The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michelangelo

by Jerry Brotton

The Renaissance range in changes at a breathtaking pace, changes that shape the world to this day. Now Jerry Brotton deftly captures this remarkable age, in a book that places Europe's great flowering in a revealing global context.
It was Europe's contact with the outside world, Brotton argues, especially with the rich and cultivated East, that made the Renaissance what it was. Indeed, Europeans saw themselves through the mirror of the East--it was during this age, for instance, that they first spoke of themselves as "Europeans." Here is cultural history of the best kind, as Brotton muses on the meanings of Holbein's painting "The Ambassadors"--which is virtually a catalog of the international influences on Europe--or on the Arabic influence in the burgeoning sciences of astronomy and geography. This global approach offers revealing new insights into such men as Dante and Leonardo da Vinci and highlights the international influences behind Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Along with fresh and original discussions of well-known figures from Copernicus to Dürer to Shakespeare, Brotton offers a far-reaching exploration that looks at paintings and technology, patterns of trade and the printed page, as he illuminates
the overarching themes that defined the age.
From architecture to medicine, from humorists to explorers, the teeming world of the Renaissance comes to life in this thoughtful, insightful, and beautifully written book, which offers us a timely perspective on the Renaissance as a moment of global inclusiveness that still has much to teach us today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Renaissance, Art, Art History, European History, World History

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2002

Reviews

[Andres Felipe Contreras Buitrago · Rating 4 out of 5]

El libro en cuestión es corto, con un lenguaje para todos los públicos y que sigue la misma línea de Peter Burke, en cuestionar y debatir la idea del renacimiento, en este caso el autor pone énfasis en la deuda que tiene occidente con Oriente.

La introducción es muy clara, y es que muchos elementos culturales propios de oriente fueron tomados en el renacimiento Europeo, con ello, está clara la invitación de mirar este fenómeno histórico desde una mirada más global, teniendo en cuenta las interacciones y conexiones que se dieron en aquella época, además de mirar los renacimientos que se estaban dando en varios lugares, fuera de Italia, los cuales tiene sus propias características, por último, es claro que el concepto de "renacimiento" ha sido utilizado por diversos historiadores como una forma eurocentrica de mostrar el nacimiento de la modernidad y superioridad del viejo continente.

El primer capítulo, muestran el renacimiento desde una perspectiva global, para ello el comercio entre Europa y el mundo árabe era muy importante, gracias a esto llegaron muchas mercancías exóticas que llegaron a occidente, y que se ven en distintos cuadros, también provino de esta red, conocimientos importantes como los números que usamos actualmente. La caída de Constantinopla a manos de los turcos Otomanos, no supuso el fin del comercio; por el contrario se buscaron nuevas alianzas comerciales, por su parte los turcos siempre mostraron respeto y admiración por el mundo clásico, en África también se extraen de allí artesanías que se usan en las cortes lusas.

En el segundo capítulo, el centro de atención estará en el humanismo, este movimiento buscaba generar una mejor formación educativa política en las grandes gobernantes de Europa, las soluciones se buscaba en los textos clásicos, queda claro que muchos pensadores como Maquiavelo, Moro y Erasmo de Rotterdam usaban el humanismo con fines políticos y con intereses propios, los textos de estos y otros intelectuales, se vieron beneficiados por la imprenta la cual ayudó a la masificación de los libros, creando así una cultura literaria.

Esta imprenta ayudó a una mayor difusión de la reforma, la cual estaba criticando la corrupción dentro de la iglesia católica, la cual se veía acedidada por un cisma y una religión vecina muy poderosa que era el islam, en ese ataque contra la que era la religión más fuerte de Europa, surge la contrarreforma.

La iglesia usaría el arte y la arquitectura como una forma de mostrar aún su poderío, la nueva nobleza urbana rica también haría lo mismo, haciendo de mecenas a muchos artistas muy famosos. En oriente también se llevaron grandes proezas del arte apoyadas por el imperio Otomano, el cual sirvió de influencia para mucho del arte europeo renacentista, las esculturas, estatuas y objetos de la época sirvieron para simbolizar aún más el poder.

Durante aquella época se lleva a cabo los viajes en búsqueda de nuevas rutas comerciales, en este proceso fue importante oriente al ser estos los que conservaron los textos antiguos como la geografía de Ptolomeo, además de que estos ya tenían experiencia en la navegación e instrumentos propios para esta hazaña, estas nuevas conquistas europeas son el lado oscuro del "renacimiento".

El libro concluye en como el renacimiento mejoro las matemáticas, la astronomía, la botánica y la anatomía y la filosofía entre otras disciplinas las cuales tienen una clara deuda con el mundo árabe los cuales fueron los primeros en llevar a cabo estas transformaciones mismas que serían llevadas a los europeos por esas redes tejidas.

En conclusión es un buen libro, se destaca el uso del enfoque global, el único pero es que el penúltimo capítulo sobra y puede que no tenga mucha relación con el renacimiento.

[Castles · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book’s main point is how the exchanging of ideas and goods between East and west is a prime principle of the renaissance, a time when humanity was rapidly changing and one can argue that established (or perfected) globalization. Those connections, the author claims, influenced the times and our time more than we were led to believe.

