document_title: Hollywood Walk of Fame

question_text: cost of a star on the hollywood walk of fame

question_tokens: cost of a star on the hollywood walk of fame

text: Hollywood Walk of Fame

text: Description[edit]

text: The Walk of Fame runs 1.3 miles (2.1 km) east to west on Hollywood Boulevard from Gower Street to La Brea Avenue, plus a short segment of Marshfield Way that runs diagonally between Hollywood and La Brea; and 0.4 miles (0.64 km) north to south on Vine Street between Yucca Street and Sunset Boulevard. According to a 2003 report by the market research firm NPO Plog Research, the Walk attracts about 10 million visitors annually—more than Sunset Strip, TCL Chinese Theatre (formerly Grauman's), the Queen Mary, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art—and has played an important role in making tourism the largest industry in Los Angeles County.[3]

text: Categorization[edit]

text: As of 2017[update], the Walk of Fame comprises over 2,600 stars,[1] spaced at 6-foot (1.8 m) intervals. The monuments are coral-pink terrazzo five-point stars rimmed with brass (not bronze, an oft-repeated inaccuracy[4]) inlaid into a charcoal-colored terrazzo background. In the upper portion of each star field the name of the honoree is inlaid in brass block letters. Below the inscription, in the lower half of the star field, a round inlaid brass emblem indicates the category of the honoree's contributions. The emblems symbolize five categories within the entertainment industry:

text:
Classic film camera representing motion pictures
 Television receiver representing broadcast television
 Phonograph record representing audio recording or music
 Radio microphone representing broadcast radio
 Comedy/tragedy masks representing theatre/live performance (added in 1984)

text: Of all the stars on the Walk to date, 47% have been awarded in the motion pictures category, 24% in television, 17% in audio recording, 10% in radio, and less than 2% in the live performance category. Approximately 20 new stars are added to the Walk each year.[4]

text: Special stars[edit]

text: Special category stars recognize various contributions by corporate entities, service organizations, and special honorees, and display emblems unique to those honorees.[5] For example, former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's star displays the Seal of the City of Los Angeles;[6][7] the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) star emblem is a replica of a Hollywood Division badge;[8] and stars representing corporations, such as Victoria's Secret and the Los Angeles Dodgers, display the honoree's corporate logo.[5][9] The "Friends of the Walk of Fame" monuments are charcoal terrazzo squares rimmed by miniature pink terrazzo stars displaying the five standard category emblems, along with the sponsor's corporate logo, with the sponsor's name and contribution in inlaid brass block lettering.[10][11] Special stars and Friends monuments are granted by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce or the Hollywood Historic Trust, but are not part of the Walk of Fame proper and are located nearby on private property.[10][12]

text: The monuments for the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon are uniquely shaped: Four identical circular moons, bearing the names of the three astronauts (Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., Michael Collins) the date of the first Moon landing ("7/20/69"), and the words "Apollo XI", are set on each of the four corners of the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. The moons are silver and grey terrazzo circles rimmed in brass on a square pink terrazzo background, with the television emblem inlaid at the top of each circle.[13]

text: History[edit]

text: Origin[edit]

text: The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce credits E.M. Stuart, its volunteer president in 1953, with the original idea for creating a Walk of Fame. Stuart reportedly proposed the Walk as a means to "maintain the glory of a community whose name means glamour and excitement in the four corners of the world."[14] Harry Sugarman, another Chamber member and president of the Hollywood Improvement Association, receives credit in an independent account.[15] A committee was formed to flesh out the idea, and an architectural firm was retained to develop specific proposals. By 1955 the basic concept and general design had been agreed upon, and plans were submitted to the Los Angeles City Council.

text: Multiple accounts exist for the origin of the star concept. According to one, the historic Hollywood Hotel—which stood for more than 50 years on Hollywood Boulevard at the site now occupied by the Hollywood and Highland complex and the Dolby (formerly Kodak) Theatre[16]—displayed stars on its dining room ceiling above the tables favored by its most famous celebrity patrons, and that may have served as an early inspiration.[17] By another account, the stars were "inspired ... by Sugarman's [Tropics Restaurant] drinks menu, which featured celebrity photos framed in gold stars."[15][18]

text: In February 1956 a prototype was unveiled featuring a caricature of an example honoree (John Wayne, by some accounts[19]) inside a blue star on a brown background.[14] However, caricatures proved too expensive and difficult to execute in brass with the technology available at the time; and the brown and blue motif was vetoed by Charles E. Toberman, the legendary real estate developer known as "Mr. Hollywood", because the colors clashed with a new building he was erecting on Hollywood Boulevard.[14][20]

text: Selection and construction[edit]

text: By March 1956 the final design and coral-and-charcoal color scheme had been approved, and between the spring of 1956 and the fall of 1957, 1,558 honorees were selected by committees representing the four major branches of the entertainment industry at that time: motion pictures, television, audio recording, and radio. The committees met at the Brown Derby restaurant,[21] and included such prominent names as Cecil B. DeMille, Samuel Goldwyn, Jesse L. Lasky, Walt Disney, Hal Roach, Mack Sennett, and Walter Lantz.[14]

text: A requirement stipulated by the original audio recording committee (and later rescinded) specified minimum sales of one million records or 250,000 albums for all music category nominees. The committee soon realized that many important recording artists would be excluded from the Walk by that requirement. As a result, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences was formed for the purpose of creating a separate award system for the music business. The first Grammy Awards were presented in Beverly Hills in 1959.[22]

text: Construction of the Walk began in 1958 but two lawsuits delayed completion. The first was filed by local property owners challenging the legality of the $1.25 million tax assessment levied upon them to pay for the Walk, along with new street lighting and trees. In October 1959 the assessment was ruled legal.[14] The second lawsuit, filed by Charles Chaplin, Jr., sought damages for the exclusion of his father, whose nomination had been withdrawn due to pressure from multiple quarters (see Controversial additions). Chaplin's suit was dismissed in 1960, paving the way for completion of the project.[14][23][24]

text: While Joanne Woodward is often singled out as the first to receive a star on the Walk of Fame,[25] in fact there was no "first" recipient; the original stars were installed as a continuous project, with no individual ceremonies. Woodward's name was one of eight drawn at random from the original 1,558 and inscribed on eight prototype stars that were built while litigation was still holding up permanent construction.[26][27][28] The eight prototypes were installed temporarily on the northwest corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue in August 1958 to generate publicity and to demonstrate how the Walk would eventually look.[14] The other seven names were Olive Borden, Ronald Colman, Louise Fazenda, Preston Foster, Burt Lancaster, Edward Sedgwick, and Ernest Torrence.[14][29] Official groundbreaking took place on February 8, 1960.[17] On March 28, 1960, the first permanent star, director Stanley Kramer's, was completed on the easternmost end of the new Walk near the intersection of Hollywood and Gower.[14][30] The Joanne Woodward legend may have originated, according to one source, because she was the first to pose with her star for photographers.[25]

text: Stagnation and revitalization[edit]

text: Though the Walk was originally conceived in part to encourage redevelopment of Hollywood Boulevard, the 1960s and 1970s were periods of protracted urban decay in the Hollywood area as residents moved to suburbs.[31][32] After the initial installation of approximately 1,500 stars in 1960 and 1961, eight years passed without the addition of a new star. In 1962 the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance naming the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce "the agent to advise the City" about adding names to the Walk, and the Chamber, over the following six years, devised rules, procedures, and financing methods to do so.[14] In December 1968, Richard D. Zanuck was awarded the first star in eight years in a presentation ceremony hosted by Danny Thomas.[14][21][33] In July 1978 the City of Los Angeles designated the Hollywood Walk of Fame a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.[34]

text: Radio personality, television producer and Chamber member Johnny Grant is generally credited with implementing the changes that resuscitated the Walk and established it as a significant tourist attraction.[21][35] Beginning in 1968, he stimulated publicity and encouraged international press coverage by requiring that each recipient personally attend his or her star's unveiling ceremony.[21] Grant later recalled that "it was tough to get people to come accept a star" until the neighborhood finally began its recovery in the 1980s.[32] In 1980 he instituted a fee of $2,500, payable by the person or entity nominating the recipient, to fund the Walk of Fame's upkeep and minimize further taxpayer burden.[21] The fee has increased incrementally over time; by 2002 it had reached $15,000,[36] and stood at $30,000 in 2012.[4] The current (2017) fee is $40,000.[37]

text: Grant was awarded a star in 1980 for his television work.[14] In 2002, he received a second star in the "special" category to acknowledge his pivotal role in improving and popularizing the Walk.[38] He was also named chairman of the Selection Committee and Honorary Mayor of Hollywood (a ceremonial position previously held by Art Linkletter and Monty Hall,[39][40] among others).[14][38] He remained in both offices from 1980 until his death in 2008 and hosted the great majority of unveiling ceremonies during that period. His unique special-category star, with its emblem depicting a stylized "Great Seal of the City of Hollywood",[41] is located at the entrance to the Dolby Theatre adjacent to Johnny Grant Way.[42]

text: Expansion[edit]

text: In 1984 a fifth category, Live Theatre, was added to permit acknowledgment of contributions from the live performance branch of the entertainment industry, and a second row of stars was created on each sidewalk to alternate with the existing stars.[14]

text: In 1994 the Walk of Fame was extended one block to the west on Hollywood Boulevard, from Sycamore Avenue to North LaBrea Avenue (plus the short segment of Marshfield Way that connects Hollywood and La Brea), where it now ends at the silver "Four Ladies of Hollywood" gazebo and the special "Walk of Fame" star.[43] At the same time, Sophia Loren was honored with the 2,000th star on the Walk.[14]

