renaissance magazine

Exploring: THE RENAISSANCE

Newest Gadgets, Get to know the famous
Coupons/Discounts, poet, William Shakespeare!
Clothing and where
to purchase them!

(see page #8 for
details)

Explore the life of Queen Michelangelo and his
Isabella I of Spain! breathtaking
masterpieces.
Insiders on Andreas
Vesalius and his amazing

discovery.

Queen Isabella I and the Advances of Politics

Queen Isabella I was born in the Spanish kingdom of Castile on April 22, 1451. She helped unify
Spain and for supporting the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Isabella was the daughter of the King of
Castile and was highly intelligent, strong-willed and and a devoted Catholic.In her time, girls received
little or no education which meant that her schooling was limited. Isabella educated herself by learning
Latin. She also supported scholarship and art, collected fine paintings, and built schools. Three years
after her birth, her half brother became King as Henry IV. Isabella was brought into court when she was
13 in order to be under the King’s care. As the heiress of Castile, the question of Isabella’s future
marriage became a matter of increasing diplomatic activity at home and abroad. Portugal, Aragon, and
France each put a candidate for Isabella to choose her husband. Henry seems to have wanted her to
marry Alfonso V, King of Portugal. She ended up marrying Ferdinand in October 1469 without Henry’s
consent in the palace of Juan de Vivero. Although Isabella and Henry were to some extent reconciled,
the long threatened war of succession broke out at once when the king died in 1474. When Henry
passed away, Isabella took over in Segovia, which was secured for her claim. The first four years of her
reign were occupied with a civil war, which ended in defeat for her opponents and for the Portuguese
king on February 24, 1497. Upon the death of John II of Aragon in the same year, the kingdoms of
Castile and Aragon came together in the people of their rulers.

Spain emerged into one united country. This action led to an effective political unification. In 1475,
Ferdinand in his first will made Isabella his heir. He declared the advantages his subjects would derive
from the union with Castile. The two kingdoms continued to be governed the way it was before. The two
sovereigns were certainly united in aiming to the end the long process of Reconquista by taking over the
kingdom of Granada. Granada is the last Muslim stronghold in Spain. In 1491 she and Ferdinand set up
a headquarters at Santa Fe, where they stayed until Granada fell on January 2, 1492. It is very difficult to
untwine Isabella’s personal responsibility for the achievements of her reign.

Queen Isabella I

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Isabella is also as interested in education as she is in religion. When she reached the age of 30,
she acquired proficiency in Latin. She is also the patron of Spanish and Flemish artists. One of her
achievements was the fact that she and Ferdinand extended their authority over the military orders of
Alcantara, Calatrava, and Santiago. In 1487 Ferdinand became grand master of Calatrava. Ferdinand
and Isabella organized a Spanish Inquisition with the goal of getting rid of Jews and Muslims in Spain.
As a result, the Pope recognized Isabella and Ferdinand for their attempt to purify Catholicism in Spain.
By 1492, all Jews who could would not convert to Christianity were exiled from Spain, as were the
Muslims. This was also the year where they began funding the voyages of Christopher Columbus, who
would give the lands he found to Castile. Throughout her long reign, Isabella also strove to strengthen
royal authority at the expense of the Spanish Parliament and the towns.

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Andreas Vesalius and the Discovery That Changed Science

Andreas Vesalius is a Belgian scientist. He was born in Brussels Andreas Vesalius
on December 31, 1514. Andreas Vesalius came from a family of
doctors and pharmacists. It would not be a surprise if he became one of
the two but he did not. Instead, he became a scientist, not just a
scientist but a well known great scientist. His work changed medicine
and the study. His work showed humanism by dissecting humans. This
world would be living a lie if it was not for him. Vesalius was always
interested to living organisms. He was also interested in anatomy even
more than living organisms. When he was a young boy he would
dissect stray dogs and cats. When he was 23 years old, he went to
universities in Belgium, France, and Italy.

Vesalius has two brothers and two sisters. His father is Andries
Van Wesel and his mother is Isabel Crabbe. His dad was a pharmacist
of Margaret of Austria and his mom raised the children at home near
the Coudenberg Palace where his father worked. Vesalius first
attended Catholic Brothers of Common Life School for nine years. He
was taught arithmetic, Latin, and Greek. In 1528 he went to university
of Leuven but, later 1533 he wanted to have a career in the military at
the University of Paris for three years. That was where he studied
Galen’s theories. He would often examine excavated bones in a
building where skeletal remains were stored at the Holy Innocents’
Cemetery. In 1537 he was forced to leave Vesalius because of the war
between the Holy Roman Empire and France which was a few decades
ago.He also never got to graduate in Paris. He then attended Padua in
Italy and got his degree of Medicine with the highest distinction in 1537.

Vesalius realized that Galen was wrong about the human body
and how it worked. When he attended the university of Padua, he
started to dissect human corpses so he can show his students the fine
details of anatomy. That was how he became famous. In 1541,
Vesalius discovered that Galen had dissected barbary macaques
instead of humans. Galen considered that Barbary macaques and man
were structurally close. Galen was very wrong. Though, people still
chose to follow Galen. In 1543, Vesalius did a public dissection of a
felon from Basel, Switzerland named Jakob Karrer Von Gebweiler. It
became also the world’s first surviving anatomical preparation. In the
same year he published the Fabrica of Vesalius. It is a major step in the
development of science and medicine. Andrew Vesalius’ book De
Humani Corporis Fabrica changed our science of medicine and was a
big change for human anatomy.

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Now we know about the 5 levels of organization.
Andreas Vesalius taught us that multicellular organisms have
the 5 levels of organization. Level 1 are the cells. He said that
the cells are the basic unit of structure and function in living
things. Level 2 are the tissues. The tissues are said that they
are cells that are similar and work together to perform a
specific activity. Level 3 are the organs that are made up from
tissues to work together to perform specific activity for the
organism. The fourth level of organization would be the organ
systems which are groups of two or more tissues that work
together to do a type of function for the organism.The fifth and
last level of organization would be the organisms. The
organisms are the entire living things that can carry out all
basic life process. Thanks to Andreas Vesalius I wouldn’t know
any of this and I would be living a lie for my whole life.

Andreas Vesalius’s book

Andreas Vesalius dissecting a human

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Advances In Renaissance Painting

Painting left a great impact on the Renaissance period. The Medicis, for example, are a wealthy
family that rule over Florence. They spend large amounts of money on paintings and sculptures.
They are patrons that create opportunities for Renaissance painters by making new techniques.
Renaissance painters are influenced by the spread of humanism, and these new techniques enable
many talented artists to depict realism in a person’s feelings, such as their facial expressions or body
language. The key advance in Renaissance painting is perspective. Perspective is used by painters to
show depth, meaning the different sizes of objects. The smaller something is painted, the farther away it
is. Paintings became more three dimensional. Science and mathematics also took part in this, with
Masaccio including geometry in artwork to make it appear more realistic. These methods also influenced
Renaissance paintings to be the way they are now, along with humanism, which is listed above. The
Renaissance also provided painters with new material, like oil paints. Oil paint allowed artists to paint
over previous strokes to emphasize detail. Renaissance painters were the first to use the technique of
perspective. The sense of distance, or depth, is displayed. There were many changes made when the
Renaissance started. For example, medieval art was mostly religious scenes displayed in artwork,
figures were dressed in stiff-looking clothing, and they were two-dimensional. Renaissance artwork, with
these new techniques in hand, displayed religious and nonreligious scenes, figures were lifelike and
three-dimensional, (reflecting the increased knowledge of anatomy), figures were either nude or clothed,
faces expressed thoughts, paintings were more symmetrical, and backgrounds showed perspective. As
you can tell, there were many improvements from classical and medieval art. It results in the utter
realism of expressions and movement.

