Gene Brucker offers insight into the lives and minds of 15th century Italy through a court case about Giovanni and Lusanna’s involving the legality of their marriage. He utilized several primary sources to provide a descriptive narrative of this case. Even though Brucker used primary sources, primarily notarial sources, these show clear evidence of bias, and in turn these biases are reflected in his work. To begin with, Brucker’s primary material falls into the legal category, notarial sources, from Ser Filippo Mazzaei. Although these legal works supply the evidence and court battle that occurred, these don’t provide a clear voice to the defendant, Giovanni, nor the plaintiff, Lusanna.
Stiff: The Secret Life of Cadavers Stiff, written by Mary Roach, is an informative New York Times Bestseller about the mystery behind bodies donated to science. In the book, Roach covers an extensive array of information about cadavers including the medical uses of them, the use of them in forensic science, and even the history behind them. Throughout her scientific account of the studies she participated in, Roach uses an interesting sense of humor to engage the reader while providing them with information.
Doctors are infamous for their unreadable writing; Richard Selzer is not one of those doctors. A talented surgeon, Selzer has garnered critical acclaim for his captivating operating room tales, and rightfully so. A perfect exhibition of this is The Knife, a detailed illustration of a surgery. What may seem like an uninteresting event is made mesmerizing by Selzer’s magnificent account of the human body and the meticulousness that goes into repairing it. The rhetorical appeals, tone, and figurative language that Selzer uses throughout The Knife provide the reader with a vivid description of the sacred process of surgery.
The artwork Untitled: Four Etchings by Glenn Ligon contains an immense amount of depth and symbolism using Zora Neale Hurston’s famous depiction of her relationship with racism. In his piece, Ligon utilizes a unique style of texture through his portrayal of the noteworthy phrase “ I do not always feel colored… ... I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background,” (Hurston). As one looks from the top of the image down, there is an extremely noticeable transition in the texture of the words from clear, smooth letters into letters that are blurry and smeared.
The outfits these “doctors” wore covered them head to toe. They were designed by Charles de Lorme. The outfits consisted of long robes that covered their entire body, and hood that wrapped tightly around their face, and a mask with a long beak and glass eyeholes cut and put into them. Inside the beak usually held herbs and remedies used to purify the “diseased air” of the victims that the plague the doctors worked with.
In Document 3 “For early 500 years, al Quasim’s work The Method, which contained original drawings of some 200 medical tools, was the foremost textbook on surgery in Europe.” These books originated with the Muslims and told the doctors every medical treatment they need to know every patient. If they could not remember it they would just refer back to the book. They used this method for about 500 years and it spread from civilization to civilization. This contribution was really helpful and successful.
Political figures in art has always been an important part of our history, culture and artistic representation, Roman and Byzantine art is a classic case of these representations. The Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius and Justinian as World Conqueror are two examples that demonstrate the power and prestige of these political authorities. First, Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius from the Roman, Italy (173-176 CE) measures 11’6” high, cast in bronze. Secondly, Justinian as World conqueror from Byzantium period measures 13” x 11” entire panel, center panel 7” x 5” and 1” deep. The creator of the equestrian statue is unknown, however, the creator of Justinian’s ivory relief was probably made by the imperial work of Constantinople.
As mentioned in “Medical Practitioners in England: 15th and 16th Centuries”, “the vast majority of people never consulted a physician” (Olsen). Physicians were costly and scarce. Surgeons, though less educated, were more in demand. They were certainly in demand in the military.
His greatest work “De humani corporis fabrica libri septem” (Fabric of the human body in seven books) “laid a solid foundation for the understanding of the vast human anatomy” [Source 3]. This book included detailed drawings of human bodies as well as precise descriptions of human body parts. His work challenged anatomical understanding and was “actually considered to be the earliest accurate presentation of human body” [Source 8].
Located in hallway nestled between the Art of Europe and Art of Ancient Worlds wings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is the Italian Renaissance Gallery (Gallery 206). Here, Donatello’s Madonna of the Clouds and Luca della Robbia’s Virgin and child with lilies face one another, competing for museum-goers’ attention from alternate sides of the narrow gallery. Both pieces indulge ingenious techniques, original at the time of conception, to create a completely new visual experience of a very traditional biblical scene, the Madonna with her child, Jesus Christ. This paper will employ close visual analysis of two 15th-century Renaissance reliefs from Florence depicting the Virgin Mary and Jesus Chris in order to show how these artists used innovative
“Sculpted monuments...testify to the high artistic achievements of imperial sculptors under Augustus and a keen awareness of the potency of political symbolism” (“Augustan Rule,” 2000). It is not through just images though that Augustus reinforces this careful balance and understanding of art as an influence on personal appearance. Augustus also supported, “a social and cultural program enlisting literature and the other arts revived time-honored values and customs, and promoted allegiance to Augustus and his family.” (“Augustan Rule,” 2000).
During the Renaissance health and medicine changed considerably . There were many important changes to the understanding of anatomy and surgery. Important doctors and surgeons discovered different ways of understanding to body and different ways of operating. For example how Vesalius in the 15th century dissected the human body to learn more about anatomy. During this essay I will investigate how far health and medicine improved during the Renaissance by focusing on anatomy and surgery.
René Descartes’s interest in a piece of wax demonstrates his ideas about powers of the mind to comprehend through what the senses cannot recognise, as wax changes when melted so greatly yet is still regarded as the same wax. Images or examples can challenge this idea of sustained identity through change; such as a ship, larvae or the self. Descartes sought an indubitable idea to secure his foundations for finding certain knowledge. This idea relates to the mind or the self being the starting point for knowledge, leading to an investigation into its nature. As a rationalist, Descartes’s views clash with empiricist David Hume.
Descartes’ Wax Example In Meditations on First Philosophy, Rene Descartes discusses how a piece of wax recently taken from a honeycomb can explain certain things about himself and the way that he thinks (11). His goal is to explain what he is and how he thinks as well as suspend judgment about any of his beliefs, which are even slightly doubtful. In the following paper, I will discuss his famous “wax example.” While Descartes begins the second meditation in radical doubt, he learns that he can know one thing for sure, and this is that nothing is certain. The only thing that he can be certain of is that he is a thinking thing.
In 476 CE marks the fall of the Roman Empire and Western Europe has become fractured. By the twelfth century, a collection of Italian republics is forming and began to renew Europe and engineer the blueprints for today’s modern Western world. This period is called the Renaissance, a time of great invention and cultural change in Europe. During the Renaissance, one of the remarkable changes was in the fields of architecture, art and science. Unlike the conformity of the early Middle Ages in terms of artistic style which focused on symbolism, Renaissance art are more anatomically accurate incorporated with the technique of perspective.
