5.2.3 Primary sources A great many sources of information survive from the Renaissance that enable students to understand the period. A few examples are: • maps and diaries of travellers who explored new areas previously unknown to Europeans, including The Travels of Marco Polo (c. 1350) • histories of the Renaissance period, including Vasari’s history of art, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550) and political histories of Florence by Bruni, Guicciardini and Machiavelli • collections of letters that have survived, including the letters of early Humanist Petrarch, the letters of artist Michelangelo and letters written by women such as the collections of Isabella d’Este and Lucrezia ‘Nannina’ de’ Medici • the business accounts of merchants in cities such as Florence, Venice and Genoa • wills written by various individuals, including women and the lower classes • the contents of libraries, including those established by Cosimo de’ Medici and Federico of Urbino • the preserved diaries of many careful diary writers, including Marino Sanudo, Buonaccorso Pitti, Gregorio Dati and Marco Parenti • books written during the Renaissance, including ThePrince (1513) by Niccolo Machiavelli and the works of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) • some of the writing of Martin Luther (1483–1546) that was printed on a press • the music of composers including Giovanni Palestrina (1525–1549) • the architecture, sculpture and art of the Renaissance, including the work of Brunelleschi, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Titian • objects, such as the instruments used by Galileo to study the planets.
SOURCE3 The Ospedale degli Innocenti (Hospital of the Innocents), built by Filippo Brunelleschi in 1419 as an orphanage, was commissioned by the Silk Guild of Florence. It is considered an excellent example of Renaissance architecture for its use of symmetry, proportion and columns.
Jacaranda Humanities Alive 8 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator