Amedeo

Some of you have differentiated the so-called Dark Ages from the Middle Ages. (Some historians have called "Middle Ages" that period in European history that involves great demographic changes, that is, between the barbaric invasions in a weak and undefended western Europe, and the discovery of the American continent, which was colonized mainly by some western Europeans: the Spanish, the Portuguese, the French and the English.)

The Dark Ages (which I have delineated in an above post) and the Middle Ages do not coincide, to be sure; it occurred earlier in time and embraces all aspects of human culture, including the political order of peoples and their religions. I have noticed your comparisons which classical times [that is the Graeco-Roman civilization] and with the Renaissance. Presently, I wish to linger a bit on the fundamental difference between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance. (In my other post, I spoke of what the medieval man lost with respect to the classical civilization.)

Above all, the Renaissance is a cultural re-birth, not a revival of ancient book-learning, even though such books were eagerly sought and studied. The fall of the eastern Roman empire near the middle of the 15th century brought troves of Greek books into Italy. Ficino, one of the Renaissance scholars and philosopher translated the works of Plato as well as Hermetic literature. (The Middle Ages had only one or half of one of Plato's dialogues, the Timaeus.) Classical books learning and secular universities flourished in Italy -- schools of medicine, law, philosophy, etc., while medieval France had flourishing theological universities and pulpits. Heliocentrism was taught in Ferrara, and Archimedes was translated, which served to pave the way for Galileo's methodic investigation of nature. The works of the ancient philosophers paved the way for Bruno, the philosopher of the Infinite Universe, who reconciled and integrated the physics of Heraclitus and the ontology of Parmenides, which neither Aristotle nor anyone else had achieved before. [He was also burnt at the stake as a heretic in 1600.]

So, there was tradition and innovation. In most other cultural aspects, there was only innovation.
The birth of Italian poetry in the 13th century was in Italian (not in Latin) and was secular. Its art or prosody was inspired by the sung poems of the Provencal troubadours since the 11th century [the first cultural renovation in Europe]. Many moved to Italian courts, and some Italians, men and women, became also troubadours. (I have read an anthology of poetry in Occitan and, aside from some words here and there, I could understand better than some Italian dialects.) So, there arose a school of poetry which Dante was to call the "dolce stil nuovo," and of which be became an outstanding member. But already a bit earlier, Francesco of Assisi, the minstrel of God, had composed the Canticle of the Creatures, in which he praises brother Sun and sister Moon and all the rest of creation. Rather than RENOUNCING the world, he EMBRACED it with love. People spoke of him as preaching A NEW RELIGION, whose god was Love rather than the Byzantine Christ the King, who is going to be the judge and the executioner at the end of time. He revolutionized religion, and the poets and the artists followed suit in embracing the world. While Pope Innocent spoke of the sinful, miserable human condition, the humanist Manetti (a Christian in the new sense of the word) wrote on the DIGNITY OF MAN, affirming that ours -- of our own human making -- are the arts, the language, the laws and all that springs from the human mind. Man is a creator and a lover of beauty and of nature: this is the Renaissance man.

Giotto and Masaccio re-invented painting. They had no classical models, but they abandoned the Medieval/Byzantine painting tradition. And whether their subjects are secular or religious, what they paint is human nature or being human. Landscapes start appearing in their works. The icons of the past are gone.

Giovanni Pisano is the first sculptor of the new age. He looks at some Roman sarcophagi and starts sculpting the human being again -- free and autonomous. The architects emerge from the gothic crypts and behold the splendor of Roman architecture; it becomes obsessive in Siena, and etherial in Florence. Eventually Michelangelo "re-invents" the dome of the Roman Pantheon (of the 12 major gods), which still stands a walking distance from my 300 year school in Rome.

Next to the poets and Dante, Giotto, and Pisano of the early 14th century, stands the new Orpheus, Landini, the greatest in the series of the new musicians, whose songs are in the vernacular (not in Latin), secular in subject, and innovative in music-composition, with the beginning of tonality (whereas Medieval music was modal). They were ballads, chases, and madrigals. The Madrigals were poetically and musically indigenous to Italy and have a glorious history into the 16th century (before the beginning of opera). Instrumental music was created on a par with vocal music, all the way till the 19th century.

Politically, the Renaissance includes the Republics and autonomous Communes -- all city-states -- which started emerging in the10/11th century. (Amalfi, Venice, Pisa, Genoa were the oldest and most outstanding maritime republics.) Freedom is regained. The very emblem of the Republic of Siena was the She-Wolf of the ancient Roman republic. The Republic of San Marino, the oldest city-state in post-Roman Europe, is independent till this very day.

