#Renaissance Archives – Page 4 of 9

April 23, 2022April 23, 2022

S is for Summa di Arithmetica

Pacioli also created a font. This Majuscule seems especially appropriate.

Having just spent the past two months analyzing a 1494 accounting textbook, it seems natural to devote one my alphabetic letters to the greatest math teacher of the Renaissance age–Luca Pacioli. I stumbled upon him and his work last year for the letter “P,” so I’m not going to rehash his biography.

Luca Pacioli woodcut from *Summa*, his 1494 600-page math textbook.

Nor will I tell you the secrets of my 35-page treatise on how this chapter on double-entry bookkeeping for Florentine wool merchants reveals their pious contract with heaven and the Catholic church. Feather Beds and Jesus may just be my next book, who knows? What I will talk about is why this work was so revolutionary, despite accusations of plagiarism and critics calling it of “little or no value.” Boo on them!

Free the Numbers!

If numbers give you a headache, I apologize in advance. But we have to talk about numbers. Perhaps you aren’t crazy about multiplying large numbers, like 9876 * 6789. That’s what calculators are for. Now imagine that it’s the year 1490 CE, and you’re still using Roman numerals, and you don’t have a calculator. You have to multiply IXDCCCLXXVI * VMDCCLXXXIX. Can you imagine? There were, apparently, ways to multiple Roman numerals that involved writing them in columns, doubling and halving, then crossing out odds and evens. You would be desperate to find an easier way. Welcome to Hindu-Arabic numerals.

Pacioli’s explanation on how to multiply 9876 & 6789, from *Summa*.

April 22, 2022April 23, 2022

R is for Raphael

St. George and the Dragon (1) by Raphael, in the Louvre. Wikimedia photo.

Raphael was a rock star. He was the Elvis of his generation, the “prince of painters,” at a time when painters were the A-List celebs. It pissed off Michelangelo and Leonardo to no end. He died young, as rock stars do, and there was even a legend around that.

The Pope’s Mission

Raffaelo Sanzio da Urbino was in his early twenties when he traveled to Rome from Florence and Urbino, two other Italian cultural centers of the time. It helped that he was buddies with the future Duke of Urbino and distantly related to Bramante, who was designing the dome for St. Peter’s Basilica. Pope Julius II invited him in for a chat and immediately gave him the commission to paint his private library.

The paintings won immediate acclaim, to such a degree that the rooms he ended up painting in the Vatican are now called the “Raphael rooms.” This first one included the School of Athens which I’ve included in posts on more than one occasion. This photo is a little wavy because it was hot and crowded on the Vatican tour (in 2018), and I was being jostled as I stood right at the wall, trying to take a quick photo. But it may give you a sense of the enormity of the canvas and its sense of grandeur. And such vibrant colors!

Standing in front of “School of Athens” by Raphael, photo by kajmeister.

April 20, 2022April 21, 2022

Q is for Queen of 1492

Expulsion of Jews from Spain, 1492. Painting by Solomon Hart, from freespeech.org.

Isabella I of Castile was a bad ass monarch, one of the strong queens of history. She and hubby Ferdinand made the ultimate move to propel their newly-formed country into a world power. They did it with conviction, with strength and piety… and by instituting a religious pogrom to eliminate all the unbelievers and launching the Inquisition. Welcome to Spain, 1492.

Young, Catholic, and Virtuous in Intention

When her father died without a male heir, Isabella was the named heir, but she had to fend off others who tried to take the throne. It was Castile at issue at the time, and neighboring states in Afonso and Aragon both vied for her hand in marriage and tried to create dynasties to absorb Castile. Isabella had long been engaged to Ferdinand of Aragon. She kept that promise and united Castile and Aragon together.