Class Notes -- September 08 -- Petrarch's Letters & Sonnets
Literati: Walker & Wilson

This assigned work was not submitted.  Results in lowering of grade.

Class Notes -- September 15 -- Boccaccio's "Decameron"
Literati: Vik & Jesurun

This is unacceptable work. -- Notes must consist of complete sentences.

Josquin Dupree liked music and went from abstract to expressive. He wrote Ave Maria. He composed eighteen masses.

Giotto, painter, architect, did religious renaissance work. Liked human life and emotions. Founder of "central tradition of Western painting (from Byzantines)." Liked realism. Padua Chapel- 38 frescos in the chapel.

Architecture. Brunelissci.   Liked geometrical proportions in the architecture.

Boccaccio's Decameron.

Reynolds- Seven women represent seven virtues.

(Group 1, 1, 1) Main character cares little about lying; he wants an excellent burial and gets it through fake humility and lying to a priest. He pretends to be virtuous. He is canonized though he is wicked. Does Boccaccio believe in God? Reynolds- Boccaccio facilitated pagan stories of Greek myth; helped publish them.
 

(Group 2, 1, 2) Power and greed go hand in hand. Admiration of faith of Catholicism, even if the leaders are human .
 

(Group 3, 1, 3) Intellect will resolve all conflict. Survivalism works. Religious Toleration, not persecution.

(1,4) Outsmart. Intel ends conflict.

(2,5) Deception and timing wins in this story.

(3,9) Regular women vs. smart women. Planning overcomes conflict. Teamwork wins over social prejudice.

Auto4- Humor tales.

Reynolds- Boccaccio tells the story of the Goselings.  Father wants to keep his children from suffering and women. Then he sees the site of Florence. Nature cannot be suppressed.

Poetry provides a respectable trade and way of life. It's better than aristocratic life. Poetry allows longer life. Life of an artist much simpler than that of an aristocrat. Individualism comes easier through self-analysis, particularly under stress. Easier to love, and of female. Beauty and its lastingness. Honor may fade, but love doesn't necessarily dies with age. Female attractiveness besides sex.

(4,1) Social status should not be important. Father was a psycho. Artificial nature of nobility. All are born equal. Virtue creates society.

(5,8) Fear overcomes shame. Be nice or else the future will hurt those who are not.
 

(6,7) Crush social standards and fight unjustiness. Double standards not good.
 

(10,10) Patience and true love combined with faith, hope, charity, humility, obedience, and other virtues win all.

Reynolds gives the following assignments: - Read Pico, personalized selection 180-183, and Castigilone - "What is a Renaissance man?" Read Fredrico. Second part- Love and platonic view.

Reynolds asks that Heralds construct web pages for extra assignments to develop information comprehension. Cite sites, links, and pictures with informative text.

Class Notes -- September 22 -- Pico dela Mirandola's"Oration" & Castiglioni's Courtier
Literati: Heintz & O'Conner

This is a good job.  Well done!

Fra Filippo Lippi –

    He was a famous artist of Florence that was orphaned at the age of two and raised as an unwanted child.  As an adult he took vows of priesthood, and then had an affair with a nun resulting in two children.  Therefore, both broke their vows and got married.

    He learned art by observation and practice.  He stayed away from natural painting and focused more on religious themes, such as religious people and figures.  The Madonna and Child was his most famous work.  On aspect of his style that is original to the time period is that he drew babies and small children with actual child-like features, instead of the giving them adult feature with small, midget bodies.  He also gave each individual in these paintings a unique appearance, which means that he probably painted people that he saw in everyday life.  He looked for idealized beauty in women. 

Brunelleschi’s Duomo –  

    Brunelleschi made the dome, but Arnolfo di Cambio made the cathedral.  It took 600 years to complete. It is the fourth largest cathedral in the world.  The dome consists of eight shells covered with frescos of famous scenes and people of Florence.  The interior is 155 m long and 90 wide.  The cathedral has a bell tower, with carvings of the creation of man, and the famous Doors of Paradise. 

 Giovanni Pierlugigi de Palestrina –

    He lived in the mid 1500’s and is considered to be a major player in the mid-reformation.  He was very dedicated to the Catholic Church.  For five years he was the music director at Saint Peters Basilica, but when Paul the Fourth became the Pope, he kicked Giovanni out of the position because he wasn’t celibate (he had a wife). He then became the choral director at the church of the Pope for a few years after.  