text: During construction of tunnels for the Los Angeles subway system in 1996 the Metropolitan Transportation Authority removed and stored more than 300 stars.[44] Controversy arose when the MTA proposed a money-saving measure of jackhammering the 3-by-3-foot terrazzo pads, preserving only the brass lettering, surrounds, and medallions, then pouring new terrazzo after the tunnels were completed;[45] but the Cultural Heritage Commission ruled that the star pads were to be removed intact.[46]

text: Restoration[edit]

text: In 2008 a long-term restoration project began with an evaluation of all 2,365 stars on the Walk at the time, each receiving a letter grade of A, B, C, D, or F. Honorees whose stars received F grades, indicating the most severe damage, were Joan Collins, Peter Frampton, Dick Van Patten, Paul Douglas, Andrew L. Stone, Willard Waterman, Richard Boleslavsky, Ellen Drew, Frank Crumit, and Bobby Sherwood. Fifty celebrities' stars received "D" grades. The damage ranged from minor cosmetic flaws caused by normal weathering to holes and fissures severe enough to constitute a walking hazard. At least 778 stars will eventually be repaired or replaced during the ongoing project at an estimated cost of $4 million to $4.2 million.[47]

text: The restoration is a collaboration among the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and various Los Angeles city and county governmental offices, along with the MTA, which operates the Metro Red Line that runs beneath the Walk, since earth movement due to the presence of the subway line is thought to be partly responsible for the damage.[48]

text: To encourage supplemental funding for the project by corporate sponsors, the "Friends of Walk of Fame" program was inaugurated.[47] Absolut Vodka became the first Friend with a donation of $1 million,[49][50] followed by L'Oréal.[51] Friends are recognized with honorary plaques adjacent to the Walk of Fame in front of the Dolby Theatre.[10] The program received some criticism. Alana Semuels of the Los Angeles Times described it as "just the latest corporate attempt to buy some good buzz," and, quoting an area brand strategist, "I think Johnny Grant would roll over in his grave."[10] Karen Fondu, President of L'Oréal Paris, countered that the association was "a natural affinity."[50]

text: The Walk of Fame today[edit]

text: Multiple stars[edit]

text: The original selection committees chose to recognize some entertainers' contributions in multiple categories with multiple stars. Gene Autry is the only honoree with stars in all five categories.[52][53] Bob Hope, Mickey Rooney, Roy Rogers, and Tony Martin each have stars in four categories—Rooney has three of his own and a fourth with his eighth and final wife, Jan,[54][55] while Rogers also has three of his own, and a fourth with his band, Sons of the Pioneers.[56][57] Thirty-three people, including Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Dean Martin, Dinah Shore, Gale Storm, Danny Kaye, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Jack Benny, have stars in three categories.[52]

text: Seven recording artists have two stars in the same category for distinct achievements: Michael Jackson, as a soloist and as a member of The Jackson 5; Diana Ross, as a member of The Supremes and for her solo work; Smokey Robinson, as a solo artist and as a member of The Miracles; and John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney as individuals and as members of The Beatles.[58] Cher forfeited her opportunity by declining to schedule the mandatory personal appearance when she was selected in 1983.[59] She did attend the unveiling of the Sonny & Cher star in 1998 as a tribute to her recently deceased ex-husband, Sonny Bono.[60]

text: George Eastman is the only honoree with two stars in the same category for the same achievement, the invention of roll film.[61]

text: In 1977, country singer Loretta Lynn was the first of her genre to receive a star on the Walk of Fame.

text: Controversial additions[edit]

text: Charlie Chaplin is the only honoree to be selected twice for the same star on the Walk. He was unanimously voted into the initial group of 500 in 1956 but the Selection Committee ultimately excluded him, ostensibly due to questions regarding his morals (he had been charged with violating the Mann Act—and exonerated—during the White Slavery hysteria of the 1940s[62]), but more likely due to his left-leaning political views.[63] The rebuke prompted an unsuccessful lawsuit by his son, Charles Chaplin Jr. His star was finally added to the Walk in 1972, the same year he received his Academy Award;[24] but even then, 16 years later, the Chamber of Commerce received angry letters from across the country protesting its decision to include him.[64]

text: The committee's Chaplin difficulties reportedly contributed to its decision in 1978 against awarding a star to Paul Robeson, a controversial opera singer, actor, athlete, writer, lawyer, and social activist.[65] The resulting outcry from the entertainment industry, civic circles, local and national politicians, and many other quarters was so intense that the decision was reversed and Robeson was awarded a star in 1979.[66][67][68]

text: Following sexual assault allegations involving comedian Bill Cosby, actor Kevin Spacey and producer-director Brett Ratner, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce released a statement regarding inquiries as to the removal of stars:[69]

text: The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has received inquiries asking whether we are planning to remove the stars of Walk of Famers because of alleged misconduct. The answer is no...The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a registered historic landmark. Once a star has been added to the Walk, it is considered a part of the historic fabric of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Because of this, we have never removed a star from the Walk.[69]

text: As of 2015, this has been the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce's only statement regarding the removal of stars.

text: Stars with the same name[edit]

text: Two pairs of stars share identical names representing different people. There are two Harrison Ford stars, honoring the silent film actor (at 6665 Hollywood Boulevard), and the present-day actor (in front of the Dolby Theatre at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard). Two Michael Jackson stars represent the singer/dancer/songwriter (at 6927 Hollywood Boulevard), and the radio personality (at 1597 Vine Street). When the recording artist Jackson died in 2009, fans mistakenly began leaving flowers, candles, and other tributes at the Vine Street star.[70] Upon learning of this, the radio host wrote on his website, "I am willingly loan[ing] it to him and, if it would bring him back, he can have it."[71]

text: The most common surname, with sixteen stars, is Williams: Andy Williams, Bill Williams, Billy Dee Williams, Cindy Williams, Earle Williams, Esther Williams, Guy Williams, Hank Williams, Joe Williams, Kathlyn Williams, Paul Williams, Pharrell Williams, Robin Williams, Roger Williams, Tex Williams and Vanessa Williams.[72] There are fourteen stars with the surname Moore, twelve with Jones, and seven with Smith.

text: The largest collection of stars honoring one group of blood relatives is the widely scattered set of seven representing the Barrymore family: John Barrymore, his brother Lionel (who has two), and sister Ethel, their uncle Sidney Drew, John's son John Drew Barrymore, and John Drew's daughter Drew Barrymore.

text: Bending the rules[edit]

text: Walk of Fame rules prohibit consideration of nominees whose contributions fall outside the five major entertainment categories, but the selection committee has been known to conjure some interesting rule interpretations to justify a selection. The Walk's four round Moon landing monuments at the corners of Hollywood and Vine, for example, officially recognize the Apollo 11 astronauts for "contributions to the television industry". Johnny Grant acknowledged, in 2005, that classifying the first Moon landing as a television entertainment event was "a bit of a stretch". Magic Johnson's considerable basketball skills had no direct connection to movies, music, TV, radio, or theater, but the committee added him to the motion picture category, based on his ownership of the Magic Johnson Theatre chain, citing as precedent Sid Grauman, builder of Grauman's (now TCL) Chinese Theatre. "[Now] people want Orville Redenbacher," Grant quipped in the 2005 interview, "because his popcorn is in all the theaters."[25]

text: Muhammad Ali's star was granted after the committee decided that boxing could be considered a form of "live performance". Its placement, on a wall of the Dolby Theatre, makes it the only star mounted on a vertical surface, acceding to Ali's request that his name not be walked upon.[73][74]

text: All living honorees have been required since 1968 to personally attend their star's unveiling, and approximately 40 have declined the honor due to this condition.[25] The only recipient to date who failed to appear after agreeing to do so was Barbra Streisand, in 1976. Her star was unveiled anyway, near the intersection of Hollywood and Highland.[75] Streisand did attend when her husband, James Brolin, unveiled his star in 1998 two blocks to the east.[76]

text: Unique and unusual[edit]

text: Fifteen stars are identified with a one-word stage name: Cantinflas, Houdini, Liberace, Mako, Meiklejohn, Paderewski, Parkyakarkus, Roseanne, RuPaul, Sabu, Shakira, Slash, Sting, Thalía, and Usher.

text: The largest group of individuals represented by a single star is the estimated 122 adults and 12 children[77] collectively known as the Munchkins, from the landmark 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

text: Clayton Moore is so inextricably linked with his Lone Ranger character, even though he played other roles during his career, that he is one of only two actors to have his character's name alongside his own on his star. The other is Tommy Riggs, whose star reads, "Tommy Riggs & Betty Lou."[78]

text: For more than 40 years, singer Jimmy Boyd was the youngest star recipient at age 20, but he lost that distinction in 2004 to 18-year-old twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Their joint star (the only one shared by twins) is outside the Dolby Theatre, near the Hollywood and Highland Center.

text: The Westmores received the first star honoring contributions in theatrical make-up. Other make-up artists on the walk are Max Factor, John Chambers and Rick Baker. Three stars recognize experts in special effects: Ray Harryhausen, Dennis Muren, and Stan Winston. Only one costume designer has received a star, eight-time Academy Award winner Edith Head.

text: Sidney Sheldon is one of two novelists with a star, which he earned for writing screenplays such as The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer before turning to novels.[79] The other is Ray Bradbury, whose books and stories have formed the basis of dozens of movies and television programs over a nearly 60-year period.[80]

text: Ten inventors have stars on the Walk: George Eastman (as mentioned); Thomas Edison, inventor of the first true film projector and holder of numerous patents related to motion-picture technology; Lee de Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube, which made radio and TV possible, and Phonofilm, which made sound movies possible; Merian C. Cooper, co-inventor of the Cinerama process; Herbert Kalmus, inventor of Technicolor; Auguste and Louis Lumière, inventors of important components of the motion picture camera; Mark Serrurier, inventor of the technology used for film editing; Hedy Lamarr, co-inventor of a frequency-hopping radio guidance system that was a precursor to Wi-Fi networks and cellular telephone systems;[81] and Ray Dolby, co-developer of the video tape recorder and inventor of the Dolby noise reduction system.

text: A few star recipients moved on after their entertainment careers to political notability. Two US presidents, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, have stars on the Walk. Reagan is also one of two Governors of California with a star; the other is Arnold Schwarzenegger.[82] One U.S. senator (George Murphy) and two members of the U.S. House of Representatives (Helen Gahagan and Sonny Bono) have stars. Ignacy Paderewski, who served as Prime Minister of Poland between the World Wars, is the only European head of government represented. Film and stage actor Albert Dekker served one term in the California State Assembly during the 1940s,[83] which was notable for his outspoken public criticism of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communism demagoguery, leading to his blacklisting.[84]

text: On its 50th anniversary in 2005, Disneyland received a star adjacent to the Walk of Fame near Disney's Soda Fountain on Hollywood Boulevard. While not technically part of the Hollywood Walk of Fame (a city ordinance prohibits putting corporate names on sidewalks), the star was installed adjacent to the Walk of Fame, and was thought of by Johnny Grant, the proverbial "Mayor of Hollywood." Roger Ebert said of the star "If you stop to think about what Disneyland has achieved and what a revolutionary idea it was to begin with, of course it deserve[s] a star." In lieu of the traditional icon indicating the specific achievement(s) of the honoree, Disneyland's star has an icon of Sleeping Beauty Castle, and a plaque beneath the star reading: "Award of Excellence Special achievement for 50 years of magical entertainment Hollywood Historic Trust July 14, 2005. Johnny Grant, Chairman."[85]

text: Fictional characters and their creators[edit]

text: In 1978, in honor of his 50th anniversary, Mickey Mouse became the first animated character to receive a star. Other animated recipients are Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, Woody Woodpecker, Snow White, Tinker Bell, Winnie the Pooh, Shrek, The Simpsons, the Rugrats, and Snoopy. The star inscribed Charlie Tuna honors not the animated advertising mascot, but Art Ferguson, the long-time radio personality and game show announcer.

text: Other fictional characters on the Walk include the Munchkins (as mentioned), two individual Muppets (Kermit the Frog and Big Bird) and the Muppets as a group, one monster (Godzilla), and three non-animated canine characters (Strongheart, Lassie, and Rin Tin Tin).

text: Ten stars recognize cartoonists and animators: Walt Disney, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Walter Lantz, Hanna–Barbera, Charles M. Schulz, Jay Ward, Dr. Seuss, Matt Groening and John Lasseter.[86] Two puppeteers have stars: Jim Henson and Shari Lewis, as does Fran Allison, who appeared with Burr Tillstrom's puppets on the TV show Kukla, Fran and Ollie.

text: Star locations[edit]

text: Locations of individual stars are not necessarily random or arbitrary. Stars of most legendary and world-famous celebrities—the so-called "show business royalty"—are found in front of TCL (formerly Grauman's) Chinese Theatre. Oscar-winners' stars are usually placed near the Dolby Theatre, site of the annual Academy Awards presentations. Decisions are occasionally made with a dollop of whimsy: Mike Myers's star, for example, lies in front of an adult store called the International Love Boutique, an association with his Austin Powers roles; Roger Moore's star is located at 7007 Hollywood Boulevard in recognition of his seven James Bond 007 films; Ed O'Neill's star is located outside a shoe store in reference to his character's occupation on the TV show Married... with Children;[87] and the last star, at the very end of the westernmost portion of the Walk, belongs to The Dead End Kids.

text: Honorees may request a specific location for their star, although final decisions remain with the Chamber.[25] Jay Leno, for example, requested a spot near the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Highland Ave. because he was twice picked up at that location by police for vagrancy (though never actually charged) shortly after his arrival in Hollywood.[88] George Carlin chose to have his star placed in front of the KDAY radio station near the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Vine St., where he first gained national recognition.[89] Carol Burnett explained her choice in her 1986 memoir: While working as an usherette at the historic Warner Brothers Theatre (now the Hollywood Pacific Theatre) during the 1951 run of Alfred Hitchcock's film Strangers on a Train, she took it upon herself to advise a couple arriving during the final few minutes of a showing to wait for the next showing, to avoid seeing (and spoiling) the ending. The theater manager fired her on the spot for "insubordination" and humiliated her by stripping the epaulets from her uniform in the theater lobby. Twenty-six years later, at her request, Burnett's star was placed at the corner of Hollywood and Wilcox—in front of the theater.[90]

text: Errors and mysteries[edit]

text: In 2010, Julia Louis-Dreyfus's star was constructed with the name "Julia Luis Dreyfus".[91] The actress was reportedly amused, and the error was corrected.[92] A similar mistake was made on Dick Van Dyke's star in 1993 ("Vandyke"), and rectified.[93]

text: Film and television actor Don Haggerty's star originally displayed the first name "Dan". The mistake was fixed, but years later the television actor Dan Haggerty (of Grizzly Adams fame, no relation to Don) also received a star. The confusion eventually sprouted an urban legend that Dan Haggerty was the only honoree to have a star removed from the Walk of Fame.[94][95]

text: For 28 years, the star intended to honor Mauritz Stiller, the Helsinki-born pioneer of Swedish film who brought Greta Garbo to the United States, read "Maurice Diller", possibly due to mistranscription of verbal dictation. The star was finally remade with the correct name in 1988.[96][97]

text: Three stars remain misspelled: opera diva Lotte Lehmann's first name is spelled "Lottie";[98] Cinerama co-inventor and King Kong creator, director, and producer Merian C. Cooper's first name is spelled "Meriam";[99][100] and cinematography pioneer Auguste Lumière's first name is listed as "August".[101]

text: Monty Woolley, the veteran film and stage actor best known for The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) and the classic line "Time flies when you're having fun", is officially listed in the motion picture category,[102] but his star on the Walk of Fame bears the television emblem.[103] Woolley did appear on the small screen late in his career, but his TV contributions were eclipsed by his extensive stage, film, and radio work.[104][105][106] Similarly, the star of film actress Carmen Miranda bears the TV emblem,[107] although her official category is motion pictures.[108] Radio and television talk show host Larry King is officially a television honoree,[109] but his star displays a film camera.[110]

text: The Los Angeles Times, which documented and photographed the Walk as part of its Hollywood Star Walk project, reported that it could not find two stars, honoring Richard Crooks and the film career of Geraldine Farrar.[111][112][113] (Farrar's music star is located on the 1700 block of Vine Street.)

text: Theft and vandalism[edit]

text: Acts of vandalism occur on the Walk on a regular basis, ranging from profanity and political statements written on stars with markers to attempted removal of brass emblems with chisels.[114] Closed circuit surveillance cameras have been installed on the stretch of Hollywood Boulevard between La Brea Avenue and Vine Street in an effort to discourage mischievous activities.[115]

text: Four of the stars, which weigh about 300 pounds (140 kg) each, have been stolen from the Walk of Fame. In 2000, James Stewart's and Kirk Douglas's stars disappeared from their locations near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, where they had been temporarily removed for a construction project. Police recovered them in the suburban community of South Gate when they arrested a man involved in an incident there and searched his house. The suspect was a construction worker employed on the Hollywood and Vine project. The stars had been badly damaged, and had to be remade. One of Gene Autry's five stars (it is not clear which one) was also stolen from a construction area. Johnny Grant later received an anonymous phone tip that the missing star was in Iowa, but it was never found. "Someday, it will end up on eBay," Grant once joked. The most brazen and ambitious theft occurred in 2005 when thieves used a concrete saw to remove Gregory Peck's star from its Hollywood Boulevard site at the intersection of North El Centro Avenue, near North Gower. The star was replaced almost immediately, but the original was never recovered and the perpetrators never caught.[116]

text: In late 2009, rumors circulated widely on media outlets and the Internet that John Lennon's star had been stolen, but it was merely being relocated farther south on Vine Street to an area near the circular Capitol Records Building, adjacent to the stars of bandmates George Harrison and Ringo Starr.[117] Paul McCartney's star was installed in the same location in 2012.[118]

text: Donald Trump's star—received as host of The Apprentice television series—was repeatedly defaced during the 2016 presidential campaign.[119][120][121] In late October, near the end of the race, a man named Jamie Otis (who claimed to be an heir to the Otis Elevator fortune) used a sledge hammer and a pickaxe to destroy all of the star's brass inlays. He readily admitted to the vandalism, which he described as "civil disobedience" and "freedom of expression", and told reporters that he originally planned to remove the entire star and auction it to raise money for the women who accused Trump of sexually assaulting them.[122] Otis was arrested three weeks after the incident, charged with one count of felony vandalism,[123] and sentenced to three years' probation plus $3400 in restitution payments.[124] The star itself was repaired, and has since been the site of pro-Trump demonstrations.[125]

text: Four Ladies of Hollywood[edit]

text: The Four Ladies of Hollywood gazebo[126]—known officially as the Hollywood and La Brea Gateway[127]—stands upon a small triangular island formed by the confluence of Hollywood Boulevard, Marshfield Way, and North La Brea Avenue at the westernmost extension of the Walk of Fame. It was commissioned in 1993 by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency Art Program and created by the architect, production designer, and film director Catherine Hardwicke as a tribute to the multi-ethnic women of Hollywood.[127] The gazebo is a stainless steel stylized Art Deco lattice structure. The roof is an arched square supporting a circular dome, which is topped by a central obelisk with descending neon block letters spelling "Hollywood" on each of its four sides. Atop the obelisk is a small gilded weathervane-style sculpture of Marilyn Monroe in her iconic billowing skirt pose from The Seven Year Itch.[128] The domed structure is held aloft by four caryatids sculpted by Harl West[127] to represent the African-American actress Dorothy Dandridge, Asian-American actress Anna May Wong, Mexican actress Dolores del Río, and the multi-ethnic, Brooklyn-born actress Mae West.[126]

text: The gazebo was dedicated on February 1, 1994, to a mixed reception. Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight called it "the most depressingly awful work of public art in recent years", representing the opposite of Hardwicke's intended tribute to women. "Sex, as a woman's historic gateway to Hollywood", he wrote, "couldn't be more explicitly described".[129] Independent writer and film producer Gail Choice called it a fitting tribute to a group of pioneering and courageous women who "carried a tremendous burden on their feminine shoulders. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe I'd ever see women of color immortalized in such a creative and wonderful fashion."[130] Hardwicke contended that critics had missed the "humor and symbolism" of the structure, which "embraces and pokes fun at the glamour, the polished metallic male form of the Oscar, and the pastiche of styles and dreams that pervades Tinseltown."[131]

text: Nomination process[edit]

text: Each year an average of 200 nominations are submitted to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Walk of Fame Selection Committee. Anyone, including fans, can nominate anyone active in the field of entertainment as long as the nominee or his or her management approves the nomination (a letter of agreement from the nominated celebrity or representative must accompany the application). Nominees must have a minimum of five years' experience in the category for which they are nominated and a history of "charitable contributions".[73] Posthumous nominees must have been deceased at least five years. At a meeting each June, the committee selects approximately 20 celebrities to receive stars on the Walk of Fame during the following year. One posthumous award is given each year as well. The nominations of those not selected are rolled over to the following year for reconsideration; those not selected two years in a row are dropped, and must be renominated to receive further consideration. Living recipients must agree to personally attend a presentation ceremony within five years of selection. A relative of deceased recipients must attend posthumous presentations. Presentation ceremonies are open to the public.[4]

text: A fee of $40,000 (as of 2018[update]),[37] payable at time of selection, is collected to pay for the creation and installation of the star, as well as general maintenance of the Walk of Fame. The fee is usually paid by the nominating organization, which may be a fan club, or a film studio, record company, broadcaster, or other sponsor involved with the prospective honoree.[21][132] The Starz cable network, for example, paid for Dennis Hopper's star as part of the promotion for its series Crash. It was unveiled in March 2010 shortly before Hopper's death.[21][133]

text: Numerous major entertainment figures and legendary show business acts are not included on the Walk of Fame for a variety of reasons. Some, such as Julia Roberts[25][134] and Clint Eastwood,[134] have declined to participate; nominations cannot proceed without the nominee's consent. Others, such as George Clooney and John Denver,[135] were nominated, but would not agree to the mandatory personal appearance at the unveiling ceremony; however, Denver received a posthumous star in late 2014.[136] Others have simply never been nominated, or do not have a nominator willing or able to pay the selection fee, or have less than the required five years' minimum involvement in their designated field. Others are merely victims of selection constraints and probability; only about 10% of nominees are selected each year.

text: Traditionally, the identities of selection committee members, other than its chairman, have not been made public in order to minimize conflicts of interest and to discourage lobbying by celebrities and their representatives (a significant problem during the original selections in the late 1950s). However, in 1999, in response to intensifying charges of secrecy in the selection process, the Chamber disclosed the members' names: Johnny Grant, the longtime chair and representative of the television category; Earl Lestz, president of Paramount Studio Group (motion pictures); Stan Spero, retired manager with broadcast stations KMPC and KABC (radio); Kate Nelson, owner of the Palace Theatre (live performance); and Mary Lou Dudas, vice president of A&M Records (recording industry).[137] Since that 1999 announcement the Chamber has revealed only that Lestz (who received his own star in 2004) became chairman after Grant died in 2008. Their current official position is that "each of the five categories is represented by someone with expertise in that field".[4]

text: In 2010, Lestz was replaced as chairman by John Pavlik, former Director of Communications for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[138] While no public announcement was made to that effect, he was identified as chairman in the Chamber's press release announcing the 2011 star recipients.[139] The current chair, according to the Chamber's 2016 selection announcement, is film producer Maureen Schultz.[140]

text: Homage[edit]

text: Some fans show respect for star recipients both living and dead by laying flowers or other symbolic tributes at their stars.[141] Others show their support in other ways; the star awarded to Julio Iglesias, for example, is kept in "pristine condition [by] a devoted band of elderly women [who] scrub and polish it once a month".[141]

text: The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has adopted the tradition of placing flower wreaths at the stars of newly deceased awardees; for example Bette Davis in 1989,[142] Katharine Hepburn in 2003, and Jackie Cooper in 2011.[143] The stars of other deceased celebrities, such as Elizabeth Taylor,[144] Richard Pryor,[145] Ricardo Montalbán, James Doohan, Frank Sinatra,[146][147] Robin Williams,[148] Joan Rivers and George Harrison[149] have become impromptu memorial and vigil sites as well, and some continue to receive anniversary remembrances.


document_title: Renaissance

question_text: renaissance culture spread throughout europe by the late sixteenth century due to

question_tokens: renaissance culture spread throughout europe by the late sixteenth century due to

root

text: Renaissance

text: Overview

text: The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence was felt in literature, philosophy, art, music, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism and human emotion in art.[18]

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text: Renaissance humanists such as Poggio Bracciolini sought out in Europe's monastic libraries the Latin literary, historical, and oratorical texts of Antiquity, while the Fall of Constantinople (1453) generated a wave of émigré Greek scholars bringing precious manuscripts in ancient Greek, many of which had fallen into obscurity in the West. It is in their new focus on literary and historical texts that Renaissance scholars differed so markedly from the medieval scholars of the Renaissance of the 12th century, who had focused on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural sciences, philosophy and mathematics, rather than on such cultural texts.

text: In the revival of neo-Platonism Renaissance humanists did not reject Christianity; quite the contrary, many of the Renaissance's greatest works were devoted to it, and the Church patronized many works of Renaissance art. However, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life.[19] In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were brought back from Byzantium to Western Europe and engaged Western scholars for the first time since late antiquity. This new engagement with Greek Christian works, and particularly the return to the original Greek of the New Testament promoted by humanists Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus, would help pave the way for the Protestant Reformation.

text: Well after the first artistic return to classicism had been exemplified in the sculpture of Nicola Pisano, Florentine painters led by Masaccio strove to portray the human form realistically, developing techniques to render perspective and light more naturally. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe political life as it really was, that is to understand it rationally. A critical contribution to Italian Renaissance humanism Giovanni Pico della Mirandola wrote the famous text "De hominis dignitate" (Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486), which consists of a series of theses on philosophy, natural thought, faith and magic defended against any opponent on the grounds of reason. In addition to studying classical Latin and Greek, Renaissance authors also began increasingly to use vernacular languages; combined with the introduction of printing, this would allow many more people access to books, especially the Bible.[20]

text: In all, the Renaissance could be viewed as an attempt by intellectuals to study and improve the secular and worldly, both through the revival of ideas from antiquity, and through novel approaches to thought. Some scholars, such as Rodney Stark,[21] play down the Renaissance in favor of the earlier innovations of the Italian city-states in the High Middle Ages, which married responsive government, Christianity and the birth of capitalism. This analysis argues that, whereas the great European states (France and Spain) were absolutist monarchies, and others were under direct Church control, the independent city republics of Italy took over the principles of capitalism invented on monastic estates and set off a vast unprecedented commercial revolution that preceded and financed the Renaissance.

text: Origins

text: Many argue that the ideas characterizing the Renaissance had their origin in late 13th-century Florence, in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and Petrarch (1304–1374), as well as the paintings of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337). Some writers date the Renaissance quite precisely; one proposed starting point is 1401, when the rival geniuses Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi competed for the contract to build the bronze doors for the Baptistery of the Florence Cathedral (Ghiberti won).[22] Others see more general competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, and why it began when it did. Accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins.

text: During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand. Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia and Europe. Silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa and Venice.[23]

text: Jules Michelet defined the 16th-century Renaissance in France as a period in Europe's cultural history that represented a break from the Middle Ages, creating a modern understanding of humanity and its place in the world.[24]

text: Latin and Greek phases of Renaissance humanism

text: The examples and perspective in this article may not include all significant viewpoints. Please improve the article or discuss the issue. (June 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

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text: In stark contrast to the High Middle Ages, when Latin scholars focused almost entirely on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural science, philosophy and mathematics,[25] Renaissance scholars were most interested in recovering and studying Latin and Greek literary, historical, and oratorical texts. Broadly speaking, this began in the 14th century with a Latin phase, when Renaissance scholars such as Petrarch, Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), Niccolò de' Niccoli (1364–1437) and Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) scoured the libraries of Europe in search of works by such Latin authors as Cicero, Lucretius, Livy and Seneca.[26] By the early 15th century, the bulk of the surviving such Latin literature had been recovered; the Greek phase of Renaissance humanism was under way, as Western European scholars turned to recovering ancient Greek literary, historical, oratorical and theological texts.[27]

text: Unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. Ancient Greek works on science, maths and philosophy had been studied since the High Middle Ages in Western Europe and in the medieval Islamic world (normally in translation), but Greek literary, oratorical and historical works (such as Homer, the Greek dramatists, Demosthenes and Thucydides) were not studied in either the Latin or medieval Islamic worlds; in the Middle Ages these sorts of texts were only studied by Byzantine scholars. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity. Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Iberia and Sicily, which became important centers for this transmission of ideas. From the 11th to the 13th century, many schools dedicated to the translation of philosophical and scientific works from Classical Arabic to Medieval Latin were established in Iberia. Most notably the Toledo School of Translators. This work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history.[28] This movement to reintegrate the regular study of Greek literary, historical, oratorical and theological texts back into the Western European curriculum is usually dated to the 1396 invitation from Coluccio Salutati to the Byzantine diplomat and scholar Manuel Chrysoloras (c.1355–1415) to teach Greek in Florence.[29] This legacy was continued by a number of expatriate Greek scholars, from Basilios Bessarion to Leo Allatius.

