type in 1041 A.D. Exported to the Western world, it is similar to the technology that German printer Johann Gutenberg used in the 1450s to produce his famous editions of the Bible. Additionally, Chinese inventor Liu Ching produced the first printed map in 1155 A.D.

The mechanical systems involved were not assembled in Europe until the Holy Roman Empire by the German Johannes Gutenberg around 1441, based on existing screw presses. Gutenberg, a goldsmith by profession, developed a complete printing system, which perfected the printing process through all its stages by adapting existing technologies to printing purposes, as well as making ground-breaking inventions of his own. His newly devised hand mould made for the first time possible the precise and rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities, a key element in the profitability of the whole printing enterprise.

The mechanization of bookmaking led to the first mass production of books in history in assembly line-style. A single Renaissance printing press could produce 3,600 pages per workday, compared to forty by hand-printing and a few by hand-copying. Books of bestselling authors like Luther or Erasmus were sold by the hundred thousands in their life-time.

From a single point of origin, Mainz, Germany, printing spread within several decades to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes.

There were already millions of books in print in the time of Sixtus. The problem was most of the works were based on myths and offered little for the 'ordinary' man to improve his life.

Emily

[3kings(Trevor)]

Durants' SoC Volume V
The Renaissance
Pages 397 - 398


A substantial portion of Sixtus’ revenues was spent on art and public works. He tried, unsuccessfully, to drain the pestilential marshes around Foligno, and at least dreamt of draining the Pontine swamps. He had the major streets of Rome straightened, widened, and paved; he improved the water supply; restored bridges, walls, gates, and towers; spanned the tiber with the Ponte Sisto that bears his name; built a new Vatican Library, and the Sistine chapel above it; founded the Sistine Choir; and rebuilt the ruined Hospital of Santo Spirito, whose main ward, 365 feet long, could accommodate a thousand patients.


He reorganised the university of Rome and opened to the public the Capitoline Museum that Paul II had established. During his Pontificate, and largely under the direction of Boccio Pontelli, the churches of Santa Maria della Pace and Santa Maria del Popolo were erected, and many others were repaired.


The Sistine Chapel was designed by Giovannino de’ Dolci, simply and unpretentiously, for semiprivate worship by the popes and high ecclesiastics. It was  beautified with a marbel santuary screen by Mino de Fiesole, and by spacious frescoes recounting on the south wall scenes from the life of Moses, and on the north wall corresponding scenes from the life of Christ. For these paintings Sixtus called to Rome the greatest masters of the time: Perugino, Signorelli, Pinuriccio, Domenico and Benedetto Ghirlandaio, Boticelli Cosimo Roselli, and Piero di Cosimo. Sixtus offered an additional reward for the best pictue of the fifteen painted there by these men. Roselli knowing his own inferiority in design, decided to stake all on brilliant colouring; his fellow artists laughed at his lavish spread of ultramarine and gold; but Sixtus gave him the prize.


It was for Sixtus that Melozzo da Forli did his best work. Coming to Rome about 1472 after studying with Piero della Francesca, he painted the church of Santi Apostoli a fresco of the Ascension which aroused the enthusiasm of Vasari;all but a few fragments of it disappeared when the church was rebuilt (1702 f) Gracious and tender are the Angel and the Virgin of the Annunciation in the Uffizi Gallery, but finer still the Angei musicanti – one with a viol, one with a lute – in the Vatican.


Melozzo’s masterpiece was painted as a  fresco in the Vatican Library, and was lated transferred to canvas. Against the ornate pillars and ceiling of the Library six figures were portrayed with veracity and power: Sixtus seated, massive and regal; at his right the gay Pietro Riario; standing before him the tall dark Giuliano della Rovere; kneeling before him the high powered Platina  receiving appointment as a librarian; and behind him Giovanni della Rovere and count Girolamo Riario; it is a living picture of an eventful pontificate.

[Emily]

but finer still the Angei musicanti- one with a viol, one with a lute-in the Vatican.

Here is the Angei with the viol from Art Encyclopedia done by Melozzo da Forli and is part of the fresco he painted for the Vatican. The bright blonde hair with the pumpkin colored dress does make this Angei stand out. She looks very pregnant to me or else has a pumpkin under that dress.

