Italian Renaissance

It looks as though it's about to topple over, but has stood for well over 400 years.

Later in the 16th century, Tudor England saw a new level of sophistication in house design, influenced by the Italian Renaissance.

and this can be seen in the symmetrical layout of Melford Hall in Suffolk.

Each half of the house is a mirror image of the other.

Not just from the art.

I can study all the Italian Renaissance painting.

That don't make me a part of that movement.

I could paint something.

You know, that intergenerational collaboration, right? Get with your elders.

This is part of the Italian Renaissance, too.

There was the apprentice, you know, relationships.

And so, you know, be with your elders, be with younger people.

I can't pinpoint anything, any particular building or anything like that.

I mean, at the time, I was studying ancient Roman, Renaissance Italian, and 19th century American architecture.

And...

I think it was just what struck me about it was that I could see so many connections, you know, with other architectural traditions that really, that I found exciting, you know, that I was really intrigued by.

This is our monument.

And so what happened then was that they compromised by constructing what looks like a Renaissance cathedral.

And it's an important example of Renaissance Italian architecture outside of the Italian peninsula at the time.

But they basically... constructed that right in the center of what was this 9th, 10th century prayer hall.

And so Jesus becomes this hugely important fish figure.

so fish turns out are going to play a leading role in our narrative today and i love this simple object that we're starting with because when you first look at it you think what could this possibly mean but if you look at the greater history of art the the story of tobias and the fish actually became hugely popular again during the Italian Renaissance.

And if you go to our website, you'll see a very famous painting by Andrea del Verrocchio of Tobias and the Angel.

But it has very early roots.

Cicero's writing in the death of the Republic, the early – maybe beginnings of the imperial period.

I'm thinking of a very different social political context of – I'm sorry to bring him up again – Machiavelli in Renaissance Italy, where one might say, okay, the trouble here is that if I misjudge the beneficial, I don't merely get put to death by Marc Antony.

my entire city is conquered by the French and the ruling class is wiped out.

The whole city is undone.

I feel like this episode can breach a lot and give you a lot of history because today we're going to explore that history of tarot and we're going to go back in time.

And when I say back, I mean way back because we're talking about Renaissance Italy.

We're going to talk about mysterious occult societies, ancient Egyptian theories, and hidden symbolism, and all of the imagery.

And there's a lot of surprising things that happened when I was digging into this.