Origins
Northern Italy in the Late Middle Ages
By the late Middle Ages, central and southern Italy, twice the heartland of the Roman Empire, was far poorer than the north. Rome was a city largely in ruins, and the Papal States were a loosely administered region with little law and order, due to the pope having relocated to Avignon under pressure of King Philip the Fair of France. Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia had for some time been under foreign domination.
The north was far more prosperous, with the states of northern Italy among the wealthiest in Europe. The Crusades had built lasting trade links to the Levant, and the Fourth Crusade had done much to destroy the Byzantine Empire as a commercial rival to the Venetians and Genoese. The main trade routes from the east passed through the Byzantine Empire or the Arab lands and onwards to the ports of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. Luxury goods bought in the Levant, such as spices, dyes, and silks were imported to Italy and then resold throughout Europe. Moreover, the inland city-states profited from the rich agricultural land of the Po River valley. From France, Germany, and the Low Countries, through the medium of the Champagne fairs, land and river trade routes brought goods such as wool, wheat, and precious metals into the region. The extensive trade that stretched from Egypt to the Baltic generated substantial surpluses that allowed significant investment in mining and agriculture. Thus, while northern Italy was not richer in resources than many other parts of Europe, the level of development, stimulated by trade, allowed it to prosper. Florence became one of the wealthiest cities of Northern Italy, due mainly to its woolen textile production, under the supervision of its dominant trade guild, the Arte della Lana. Wool was imported from Northern Europe (and in the sixteenth century from Spain)[1] and dyes from the east were used to make high quality textiles.
The Italian trade routes that covered the Mediterranean and beyond were also major conduits of culture and knowledge. In medieval times works that embodied the classical learning of the Greeks had trickled into Western Europe, through Arab translations and treatises, from Toledo and from Palermo. The Crusades led to some European contact with classical learning, preserved by Arabs, but more important in this regard was the Spanish Reconquista of the fifteenth century and the resulting translations of Arabic-language works by the Arabists of the School of Salamanca. From Egypt and the Levant, the scientific, philosophical, and mathematical thinking of the Arabs entered Northern Italy. Sparking the new linguistic studies of the Renaissance, from Constantinople, after its capture by Ottoman forces in 1453, came Greek texts and the scholars who taught Italians how to read them, in revived academies in Florence and Venice. Humanist scholars searched monastic libraries for ancient manuscripts and recovered Tacitus and other Latin authors; with the rediscovery of Vitruvius architectural principles of Antiquity could be observed once more, and Renaissance artists were encouraged, in the atmosphere of humanist optimism, to excel the Ancients, like Apelles, of whom they read.
Thirteenth-century prosperity
In the thirteenth century, Europe in general was experiencing an economic boom. The trade routes of the Italian states linked with those of established Mediterranean ports and eventually the Hanseatic League of the Baltic and northern regions of Europe to create a network economy in Europe for the first time since the third century. The city-states of Italy expanded greatly during this period and grew in power to become de facto fully independent of the Holy Roman Empire. During this period, the modern commercial infrastructure developed, with joint stock companies, an international banking system, a systematized foreign exchange market, insurance, and government debt.[2] Florence became the centre of this financial industry and the gold florin became the main currency of international trade.
This produced a new mercantile governing class, who won their positions through financial skill, adapting to their purposes the feudal aristocratic model that had dominated Europe in the Middle Ages. A feature of the High Middle Ages in Northern Italy was the rise of the urban communes that had shaken off control by bishops and local counts. In much of the region the landed nobility was consistently poorer than the urban patriarchs in the High Medieval money economy, whose inflationary rise left land-holding aristocrats impoverished. The increase in trade during the early Renaissance enhanced these characteristics. The decline of feudalism and the rise of cities influenced each other; for example, the demand for luxury goods led to an increase in trade, which led to greater numbers of tradesmen becoming wealthy, who, in turn, demanded more luxury goods. This change also gave the merchants almost complete control of the governments of the Italian city-states, again enhancing trade. One of the most important effects of this political control was security. Those that grew extremely wealthy in a feudal state ran constant risk of running afoul of the monarchy and having their lands confiscated, as famously occurred to Jacques Coeur in France. The northern states also kept many medieval laws that severely hampered commerce, such as those against usury, and prohibitions on trading with non-Christians. In the city-states of Italy, these laws were repealed or rewritten.[3]
Fourteenth-century collapse
The fourteenth century saw a series of catastrophes that caused the European economy to go into recession. The Medieval Warm Period was ending as the transition to the Little Ice Age began.[4] This change in climate saw agricultural output decline significantly, leading to repeated famines, exacerbated by the rapid population growth of the earlier era. The Hundred Years' War between England and France disrupted trade throughout northwest Europe, most notably when, in 1345, King Edward III of England repudiated his debts, contributing to the collapse of the two largest Florentine banks, those of the Bardi and Peruzzi. In the east, war was also disrupting trade routes, as the Ottoman Empire began to expand throughout the region. Most devastating, though, was the Black Death that decimated the populations of the densely populated cities of Northern Italy and returned at intervals thereafter. Florence, for instance, which had a pre-plague population of 45,000 decreased over the next 47 years by 25–50%.[5] Widespread disorder followed, including a revolt of Florentine textile workers, the ciompi, in 1378.