text: Social and political structures in Italy

text: The unique political structures of late Middle Ages Italy have led some to theorize that its unusual social climate allowed the emergence of a rare cultural efflorescence. Italy did not exist as a political entity in the early modern period. Instead, it was divided into smaller city states and territories: the Kingdom of Naples controlled the south, the Republic of Florence and the Papal States at the center, the Milanese and the Genoese to the north and west respectively, and the Venetians to the east. Fifteenth-century Italy was one of the most urbanised areas in Europe.[30] Many of its cities stood among the ruins of ancient Roman buildings; it seems likely that the classical nature of the Renaissance was linked to its origin in the Roman Empire's heartland.[31]

text: Historian and political philosopher Quentin Skinner points out that Otto of Freising (c. 1114–1158), a German bishop visiting north Italy during the 12th century, noticed a widespread new form of political and social organization, observing that Italy appeared to have exited from Feudalism so that its society was based on merchants and commerce. Linked to this was anti-monarchical thinking, represented in the famous early Renaissance fresco cycle Allegory of Good and Bad Government in Siena by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (painted 1338–1340), whose strong message is about the virtues of fairness, justice, republicanism and good administration. Holding both Church and Empire at bay, these city republics were devoted to notions of liberty. Skinner reports that there were many defences of liberty such as the Matteo Palmieri (1406–1475) celebration of Florentine genius not only in art, sculpture and architecture, but "the remarkable efflorescence of moral, social and political philosophy that occurred in Florence at the same time".[32]

text: Even cities and states beyond central Italy, such as the Republic of Florence at this time, were also notable for their merchant Republics, especially the Republic of Venice. Although in practice these were oligarchical, and bore little resemblance to a modern democracy, they did have democratic features and were responsive states, with forms of participation in governance and belief in liberty.[32][33][34] The relative political freedom they afforded was conducive to academic and artistic advancement.[35] Likewise, the position of Italian cities such as Venice as great trading centres made them intellectual crossroads. Merchants brought with them ideas from far corners of the globe, particularly the Levant. Venice was Europe's gateway to trade with the East, and a producer of fine glass, while Florence was a capital of textiles. The wealth such business brought to Italy meant large public and private artistic projects could be commissioned and individuals had more leisure time for study.[35]

text: Black Plague

text: One theory that has been advanced is that the devastation in Florence caused by the Black Death, which hit Europe between 1348 and 1350, resulted in a shift in the world view of people in 14th-century Italy. Italy was particularly badly hit by the plague, and it has been speculated that the resulting familiarity with death caused thinkers to dwell more on their lives on Earth, rather than on spirituality and the afterlife.[36] It has also been argued that the Black Death prompted a new wave of piety, manifested in the sponsorship of religious works of art.[37] However, this does not fully explain why the Renaissance occurred specifically in Italy in the 14th century. The Black Death was a pandemic that affected all of Europe in the ways described, not only Italy. The Renaissance's emergence in Italy was most likely the result of the complex interaction of the above factors.[11]

text: The plague was carried by fleas on sailing vessels returning from the ports of Asia, spreading quickly due to lack of proper sanitation: the population of England, then about 4.2 million, lost 1.4 million people to the bubonic plague. Florence's population was nearly halved in the year 1347. As a result of the decimation in the populace the value of the working class increased, and commoners came to enjoy more freedom. To answer the increased need for labor, workers traveled in search of the most favorable position economically.[38]

text: The demographic decline due to the plague had economic consequences: the prices of food dropped and land values declined by 30 to 40% in most parts of Europe between 1350 and 1400.[39] Landholders faced a great loss, but for ordinary men and women it was a windfall. The survivors of the plague found not only that the prices of food were cheaper but also that lands were more abundant, and many of them inherited property from their dead relatives.

text: The spread of disease was significantly more rampant in areas of poverty. Epidemics ravaged cities, particularly children. Plagues were easily spread by lice, unsanitary drinking water, armies, or by poor sanitation. Children were hit the hardest because many diseases, such as typhus and syphilis, target the immune system, leaving young children without a fighting chance. Children in city dwellings were more affected by the spread of disease than the children of the wealthy.[40]

text: The Black Death caused greater upheaval to Florence's social and political structure than later epidemics. Despite a significant number of deaths among members of the ruling classes, the government of Florence continued to function during this period. Formal meetings of elected representatives were suspended during the height of the epidemic due to the chaotic conditions in the city, but a small group of officials was appointed to conduct the affairs of the city, which ensured continuity of government.[41]

text: Cultural conditions in Florence

text: It has long been a matter of debate why the Renaissance began in Florence, and not elsewhere in Italy. Scholars have noted several features unique to Florentine cultural life that may have caused such a cultural movement. Many have emphasized the role played by the Medici, a banking family and later ducal ruling house, in patronizing and stimulating the arts. Lorenzo de' Medici (1449–1492) was the catalyst for an enormous amount of arts patronage, encouraging his countrymen to commission works from the leading artists of Florence, including Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Michelangelo Buonarroti.[6] Works by Neri di Bicci, Botticelli, da Vinci and Filippino Lippi had been commissioned additionally by the convent di San Donato agli Scopeti of the Augustinians order in Florence.[42]

text: The Renaissance was certainly underway before Lorenzo de' Medici came to power – indeed, before the Medici family itself achieved hegemony in Florentine society. Some historians have postulated that Florence was the birthplace of the Renaissance as a result of luck, i.e. because "Great Men" were born there by chance:[43] Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli and Michelangelo were all born in Tuscany. Arguing that such chance seems improbable, other historians have contended that these "Great Men" were only able to rise to prominence because of the prevailing cultural conditions at the time.[44]

text: Characteristics

text: Humanism

text: In some ways humanism was not a philosophy but a method of learning. In contrast to the medieval scholastic mode, which focused on resolving contradictions between authors, humanists would study ancient texts in the original and appraise them through a combination of reasoning and empirical evidence. Humanist education was based on the programme of 'Studia Humanitatis', the study of five humanities: poetry, grammar, history, moral philosophy and rhetoric. Although historians have sometimes struggled to define humanism precisely, most have settled on "a middle of the road definition... the movement to recover, interpret, and assimilate the language, literature, learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome".[46] Above all, humanists asserted "the genius of man ... the unique and extraordinary ability of the human mind".[47]

text: Humanist scholars shaped the intellectual landscape throughout the early modern period. Political philosophers such as Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas More revived the ideas of Greek and Roman thinkers and applied them in critiques of contemporary government. Pico della Mirandola wrote the "manifesto" of the Renaissance, the Oration on the Dignity of Man, a vibrant defence of thinking. Matteo Palmieri (1406–1475), another humanist, is most known for his work Della vita civile ("On Civic Life"; printed 1528), which advocated civic humanism, and for his influence in refining the Tuscan vernacular to the same level as Latin. Palmieri drew on Roman philosophers and theorists, especially Cicero, who, like Palmieri, lived an active public life as a citizen and official, as well as a theorist and philosopher and also Quintilian. Perhaps the most succinct expression of his perspective on humanism is in a 1465 poetic work La città di vita, but an earlier work, Della vita civile (On Civic Life), is more wide-ranging. Composed as a series of dialogues set in a country house in the Mugello countryside outside Florence during the plague of 1430, Palmieri expounds on the qualities of the ideal citizen. The dialogues include ideas about how children develop mentally and physically, how citizens can conduct themselves morally, how citizens and states can ensure probity in public life, and an important debate on the difference between that which is pragmatically useful and that which is honest.

text: The humanists believed that it is important to transcend to the afterlife with a perfect mind and body, which could be attained with education. The purpose of humanism was to create a universal man whose person combined intellectual and physical excellence and who was capable of functioning honorably in virtually any situation.[48] This ideology was referred to as the uomo universale, an ancient Greco-Roman ideal. Education during the Renaissance was mainly composed of ancient literature and history as it was thought that the classics provided moral instruction and an intensive understanding of human behavior.

text: Humanism and Libraries

text: A unique characteristic of some Renaissance libraries is that they were open to the public. These libraries were places where ideas were exchanged and where scholarship and reading were considered both pleasurable and beneficial to the mind and soul. As freethinking was a hallmark of the age, many libraries contained a wide range of writers. Classical texts could be found alongside humanist writings. These informal associations of intellectuals profoundly influenced Renaissance culture. Some of the richest "bibliophiles" built libraries as temples to books and knowledge. A number of libraries appeared as manifestations of immense wealth joined with a love of books. In some cases, cultivated library builders were also committed to offering others the opportunity to use their collections. Prominent aristocrats and princes of the Church created great libraries for the use of their courts, called "court libraries", and were housed in lavishly designed monumental buildings decorated with ornate woodwork, and the walls adorned with frescoes (Murray, Stuart A.P.)

