Western Civ (Sykes) DBQ Intro (Renaissance)

9/18/12

This assignment serves as your introduction to the DBQ, or Document Based Question. For HW tonight, you are to do three tasks: 1) Read and summarize each document. Summaries should be no more the 3 sentences. 2) Organize the documents/summaries into groups (paragraphs if this were to be an essay) each of which deal with the same idea. 3) Generate a thesis statement that answers the underlined question below, and insert the grouped summaries beneath it to form the outline of your essay. Of course, your document groupings should support your thesis. This assignment MUST be done in GoogleDocs and shared with me, using the title Renaissance DBQ your last name. DBQ #1 Perspectives of Renaissance Writers Identify and analyze various perspectives of Renaissance writers.
Historical Background: The Renaissance was characterized by self-conscious awareness among fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italians that they were living in a new era. The realization that something new and unique was happening first came to men of letters. The Renaissance also manifested itself in a new attitude toward men, women, and the world.

Document 1
Source: Italian humanist Petrarch, in letters to fellow Italian humanist, Boccaccio, 1364. O inglorious age! that scorns antiquity, its mother, to whom it owes every noble art, that dares to declare itself not only equal but superior to the glorious past. I say nothing of the vulgar, the dregs of mankind, whose sayings and opinions may raise a laugh but hardly merit serious censure.

Document 2
Source: Peter Paul Vergerio (1370-1444), in a letter to Ubertinus, ruler of Carrara, Italy. For the education of children is a matter of more than private interest; it concerns the State, which indeed regards the right training of the young as, in certain aspects, within its proper sphere. . . , Tutors and comrades alike should be chosen from amongst those likely to bring out the best qualities to attract by good example, and to repress the first signs of evil. . . Above all, respect for Divine ordinances is of the deepest importance; it should be inculcated from the earliest years. Reverence towards elders and parents is an obligation closely akin. We call those studies liberal which are worthy of a free man; those studies by which we attain and practice virtue and wisdom.

Document 3
Source: Leonardo Bruni, Italian humanist from Arezzo, On Learning and Literature, 1472. But we must not forget that true distinction is to be gained by a wide and varied range of such studies as conduce to the profitable enjoyment of life, in which, however we must observe due proportion in the attention and time we devote to them. First amongst such studies I place History: a subject which must not on any account be neglected by one who aspires to true cultivation. For it is our duty to understand the origins of our own history and its development; and the achievements of Peoples and of Kings.

Document 4
Source: Pico della Mirandola, Italian Renaissance philosopher, Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486. For why should we nor admire more the angels themselves and the blessed choirs of heaven? At last it seems to me I have come to understand why man is the most fortunate of creatures and consequently worthy of all admiration and what precisely is that rank which is his lot in the universal chain of Beinga rank to be envied not only by brutes but even by the stars and by minds beyond this world. . . For it is on this very account that man is rightly called and judged a great miracle and wonderful creature indeed.

Document 5
Source: Laura Cereta, Italian humanist, Letter to Bibulus Sempronius, 1488. You brashly and publicly not merely wonder but indeed lament that I am said to possess as fine a mind as nature ever bestowed upon the most learned man. You seem to think so learned a woman has scarcely before been seen in the world. You are wrong. .. . The explanation is clear: women have been able by nature to be exceptional, but have chosen lesser goals. For some women are concerned with parting their hair correctly, adorning themselves with lovely dresses . . or standing at mirrors to smear their lovely faces. But those in whom a deeper integrity yearns for virtue, restrain from the start their youthful souls, reflect on higher things, harden the body with sobriety and trials, and curb their tongues, open their ears, compose their thoughts in wakeful hours, their minds in contemplation to letters bonded to righteousness. For knowledge is not given as a gift, but [is gained] with diligence. Nature has generously lavished its gifts upon all people, opening to all the doors of choice through which reason sends envoys to the will.

Document 6
Source: Lorenzo de' Medici, Italian statesman, in a letter to his son Giovanni after his son became a cardinal at the age of fourteen, ca. 1491. Converse on general topics with all. A handsome house and a well-ordered family will be preferable to a great retinue and a splendid residence. . . . Silk and jewels are not suitable for persons in your station. Your taste will be better shown in the acquisition of a few elegant remains of antiquity, or in the collecting of handsome books, and by your attendants being learned and well-bred rather than numerous. Invite others to your house oftener than you receive invitations.. .. Let your own food be plain.... The station of a cardinal is not less secure than elevated; on which account those who arrive at it too frequently become negligent; conceiving their object is attained and that they can preserve it with little trouble.. . . Be attentive, therefore, to your conduct, and confide in others too little rather than too much.

Document 7
Source: Erasmus, Dutch humanist, The Praise of Folly, 1509. As for the theologians, perhaps it would be better to pass them over in silence, "not stirring up the hornets' nest" and "not laying a finger on the stinkweed," since this race of man is incredibly arrogant and touchy. For they might rise up en masse and march in ranks against me with six hundred conclusions and force me to recant. And if I should refuse, they would immediately shout "heretic." For this is the thunderbolt they always keep ready at a moment's notice to terrify anyone to whom they are not very favorably inclined.

Document 8
Source: Juan Luis Vives, Spanish humanist, from The Education of a Christian Woman, addressed to Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England, and dedicated to her daughter, Princess Mary, published 1524. In addition, she will learn the art of cooking.. . . I have seen wives hated by their husbands, daughters-in-law by their fathers-in-law, and daughters by their fathers because they said they had no skill in preparing meals. And I have come to the conclusion that the principal reason why men here in Belgium spend so much time in inns and taverns is the negligence and laziness of their women in cooking meals, which forces men to avoid their own homes and seek elsewhere what they do not find there. . . With regard to chastity in women, we must consider the chaste woman is beautiful, charming, gifted, noble, fertile, and possessed of every best and outstanding quality, while the unchaste woman is a sea and storehouse of all evils.

Document 9
Source: Niccolo Machiavelli, Italian philosopher and writer, The History of Florence, 1525. In peaceful times he [Lorenzo de' Medici often entertained the people with various festivities, such as jousts, feats of arms, and representations of triumphs of olden times. He aimed to maintain abundance in the city, to keep the people united and the nobility honoured. He had the greatest love and admiration for all who excelled in any art, and was a great patron of learning and of literary men. . Lorenzo took the greatest delight in architecture, music and poetry; and many of his own poetic compositions, enriched with commentaries, appeared in print. And for the purpose of enabling the Florentine youths to devote themselves to the study of letters, he established a university in the city of Pisa, where he employed the most eminent men of all Italy as professors.. And thus, beloved of God and fortune, all his enterprises were crowned with success, whilst those of his enemies had the opposite fate.

Document 10
Source: Francois Rabelais, French writer, Celebration of the Worldly Life, 1532. In their rules there was only one clause: DO WHAT YOU WILL because people who are free, well-born, well-bred, and easy in honest company have a natural spur and instinct which drives them to virtuous deeds and deflects them from vice; and this they called honour.