The Renaissance

The Medici Seal, Theresa Breslin (Doubleday, 2006).TOP BOOK CHOICE

This new title is exactly what it says on the cover, a tale of "intrigue. Murder, Betrayal - and the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci". Set in 1502, young Matteo is saved from drowning by da Vinci. He becomes the Maestro's servant as he dissects human bodies, designs better chain mail and paints La Gioconda. Murder and mayhem travel in their wake, for unknown to Leonardo, Matteo is being hunted for an important secret, which both the Borgias and the Medicis will kill for.

The author creates a vivid picture of Renaissance Ialy and some memorable characters, such as the Sinistro Scribe. Whilst the need to fill in the complexities of the Italian Wars sometimes slows down the plot it does not detract from the high quality of the book overall. There are some great cliff hanging scenes that could be exploited to leave students wishing for the next history lesson to arrive, some beautiful writing for students to learn from and some truly gripping scenes as when Leonardo begins the secret dissection of a corpse.

"There was noise when he began to saw through the bones at each side. It was unlike any I had ever heard before. More cruel, it seemed, than when a dog tears at a hunk of meat, more visceral than the sound of a hungry man ripping the limbs from a chicken.

Blood.
My head swam. ..."

Or how about this for a villain?

We followed after the man called Michelotto as he conducted us through the corridors into the presence of the most feared man in Italy. When we entered the room on the first floor of the castle, Cesare Borgia rose from where he was sitting behind a table and came to greet us. Not yet thirty, he was tall and walked with grace and determination. Despite his face being marked by what was called the French disease, he was darkly handsome with shrewd eyes. He wore a black tunic, finely stitched and corded, black breeches and long black leather boots. The only colour on his person was in the form of a ring upon the middle finger of his left hand. A heavy gold ring set with an enormous single ruby, red as blood.

‘We have a crisis, Messer Leonardo.’ He grasped the Maestro by his shoulder and led him to the table. ‘My spies’ – he inclined his head, and it was then that I noticed two men standing in the shadows of the room – ‘have forewarned me to prepare for a siege.’ He laughed, and somehow the sound of his laugh was more terrifying than a shout of anger. ‘In this castle, here in Imola, I, Cesare Borgia, am to be attacked by my former captains. Therefore, with urgency, I need your advice on defence and military installations.’

He snapped his fingers and a servant leaped forward to take my master’s cloak. We went to the table and I opened the satchel and took out the design papers for the new armour and war machines. Then I stood to one side as the Borgia and the Maestro laid these out and studied them, together with plans of the castle. For several hours my master made notes and sketches until they had agreed on the most immediate work to be done.

Then Cesare said, ‘You must be hungry. Eat now and we will talk later.’ He waved his hand in dismissal.

 

Daughter of Venice, Donna Jo Napoli (Walker, 2004).TOP BOOK CHOICE

This story, set in Venice in 1592, gives an excellent insight into Italian Renaissance society. Through the eyes of the heroine, about whom we come to care, we see the street and canal scenes of the city. More importantly we get an insight into what is a very different society to our own and this is the most difficult problem for our 14 year old pupils in their story writing. One reviewer, Celia Rees, rightly described it as "a superbly researched, richly textured novel".



The Falconer's Knot, Mary Hoffman (Bloomsbury 2007).TOP BOOK CHOICE

A romance and murder mystery set in fourteenth century Italy, at the crossing point between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The hero Silvano, wrongly accused of murder, seeks sanctuary in a friary, whilst in the next-door convent a new, and unwilling novice, Chiara arrives. This is how Chiara first sees her new home.

A cluster of buildings came into view as they rode down into the valley. It was a pretty spot, with the river winding through it and the bell tower of the friary chapel rising up among the whitewashed houses where the friars and nuns lived, surrounded by their neat gardens. True there were more marrows than flowers to be seen but even they looked charming at a distance, a broad circle of greenery, neatly hoed and tended.

Pupils will enjoy the story. There are more murders to come and Renaissance painters to meet. Teachers will find useful characters and settings to model writing fiction set in the Renaissance for their pupils, as the extract above demonstrates. Short Listed for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize 2007.