One of the greatest Renaissance painters is Michelangelo. He was born on March 6th, 1475 in
Caprese, Italy. Painter, sculptor, architect, and poet Michelangelo is known for his iconic piece on the
Sistine Chapel, which is what he is most known for. He also carved Pieta and his other sculptures, David
and Moses. Moses shows a mix of compassion and anger, while David shows an ideal of male beauty
and also reflects humanist ideas. His art shows his amazing talent, especially with ideal beauty and
emotional expressiveness. His work is essential. He carves from giant blocks of marble, and the
outcomes are magnificent. His paintings and sculptures result in humanistic ideas since they all
resemble such realism. Michelangelo is regarded as the most famous artist in the Italian Renaissance.
Although considering himself a Florentine, he lived most of his life in Rome. He was born as
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.

Michelangelo

Michelangelo’s Pieta

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Advances in Renaissance Literature

William Shakespeare is a famous English Poet and Playwright born in 1564, born in the town of
Stratford-on-Avon. As a child, Shakespeare studied Latin and classical literature in his grammar school
he attended. Most and almost all of his plays projected a broad knowledge of many subjects, from
history and politics to music and art. During Shakespeare’s early 20’s, he became an actor with a theater
company in London where he learned the art of playwright and drama. Most said that he had this thing
for being rather quiet and mysterious, thus, he shows curiousity in most of his writings. Even though with
all this seriousness in the famous poet’s writings, he has worked up quite a large sense of humor and
like most of us, found much to laugh at in life.

As we all know, Shakespeare is a very skilled actor but has more of a talent on playwright and
poetry. He has a was a way of expressing thoughts and feelings in a remarkable way. One of
Shakespeare’s most beloved poetry pieces are his 14-line sonnets, which are usually love poems.
Shakespeare successfully wrote 152 sonnets.

However, he is best known for his plays. Both, Comedies and Tragedies brought applauses to the
stage. Among his most popular are Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and The Merchant of Venice.
Shakespeare’s plays cover a variety of subjects which include, history, romance, politics, prejudice,
murder, suicide and war. William’s plays remain popular because he wrote about themes such as love,
power, ambition, jealousy, fear, as well as hatred. Shakespeare idolized many of other English poets
during the Renaissance time.. He was very influenced by them and even was influenced by the English
language. Also, Shakespeare included lines in poems and plays (etc.) that left deep thought on the
audiences that watched/ read, that even turned into common sayings or quotes that many of us
reference to today. These famous lines or quotes include those along the lines of, “ Love is blind” and
“All’s well that ends well.” Some people often reference Shakespeare’s witty, wise lines from poems and
plays, even while sometimes while not knowing that they owe their graceful words to the famous Poet
and Playwright, William Shakespeare.

Now we can’t give all the credit to Shakespeare himself. William Shakespeare is not the only poet/
playwright right now. There are so many more, but one other poet was Dante Alighieri, a native of
Florence. He was famous for showing humanistic ideas in his plays, poems (etc.). One of the most
memorable plays that Dante Alighieri wrote was The Divine Comedy (written in the 1300s)which was
one of the plays that brought lots of laughter to the audience. So the name The Divine Comedy fits right
in. This long poem describes Dante’s imaginary journey through the places where Christians believed
that souls went into the afterlife. Alighieri showed varieties of humanism is this play by highlighting strong
emotions and the experiences of individual character(s). Alighieri’s poem is a social commentary, too. It
is filled with real people. The inhabitants of hell included people that Dante didn’t get along well with.

Dante Alighieri William Shakespeare

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Those who appeared in heaven were obviously, the people and friends that he admired.
Dante himself, was quite an influence on other Florentine writers. Literature has come quite a
long way, but the evolution is not over yet.

Dante
Alighieri’s:
The Divine
Comedy
William
Shakespeare’s:
Romeo and Juliet

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