From this reading, we learn that Sixtus was more impressed with flash than design. Perhaps he liked his 'angels' bawdy and brassy. Since Sixtus was doing the paying (with other peoples money of course) they gave him what he wanted.

Where is Justin? We need his expertise on this to counter my own jaded view of all religious art. Justin can explain the design and art that went into making this fresco, since I never studied art and its history, I can only comment on the result of the finished product and the man who made it happen, Sixtus.

Where is Claire? She is an artist who would give us a different prespective on this painting. She and Justin have contributed greatly to the art presented during the discussion of the Renaissance. They have increased my respect for the artists regardless of the intentions of their benefactors.

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/melozzo_da_forli.html

Emily

[mabel1015j]

While reading the wiki on printing, I tho't "we at SL should celebrate Gutenberg's birthday," but when I googled him I discovered that there is no date of his birth, only an approximate year. He did die on Feb 3rd, so maybe we can remember to raise our glass to him on that day.......Jean

[Frybabe]

Hmmmm! Your right Emily. Where is Claire? I haven't seen her post in about three weeks. Hope she is okay.

[3kings(Trevor)]

And where is Justin ?? I miss his comments on the art. Also please excuse the many typos in my last piece. I did it at the end of a busy day, which is never a good idea. +++ Trevor

[mabel1015j]

See Forli at this Wiki site, scroll down, click on paintings to enlarge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melozzo_da_Forlì


O.k. I've tried 4times to get you to da Forli in wikipedia. It comes up when you goggle it, so if the above link doesn't take to the wiki site, it will come up first when you goggle him.......Jean

Jean

[Emily]

Trevor, please never worry one minute about typos, everyone has them. I am grateful for your effort as I am sure others are, and applaud you for stepping up and saving the discussion.

Emily

[3kings(Trevor)]

My apologies again ! I mispelled Forlì as Forli .  Ill try Forlì in google and see what comes up === Trevor

[3kings(Trevor)]

 Now I'm stuck ! how does one get Melozzo da Forlì into Google ? Google search refuses to accept Melozzo da Forlì ! ++ Trevor

[JoanK]

I didn't have any trouble. Here are some images from google.
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Melozzo+da+Forl%C3%AC&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=9O69TPm_OY-2sAOFl9XSDA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CC8QsAQwAA

[JoanK]

I was in the Sistine Chapel 45 years ago. It was overwhelming!! It's hard to see any individual painting, because the overall effect is so great.

The famous Michelangelo of God and Adam is so small from the ground, you can barely see it.

[Emily]

Joan this link is for you to take a 360 degree view of the Sistine Chapel including the ceiling, and you can telescope in on the ceiling and see each painting.  I hope everyone can check this out, it puts one in the Chapel from anywhere in the world. Isn't technology amazing.

I had to experiment with the site to get it to do what I wanted. I clicked on the M at the left side of the page to change the setting to mouse, and then used the mouse and arrows on my keyboard to move up-down-left-right, and the mouse to move in and out of the view.

I turned it up to the ceiling and found the Adam and god depiction in the center. I zoomed in (with the mouse) and it was clear and easy to see. That painting has been photographed and widely distributed, but most of the others have not seen that kind of attention.

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html

Emily

[JoanK]

That's amazing! I haven't figure out how to zoom in yet. But I bookmarked it to play with later.

Last night, there was a fascinating program on how the Gothic cathedrals were built. I always want to know how things work, and this showed how pointed arches, flying buttresses, and ribbed vaulted cielings distribute the weight so that you can have tons of stone held up by walls made mainly of glass.

They talked about cathedrals that were in trouble. In the one in Amiens, the buttresses were placed wrong to do their job. A couple of hundred years later, it was realized, and the walls were fortified. In a nearby town, the Cathedral was built higher, which put too great a strain on the system, and it could collapse.

They now have fancy lazer and computer systems that can identify where the points of strain are, so hopefully some of these cathedrals can be fortified so they are safe.

The height and the amount of light from the windows were seen as enhancing the spiritual mission of these cathedrals: to give people the sensation of being close to God. Thus a bit of compitition to make them higher and have more and more windows, sometime pushing things too far. Of course,in an age where few could read, the stained glass windows, like the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, told ordinary people the stories of the Bible.

[Frybabe]

I've never seen the whole interior of the Sistine Chapel before. Pretty neat. The pictures of God and Adam were always so blown up and made a fuss over that I thought it pretty much covered the entire ceiling. Here is is only a part of the ceiling paintings. Thanks.

[3kings(Trevor)]

Joan/Emily many thanks for your work in getting views of the Sistine chapel. We will have need of them when we come to Julius II, some 20 years ahead in our study. ++ Trevor

[3kings(Trevor)]

                                       The Story of Civilization
                                    Volume V  The Renaissance
                                              Pages 398-399


In 1475 the Vatican Library contained 2527 volumes in Latin and Greek; Sixtus added 1100 more, and for the first time threw the collection open to the public. He restored the humanists to favour, though he paid them with preoccupied irregularity. He called Filelfo to Rome, and that warrior of the pen praised the Pope enthusiastically until his salary of 600 florins fell into arrears. Joannes Argyropoulos was invited from Florence to Rome where his lectures on Greek language and literature were attended by cardinals, bishops, and foreign students like Reuchlin. Sixtus brought to Rome the German scientist Johann Müller --Regiomontanus -- and commissioned him to correct the Julian calendar; but Müller died a year later (1476) and calendar reform had to wait a century more (1582).

It is remarkable that a Franciscan friar and professor of philosophy and theology should have become the first secularizing pope of the  Renaissance -- or, more precisely the first Renaissance pope whose chief interest was to establish the papacy as a strong political power in Italy. Perhaps excepting the case of Ferrara, whose able rulers had faithfully paid their feudal dues, Sixtus was perfectly justified in seeking to make the Papal States papal, and to make Rome and its environs safe for the popes. History might forgive, as it has forgiven Julius II, his use of war for these ends; it might acknowledge that his diplomacy merely followed the amoral principles of other states; but it finds no pleasure in watching a pope conspire with assassins, bless cannon, or wage war with a thoroughness that shocked his time; the death of a thousand men at Campo Morto was a heavier loss of life than any battle yet fought in Renaissance Italy.

The morality of the Roman court was further lowered by reckless nepotism and unblushing simony, and the costly indecent revels of his kin; in these and other ways Sixtus IV made straight the way for Alexander VI and contributed -- as he responded -- to the moral disintegration of Italy.

It was Sixtus who appointed Torquemada to head the Spanish Inquisition; Sixtus who provoked the virulence and license of Roman satire, gave the Inquisitors in Rome power to prohibit the printing of any book they did not like. At his death he might have admitted many failures -- against Lorenzo, Naples, Ferrara, Venice-- and even the Colonna were not yet subdued.

Three significant successes he had achieved: he had made Rome a fairer and healthier city, he had given it invigorating drafts of fresh art, and he had restored the papacy to its place among the most powerful monarchies in Europe.


History can not forgive, nor condemn. Only individuals can do so, and I don't believe, if we are now truly more civilized, that any today would forgive Sextus.

[mabel1015j]

Joan, do you know on what channel you saw the program about cathedrals?.....Jean

[JoanK]

JEAN: I get three PBS channels, so I'm not sure. But I think it was on the Los Angeles PBS channel --KCET. Other PBS channels should have it as well.

[bookad]

hello there, its Deb, from Ontario, Canada, soon to be on the way again to Brownsville, Texas
--sadly my main contribution to Durant's and your readings is by lurking...cannot believe didn't enjoy history when \i attended school in the 60s...have just finished a wonderful book 'The Book of Negroes' and have added to my enlargement of information niches and slowly they merge to a bigger picture...I wish I could contribute, but except for what I am reading thru this site...my knowledge base is non-existent...high school then nursing school then working and struggling for 32 years...it wasn't till I had to stop working that I could concentrate my inherent interest in learning again and came across the 'civilization group around 2002 --what wonderful luck for me....and the internet has provided this portal for me to enjoy my passion for learning---also your past discussions around the popes and their human failings ....
seems like a bit of an interlude, so thought I say my 2 Canadian cents worth
--even read in my recent readings, the previous moderator's thoughts on 'continuous learning' and should have posted as was so pleased to see him and his thoughts in this book; but sadly when I saw this post it seemed past tense to put my thoughts into words
anyway enough said--Deb