    His major contribution to the church came through music.  He rewrote many of the popular hymns that were sung in the church and made then more modern. He created two types of compositions: minor composition or madrigals, which he didn’t consider to be his best works, and major compositions, such as several full masses and motets. 

    His church music was modern music.  He updated Gregorian chant by making it polyphonic.  He used complex harmonics and depended on the voices of the singers to carry the emotion.  He wrote all of  his music in Latin.  

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola – The Oration on Dignity of Man –

    At the time that he was living, the church and Constantinople were divided on ways of thinking and teaching.  Therefore, in Florence, a meeting of two Popes took place to attempt to solve the problem. The Pope from the East brought the brightest men from his area.  During the conference, Ficino pounced on the works of Plato and his notion of love, and tried to interpret Platonism through the eyes of Christianity. 

    Pico was looking for a way to combine Platonic humanism with Christianity in the church. He wished to combine all serious learning.  Christianity, Judaism and Islam were united in a single insight. 

    Pico was not all that different from the scientists.   He thought he could blend and unite all forms of knowledge, both philosophical and theological.  His Oration on Dignity of Man was developed to open the conference and introduce the idea of unified theory.

    Pico says depending on what choices you make in your life, you will have a different outcome.  He also says that man in unlike all of the other creatures that exists because man has no limitations and infinite possibilities.  Humans are free to construct the world in which we live.  Men have the ability to change/alter his character and transform his nature. 

The Renaissance Man 

    The first duty of the Renaissance man was to be a soldier, although, a soldier that is not looking for war.  They must have a charming and powerful bodily appearance.  Being of a well-born family is important, although not necessary.  To diversify, the Renaissance man needs knowledge in many areas, and needs to be pleasing to others.  They must be well skilled in wrestling, tennis and hunting.  Honor is the most important feature of a Renaissance man, because without honor they can’t maintain their place in society.  The excellent courtier should also be good on the battlefield and pleasing to the ladies. One becomes a Renaissance man by learning all the necessary traits, which is done by imitating a master in that art.  You must appear as if it was born into you, because ideally it is.  It is through dedication that one excels.   

Comedy

    People laugh at things that are not quite proper and not quite wrong, but unpredictable.  “Everything that elicits laughter, exhilarates man’s soul…forget the bothersome worries of which our life is so full.”  The courtier should know how to make a great joke.  There are two types of laughter or humor: the long story and the one-liner. 

Qualities of the Woman Courtier:

    The qualities of the woman courtier would be very different from that of a male courtier.  Women must have children and be married, but at the same time they must master the art of flirtation.  The woman courtier should not gossip either because dabbling in others love affairs appears men to see you as “loose”.  It also makes men very insecure and worried about what is being said about them. 

    The final conversation was an imitation of Bembo.  Bembo attempted to be the next Petrarch.  He made his living as a poet and was greatly influenced by Ficino.  Bembo talked of a ladder of love, which occurs in a hierarchy of being.  The highest love is intellectual and plutonic.  This type of love occurs outside of being. Bembo talks about the ascendancy towards love, which is that physical beauty gives way to intellectual beauty.  The kiss is the high point of love because it brings the two souls together. 

Class Notes -- September 29
Literati: Van Hezewyk & St. Laurent

Drawing Lessons

Class Notes -- October 03 -- Explorers of Heaven and Earth & Michaelangelo's Sonnets
Literati: Mander & Ponson

L’ Orfeo is Monteverdi first real Opera. He is one of the most  celebrated composers of Italy. He put more emphasis on voices and  focused on emotion.  L’ Orfeo based on story of Greek legend Orpheus.

Sandro Botticelli was an innovator. He painted non religious  mythological subjects. He was a student of Savonarola. He was an individual painter and there’s little known of him. His most famous painting was the Birth  of Venus, which signifies the ideal woman of perfection of love.

Columbus

    Marco Polo an early Italian explorer went to China and later  encouraged people to set out in search of wealth.  The astrolabe allowed you to determine where you are by the heavens. This  invention made it friendlier to travel by land and sea.

    Columbus saw the New World through the eyes of an appropriator.  He focused on finding wealth (particularly gold) and exploiting the native population. Said they had enough intelligence to make great slaves. He did notice cotton. Columbus thought the native Americans looked no older than 30 years.

