Celestina, Ubi Sunt, and the Renaissance: A Deep Dive
Celestina: A Tragic Love Story
Celestina tells the unhappy love story of two young nobles, Calisto and Melibea. To conquer Melibea, Calisto decides to seek help, advised by his servant Sempronius. He goes to an old bawd called Celestina. Celestina arranges a meeting between the two young people. As a reward for her work, Calisto gives Celestina a gold chain, attracting the ire of Sempronius and Pármeno (another of Calisto’s servants) to whom Celestina had promised to give part of their earnings. As Celestina refuses to share the spoils with the servants, they end up killing her. Meanwhile, after the meeting with Melibea, Calisto jumps over the wall of the young lady’s house and falls into the void, causing his death. Melibea, seeing what happened, commits suicide after telling her father, Pleberio, everything. Pleberio, finally, laments dramatically about the effects of passionate love.
Celestina is an exceptional document showing how human relationships were in the Middle Ages: between men and women, whether of the nobility or servants, parents and children, etc.
Ubi Sunt: A Reflection on Transience
Ubi Sunt is a literary topic already used in classical Roman literature and passed into both Romance and Western literature. Many topics have been broadcast in its formulation in America. Ubi sunt? literally means “Where are they?” and refers to the transience of worldly glory, the elements of the underworld, and the sensory. It is used to ask for lost goods and personalities.
This topic, used in many medieval and modern literary works, reflects a philosophy or way of thinking that was dominant throughout the Middle Ages, linking with the concept of life on Earth as a simple passage to eternal life that follows death. Ideologically, it connects with the Dance of Death, in the sense of understanding that at the end of life, death is a sublime equalizing element. An example of its formulation in the Castilian language can be found in the work of Jorge Manrique, Verses on the Death of his Father, and “Ode to the Retired Life” by Fray Luis de León.
The Renaissance: A Cultural Rebirth
Renaissance is the name given to a broad cultural movement that occurred in Western Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. Its main exponents are in the field of the arts, but it also saw a revival in the sciences, both natural and human. The Renaissance is the result of the dissemination of the ideas of humanism, which led to a new conception of man and the world. The name “Renaissance” was used because it incorporated elements of classical culture. The term symbolizes the revival of knowledge and progress after centuries of domination by a dogmatic mentality established in the Europe of the Middle Ages.
This new phase called for a new way of seeing the world and man, an interest in the arts, politics, and science, revising medieval theocentrism and replacing it with a certain anthropocentrism. The historian and artist Giorgio Vasari had conceived a decisive idea: the rebirth of ancient art, which presupposed a strong individual historical consciousness, a completely new phenomenon in the spiritual attitude of the artist. In fact, the Renaissance broke, consciously, with the artistic tradition of the Middle Ages, which it described as a style of barbarians, who would later receive the adjective “Gothic.” With the same consciousness, the Renaissance movement opposed the contemporary art of northern Europe.
The Renaissance makes man the measure of all things. As a cultural art, it essentially presupposes a scientific artist, which frees him from medieval attitudes and raises him to the highest rank. The historical circumstances that helped to develop the new style date back to the 14th century when, with humanism, an individualistic ideal of culture progressed and a deep interest in classical literature developed, which would inevitably lead to attention to the monumental remains of classical antiquity. Italy then consisted of a number of states, including Venice, Florence, Milan, the Papal States, and Naples. The pressure exerted from abroad prevented, as in other nations, the development of the union of kingdoms or states, but it strengthened the cultural consciousness of the Italians. From these assumptions, it was the cities that became centers of artistic renewal. In Florence, the development of a rich bourgeoisie helped the deployment of the forces of the Renaissance; the city became the starting point of the new style, and, under the protection of the Medici, the first works from here would extend to the rest of Italy.