Where’s the Light in the Enlightenment Era? Part I

Debunking the Early Modern Period with an emphasis on the Enlightenment

Was the Enlightenment era really enlightened? Just looking at hygiene standards and how women were treated, it appears that the Enlightenment was not so enlightened. One might say, in defense of the period, that the first encyclopedia was written, that science and industry had their BOOM, and that new continents were discovered – but what about the people? Let’s find out.

Introduction
This dynamic period in history, called the Early Modern Period, was marked by wars, political rivalries, quarrels, and diseases. From the darkness of everyday life emerged Humanism and the Enlightenment era that followed. Humanism appeared in the 14th and mostly in the 15th century. Its philosophy or culture (let’s call it that) was anthropocentric, meaning that humans were the center of thought, research, and art. The role models of humanists were classical antique philosophers and writers. These same role models continued into the Enlightenment period. But now, the main idea had switched from anthropocentrism to reason; or rather, the main idea evolved into a new niche: reason. To sum up, the Enlightenment era was all about the idea of progress in natural sciences, technology, and society overall. This idea emphasized human reason above all. However, was it human reason after all?

Art
Art - that heavenly discipline - had its awakening, its Renaissance. In art history, the Early Modern Period is divided into the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classicism - periods from which new styles and forms emerged in literature, music, and art. While male writers had access to academia, theater, and the court, female writers hid in the private sphere or under pseudonyms. As a result, literature written by men became canonical, while women’s literature was erased from textbooks. Regarding music, obstacles for women were even higher; it was considered distasteful for women to compose music or even perform, except behind the closed doors of monasteries. However, they did it anyway, despite the limits of society.

Therefore, in literature, the main figures of the Renaissance were Vittoria Colonna, Miguel de Cervantes, Louise Labé, Marguerite de Navarre, and Shakespeare. In the Baroque, there were Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Aphra Behn, Luis de Góngora, Maria de Zayas, John Milton, and Ivan Gundulić. In Classicism, there were Voltaire, Madame de Lafayette, Molière, Madame de Sévigné, Jean Racine, Pierre Corneille, Alexander Pope, and Mary Wollstonecraft, who had one step in Romanticism.

The key figures in art during the Renaissance were Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Sofonisba Anguissola, Raphael, Lavinia Fontana, and Catharina van Hemessen. In the Baroque, Artemisia Gentileschi, Caravaggio, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Judith Leyster, Diego Velázquez, Clara Peeters, Peter Paul Rubens, and A. van Dyck stood out. In Classicism: Jacques-Louis David, Angelica Kauffman, Antonio Canova, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, and last but not least, Adèle Romany. Here, it is necessary to highlight the Dutch Golden Age, which stood out beyond art, also in trade and military power.

In music, new genres emerged like madrigals, opera, and oratorio. The Renaissance was marked by Maddalena Casulana, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Josquin des Prez, Vittoria Aleotti, Orlando di Lasso, and Leonora Orsini. Furthermore, prominent opera singers in the Baroque were Madame Thénard (Magdeleine Perrin) and Sophie Arnould, alongside prominent composers such as J. S. Bach, J. Pachelbel, Barbara Strozzi, G. F. Händel, Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, Antonio Vivaldi, and Francesca Caccini. For the Classical period, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Maria Anna Mozart (Nannerl), Joseph Haydn, Marianna Martines, Maria Theresa von Paradis, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Amélie-Julie Candeille must be listed as those who marked the era.

Science
With that being said, science had its breakthrough. All the fuss began with Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543, when he published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in Nuremberg, Germany. In De revolutionibus, Copernicus proposed a heliocentric system - a system explaining that planets orbit the Sun. Copernicus met harsh criticism and rejection. The same destiny befell Giordano Bruno; Bruno’s ideas even cost him his life. Galileo Galilei also observed the skies and had trouble with the Church. Just like Galileo, Caroline Herschel looked deeply into the skies. She discovered eight comets and published her findings in her work Catalogue of Stars, completing the map of the heavens.

Moreover, Andreas Vesalius wrote De humani corporis fabrica in 1543, denying Galen’s anatomy, and Edward Jenner created the first vaccine by using cowpox to induce immunity in 1796; this revolutionary discovery emerged from the need to fight smallpox.

Furthermore, Maria Sibylla Merian documented the first metamorphosis in insects by drawing each step in Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium. Her work is considered purely methodological, the first among her contemporaries. The expedition she took for her exploration was also the most scientific in terms of methodology.

Isaac Newton had a breakthrough in physics. This Englishman wrote New Theory about Light and Colour in 1672; in the article, Newton proved that light consists of particles. Then, in 1687, Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (and De motu corporum in gyrum), where he introduced the theory of gravity. Émilie du Châtelet wrote Institutions de Physique and translated Newton’s Principia into French, making him popular in France. Laura Bassi wrote De aqua corpore and was the first female professor at the University of Bologna. She also ensured Newton’s ideas spread across Italy, and she was successful.

In philosophy, Denis Diderot stood out with his Encyclopédie in 1751. Besides Diderot, seven philosophers marked this era: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Together, they are known as the "Canon of Seven." Women who influenced or corresponded with the Canon of Seven were Margaret Cavendish, Elisabeth of the Palatinate, Anne Conway, Mary Astell, and Damaris Cudworth Masham. Who knows? Without these women, the 'Canon of Seven' might not have been able to 'philosophize' quite as much as they did.

Patriarchal tradition erased many of those listed here from textbooks for decades. Yet, scholars of recent decades have given justice to the erased and marginalized ones.

Expeditions
Early centuries of the Early Modern Period were marked by nonstop traveling and many expeditions, almost as if they were competing over who would ‘discover’ new lands and claim them.

Further, trade moved from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in the weakening of leading trading powers: the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Dubrovnik. New continents were "discovered" by the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, British, and French. Also, those kingdoms established colonies and brought spices and new crops to Europe, like corn. Nota bene: these continents were unknown to European countries, but they were always there.

Conquering continents continued in this period. After sailing across raging waves, James Cook arrived in Australia (not Austria!) on April 19th, 1770, giving Aboriginal people headaches. Ferdinand Magellan set sail around the world; he ended up in the Philippines, where he died. Africa’s southern tip was sailed around at the end of the 15th century. Two centuries later, Antarctica was discovered in the early 19th century, although Cook sailed the Antarctic Circle in 1773.

Many of those expeditions left traces in the oceans. Archaeologists are still examining and looking for sunken ships and their ‘treasures.’ Some are yet to be discovered. Maybe one of you will discover one!

Last Words
Those were, more or less, the bright segments of the Early Modern Period. What about its darker parts? Stay tuned for wars, diseases, and injustice.

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