A Monumental History

Renaissance

     This is not the time or place to describe
 or explain all that the Italian and German Renaissance
 means to us. Until recently modern man honored this
 time as the awakening from the 'Dark Ages.' We
 now know those ages were not so dark, but the
 new age was definitely infinitely brighter! To this
 day St. Peter's church covers an area of 240,000
 square feet, and it was the largest cathedral ever
 built until 1990 when it was surpassed by a
 cathedral in Africa. But St. Peter's resonates in
 that African cathedral. Apart from its
 massive dome, St. Peter's was a complete return
 to classical Greece and Rome. Thus the name
 'Renaissance' from 'resounding' or 'rebirth' of the
 past. But this time the average man was involved.
 Instead of just a large community structure with
 perhaps a figure of a god or a hero, here was
 a community structure for the purpose of worship
 and statesmanship, a forum and a burial tomb, or rather 
 'tombs.' Every one is marked and epitaphed, 
 usually with bas reliefs of the deceased. The private
 grave had come of age! The impact of this
 transformation can best be related to our time if you
 think of it as parallel to the revolution in communications
 we have undergone, from the Pony Express to the
 Internet, with the Internet being equal to the symbol
 that 14th century man saw as he looked at St. Peter's.

      People began burying in cemeteries.
 Before then cemeteries were dumping grounds and
 mostly consisted of mass graves and unmarked graves.
 Often they were found far a field. Suddenly every
 cathedral found space for a cemetery with marked
 graves, and entire cities even got into the act. This
 is not to say they did not exist before then; Rome
 had a public cemetery, and so did Athens. But nothing
 lasting, surveyed or privately marked as what we
 see during the 14th century.

      It is difficult to emphasize just how
 much of an impression the Renaissance had on
 monument building without first
 taking you for a stroll through the 
 cultures and places of that day. And I cannot
 do that within this document. Briefly speaking,
 the classic Latin and Grecian art forms we see
 in every cemetery around the world (that old 3
 feet by 2 feet rectangle with a columnar design)
 could have easily been different. Moor,
 Turkish, Hindu, and later Buddhist
 designs and traditions could have taken hold
 instead. The greatest contender was the
 Byzantine tradition. And, as mentioned earlier,
 had not Saint Patrick been around, we'd all be
 Moslems today. But we have to bow to the Latins
 for their design, alphabet, law and proportion,
 as we still use them all today.

      It was during this time when
 cemeteries and individual Memorialists
 came into existence. The Architect left the burden
 of memorializing private lives and even events
 to the new guy on the block, just as the
 church handed over the burden of the burial
 grounds to the cemeterians. Before this time
 monuments were 'Wonders of the World.'

Part 1, Introduction. | Part 2, The Taj Mahal. | Part 3, Newgrange & Stonehenge. | Part 4, Nile Valley. | Part 5, Persepolis. | Part 6, Parthenon. | Part 7, Pont Du Gard. | Part 8, The Colosseum & St. Augustine & MASONS. | Part 9, Renaissance. | Part 10, Miss Liberty. |

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