History paper

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history_lecture_1.pptx

Lecture 1: “Technologies of the Court, 1450-1600”

 

 

I. Introduction

 

A. Course themes

 

 

B. Mechanical worldview

 

 

C. Court patronage

 

 

II. Patronage politics and science/technology

 

A. Medici family

 

 

B. Machiavelli and Da Vinci

 

 

C. City States

 

 

III. Applications of technology

 

A. Warfare

 

 

B. Entertainment

 

 

C. Civil

 

 

D. Dynastic displays

 

Joachim Friess was a German goldsmith who became master goldsmith in 1610 in Augsburg.Renaissance Augsburg was, after Nuremberg, the greatest of the German manufacturing and commercial cities, and a ready supply of silver enabled its guild of goldsmiths to fashion great numbers of richly ornamented vessels for export. This automaton, in which the goddess Diana, designed in late Mannerist style, is seated on a hollow-bodied stag with a removable head, functioned as a drinking vessel. A mechanism in the base causes the automaton to roll about on a tabletop in a pentagonal pattern and then stop; the person before whom it stopped would have to drain the contents. Diana's quiver and arrow and the jewels set in the trappings of the stag are modern replacements.

http://www.wga.hu/html/f/friess/diana_st.html

IV. Characteristics of the period

 

A. Three dimensional art and technical drawing

 

1. Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)

 

  B. Perspective technique – in Della Pitura (1435)

 

Rafael’s “The School of Athens” (1509-1511)

V. Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

 

A. Early life

 

1. Andrea del Verrochio

 

 

B. Florence Cathedral

 

1. Dome

 

See: Leonardo da Vinci:

"The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rog5i2n1QVs

 

Da Vinci Biography, cont’d.

C. Ludovico Sforza

 

 

D. Luis XII, King of France

 

 

E. Francois I

 

1. Lion automaton

 

 

VI. Historical method and resources

 

A. Da Vinci’s notebooks

 

1. Francisco di Giorgio

 

 

2. Four types of technical projects

B. Da Vinci website:

www.museoscienza.org/english/leonardo

VII. Printing

 

A. Four components

 

1. Moveable metal type

 

a. Johann Gutenberg

 

 

2. Paper

 

 

3. Oil-based ink

 

 

4. Presses

 

B. Literacy

 

1. Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation

 

 

2. Information explosion

 

 

3. Scholastic debates

 

VIII. Technology and tradition

 

A. Misa’s story: Comparing technology transfer in China and Europe

 

B. The importance of Tacit (Hidden) Knowledge.

  

IX. Mining

 

A. Prince-practitioners?? You need to be both a prince and a practitioner!

1. Georgius Agricola, De re metallica (1550)