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Y305: The Renaissance c.1400–c.1600

  • 14 subtopics
  • 36 things to know
  • Unit group 3
  • Thematic study and interpretations, one unit of twenty-one

What Y305: The Renaissance c.1400–c.1600 covers

The Renaissance C.1400–c.1600 is unit Y305 of OCR History A, one of the twenty-one options in unit group 3, the thematic study and historical interpretations; a student sits one of them. Its four key topics and three depth studies are artistic and cultural development, the role of the individual, religion and religious change, the Impact of War, the Venetian Renaissance, Savonarola, the French Renaissance. 451 recall questions across 14 subtopics.

Where it is assessed

Unit group 3

Thematic study and historical interpretations, one unit of twenty-one.

Check the OCR specification ↗

The 14 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Numbers

What was linear perspective and who first demonstrated it?

Key term

Name two technical changes that transformed painting during the period.

Key term

What was distinctive about Venetian painting?

Key term

Define the High Renaissance.

Key term

Outline the political system of Venice.

Evaluation

Why did Venetian painters work in oil on canvas, and how did their colorito differ from Florentine disegno?

Who and when

Who were the piagnoni, the arrabbiati and the compagnacci?

Key term

Was Savonarola a medieval reactionary or a genuine reformer?

Evaluation

Why did the Renaissance develop in France when it did?

Key term

Distinguish civic patronage from private patronage.

Process

How did Nicholas V and Julius II make Rome the centre of the Renaissance?

Key term

What did Thomas More and John Colet contribute to English humanism?

Evaluation

Why did Italian states rely on mercenaries rather than citizen armies?

Key term

What was the effect of the Sack of Rome in 1527?

Numbers

What changes took place in infantry warfare?

Evaluation

Why did the events of 1494 strengthen Savonarola's authority?

Who and when

How did Charles V and Francis I spread the Renaissance beyond Italy?

Key term

Name three of Michelangelo's major works.

Evaluation

Give three criticisms made of the Renaissance popes.

Key term

Define simony, pluralism and absenteeism.

Who and when

How did humanist scholarship threaten church authority?

Who and when

Name two clerical advocates of the new learning and what they did.

Key term

Name two condottieri who became rulers and patrons.

Key term

Which economic conditions in Venice encouraged the Renaissance?

Key term

Name three later sixteenth-century figures who shaped the look of Venice.

Key term

What was the main constitutional change made under Savonarola's influence?

Key term

Name three other royal building projects of Francis I.

Key term

Name two other French writers of the period and their achievement.

Key term

Explain the effect of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 on the Renaissance.

Who and when

How did artists reconcile classical subjects with Christian belief?

Key term

What happened in Italy in 1494?

Key term

Give two examples of Renaissance artists working on military projects.

Key term

What was the contribution of the Bellini family?

Key term

What was the position of the Church in Venice?

Key term

Name two reforms, apart from the Great Council, introduced in Florence during Savonarola's ascendancy.

Key term

Give three reasons for Savonarola's fall.

Take Y305: The Renaissance c.1400–c.1600 further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

  • Linear perspective vs Neo-Platonism

    Linear perspective: the geometrical method of representing depth by lines converging on a single vanishing point. Neo-Platonism: the philosophy revived in Florence which read Plato as pointing towards Christian truth.

  • Christian humanism vs Condottieri

    Christian humanism: the application of classical scholarship to scripture and the reform of the Church. Condottieri: the mercenary captains who contracted to fight for the Italian states.

  • Simony vs Pluralism

    Simony: the buying and selling of Church office. Pluralism: the holding of more than one benefice at the same time.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What was cultural life in western Europe like around 1400?

    Model answer

    It was dominated by the Church and by scholastic theology, with Gothic styles in art and architecture, Latin as the language of learning, and manuscripts copied slowly by hand in monasteries and princely courts.

  2. 2

    Give three conditions in the Italian city states that helped cause the Renaissance.

    Model answer

    Wealth from long-distance trade and banking, a large and confident urban middle class, and a fragmented political map in which rival states competed for prestige.

  3. 3

    What was linear perspective and who first demonstrated it?

    Model answer

    Linear perspective was a mathematical method of showing depth on a flat surface using a single vanishing point, demonstrated by Brunelleschi in Florence around 1413 and set out in writing by Alberti.

  4. 4

    Name two technical changes that transformed painting during the period.

    Model answer

    The replacement of egg tempera by oil paint, which allowed deeper colour, glazing and subtle modelling, and the study of human anatomy, which produced convincingly solid and mobile figures.

  5. 5

    How did literary style change under humanist influence?

    Model answer

    Writers imitated classical Latin models such as Cicero, revived the study of Greek, and developed history, biography, dialogue and the letter, while increasingly also writing in the vernacular.

  6. 6

    What distinguished the northern Renaissance in Flanders from Italian art?

    Model answer

    Flemish painters such as Jan van Eyck mastered oil paint to achieve minute realistic detail and dense religious symbolism, rather than the Italian concern with classical form, perspective and the nude.

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Simony means the buying and selling of Church office.
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Y305: The Renaissance c.1400–c.1600 revision questions

What does Y305: The Renaissance c.1400–c.1600 cover in OCR A-Level History A?
14 subtopics: artistic and cultural development: cultural conditions in western europe c.1400, artistic and cultural development: high renaissance and continuity with the middle ages, the role of the individual: contributions to the renaissance, the role of the individual: humanist writers and artists from brunelleschi to dürer, religion and religious change: condition of the church, christianity and the renaissance, religion and religious change: anti-clericalism and impact of the renaissance on church music, the impact of war: the condottieri and the invasion of 1494, the impact of war: the sack of rome, new warfare and machiavelli, depth study: the venetian renaissance — condition of venice in c.1400, depth study: the venetian renaissance — artistic development in venice and impact of war on venice, depth study: savonarola — savonarola as a preacher and florence under savonarola, depth study: savonarola — fall of savonarola, depth study: the french renaissance — reasons for the development of the renaissance and depth study: the french renaissance — impact of da vinci and impact of the italian wars. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
How is Y305: The Renaissance c.1400–c.1600 organised?
By the OCR H505 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.

Every question in Y305: The Renaissance c.1400–c.1600, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

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