Ray Moscow

Yes, please. I had a look through some photos I had for Roman sites but found nothing similar.

They don't let tourists climb through the cloeca maxima at the Rome Forum, but perhaps it looks quite different on the inside.

Wikipedia has a picture of the inside. Rounded ceilings, as usual.

Anyway, an example of the pointed arch would be interesting.

Antipope Innocent II

How do you know that they "didn't use it above ground for aesthetic reasons"? What evidence are you basing that statement on?

Lucretius

While ,understandably given James' background in the history of science, this thread has started to concentrate on the "science & technology" aspects of the Dark Age ,I still feel that not enough emphasis has been placed on literature ,history (the writing and methodology of it ) and the "arts " in general.
Thre is much more to any society than just utilitarian technology ,I accept that architecture can be more than just utilitarian and indeed the "Gothic" churches and cathedrals are "artistic" in their decorative features, even if I personally do not like the style.
As I said previously the loss of works of literature & history from the Later Antiquity (and earlier) either due to ignorance ,supression or destruction by "barbarian hordes" could make me cry at times.

For those who would try and excuse this loss as purely a result of "barbarian incursions " in the Western Empire,there is the inconvenient fact that even in the relatively stable Eastern Empire there appear to have been few, if any, examples of "pagan literature" being copied and preserved .
This would lead one to think that the lack of preservation was intrinsically linked with Christianity in some way .

By the way James have you managed to find any references to Leonardo's "character flaw " in being secretive yet ?
Or do you accpet that given references to his "habitual use of mirror writing" that there is no such flaw ?
Also the Saxons "preference" for wooden buildings as opposed to stone ?
The example you gave earlier of them "recycling " Roman columns and arches in a church would lead me and I think most people to the conclusion that they were incapable of recreating such stonework and so used what was readily available & recyclable rather than the opposite conclusion that they were in fact master stonemasons,who just prefer wood in their structures .

James Hannam

I think the amount of classical Greek that has been preserved is about 10 times the amount of Latin. That would suggest that the Byzantines were far better at preserving than the Western barbarians and pinning the blame on Christianity rather tricky. See here: http://jameshannam.com/literature.htm

Library tomorrow. As you say, it may be that the mirror writing was not intended to hide his work. He just hid the notebooks instead.

Already answered. Given that the ancient Maya, Egyptians, Babylonians etc etc built huge stone structures and were much less advanced than the Saxons, the idea that stone monuments equals advanced civilisation is just silly. But it is widely believed so I thought I'd better stamp on it. Saxons were expert woodsman because that was the resource that they used. If they had no wood they would have used stone as we see. In the end it came down to resources. Stone needs more manpower, not more advanced technology.

Best wishes

James

Antipope Innocent II

Eh? So if the Greek and Roman literature we have wasn't preserved in the West and wasn't preserved in the East, where did the texts for all the Penguin Classics I have on my bookshelves come from? Were they preserved by aliens and beamed back to Earth to Leonardo once the terrible Middle Ages were over?

Ray Moscow

Didn't the Muslims preserve a lot of the "pagan" classics?

Some were lost in the West and only returned after the Crusades.

Lucretius

I never said that ALL was lost but the estimates are that 90% of classical literature were in fact lost.
90% !
As Ray has pointed out several of these had to the retranslated from Arabic back into Greek in any case or from Arabic into Greek where the original was Latin .
The works that DID survive were in general those which did not contradict Christian beliefs or were judged to the be "innocuous" to those beliefs or had some overwhelming artisitic merit that ensured their survival.
Yes Greek works survived better in the Greek speaking Eastern Empire but the knowledge of Latin in the Eastern Empire was still common ,yet Latin works of which there were many in the libraries of the East were also "lost" .
While the Eastern Empire was Greek speaking for the most part they did still see themsleves as the ROMAN Empire and as a result would not in my opinion abandon centuries of LATIN culture unless other factors such as Christianity were involved.

Edited to add I am not saying that in EVERY case it was a matter of deliberate supression of works rather that due to ignorance ,not caring to take the time to copy such works is also a factor the Medieval monasteries being quite happy to copy over & over again Bibles and Christian religious works but not having the slightest idea of what works they were allowing to be written over as in palimpsests or allowing to rot on the shelves of the libraries.
This ignorance whether intentional or not is to me and others a sign that they truly were "Dark Ages".

Lucretius

So you do not see the decline in available manpower to construct these stone buildings as sign of a general decline in "civilisation" then ?
If not then what is the reason for this lack of manpower?

WishboneDawn

Does a decline in slavery or availible slaves figure into this at all?

I'm just wondering...I know nothing about slavery after the decline of the Roman Empire myself.