    Chinese vs. America conquest. China had a similar life style as opposed to the life style in the new world. New world had no structure similar to that of the Europeans. Observations were done through the eyes of a European. Observers wrote what would be interesting and shocking to the Europeans. Not what actually happened or what he really saw, he made his stories more interesting to sell more books.

Vespucci

    Vespucci’s experience was different than that of Marco Polo. Vespucci observed their bodies, good shape, and their dark skin; they had no religion according to him, no government, religious or political freedom. No wealth, they were economically equal. Simple life they had sufficient  resources for everyone, they were at one with nature, almost like a ‘communistic’ society.

    He applauds their generosity, they were willing to give away and trade anything they had. The only “problems” with their behavior, was their sexual freedom.  They were also cannibals; they ate their own family members as well as their enemies. They didn’t wear any clothing; they had no private property, no king no ruler. They co-habituated. No taboo against incest. They were not ideologers. They had no commerce, war was without art or order.

    How did Vespucci know they had no laws or religion? Just because they don’t have big government buildings or churches does not mean they didn’t  have a religion. How do they know they are cannibals? Vespucci wrote that the people lived to be 140 years old without getting sick. 

Copernicus

    Plato’s republics description of the stars and the heavens. Everyone thought that the earth center was of the universe. Copernicus thought that the sun was the center, he measured the planets that moved around in the sky, like an ellipse. He brought the idea that the earth is round, spherical, and not flat. Copernicus breaks down and gives examples in easy terms so people can understand. (The boat that disappears under the horizon).

Galileo

    Galileo foremost representative of new physics. In traditional Aristotelian science, there were 4 causes: material,  efficient, formal, and final cause. Formal what the thing is like.  Move toward what they truly are. Final cause, the good for which a thing exists. Galileo rejects both formal and final causation.

    He applied geometry to explain cosmological cause, cause and effect. Observed and measured. Mathematically to the visible world. A body, geometrical shape  without any essential attributes. He applied use of technology. There were 12 moons around Jupiter, only 4 visible at one time, a sphere swirling around the center of the universe, not the earth.

    He invented the gravitational pole without knowing about gravity. At the Leaning tower of Pisa threw  objects from the tower, and they land at the same time.

    Modern science can’t prove if God exists or not. A cause for the universe, the age of earth. The first cause that causes all things. First cause of all being. The universe created by God in time. Is God necessary to the universe after creation? He is not to the Earth, God is not important to us. The Church is not happy with Copernicus’  discoveries.

Michelangelo's Sonnets

    The perfect essence of a human being is in you, shed the access. Human desires and vices. Humans are the internal creative force. Every man needs a woman to inspire him. Without woman there’s no inspiration, if  there’s no inspiration you are stuck in old world.

Sculpture the first of all the arts. Back to the artist, paintings of  da Vinci or Raphael: a piece of the world or a piece of the artist?  Is Art a sense of immortality?

Class Notes -- October 17
Scribes: Sears and Kita

Class cancelled by administration.

Class Notes -- October 24  -- Da Vinci's "Treatise" & Cellini's Autobiography
Literati: Kaszuba & Heintz

    Jean-Baptiste Lully, was a French composer and inventor of French Opera.  He was born Giovanni Battista Lully on November 28, 1632 in Florence, Italy.  He composed many other operas over the course of his lifetime.  His final one was when he conducted a performance of his Te deum on January 8, 1687 to celebrate the King's recovery from an operation.  In an excess of enthusiasm, he hit his toe with the tip of the cane that he was using to beat time.  The wound developed an abscess, gangrene set in, and the composed dies March 22, 1687.

     Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell is England’s oldest opera.  It was first performed in 1689.  The story of the opera is based on the Aeneid.  Dido falls deeply in love with Aeneas when he lands in Carthrage after fleeing from Troy after the end of the Trojan War.  When he leaves the city, Dido commits suicide in the name of her love for Dido. 

     Van Eyck, born in Belgium.  Do not know much about Van Eyck except what was expressed in his paintings.  He greatest triumphs were the portraits that he painted.  First to mix glazes with linseed oil and then painted on canvas then covered with varnish.  This was said to be the first oil paintings.  He died in Belgium in 1441.  Painted very detailed paintings.  He took extreme care for detail and made his paintings seem almost like a photo. 

    Bellini was born 1426 in Venice.   He founded the Venetian school of painting.  Stated working with egg paint like everyone else and then imported the oil technique to Venice.  Used religion as a main inspiration for subject matter.  Many of his paintings that he worked on were destroyed in a fire.  Considered a great landscape painter. Was very good with light in the landscapes.  He took much detail with this and you could tell what each plant was and which season or time of day it was. 

    Titian. Giorgio Barbarelli, aka Titian, was born in 1478.  He was a student of Georgio Bellini.  Died at an early age so not much is known.  His paintings were also very detailed, very much like a photo.  In Venice they differentiated the female from the male.  Paintings of women looked like women not men.  The use of color in Venice was more important than drawing and in Florence the idea of drawing was much more important than color.  Barbarelli just went with his idea, he did no preparatory drawings, he just started painting.  Titian works were divided into two parts, before and after his wife’s death.  He was a few years younger than Barbarelli.  Titian used paler colors.

    Michelangelo and the Medici chapel in Florence.  It was a memorial to the Medici family (Lorenzo, Dawn, Dusk, Giuliano, and Night & Day).  Life and death are recurring themes throughout the chapel.  Michelangelo worked on it for 15 years but did not complete it.  The sculptures on the chapel were very full bodies. 

    Bramante and St. Peter's Dome. Pope Julius the second decided that he wanted a dome, so he commissioned Bramante to come and build the greatest the biggest dome ever, Saint Peter’s.  Bramante did not finish the dome, Michelangelo finished the dome.  Taller but not wider than the Pantheon.  It was extremely difficult to build up the dome since it was so tall yet narrow. 

    Andrea di Pietro Della Gondola (Palladio), was born in 1598 in Padua.  Many of his works came to be after he was thirty years old.  He built many villas over the Venetian countryside.  Influenced modern architecture.  The last of his works was the Olympic Theatre (1585).  Considered to be the first modern theatre of that time. 

Leonardo DaVinci's Treatise on Painting

-         The DaVinci papers sat around in private hands for many years before they really got out into the open.  Book knowledge is not as important as learning from experience.  The best of the sciences is mathematics.  Two things that will focus the mind: observation and through mathematics.  Feels that the premier scientist is the artist.  Thinks that art is more important than anything else. 

Cellini's Autobiography

-         Tended to whine and complain about everything he had to do and why he couldn’t get Perseus completed.  He was the only one to ever escape prison.  He was the first escape artist.  He was brutally honest.  He definitely did not leave anything out, he bares all.  He wrote about his visions, such visions as mystics have.  Everything that he says he says to make him look better, even his mistakes make him look better.  He also seems to borrow from the saints, he thinks that he is truly a saint.  Compares to Petrarch for the simple reasons that they both have visions of themselves and that nobility falls into their laps, it basically presents itself to him.  

Class Notes -- October 26 -- Machiavelli's Prince
Literati: Cleaver & Hernandez

Tintoretto (1518-1594)

He lived in Venice, Italy. His paintings are huge and focused a lot on contrast and positions. He painted the Last Supper also. It differs from Da Vinci's Last Supper because in Da Vinci's painting,  the 12 disciples are grouped in 3's and are in one flat plane and  Christ is the central focus and looks as if it's an infinite  landscape. Tintoretto's painting of the Last Supper has a darker lighting than Da Vinci's and has different geometry. He focused on the supernatural aspects of Christ, rather than the humanistic aspects of Christ. Also, he put ordinary people in the painting. The servant is the largest image on the painting, to disposition the bright light.

El Greco

He's another painter. He focused on elongating everything.

Veronese (1528-1588)

He was known for his coloring; he focused on the brightness and use of complementary colors. Their high-keyed inter-weavings of brilliant, luminous hues are harmonies of  contrast in the tradition of Verona rather than Venetian harmonies of  tone. He's also known for his warm-eye perspective. He takes  Michaelango's style by revealing the muscles of contorted people, and  biblical stories.

Rameau

He was a composer. He was born in 1683 in Burgandy, and became an  organist and died in 1784. He moved to Paris in 1772 and stayed for  the rest of his life. His main principle is that melody depends on  harmony. He wrote about 30 operas, and the music was more important  than the actual play. All his controversial studies opened the door to the theory of music and mathematics. He is to music as Newton was to science.

Palladio "La Rotunda" or "Villa Rotunda"

It was built by Andrea Palladio in 1561. It was built on a hill outside the city of Vicenza, Italy. He died before it was completed. His original concept was to inscribe a circle  inside a square. Each side has steps coming off are formed around the  landscape at 45 degree angles of the hill. Everything is completely  mathematical, except the roof that was added on. He followed the  classical orders of Alberti's theories and others. Also, the house  was positioned so each side can receive so much light at different parts of the day.

Machiavelli's The Prince

    He is the modern founder of political philosophy. He broke away from classical political philosophy which was the quest was for the best regime. The city state had about 5,003 citizens that participated in the government. The purpose of the city state was to provide for the highest human good: happiness. What is happiness? Aristotle defines happiness as the activity of virtue. Obtaining  virtues (courage, moderation, justice, and generosity) makes a great citizen. Prudence is the main virtue, and  chooses the correct means for the lawful ends. It's an intellectual  quality that allows you to discover the best means of virtue of  citizens. The political goal is to morally improve the citizens, and  become friends. Aristotle says that friendship is better than  justice. A true friend only exists if we share their same moral character. Common morality can only be discovered in the parameter of politics. Rulers ought to project those moral virtues they instill through all their actions and deeds. Education is achieved through modeling. Law and education go hand and hand to shape the citizenship. The classical tradition discuss what the ideal citizen or ruler should be. The notion of how does one become a great prince or ruler. Instilling virtue in the citizenry is the key to a peaceful constituency and the ruler should exemplify these virtues and impart them upon citizenry.

    Machiavelli looked at everything so objectively; completely separated ethics from politics. He sees Christian ethics as harmful and weak. The most difficult task is to make a change while being able to stay in power. He uses Savonarola as an example of a failure because he had no force to keep them believing in him. Belief can't be sustained, especially when it's challenged.

    Machiavelli says all power comes out of arms and if you have the weapons, you will have friends. It's most difficult for a new ruler or conquer, and making alliances with the old rulers is they way to hold power. This new regime requires more than persuasion; it requires force. Everyone seeks out stability and peace, and so it's common for people to fight change. For conquers, they should kill the old rulers and their families and close friends or anyone who may take up their cause. And make alliances with people who supported the old rulers. The founding of a new regime requires more than ideals of belief, it requires force. Most humans are looking for the easy way, and they recognize the old way as being easy and that is why they resist change in the form of a new game.

    Duke Valentino, son of Alexander VI, was admired by Machiavelli because of his militia. Duke Valentino sent Romero to bring order in a brutal and forceful way. Then Duke Valentino had him killed to raise his own reputation.

    The appearance of virtues is very important, rather than actually have them because it allows them to have a flexible morality. Practicing them is actually harmful, according to Machiavelli. It's necessary to appear pious to appear God-like, but actually the ruler feels as he is God. Natural law means that there are limitations of what humans are allowed to do, but according to Machivelli he believes there's only one law: Human Law. Being pious only helps people thinking that there is some kind of justice. People are deceived by appearances then it is easy to play the people by putting on a facade and they will never be able to discover the person behind the facade.

Men in general only see what they seem to be, but never really touch what they are. Ordinary people are usually deceived by what they see, but everyone is ordinary. People usually only see what they want; have partial sight that relates to the "whole." Machiavelli suggests that there isn't really a "whole."

    As for generosity, it's another weakness. It breeds friendship, and friendship can't have leadership because there is no fear. It should only be shown in moderation. Leaders shouldn't be greedy, meaning leave their family and property; just protect their rights and try not to exceed their expectations. The citizens should be happy that they don't have to deal with politics. If everyone did, then the control would lessen. People should be happy that they don't have to be involved in politics. If the people are involved in politics the people will keep a watchful eye on you , and form resistance groups to your regimes. Politics divided people and gives them a sense of power, and the people should not have a sense of power.

    France is so successful because it's not an absolute monarchy, they have a Parliament. Parliament keeps a check on the money without burdening the king. So it seems that there is no need for balances when there are checks and balances. Only one person is needed to find a state, and he/she will take any actions to put it in order. Afterwards, that individual can be replaced with good political institutions. The state then can have as many people as liked. Machiavelli liked the idea of the states having a variety of people where they are free from political participation. People are easy to control, so movement can go from classical to the modern world.

To Machiavelli, fortune is a woman. It's better to take risks than worry about the consequences. This means that peoples should submit to fortune, but control it and not wait for it or allow it to control the individual. It favors the bold; you must seize it. It is what ever you make of it. It is better to take action then to take thought about it. He said that fortune controls half of us, while we control half of us control it.

He believed that the great opposition to bringing political salvation was the Catholic Church. It taught leaders all the morals that weakened a leader. That's why Machiavelli became rather infamous among his peers.

Montaigne's Essay On Pedantry

    Petrarch said the only way to escape the middles ages is to capture the past. People acquire knowledge in order to look like  they know stuff for the sake of conversation and show. It should be  taken in bits and pieces and apply it to your life. But knowledge is  usually taken in without understanding and spread out. We must make them our own. Knowledge must be shaped within the individually, you  must make the knowledge yours in order to gain something from it. There's a big difference between those that actually experience things, than just reading for the sake of reading. Knowledge has to be shaped when entered in a person, and that individual must make that knowledge his or her own

Johann Sebastian Bach - Adela

(1685-1750) Brandenburg Concerto, composed of 6 different concerts. He was restless so he composed something of many different  instruments

The messages in the music could have been related to the social attitude of the time. The music influence people to spiritually cope with things.

Francesco Borromini - John

Baroque Church in Rome, Italy. During High renaissance and early baroque the church was commissioned by the bishop of Rome. Borromini was known for making small, intricate designs, so he was brought in to make the church. Right in the middle of the city in a busy part, it is 5 or 6 stories tall, one of the first buildings to be purely baroque. Double-layered columns built into the town square, and built into another building. The Pope lived near the area and wanted it to have more of medieval architecture on the inside o Architecture was light at the bottom and heavy at the top, meant to overwhelm people, was the first counter-reformation church o Painting, architecture, and music was all meant to go together for the effect of the church

Michelangelo Caravaggio - Caitlin

Painter in the Baroque period. Used a lot of shadowing to get detail from darkness, all of his paintings were very realistic, this shocked people. Caravaggio focused a lot on painting light; most of his paintings were religious o Used a studio to do paintings

Montaigne's essay On Books

An attack on the scholarship on the renaissance in On Pedantry . Central to knowledge is self examination; Montaigne's essays are about self examination. . Talks about the books as if he had ingested them, had his own distinct style of reading.  Machiavelli says that anyone who does live by high ideals is doomed to failure. Guiachardini, the historiographer, says that nobody should live by high ideals. Montaigne said that he learned more about Guichardini than Italy; all of history is subjective.

Montaigne's essay On Cannibalism

Some people do not think that cannibalism is wrong; it just depends  on what civilization you grew up in o Everybody sees barbarism societies that are not their own o Montaigne was giving an account instead of trying to write a book for shock and entertainment. Montaigne was hinting that European values might not be the best set of values. Montaigne noticed that the other culture is not completely savage; because they are primitive they are closer to nature. Before people just thought the perfected man is the natural man,  when man is at their very best. That changed, nature became something that came before civilization and was something simpler. People originally thought that inventions could make us better people, however Montaigne said that inventions take us farther away from what we originally are. Priests only said to love your wives and be virtuous in battle, no established priest class. The people were polygamous in that society; the wives would recruit more women to be wives because it made them look like they had married a desirable man who could have a lot of wives. They handled competitiveness in battle, combat got very personal; prisoners were treated well up until the point they were killed then cooked and eaten. Prisoners were not tortured like they were in Europe. Music and art had a role and was part of the social structure, they not only had war songs, but love songs as well; it is like early Greek lyric poetry o In politics, they considered everyone equal, the ruler  was meant to be their war chief. In western society aristocrats are meant to supply the society with the materials and the culture; in western society people try to escape manual labor. To most people these days, holding property and having money is considered to be a good life, the communal obligations are not there.  All accounts are cater to the person supplying the account. Philosophies are nothing more than expressions of irrational beings that lay inside each of us of us.

Bacon Essays

Bacon wrote for people in government, who  did not have time for leisure; his essays were short and specific

Unity and Religion

Major point- a unified religion is essential; religion cannot  tolerate a mixture of ideas. Religion unites society. Multiple religions bring division among the state and there is no longer one vision or goal. Wars should not be for spreading religion, people should come to religion, not be forced into it. Atheism is caused by the disunity of religions. It is better to ignore atheists

Superstitions

Better to be an atheist than be superstitious. Superstition is zealous religious enthusiasm; religious fanaticism. The church is cause of some superstition o Superstition works its way into the church and debases it o Superstition deals with rites and practices, which has nothing to do  with fundamental beliefs.