It deals with art and architecture, states, the church and politics, science and literature, but trying to cover all that makes this book a book of prefaces for me. It might work better for a reader who has just beginning knowledge of the times, but it’s not a rich study for a scholar or the enthusiast of the renaissance.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an egregious case of intellectual bait-and-switch. The author promises a radical reconsideration of the Renaissance in a global perspective that deemphasizes Italy and inserts the Ottoman Empire and point further east into the narrative. What he delivers is a familiar, traditional narrative of the same figures, events, works of art and literature. There are entire chapters in which no mention whatsoever is made of anything non-European, and when he does toss in a Ottoman example, it is usually cursory and superficial. The first and last two chapters are the most successful.

My final beef, the same author's The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction, is an often word-for-word crib of this book, which strikes me as pretty dishonest intellectually, and irresponsible editorially. A really disappointing book.

[John Boardley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite what I expected. I expected much more on the Eastern influences on the Renaissance. However, this is rather a popular, well-written and up-to-date (historiographically) brief history of the Renaissance with a chapter devoted to Eastern influences. Would make a very fine Renaissance 101 course book.

[Ellison Moorehead]

Da a entender que va a tratar la relación entre el “oriente” y el “occidente” durante el Renacimiento y aunque menciona al conquistador de Constantinople Mehmet unas cuantas veces, es de los únicos no italianos, portugueses, españoles nombrados. Es, como miles de otros, una historia de la época donde, para variar un poco, existen los musulmanes (pero como una gran masa casi sin distinción). El Renacimiento es interesante, ok, pero contármelo casi casi casi de la misma forma, pues mucho menos.

Se lee como libro de texto de la carrera de historia, y una carrera sin hacerse mirar su enorme sesgo occidentalista y occidentalizador.

[Litfahan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brotton has a very easy pitch—Europe's developments during the Renaissance were dependent on their exchanges with then non-European world—but suffers in that he barely talks about the world outside Europe (and is 'Europe' really a useful framework here?). No endnotes, no bibliography, overemphasis on art. He also bizarrely claims the Ottomans controlled "most of Central Asia."

[Aelinel Ymladris · Rating 3 out of 5]

En conclusion, l’ouvrage de Jerry Brotton Le Bazar Renaissance est passionnant à lire et bien documenté. Il permet de rendre compte de l’effervescence caractéristique de cette époque notamment de l’ouverture de l’Europe sur le monde grâce à l’intensification des échanges commerciaux (on pourrait la qualifier de première mondialisation), de nombreuses découvertes (géographique, scientifique, technique et artistique) et d’un nouvel état d’esprit (l’humanisme et l’émergence de nouveaux dogmes religieux). En revanche, il est dommage que l’ouvrage reste très européano-centré, j’aurais préféré qu’il soit plus développé sur l’aspect Orient et Islam promis dans le titre.

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[Jerise Fogel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jerry Brotton has worldwide fame as a scholar and public figure now, but this (along with the book on Elizabeth I) may be the book that brought him a big step closer to that back in the day. It's a pioneering attempt to understand the connections and influences, in both directions, of Islamic and Greek Orthodox "eastern" cultures on the so-called "west" of Italy, north Africa, Spain, France, and Germany and northern Europe during the Quattrocento. If the idea of a "global renaissance" intrigues you, read this book, which lays out what that might mean--and paves the way for further scholars afterwards to gain a more precise vision of what the cultural mix of the Mediterranean during the high medieval to late medieval period into the late Renaissance / early modern period looked like. The chapter on Venice and Galileo is striking and new, as are most of Brotton's focused pieces of scholarship. But even though it's weighty, it's still a pleasure to read, and Brotton doesn't forget to explain where he's going, what we've seen already, and what the links are. This book is the original, in a sense, of the extremely boiled-down *A Very Short Introduction to the Renaissance,* which Brotton wrote later--if you want to get a taste of just the overall themes and the writing style, that's a good easy read to start with.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent introductory history. But I found myself constantly irritated by the author's tendency to give opinion and interpretation as fact (an assertive tone, for instance). Examples:

"Michelangelo's criticism [of van Eyck] smacks more of Italian cultural nationalism than objective criticism." Note that there is no mention of nationality in the cited passage.

"Vasari's account was a brilliant public relations exercise that validated the status of the artist as professional."

"This [the Arnolfini portrait] is an image that worships acquisition and possession..." Apparently he is basing this on the fact that the portrayed couple are portrayed in their home with, ahem, their things rather than in a field?

Anyway, these things annoyed me. They may all be true--he just either doesn't give evidence to back it up or states it like a fact when it is really an interpretation.

[Yasmin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slightly engaging read and short. There is one thing the name Istanbul was not actually used much later in history. The name Constantinople or Kostantiniyye was more widely used by the inhabitants of all faiths until 19th or 20th century. There is actually not as much about the Ottomans, Muslims or about the Silk Road as one would have hoped for.

[G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book IS made from concentrate. It gives the Muslim world its due. After you see Topkapi in Istanbul, Florence feels saccharine. Spain comes off badly, as well. There's a lot of information well put and always engrossing.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed reading The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michelangelo. I was good to see that Muslim scientists acknowledged for contributions made that made the European Renaissance possible and how slavery began to take shape at that time.

[Colin]

An excellent read for those of us who teach world history at any level.. This is an excellent, short review of how the Renaissance should really be viewed in history, and how it should be presented i in class. Lots of very good discussion topics in here!

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting theory and very nice illustrations.

[Letha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful explanation of the impact of Eastern science and culture to the genesis of the Italian Renaissance.

[Rossrn Nunamaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this back in 2005 and recall it being a decent book, not all that I wanted it to be.