Many people today don’t stop to think about some of the basic city infrastructure we have in place today and where it originated. In more developed regions of the world, people are accustomed to running water, sewage systems, trash sites and other basic necessities required for comfortable, disease free living. In the late fourteenth century Milan was ravaged by the plague and almost one third of the city’s population was killed. During this time most of what’s considered a basic necessity for a well-built, disease free city was unheard of. Leonardo believed that the spread of the plague was due to the cramped design of the city. He began to design a city to prevent the future spread of such diseases.
Leonardo moved to Milan from Florence in
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The city would be based on two different levels. In her book “Leonardo da Vinci” Margaret Hall classifies the use of these two roads as “The bottom level was for the poor … The top level, where the “better” citizens would live” (42) The intentions for the bottom floor were where the poorer citizens would travel as well as to work in conjunction with the canal system. The canal system would have docks connected to the lower streets to load and unload goods where tradesman and the like can transport using carts and animals to their final destinations. Using the lower roads and the canals to the working class citizens, kept the top level from being congested with unnecessary traffic. The top level would have wider more open streets and beautiful architecture reserved for citizens of a higher social status. During this era it was very common for social classes to be segregated based on wealth and social status. Leonardo and other citizens of his stature would use the upper road without much regard for the poorer citizens and the lower road. Da Vinci’s city planning took the otherwise narrow and dark streets of Milan, widened them and dispersed them over three different levels significantly reducing the congestion and potential for
Castex, Jean. Architecture Of Italy. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 5 Feb. 2012.
Through the eyes of Boccaccio, plague in the City of Florence due has formed three basic forms of social groups. First, there were people who believed that "a sober and abstemious mode of living considerably reduced the risk of infection" therefore they lived in isolation from the rest of the people (Boccaccio 7).
In the 1300’s, there was an outbreak of a disease known as the Black Death that engulfed all of Europe. This sickness, also know as the Bubonic Plague, rampaged throughout Europe killing over a third of the population. A bacteria known as Yersinia pestis caused the disease. The bacteria, originating in fleas, spread to rats and then to people. Black Death was spread from trade throughout Europe. The large cities were affected first, and then it spread to the less dense and populated surrounding areas. The mortality rate in large cities was near fifty percent of the population, while in more rural areas the rate was lower. This lasting effects of this disease changed Europe both socially and economically. The bubonic plague triggered a loss of faith and generated negative feelings towards the church, but positively affected the masses by creating opportunities that they didn’t have in the past.
From the fourteenth to the seventeenth century the Renaissance transformed European culture and society. Many classical texts resurfaced and new scientific techniques arose. To many, Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most important figures in Renaissance history. He was given the name “Renaissance Man” because of his large role and impact. He had a large list of interests that spanned from science, art, anatomy, architecture, and mathematics. All of which were fundamental components that shaped the Renaissance era into what we know it as today.
According to Boccaccio’s account, civil order broke down during the plague as panic swept Florence. People were terrified by the inexplicable disease and the resulting massive death toll. In this state of distress, Boccaccio notes, “that the laws, human and divine, were not regarded” (Boccaccio 168). It became a mindset of every man for himself, or as Boccaccio states, “every one did just as he pleased” (Boccaccio 168). As people abandoned the laws, and officers—either sick or dead—could no longer enforce them, civil order in Florence turned to chaos.
Leonardo Da Vinci was one of the greatest minds of his time. Most will remember him for his many masterpieces including The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and The Vitruvian Man. But he did more than just draw works of art; he was also an inventor and a mathematician who studied a large variety of subjects. Leonardo’s life is more fascinating than any one man could imagine. He may be dead, but his work still lives on.
During the last half of the 1800’s and the early part of the 1900’s urban population in western Europe made enormous increases. During this period France’s overall population living in cities increased twenty percent, and in Germany the increase was almost thirty percent. This great flow of people into cities created many problems in resource demands and patterns of urban life. These demands created a revolution in sanitation and medicine. Part of this revolution was the redesigning of cities. G.E. Baron Von Haussmann was the genius behind the new plans for the city of Paris.
In order to get into the minds of the working class it is important to fully understand the present living conditions at this time. The cities were vastly overcrowded and smoky, with wholly inadequate sanitation, per...
Leonardo Da Vinci could be argued as one of the most famous persons in the Renaissance Era and one of the greatest painters to ever live. Leonardo is talented and has made many contribution throught his life. He did so many things such as painting, anatomy , mechanics, and architecture. And he is one of the reasons why the Renaissance era could be regarded at one of the greatest time periods in history.
Leonardo Da Vinci is a famed artist today due to his renowned painting of the ‘Mona Lisa’. In the 14th century, people of Venice would have known him as an engineer, people of Milan would have known him for his Last Supper, but only the people of Florence would have seen his whole character. Da Vinci is known as the archetypal Renaissance man, a man of “unquenchable curiosity” and “feverishly inventive imagination”. Da Vinci created many technologies and new innovations which were so advanced for his time and age that many scholars did not believe him. He contributed to civilisation through three main areas: art, science and engineering.
Bruni explains that Florence is a beautiful city, one which cannot even be described in words. He notes that Florence is not ostentatious, but rather, it is elegant in its moderation (23b). The city is physically beautiful, but it also “possesses the clearest and purist speech” (42a). “The study of literature in Florence grows in full vigor,” Bruni points out. Pitti indirectly shows that he agrees with the art of literature by writing a sonnet in his diary (Pitti 71). Everything from the buildings to the land it sits on, Florence is claimed by Bruni to be the most gorgeous city in the world. The city is also amazingly clean (24a). Everywhere you go, Bruni is positive that you will find nothing “disgusting to the eye” (24a). However, according to Pitti, his family had to leave the city because “they had taken refuge from the plague then raging in Florence” (Pitti 64). Pitti again mentions how he and his family had to leave because of the plague in 1411 (Pitti 87). Dati also states that “there was a plague” in the year 14...
Florence, Italy was a city just like any other during the Renaissance. It was city of 50,000 people, less than there were in Paris and Venice but more than most other European cities. The busiest parts of the city were the Ponte Vecchio, a place lined with markets and houses, the neighborhood of the Orsanmichele and Mercato Vecchio, or the Old Market. Florence was a place of beauty and leisure. A Venetian visitor once said, “There is in my opinion no region more sweeter than that wherein Florence is a placed for Florence is situated in a plain surrounded on all sides by hills and mountains…And the hills are fertile cultivated, pleasant…” (Unger, pg. 1). Florence was a very prosperous city; it made fortunes off of wool and banking trades. A certain Florentine family contributed to the vast wealth as well. The Medici family was no doubt the foundation of prosperity for Florence.
The rebirth of culture that took place in Europe from the 14th through the mid 17th centuries, it was based on the rediscovery of literature, art and learning in Greece and Rome. Renaissance originated from French, mid-French. The five major themes of the Renaissance were humanism, secularism, individualism, rationalism, and virtu. It was based on arts and humanities, religion, individuals trying to stand out, science, the church’s authority, and being the best at things.
... architectures would led to a more organic organization beneficial to the people that choose to make their lives in this city. Although this model of a sustainable city is not a perfectly closed loop, it lays the foundation for one that is. Over time, with constantly evolving and improving technology and new methods of design from the scale of products to buildings, the gaps in the loop could be closed, and a “true” sustainable city could be fully realized.
Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most well-known geniuses in human history. This man masters knowledge of all kind: painting, architecture, music, geology, philosophy, biology, math, physics, chemistry, etc. His probably most famous painting, Mona Lisa, fascinated millions of people around the world and the amazing and mysterious details in the painting attracted a number of scientists and scholars to devote their whole career in studying them. Born and lived in Italian Renaissance age, which is a period of time when arts flourished and knowledge was valued, Leonardo was surrounded by many great contemporary artists and a perfect creative environment. These favorable factors supported him to fully exercise his talents.