The Renaissance was a product of the social and technological changes occurring
during the Middle Ages. Yet, despite this continuity the Renaissance represented
something entirely new. It represented a phase change in the human experience which is
evident in the art, science, and technology of the period. Individuals such as:
Michelangelo Buonarrotti (1474-1564), Raphael (Raffelo Sanzio, 1483-1520), Andrea
Verrocchio (1432-1488), Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), Leon Battista Alberti (1404-
1472), and Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) became known as “Renaissance Men.” This
is because these individuals, and many like them, excelled in all aspects of human
understanding including art, science, and technology. In no other time have these three
areas of the human experience been so obviously intertwined, and interdependent. The
following discussion explores some of the relationships between art, science, and
technology in the Renaissance.
Linear Perspective:
Europe got its first taste of perspective when Filippo Brunelleschi produced a
perspective painting of the Florentine Baptistery (Burke, p.72). Brunelleschi, just as his
good friend Leon Battista Alberti, was a “Renaissance Man.” Brunelleschi was a
sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist, and inventor. He delved into optics, and
Ptolemy’s Geography (Layton, p.25). Alberti explored art, humanism, philosophy,
mathematics, geometry, mechanics, music, economics, law, poetry, and architecture. He
also revolutionized surveying, and wrote a work on Mathematical Games, which was later used by Galileo (Layton, p.32). It was Alberti that published the concept of linear
perspective which radically altered art, science, and technology for all time.
Linear perspective changed art and the way the universe was viewed. Before this
time figures had been painted with their sizes being proportional to their spiritual worth
(for example; small sinners, big bishops, huge angels, enormous churches, and a gigantic
Jesus). With linear perspective, figures and objects were painted with their true relative
sizes. Suddenly viewing the world as it really was (very scientific), started replacing a
religious interpretation of everything.
This new view of the world was enhanced with the rise of merchants, and the
decline of the clergy. Wealthy merchants, and other secular powers, sponsored all
manner of artistic expression during the Renaissance. Michelangelo, Raphael, and
Leonardo all fall into this broad category. Whether or not linear perspective could trace
its origins to the growing secular power is difficult to say, but it certainly resulted in the
same humanistic, mathematical, and non-religious view of the world.
Being able to exactly replicate real world objects had immediate implications for
technology and science. People began to think of objects proportionally and three
dimensionally. Now the world could be described with mathematics. The mastering of
spatial relationships allowed advances in the technology of architecture. Buildings could
be modeled before being produced. Engineering, and science now had a mathematical
basis. It is no coincidence that the Florence Cathedral, unequaled in engineering and
architecture, was designed by Brunelleschi, the founder of linear perspective.
The artistic aspect of architecture was also altered by linear perspective. A new
type of Renaissance church was developed using the principles of linear perspective to
focus attention on the altar. Also buildings such as the S. Maria Novella, made by
Alberti, were produced using the ideas of proportions, and ratios (Burke, p.82). Order
had entered into city planning, as was evident in the new town planning found in the
geometric fortresses of the time.
Cartography, and surveying also received a major boost with linear perspective.
When combined with Ptolemy’s Geography it could be seen how a round world could be
mapped on a flat surface. The world was placed on a grid (just as a grid was used to get all the sizes correct in the painting of a scene) revolutionizing map making, and
surveying.