Love

Bacon made fun of love. Love only causes trouble, and impoverishes you. Love costs you money. Love exaggerates things, it is impossible to love and be wise. Love is a form of displaced vanity.

Seditions and Troubles

Rulers should not take sides, they should not be an "accessory to a cause"  It will cause the people who do not share that view to dislike them  Problems are caused by a weakening from any of the four pillars of government: religion, justice, counsel, and treasure. Riots and discontent are caused by a lack of supplies. Uprisings caused from hunger are the worst o Do not ignore small discontents that happen often and go away, because after a while they are going to turn into something very big o Regulate the economy and food, and make sure the population does not become too big. Do not have an overpopulation of nobility and clergy; they spend more than they earn for your city. Spread the city's money out among trade, farms, etc. Always give hope to the people; never just bring them news of despair o Be careful what you say in speeches, it could be your undoing o Have a good military to suppress uprisings as they start.

Travel

Travel is a source of education for the young and experience for the old o Travel gives a diversity of opinions. Travel makes you a better person . When traveling learn the language first, or you won't get anything out of it. Look at political and social system. Do not just visit one city, look at the whole country. Do not keep to yourself, talk to the people, have interpreters to explain customs and sites. Keep a diary as you go, if you try to write about your trip after you came back it will be as feel a whole and only have big stuff, not the  intricate small stuff o Try to become part of the culture and society you are in o When you come back you should keep in touch with the people you met o You should travel with a purpose, but when you come  back do not come back a changed person.

Council

Getting advice from someone is the greatest form of trust. Do not need to be the most intelligent ruler, but just surround yourself with intelligent advisors o Do not let councilors take up matters themselves, let them stay in the back and give their opinions on it o A ruler's job is to figure out which advice is best. An advisor can be just a flatterer, trying to get on the good side of the king. A councilor should always be very blunt with their advice, not so much caring about how the prince takes to it.

Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates

Make sure you make people feel important. Do not have to have a lot of territory. Need to defend yourself, need an army made up of good soldiers, need citizen soldiers; the core of the army is infantry o Liberalize your immigration laws; in addition making colonies is good o Should fight abroad, avoid civil war; foreign wars exercise soldiers, home wars affect your state.

Riches

Do not need a lot of money, if you have money give it away o Come by money: the best way is through agriculture, next by commerce o Wealth is to virtue as baggage is to an army o It is better to work for money than to inherit it o If you have great wealth, give the surplus away

Gardens

Gardens are critical and utmost importance; gardening is the purist of human pleasures o Gardening is harder than building great  buildings; the height of civilization is not building big building, but cultivating gardens o Large lawn leading into "the desert" which is a wild part of plants that grow on their own, no pathways, they  just break up the garden o Gardens should also be small and square

Studies

People study for delight, ornament, and ability. People read for conference, and writing. The reason for your studies should be to help other people. Read books on self improvement; determine what your faults are, then address them

Honor and Reputation

If a man receives honor, they are talked about but not admired. A man who attempts a new challenge and fails will receive more honor than a man who follows and succeeds. If a man is challenged, he should outshoot his competitors using their wit. Founders of the state get the most fame-Romulus, Cyrus, Caesar. The Second are the law givers or second founders o Third are liberators and saviors o Fourth are generals. Fifth are patriots, those who make the time they live in good.

Judicature

Judges and lawyers are respectable people in society and have an important role; they tell people how to act in the judiciary. People should see the judicial system as a virtuous, critical social system, and should not despise it as an oppressive force. An over speaking judge is no good, they should have patience and listening skills.

Usury

Usury is loaning money with an extreme rate; it has its advantages and disadvantages o Do not over charge the interest, and there should be limits on where usury should be used. Usury should be regulated, if it is carried to an extreme than people will only fall into debt. Usury can be helpful when people buy things they need.

Custom and Education

Most of men's ideas come from other men's education. Virtues come from other people's customs. Virtues alone will not stop people from committing crimes.

Vicissitudes

Vicissitudes are changes over time.  In the youth of a state arms flourish, the middle age learning, then both for a brief time, and at the declining age of a state mechanical skills. States do not stand forever; they come into being and fade. Pillars of wit stand longer than pillars of power.

Conclusions

Bacon believed in moderation for the rising middle class.

Homework

Read Bacon's New Atlantis p 457 - 488. Describe the Europeans take on the New Atlantis, and describe the shock of  the new.

Saint Leo University, Copyright 2000