text: Art

text: Renaissance art marks a cultural rebirth at the close of the Middle Ages and rise of the Modern world. One of the distinguishing features of Renaissance art was its development of highly realistic linear perspective. Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337) is credited with first treating a painting as a window into space, but it was not until the demonstrations of architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and the subsequent writings of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) that perspective was formalized as an artistic technique.[49]

text: The development of perspective was part of a wider trend towards realism in the arts.[50] Painters developed other techniques, studying light, shadow, and, famously in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, human anatomy. Underlying these changes in artistic method was a renewed desire to depict the beauty of nature and to unravel the axioms of aesthetics, with the works of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael representing artistic pinnacles that were much imitated by other artists.[51] Other notable artists include Sandro Botticelli, working for the Medici in Florence, Donatello, another Florentine, and Titian in Venice, among others.

text: In the Netherlands, a particularly vibrant artistic culture developed. The work of Hugo van der Goes and Jan van Eyck was particularly influential on the development of painting in Italy, both technically with the introduction of oil paint and canvas, and stylistically in terms of naturalism in representation (see Renaissance in the Netherlands). Later, the work of Pieter Brueghel the Elder would inspire artists to depict themes of everyday life.[52]

text: In architecture, Filippo Brunelleschi was foremost in studying the remains of ancient classical buildings. With rediscovered knowledge from the 1st-century writer Vitruvius and the flourishing discipline of mathematics, Brunelleschi formulated the Renaissance style that emulated and improved on classical forms. His major feat of engineering was building the dome of the Florence Cathedral.[53] Another building demonstrating this style is the church of St. Andrew in Mantua, built by Alberti. The outstanding architectural work of the High Renaissance was the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, combining the skills of Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, Sangallo and Maderno.

text: During the Renaissance, architects aimed to use columns, pilasters, and entablatures as an integrated system. The Roman orders types of columns are used: Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite. These can either be structural, supporting an arcade or architrave, or purely decorative, set against a wall in the form of pilasters. One of the first buildings to use pilasters as an integrated system was in the Old Sacristy (1421–1440) by Brunelleschi.[54] Arches, semi-circular or (in the Mannerist style) segmental, are often used in arcades, supported on piers or columns with capitals. There may be a section of entablature between the capital and the springing of the arch. Alberti was one of the first to use the arch on a monumental. Renaissance vaults do not have ribs; they are semi-circular or segmental and on a square plan, unlike the Gothic vault, which is frequently rectangular.

text: Renaissance artists were not pagans, although they admired antiquity and kept some ideas and symbols of the medieval past. Nicola Pisano (c. 1220–c. 1278) imitated classical forms by portraying scenes from the Bible. His Annunciation, from the Baptistry at Pisa, demonstrates that classical models influenced Italian art before the Renaissance took root as a literary movement [55]

text: Science

text: The rediscovery of ancient texts and the invention of printing democratized learning and allowed a faster propagation of more widely distributed ideas. In the first period of the Italian Renaissance, humanists favoured the study of humanities over natural philosophy or applied mathematics, and their reverence for classical sources further enshrined the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic views of the universe. Writing around 1450, Nicholas Cusanus anticipated the heliocentric worldview of Copernicus, but in a philosophical fashion.

text: Science and art were intermingled in the early Renaissance, with polymath artists such as Leonardo da Vinci making observational drawings of anatomy and nature. Da Vinci set up controlled experiments in water flow, medical dissection, and systematic study of movement and aerodynamics, and he devised principles of research method that led Fritjof Capra to classify him as the "father of modern science".[56] Other examples of Da Vinci's contribution during this period include machines designed to saw marbles and lift monoliths and new discoveries in acoustics, botany, geology, anatomy and mechanics.[57]

text: A suitable environment had developed to question scientific doctrine. The discovery in 1492 of the New World by Christopher Columbus challenged the classical worldview. The works of Ptolemy (in geography) and Galen (in medicine) were found to not always match everyday observations. As the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation clashed, the Northern Renaissance showed a decisive shift in focus from Aristotelean natural philosophy to chemistry and the biological sciences (botany, anatomy, and medicine).[58] The willingness to question previously held truths and search for new answers resulted in a period of major scientific advancements.

text: Some view this as a "scientific revolution", heralding the beginning of the modern age,[59] others as an acceleration of a continuous process stretching from the ancient world to the present day.[60] Significant scientific advances were made during this time by Galileo Galilei, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.[61] Copernicus, in De Revolutionibus, posited that the Earth moved around the Sun. De humani corporis fabrica (On the Workings of the Human Body), by Andreas Vesalius, gave a new confidence to the role of dissection, observation, and the mechanistic view of anatomy.[62]

text: Another important development was in the process for discovery, the scientific method,[62] focusing on empirical evidence and the importance of mathematics, while discarding Aristotelian science. Early and influential proponents of these ideas included Copernicus, Galileo, and Francis Bacon.[63][64] The new scientific method led to great contributions in the fields of astronomy, physics, biology, and anatomy.[65][66]

text: Applied innovation extended to commerce. At the end of the 15th century Luca Pacioli published the first work on bookkeeping, making him the founder of accounting.[67]

text: Music

text: From this changing society emerged a common, unifying musical language, in particular the polyphonic style of the Franco-Flemish school. The development of printing made distribution of music possible on a wide scale. Demand for music as entertainment and as an activity for educated amateurs increased with the emergence of a bourgeois class. Dissemination of chansons, motets, and masses throughout Europe coincided with the unification of polyphonic practice into the fluid style that culminated in the second half of the sixteenth century in the work of composers such as Palestrina, Lassus, Victoria and William Byrd.

text: Religion

text: The new ideals of humanism, although more secular in some aspects, developed against a Christian backdrop, especially in the Northern Renaissance. Much, if not most, of the new art was commissioned by or in dedication to the Church.[19] However, the Renaissance had a profound effect on contemporary theology, particularly in the way people perceived the relationship between man and God.[19] Many of the period's foremost theologians were followers of the humanist method, including Erasmus, Zwingli, Thomas More, Martin Luther, and John Calvin.

text: The Renaissance began in times of religious turmoil. The late Middle Ages was a period of political intrigue surrounding the Papacy, culminating in the Western Schism, in which three men simultaneously claimed to be true Bishop of Rome.[68] While the schism was resolved by the Council of Constance (1414), a resulting reform movement known as Conciliarism sought to limit the power of the pope. Although the papacy eventually emerged supreme in ecclesiastical matters by the Fifth Council of the Lateran (1511), it was dogged by continued accusations of corruption, most famously in the person of Pope Alexander VI, who was accused variously of simony, nepotism and fathering four children (most of whom were married off, presumably for the consolidation of power) while a cardinal.[69]

text: Churchmen such as Erasmus and Luther proposed reform to the Church, often based on humanist textual criticism of the New Testament.[19] In October 1517 Luther published the 95 Theses, challenging papal authority and criticizing its perceived corruption, particularly with regard to instances of sold indulgences.[note 1] The 95 Theses led to the Reformation, a break with the Roman Catholic Church that previously claimed hegemony in Western Europe. Humanism and the Renaissance therefore played a direct role in sparking the Reformation, as well as in many other contemporaneous religious debates and conflicts.

text: Pope Paul III came to the papal throne (1534–1549) after the sack of Rome in 1527, with uncertainties prevalent in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation. Nicolaus Copernicus dedicated De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) to Paul III, who became the grandfather of Alessandro Farnese (cardinal), who had paintings by Titian, Michelangelo, and Raphael, as well as an important collection of drawings, and who commissioned the masterpiece of Giulio Clovio, arguably the last major illuminated manuscript, the Farnese Hours.

text: Self-awareness

text:
By the 15th century, writers, artists, and architects in Italy were well aware of the transformations that were taking place and were using phrases such as modi antichi (in the antique manner) or alle romana et alla antica (in the manner of the Romans and the ancients) to describe their work. In the 1330s Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua (ancient) and to the Christian period as nova (new).[70] From Petrarch's Italian perspective, this new period (which included his own time) was an age of national eclipse.[70]
Leonardo Bruni was the first to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People (1442).[71] Bruni's first two periods were based on those of Petrarch, but he added a third period because he believed that Italy was no longer in a state of decline. Flavio Biondo used a similar framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire (1439–1453).

text: Humanist historians argued that contemporary scholarship restored direct links to the classical period, thus bypassing the Medieval period, which they then named for the first time the "Middle Ages". The term first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas (middle times).[72] The term la rinascita (rebirth) first appeared, however, in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, 1550, revised 1568.[73][74] Vasari divides the age into three phases: the first phase contains Cimabue, Giotto, and Arnolfo di Cambio; the second phase contains Masaccio, Brunelleschi, and Donatello; the third centers on Leonardo da Vinci and culminates with Michelangelo. It was not just the growing awareness of classical antiquity that drove this development, according to Vasari, but also the growing desire to study and imitate nature.[75]

text: Spread

text: In the 15th century, the Renaissance spread rapidly from its birthplace in Florence to the rest of Italy and soon to the rest of Europe. The invention of the printing press by German printer Johannes Gutenberg allowed the rapid transmission of these new ideas. As it spread, its ideas diversified and changed, being adapted to local culture. In the 20th century, scholars began to break the Renaissance into regional and national movements.

text: Northern Europe

text: The Renaissance in Northern Europe has been termed the "Northern Renaissance". While Renaissance ideas were moving north from Italy, there was a simultaneous southward spread of some areas of innovation, particularly in music.[76] The music of the 15th century Burgundian School defined the beginning of the Renaissance in music, and the polyphony of the Netherlanders, as it moved with the musicians themselves into Italy, formed the core of the first true international style in music since the standardization of Gregorian Chant in the 9th century.[76] The culmination of the Netherlandish school was in the music of the Italian composer Palestrina. At the end of the 16th century Italy again became a center of musical innovation, with the development of the polychoral style of the Venetian School, which spread northward into Germany around 1600.