 

The Medici Curse, Matt Chamings (Faber, 2007). New title

Set in 1485 this tells the story of Arnaldo, son of one of the Pazzi conspirators who plotted the assassination of the Medici brothers. Arnaldo is in Florence to paint a portrait of Lorenzo Midici's beautiful daughter Alessandra but he also carries a concealed dagger planning murder. Instead the painter and his subject fall in love. In the modern day Maria is drawn to the painting she sees in Florence, the same painting. This has been described as 'a romantic romp that will go down well with 11 to 13-year-olds'.

 

Year 8 write Renaissance historical fiction

Nigel Watt describes the work of the history department in All Saint's School, Weymouth, Dorset.

In 1995 we decided to change our Key Stage 3 European study unit. Previously, we had taught the Roman Empire as our European turning point and although this went down fairly well with our Year 7s, many students thought that they had "done the Romans" at Key Stage 2! Given the department's predilection for all things Italian and the fact that Geography were starting a Year 8 unit on modern Italy, the Renaissance was the obvious choice.

Our first programme of study for the Renaissance was designed to last the length of the Easter term. First time through there were some hiccups. Most of these were rectified easily enough, but we were still unsure. The syllabus was based too closely on the SHP textbook for our liking (even though it is a very good textbook!) and our resource base was rather narrow. Clearly, we were in need of a "Big Idea"!

At this point Dave Martin, the Inspector for History in Dorset, became involved. At an INSET day he and I had been discussing extended writing in history, and from this we got onto the subject of historical fiction. We wondered if there would be any mileage in getting our Year 8 students to produce their own works of historical fiction based on the Renaissance period? Such an approach, we felt, would motivate and provide an excellent opportunity for independent planning and research.

Planning:

Eventually we decided that the student stories should be based on the city of Florence during the 1580s, an easy choice on account of its historical importance as a city-state and the availability of resource material.

Programme of study:

The initial sections of the unit were designed to provide a background context for student research. With a total time allocation of 12 weeks (18 lessons in total, each an hour in length), the first six weeks (up until half term) would be devoted to this initial phase. The remaining six weeks could then be devoted to the Renaissance stories as follows:

Work to be collected at the end of term.

The story recipe:

Writing Historical Fiction

Your task is to write a story (or an extract from a story) set in Renaissance Florence.

  • Setting: The date is 3 June 1480. It is summertime. Your story must take place within a maximum of 2 days (48 hours). The city is Florence. Your story should include no more than 3 precise locations. These might be drawn from the Medici palace, the Ponte Vecchio, the Cathedral, .....
  • Characters: You may have up to 3 human characters, at least one of whom must be a woman. They may be fictional or real people such as Leonardo da Vinci, Lorenzo de Medici. You must include an animal.
  • Plot: You must include a thunderstorm.

In order to write your story you will need to do some historical research. Precisely what will depend upon your story, so if your characters eat a meal, you will need to research food. If your story takes place inside an artist's studio then you will need to research buildings and art. If you include Leonardo, you will need to research him or any other character, real or imaginary.

Remember, your story needs to be both interesting and historically accurate!

When you have finished you may be reading it to your fellow students and it will go into a Renaissance anthology kept in the school library.

Resources

The SHP textbooks, a variety of OHTs, maps and worksheets, some video clips and the department's slide collection were used in lessons throughout, and a County Library book loan was arranged for the second half of term. We were able to "cull" the school library for a similar selection of books.

Finding sources to show how the Renaissance has been depicted in historical fiction was relatively easy. We found an excellent passage from The Spring of the Ram by Dorothy Dunnett which describes a journey across Florence by a group of characters at the height of the Medici's rule. It provided vivid descriptions of the streets, and buildings and people, as well as an assessment of Cosimo de Medici's importance in Florentine affairs. Although some of the vocabulary was difficult, the addition of a short glossary enabled us to make good use of this as our introductory piece. As a follow up, we chose a splendid passage from Axe for an Abbot by Elizabeth Eyre that describes the effects of a summer storm on one of the poorer quarters of Florence. Examples of the covers used in the Elizabeth Eyre series of paperbacks were used as a lead into the cover planning activity.

Quite extensive use was made of IT and the Internet in particular. Dave and I were fortunate enough to have use of "lap-top" PCs with modems, and we were able "surf the net" to create files for student access in lesson time.

Putting it into practice

As one would expect, the success of the activities depended on a number of variables such as group composition and size, when the lessons were timetabled and the general mood of the students on the day! At that time our Year 8 groups were broadly banded and large (all exceeded 30 students).

The mark scheme was kept simple. A maximum of fifteen marks was available with five marks for plot, five marks for historical detail and five marks for overall presentation. This, we hoped, would be easy to operate and would give students the chance to score highly.

And so, how did the project work in practice?

Plot:

Inevitably there was going to be an element of subjectivity in awarding marks for plot. The criteria that we applied were very simple. Did we like the story and was it plausible? By checking individual students' plans before they did their rough drafts, we hoped to forestall any major pitfalls or problems. This proved to be worth the effort because the majority of students received three or more marks. Where work was awarded a "one" or a "two", the most common weaknesses were a lack of an obvious storyline, or a storyline that developed promisingly, but then ran out of steam. Interestingly, virtually no one had difficulty starting their tales. Here is the beginning from "Midnight Murder":

"It is June in Florence, and although it is midsummer, the sky is an ominous shade of grey. The colour of the sky reflects Lorenzo's dark and murderous mood as he is planning the death of one of his closest relatives, his grandson..."

In "Murder Mayhem" the signs are altogether less sinister.

"It was a hot, sticky June day and Maria Medici sat gently sewing her tapestry. A cool breeze came in the cracks in the door and slowly around her soft, bare ankles. She shivered as the air slipped through each toe and cooled her delicate, porcelain like feet...."

A less sophisticated but no less effective approach was adopted by this student in
"The Painting":

"Once upon a time, long ago, Lorenzo de Medici asked the great artist Ghirlandaio to paint a picture of what he thought the Last Supper was like. In return for the painting Lorenzo would give him a large number of Florins and he would be the main guest at a banquet..."

But what of the stories themselves? Most fell into one of two categories: romances (usually girl meets boy) and crime (mainly murders, but some robberies too). Many other ideas were evident, such as animal stories (Renaissance horse stories were popular in one group!), spy stories (many students were aware of the rivalry that existed between Renaissance city-states), disaster stories (the River Arno burst its banks with devastating consequences on a large number of occasions), and escapes from the dungeons of the Medici family. Mercifully, there were very few "Ramboesque tales" (only one hero took on the entire Medici guard single-handedly).

Many students found the story recipes to be helpful. Horses, dogs and cats were easily the most popular choices of animal, but an ermine, a ferret, some rats, a snake and a hawk also cropped up. Wildly destructive electrical storms were commonplace, but a few managed to skilfully use descriptions of the weather to symbolise the dramatic tensions of their plots (see above). Virtually everyone managed to keep their stories within the confines of Florence. An exception was a tale where the action centred on Pisa and an ingenious but unhistorical explanation of how the famous tower acquired its lean (clue: it involved a very strong horse!).

Simple plots tended to work best. In one case, the storyline ran as follows: boy has dog. Boy loses dog. Boy is upset and looks for dog with a friend. Boy finds dog and everyone is happy. This made for a pleasant, straightforward read. More sophisticated plots dealing with, for example, political intrigue also made for a good read, but quite often students tied themselves (and the reader!) in knots by including too many twists and nuances. Widespread use was made of dialogue to the extent that two students even attempted to write their conversations in Italian, luckily with English translations provided! Such valiant efforts raised interesting questions over historical accuracy.

Historical detail

Before they started their research, we encouraged students to write down any questions that they had and then list the results of the enquiries. Given the number of books that were available plus the "honey pot" attractions of three computers operating simultaneously in the classrooms, it took a while for some to get themselves going. It didn't take long for us to realise that the effectiveness of the research depended very much on the sorts of questions that the students were setting themselves. In one lesson, a group of girls had a lively discussion about the breeds of dog that was likely to have existed in Renaissance Florence. It was impossible to find an answer and yet clearly was an issue of some importance to the authors! Indeed, whilst plenty of resources exist on the topic, few deal with the sort of day-to-day detail that Year 8 authors need to incorporate in their stories. A good case in point concerns the subject of food. One website revealed a short list of popular 15th Century Florentine recipes. Students descended on this file like locusts and there was hardly a story that didn't refer to these rather unappetising delicacies of "Pigs' Blood Fritters and Florentine Cod in Hare Sauce"...and for breakfast too! Full credit to the few who stuck to bread, cheese and olives, and full marks also to those who extended their research to some traditional Italian cookbooks! Pleasingly, the Chianti flowed freely at virtually every meal, whilst 20th Century Italian fast food was notable by its absence!

And yet, every student succeeded in incorporating at least some historical detail, and for this most managed to score three marks or more. Here the beginning of the "Butchered Butcher" centres on the Ponte Vecchio:

" They were both butchers on the Ponte Vecchio. The trade could be quite good at most times of the year, but in summer not many people ventured near the river because of its vile stench. It stunk because the butchers were always dropping their meat offal through trapdoors in the bottoms of their shops."

The Ponte Vecchio figured in many tales, as did the Duomo and its campanile. This passage appears towards the end of the "Butchered Butcher":

"Antonio (the murderer) ran over the Ponte Vecchio and through a flooded square until he finally stopped at the 82 metre high "campanile....

Antonio ran inside and climbed to the top with the men in hot pursuit. At last, Antonio was balancing on the edge of the tower, high from the ground. He gave the men a final exasperated look and fell off backwards. His last sight was of the black and white baptistry where he had been christened..."

A good sense of place pervaded many stories, but often it was the little details that created that air of historical credibility. Here, in "Conspiracy" a student refers to the extremes of Renaissance society.

"As he rode up the streets, he could not help but notice the poor beggars...then looming up in front of him he saw the richly ornate building that was the Pazzi residence. He saw the contrast."

In "Losing Luigi" Mario and his girlfriend walk the dog Luigi through the city.

"They went back through the streets and Lisa's long blue dress became even dirtier as it was dangling in the litter beneath her feet. They walked past beggars, hermits and the handicapped, sitting, walking, crying for food and money."

Whilst the majority of the stories were based on imaginary characters, Leonardo da Vinci, Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Pazzi family managed to take centre stage in a few, usually with evidence of thorough research into these peoples' lives. More often than not, however, there was simply a passing reference to a "real character". Appropriately enough for a tale set in the 1480s, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Leonardo were the most popular artists, but in spite of the emphasis that we had placed on the importance of checking biographical dates, a few stubbornly refused to admit that Michelangelo would have only been five years old at the time, genius though he was! As for Leonardo, in one tale his amazing talent as an inventor was revealed when he picked up his date from her house in a FIAT! Thankfully, anachronisms such as this were rare. We had a few guns, the odd telephone, a butler (...who did it!) and some interesting interpretations of what a Renaissance bank was like. They were very much the exceptions to the rule, however.

Presentation

We were keen that the students should present their work neatly and attractively. They were required to write a rough draft that was first read by a peer, and then the teacher with a few suggestions added. About half of the scripts were typed.

Most students had a lot of fun producing their covers. Very few resorted to "clip-art". Many more made a genuine attempt to incorporate a Renaissance "feel" to the cover pictures (usually drawn rather that painted or cut and paste from photographs) and lettering. Bloody daggers and axes were commonplace, as were buildings (especially the Duomo).

Virtually everyone went to town with their résumés of the plot for the "back cover",
plus critical comments from such journals as The Times, The Observer and The Dorset Evening Echo. In only one case did the sum total of words written for this exceed that of the story itself!

Conclusions

We judged the Renaissance fiction project to have been a great success on a lot of fun.

In short, our advice to anyone who is interested is " have a go!"

Students’ story openings

from Year 8 students at Colfox School, Bridport, Dorset

Flawed perfection
The air was cold and the night was young. A tall young man strolled into an alehouse on the outskirts of Florence. The town it was in was called Virlatzo. Everybody knew everybody but no one batted an eyelid to see the stranger, there were always people passing through on their way to Florence to make their fortunes. Astrologers, artists, architects, you name it and they’d stayed in the tavern.

The stranger strolled through the smoky room, dragging his feet slightly so that his shoes left tracks in the sawdust on the floor, placed his hand on the bar and ordered a flagon of ale.

Black Stallion
It was a beautiful morning. The sun shone brightly down on the streets of Florence. The church bells rang out and echoed through the streets and off the walls. The market was opened and people dashed about picking clothes and poultry for their families. Well all except Leonardo Da Vinci. He was busy working on projects for Lorenzo.