How were Athens and Florence Alike and How were they different?
I'm Kenney Mencher. I'm an artist who left a tenured professorship in 2016 to pursue making art full time. This blog is about art, art history, with a emphasis on human rights. I make homoerotic art featuring bears, otters & other gay wildlife.
Athens and Florence are alike i many ways. I think one of the most important similarities is their beliefs and practices around education. Both cultures favored a classical education involving mentorship and classic texts as opposed to the style of education we most commonly see in the US today where we use mostly textbooks and are instructed by teachers. Both cultures also placed great importance on education, and the people seemed to be hungry to learn. You can see similar attitudes and practices in other periods of great advancement including Americas founding generation. I think that the way in which the people were educated lead to many of the great achievements of both cultures, because they were a both generations that were taught how to think.
ReplyDeleteThe relationship of the two cities is almost similar to that of a mentor (Athens) and apprentice (Florence) in the way that Florence first attempted to copy and understand the ideas of Athens in it's art, architecture, science, math, speech, etc. then was able to expand upon and add to those ideas, becoming not just a copy of athens, but an independent city with it's own greatness.
This is really good! You've touched on a lot of the main ideas. Maybe some of your classmates can expand on your answers with details that support your main ideas?
DeleteI agree with aurora. Florence was extremely interested in integrating the classic culture of Athens. I am not sure where i heard it before but It was a saying that every Mentor expects their apprentice to surpass them eventually. In this case although Athens was not aware of its mentor-ship I would think what Florence has done with their knowledge would have been something to be proud of. They took all the great things of the classic era and brought it into a new modern and more intelligent world.
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