text: The paintings of the Italian Renaissance differed from those of the Northern Renaissance. Italian Renaissance artists were among the first to paint secular scenes, breaking away from the purely religious art of medieval painters. Northern Renaissance artists initially remained focused on religious subjects, such as the contemporary religious upheaval portrayed by Albrecht Dürer. Later, the works of Pieter Bruegel influenced artists to paint scenes of daily life rather than religious or classical themes. It was also during the Northern Renaissance that Flemish brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck perfected the oil painting technique, which enabled artists to produce strong colors on a hard surface that could survive for centuries.[77] A feature of the Northern Renaissance was its use of the vernacular in place of Latin or Greek, which allowed greater freedom of expression. This movement had started in Italy with the decisive influence of Dante Alighieri on the development of vernacular languages; in fact the focus on writing in Italian has neglected a major source of Florentine ideas expressed in Latin.[78] The spread of the printing press technology boosted the Renaissance in Northern Europe as elsewhere, with Venice becoming a world center of printing.

text: England

text: In England, the sixteenth century marked the beginning of the English Renaissance with the work of writers William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Sir Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Sir Philip Sidney, as well as great artists, architects (such as Inigo Jones who introduced Italianate architecture to England), and composers such as Thomas Tallis, John Taverner, and William Byrd.

text: France

text: The word "Renaissance" is borrowed from the French language, where it means "re-birth". It was first used in the eighteenth century and was later popularized by French historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874) in his 1855 work, Histoire de France (History of France).[79][80]

text: In 1495 the Italian Renaissance arrived in France, imported by King Charles VIII after his invasion of Italy. A factor that promoted the spread of secularism was the inability of the Church to offer assistance against the Black Death. Francis I imported Italian art and artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, and built ornate palaces at great expense. Writers such as François Rabelais, Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay and Michel de Montaigne, painters such as Jean Clouet, and musicians such as Jean Mouton also borrowed from the spirit of the Renaissance.

text: In 1533, a fourteen-year-old Caterina de' Medici (1519–1589), born in Florence to Lorenzo II de' Medici and Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, married Henry II of France, second son of King Francis I and Queen Claude. Though she became famous and infamous for her role in France's religious wars, she made a direct contribution in bringing arts, sciences and music (including the origins of ballet) to the French court from her native Florence.

text: Germany

text: In the second half of the 15th century, the Renaissance spirit spread to Germany and the Low Countries, where the development of the printing press (ca. 1450) and early Renaissance artists such as the painters Jan van Eyck (1395–1441) and Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516) and the composers Johannes Ockeghem (1410–1497), Jacob Obrecht (1457–1505) and Josquin des Prez (1455–1521) predated the influence from Italy. In the early Protestant areas of the country humanism became closely linked to the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, and the art and writing of the German Renaissance frequently reflected this dispute.[81] However, the gothic style and medieval scholastic philosophy remained exclusively until the turn of the 16th century. Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg (ruling 1493–1519) was the first truly Renaissance monarch of the Holy Roman Empire.

text: Netherlands

text: Culture in the Netherlands at the end of the 15th century was influenced by the Italian Renaissance through trade via Bruges, which made Flanders wealthy. Its nobles commissioned artists who became known across Europe.[82] In science, the anatomist Andreas Vesalius led the way; in cartography, Gerardus Mercator's map assisted explorers and navigators. In art, Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting ranged from the strange work of Hieronymus Bosch[83] to the everyday life depictions of Pieter Brueghel the Elder.[82]

text: Spain

text: The Renaissance arrived in the Iberian peninsula through the Mediterranean possessions of the Aragonese Crown and the city of Valencia. Many early Spanish Renaissance writers come from the Kingdom of Aragon, including Ausiàs March and Joanot Martorell. In the Kingdom of Castile, the early Renaissance was heavily influenced by the Italian humanism, starting with writers and poets such as the Marquis of Santillana, who introduced the new Italian poetry to Spain in the early 15th century. Other writers, such as Jorge Manrique, Fernando de Rojas, Juan del Encina, Juan Boscán Almogáver and Garcilaso de la Vega, kept a close resemblance to the Italian canon. Miguel de Cervantes's masterpiece Don Quixote is credited as the first Western novel. Renaissance humanism flourished in the early 16th century, with influential writers such as philosopher Juan Luis Vives, grammarian Antonio de Nebrija and natural historian Pedro de Mexía.

text: Later Spanish Renaissance tended towards religious themes and mysticism, with poets such as fray Luis de León, Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross, and treated issues related to the exploration of the New World, with chroniclers and writers such as Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Bartolomé de las Casas, giving rise to a body of work, now known as Spanish Renaissance literature. The late Renaissance in Spain produced artists such as El Greco and composers such as Tomás Luis de Victoria and Antonio de Cabezón.

text: Portugal

text: Although Italian Renaissance had a modest impact in Portuguese arts, Portugal was influential in broadening the European worldview,[84] stimulating humanist inquiry. Renaissance arrived through the influence of wealthy Italian and Flemish merchants who invested in the profitable commerce overseas. As the pioneer headquarters of European exploration, Lisbon flourished in the late 15th century, attracting experts who made several breakthroughs in mathematics, astronomy and naval technology, including Pedro Nunes, João de Castro, Abraham Zacuto and Martin Behaim. Cartographers Pedro Reinel, Lopo Homem, Estêvão Gomes and Diogo Ribeiro made crucial advances in mapping the world. Apothecary Tomé Pires and physicians Garcia de Orta and Cristóvão da Costa collected and published works on plants and medicines, soon translated by Flemish pioneer botanist Carolus Clusius.

text: In architecture, the huge profits of the spice trade financed a sumptuous composite style in the first decades of the 16th century, the Manueline, incorporating maritime elements.[85] The primary painters were Nuno Gonçalves, Gregório Lopes and Vasco Fernandes. In music, Pedro de Escobar and Duarte Lobo produced four songbooks, including the Cancioneiro de Elvas. In literature, Sá de Miranda introduced Italian forms of verse. Bernardim Ribeiro developed pastoral romance, plays by Gil Vicente fused it with popular culture, reporting the changing times, and Luís de Camões inscribed the Portuguese feats overseas in the epic poem Os Lusíadas. Travel literature especially flourished: João de Barros, Castanheda, António Galvão, Gaspar Correia, Duarte Barbosa, and Fernão Mendes Pinto, among others, described new lands and were translated and spread with the new printing press.[84] After joining the Portuguese exploration of Brazil in 1500, Amerigo Vespucci coined the term New World,[86] in his letters to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici.

text: The intense international exchange produced several cosmopolitan humanist scholars, including Francisco de Holanda, André de Resende and Damião de Góis, a friend of Erasmus who wrote with rare independence on the reign of King Manuel I. Diogo and André de Gouveia made relevant teaching reforms via France. Foreign news and products in the Portuguese factory in Antwerp attracted the interest of Thomas More[87] and Dürer to the wider world.[88] There, profits and know-how helped nurture the Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age, especially after the arrival of the wealthy cultured Jewish community expelled from Portugal.

text: Hungary

text: After Italy, Hungary was the first European country where the renaissance appeared.[89] The Renaissance style came directly from Italy during the Quattrocento to Hungary first in the Central European region, thanks to the development of early Hungarian-Italian relationships – not only in dynastic connections, but also in cultural, humanistic and commercial relations – growing in strength from the 14th century. The relationship between Hungarian and Italian Gothic styles was a second reason – exaggerated breakthrough of walls is avoided, preferring clean and light structures. Large-scale building schemes provided ample and long term work for the artists, for example, the building of the Friss (New) Castle in Buda, the castles of Visegrád, Tata and Várpalota. In Sigismund's court there were patrons such as Pipo Spano, a descendant of the Scolari family of Florence, who invited Manetto Ammanatini and Masolino da Pannicale to Hungary.[90]

text: The new Italian trend combined with existing national traditions to create a particular local Renaissance art. Acceptance of Renaissance art was furthered by the continuous arrival of humanist thought in the country. Many young Hungarians studying at Italian universities came closer to the Florentine humanist center, so a direct connection with Florence evolved. The growing number of Italian traders moving to Hungary, specially to Buda, helped this process. New thoughts were carried by the humanist prelates, among them Vitéz János, archbishop of Esztergom, one of the founders of Hungarian humanism.[91] During the long reign of emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg the Royal Castle of Buda became probably the largest Gothic palace of the late Middle Ages. King Matthias Corvinus (r. 1458–1490) rebuilt the palace in early Renaissance style and further expanded it.[92][93]

text: After the marriage in 1476 of King Matthias to Beatrice of Naples, Buda became one of the most important artistic centres of the Renaissance north of the Alps.[94] The most important humanists living in Matthias' court were Antonio Bonfini and the famous Hungarian poet Janus Pannonius.[94] András Hess set up a printing press in Buda in 1472. Matthias Corvinus's library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana, was Europe's greatest collections of secular books: historical chronicles, philosophic and scientific works in the 15th century. His library was second only in size to the Vatican Library. (However, the Vatican Library mainly contained Bibles and religious materials.)[95]

text:
In 1489, Bartolomeo della Fonte of Florence wrote that Lorenzo de' Medici founded his own Greek-Latin library encouraged by the example of the Hungarian king. Corvinus's library is part of UNESCO World Heritage.[96]
Other important figures of Hungarian Renaissance include Bálint Balassi (poet), Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos (poet), Bálint Bakfark (composer and lutenist), and Master MS (fresco painter).

text: Poland

text: An early Italian humanist who came to Poland in the mid-15th century was Filippo Buonaccorsi. Many Italian artists came to Poland with Bona Sforza of Milan, when she married King Sigismund I the Old in 1518.[97] This was supported by temporarily strengthened monarchies in both areas, as well as by newly established universities.[98] The Polish Renaissance lasted from the late 15th to the late 16th century and was the Golden Age of Polish culture. Ruled by the Jagiellon dynasty, the Kingdom of Poland (from 1569 known as the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) actively participated in the broad European Renaissance. The multi-national Polish state experienced a substantial period of cultural growth thanks in part to a century without major wars – aside from conflicts in the sparsely populated eastern and southern borderlands. The Reformation spread peacefully throughout the country (giving rise to the Polish Brethren), while living conditions improved, cities grew, and exports of agricultural products enriched the population, especially the nobility (szlachta) who gained dominance in the new political system of Golden Liberty. The Polish Renaissance architecture has three periods of development.

text: The greatest monument of this style in the territory of the former Duchy of Pomerania is the Ducal Castle in Szczecin.

text: Russia

text: Renaissance trends from Italy and Central Europe influenced Russia in many ways. Their influence was rather limited, however, due to the large distances between Russia and the main European cultural centers and the strong adherence of Russians to their Orthodox traditions and Byzantine legacy.

text: Prince Ivan III introduced Renaissance architecture to Russia by inviting a number of architects from Italy, who brought new construction techniques and some Renaissance style elements with them, while in general following the traditional designs of Russian architecture. In 1475 the Bolognese architect Aristotele Fioravanti came to rebuild the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Moscow Kremlin, which had been damaged in an earthquake. Fioravanti was given the 12th-century Vladimir Cathedral as a model, and he produced a design combining traditional Russian style with a Renaissance sense of spaciousness, proportion and symmetry.

text: In 1485 Ivan III commissioned the building of the royal residence, Terem Palace, within the Kremlin, with Aloisio da Milano as the architect of the first three floors. He and other Italian architects also contributed to the construction of the Kremlin walls and towers. The small banquet hall of the Russian Tsars, called the Palace of Facets because of its facetted upper story, is the work of two Italians, Marco Ruffo and Pietro Solario, and shows a more Italian style. In 1505, an Italian known in Russia as Aleviz Novyi or Aleviz Fryazin arrived in Moscow. He may have been the Venetian sculptor, Alevisio Lamberti da Montagne. He built 12 churches for Ivan III, including the Cathedral of the Archangel, a building remarkable for the successful blending of Russian tradition, Orthodox requirements and Renaissance style. It is believed that the Cathedral of the Metropolitan Peter in Vysokopetrovsky Monastery, another work of Aleviz Novyi, later served as an inspiration for the so-called octagon-on-tetragon architectural form in the Moscow Baroque of the late 17th century.

text: Between the early 16th and the late 17th centuries, an original tradition of stone tented roof architecture developed in Russia. It was quite unique and different from the contemporary Renaissance architecture elsewhere in Europe, though some research terms the style 'Russian Gothic' and compares it with the European Gothic architecture of the earlier period. The Italians, with their advanced technology, may have influenced the invention of the stone tented roof (the wooden tents were known in Russia and Europe long before). According to one hypothesis, an Italian architect called Petrok Maly may have been an author of the Ascension Church in Kolomenskoye, one of the earliest and most prominent tented roof churches.[99]

text: By the 17th century the influence of Renaissance painting resulted in Russian icons becoming slightly more realistic, while still following most of the old icon painting canons, as seen in the works of Bogdan Saltanov, Simon Ushakov, Gury Nikitin, Karp Zolotaryov and other Russian artists of the era. Gradually the new type of secular portrait painting appeared, called parsúna (from "persona" – person), which was transitional style between abstract iconographics and real paintings.

text: In the mid 16th-century Russians adopted printing from Central Europe, with Ivan Fyodorov being the first known Russian printer. In the 17th century printing became widespread, and woodcuts became especially popular. That led to the development of a special form of folk art known as lubok printing, which persisted in Russia well into the 19th century.

text: A number of technologies from the European Renaissance period were adopted by Russia rather early and subsequently perfected to become a part of a strong domestic tradition. Mostly these were military technologies, such as cannon casting adopted by at least the 15th century. The Tsar Cannon, which is the world's largest bombard by caliber, is a masterpiece of Russian cannon making. It was cast in 1586 by Andrey Chokhov and is notable for its rich, decorative relief. Another technology, that according to one hypothesis originally was brought from Europe by the Italians, resulted in the development of vodka, the national beverage of Russia. As early as 1386 Genoese ambassadors brought the first aqua vitae ("water of life") to Moscow and presented it to Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy. The Genoese likely developed this beverage with the help of the alchemists of Provence, who used an Arab-invented distillation apparatus to convert grape must into alcohol. A Moscovite monk called Isidore used this technology to produce the first original Russian vodka c. 1430.[100]

text: Further countries

text:
Renaissance in Croatia
Renaissance in Scotland

tag: ul

text: Historiography

text: Conception

text: The Italian artist and critic Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) first used the term rinascita retrospectively in his book The Lives of the Artists (published 1550). In the book Vasari attempted to define what he described as a break with the barbarities of gothic art: the arts (he held) had fallen into decay with the collapse of the Roman Empire and only the Tuscan artists, beginning with Cimabue (1240–1301) and Giotto (1267–1337) began to reverse this decline in the arts. Vasari saw antique art as central to the rebirth of Italian art.[101]

text: However, only in the 19th century did the French word Renaissance achieve popularity in describing the self-conscious cultural movement based on revival of Roman models that began in the late-13th century. French historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874) defined "The Renaissance" in his 1855 work Histoire de France as an entire historical period, whereas previously it had been used in a more limited sense.[17] For Michelet, the Renaissance was more a development in science than in art and culture. He asserted that it spanned the period from Columbus to Copernicus to Galileo; that is, from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 17th century.[79] Moreover, Michelet distinguished between what he called, "the bizarre and monstrous" quality of the Middle Ages and the democratic values that he, as a vocal Republican, chose to see in its character.[11] A French nationalist, Michelet also sought to claim the Renaissance as a French movement.[11]

text: The Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) in his The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), by contrast, defined the Renaissance as the period between Giotto and Michelangelo in Italy, that is, the 14th to mid-16th centuries. He saw in the Renaissance the emergence of the modern spirit of individuality, which the Middle Ages had stifled.[102] His book was widely read and became influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the Italian Renaissance.[103] However, Buckhardt has been accused[by whom?] of setting forth a linear Whiggish view of history in seeing the Renaissance as the origin of the modern world.[14]

text: More recently, some historians have been much less keen to define the Renaissance as a historical age, or even as a coherent cultural movement. The historian Randolph Starn, of the University of California Berkeley, stated in 1998:

text: "Rather than a period with definitive beginnings and endings and consistent content in between, the Renaissance can be (and occasionally has been) seen as a movement of practices and ideas to which specific groups and identifiable persons variously responded in different times and places. It would be in this sense a network of diverse, sometimes converging, sometimes conflicting cultures, not a single, time-bound culture".[14]

text: Debates about progress

text: There is debate about the extent to which the Renaissance improved on the culture of the Middle Ages. Both Michelet and Burckhardt were keen to describe the progress made in the Renaissance towards the modern age. Burckhardt likened the change to a veil being removed from man's eyes, allowing him to see clearly.[43]

text: In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness – that which was turned within as that which was turned without – lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues.[104]

text: On the other hand, many historians now point out that most of the negative social factors popularly associated with the medieval period – poverty, warfare, religious and political persecution, for example – seem to have worsened in this era, which saw the rise of Machiavellian politics, the Wars of Religion, the corrupt Borgia Popes, and the intensified witch-hunts of the 16th century. Many people who lived during the Renaissance did not view it as the "golden age" imagined by certain 19th-century authors, but were concerned by these social maladies.[105] Significantly, though, the artists, writers, and patrons involved in the cultural movements in question believed they were living in a new era that was a clean break from the Middle Ages.[73] Some Marxist historians prefer to describe the Renaissance in material terms, holding the view that the changes in art, literature, and philosophy were part of a general economic trend from feudalism towards capitalism, resulting in a bourgeois class with leisure time to devote to the arts.[106]

text: Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) acknowledged the existence of the Renaissance but questioned whether it was a positive change. In his book The Autumn of the Middle Ages, he argued that the Renaissance was a period of decline from the High Middle Ages, destroying much that was important.[13] The Latin language, for instance, had evolved greatly from the classical period and was still a living language used in the church and elsewhere. The Renaissance obsession with classical purity halted its further evolution and saw Latin revert to its classical form. Robert S. Lopez has contended that it was a period of deep economic recession.[107] Meanwhile, George Sarton and Lynn Thorndike have both argued that scientific progress was perhaps less original than has traditionally been supposed.[108] Finally, Joan Kelly argued that the Renaissance led to greater gender dichotomy, lessening the agency women had had during the Middle Ages.[109]

text: Some historians have begun to consider the word Renaissance to be unnecessarily loaded, implying an unambiguously positive rebirth from the supposedly more primitive "Dark Ages", the Middle Ages. Most historians now prefer to use the term "early modern" for this period, a more neutral designation that highlights the period as a transitional one between the Middle Ages and the modern era.[110] Others such as Roger Osborne have come to consider the Italian Renaissance as a repository of the myths and ideals of western history in general, and instead of rebirth of ancient ideas as a period of great innovation.[111]

text: Other Renaissances

text: The term Renaissance has also been used to define periods outside of the 15th and 16th centuries. Charles H. Haskins (1870–1937), for example, made a case for a Renaissance of the 12th century.[112] Other historians have argued for a Carolingian Renaissance in the 8th and 9th centuries, and still later for an Ottonian Renaissance in the 10th century.[113] Other periods of cultural rebirth have also been termed "renaissances", such as the Bengal Renaissance, Tamil Renaissance, Nepal Bhasa renaissance, al-Nahda or the Harlem Renaissance.