It was during this period of instability that the first Renaissance figures, such as Dante and Petrarch lived, and the first stirrings of Renaissance art were to be seen in the opening half of the fourteenth century, notably in the realism of Giotto. Paradoxically, some of these disasters would help establish the Renaissance. The Black Death wiped out a third of Europe's population, and the new smaller population was much wealthier, better fed, and, significantly, had more surplus money to spend on luxury goods like art and architecture. As incidences of the plague began to decline in the early fifteenth century, Europe's devastated population once again began to grow. This new demand for products and services, and the reduced number of people able to provide them, put the lower classes in a more favourable position. Furthermore, this demand also helped create a growing class of bankers, merchants, and skilled artisans. The horrors of the Black Death and the seeming inability of the Church to provide relief would contribute to a decline of church influence, another significant contributing factor to the Renaissance. Additionally, the collapse of the Bardi and Peruzzi banks would open the way for the Medici to rise to prominence in Florence. Robert Sabatino Lopez argues that the economic collapse was a crucial cause of the Renaissance.[6] According to this view, in a more prosperous era, businessmen would have quickly reinvested their earnings in order to make more money in a climate favourable to investment. However, in the leaner years of the fourteenth century, the wealthy found few promising investment opportunities for their earnings and instead chose to spend more on culture and art.
Another popular explanation for the Italian Renaissance is the thesis, first advanced by historian Hans Baron,[7] that states that the primary impetus of the early Renaissance was the long-running series of wars between Florence and Milan: see Italian Wars. By the late fourteenth century, Milan had become a centralized monarchy under the control of the Visconti family. Giangaleazzo Visconti, who ruled the city from 1378 to 1402, was renowned both for his cruelty and for his abilities, and set about building an empire in Northern Italy. He launched a long series of wars with Milan, steadily conquering neighbouring states and defeating the various coalitions led by Florence that sought in vain to halt the advance. This culminated in the 1402 siege of Florence, when it looked as though the city was doomed to fall, before Giangaleazzo suddenly died and his empire collapsed.
Baron's thesis suggests that during these long wars, the leading figures of Florence rallied the people by presenting the war as one between the free republic and the despotic monarchy, between the ideals of the Greek and Roman Republics and those of the Roman Empire and Medieval kingdoms. For Baron, the most important figure in crafting this ideology was Leonardo Bruni. Baron argues that this time of crisis in Florence was the period when most of the major early Renaissance figures were coming of age, such as Ghiberti, Donatello, Masolino, and Brunelleschi, and that they were inculcated with this republican ideology. These and other figures, according to Baron, later went on to advocate republican ideas that were to have an enormous impact on the Renaissance.
Development
International relations
Northern Italy was divided into a number of warring city-states, the most powerful being Milan, Florence, Pisa, Siena, Genoa, Ferrara, and Venice. High Medieval Northern Italy was further divided by the long running battle for supremacy between the forces of the Papacy and of the Holy Roman Empire: each city aligned itself with one faction or the other, yet was divided internally between the two warring parties, Guelfs and Ghibellines. Warfare between the states was common, invasion from outside Italy confined to intermittent sorties of Holy Roman Emperors. Renaissance politics developed from this background. Since the thirteenth century, as armies became primarily composed of mercenaries, prosperous city-states could field considerable forces, despite their low populations. In the course of the fifteenth century, the most powerful city-states annexed their smaller neighbors. Florence took Pisa in 1406, Venice captured Padua and Verona, while the Duchy of Milan annexed a number of nearby areas including Pavia and Parma.
- Main article: Italian Wars.
The first part of the Renaissance saw almost constant war on land and sea as the city-states vied for preeminence. On land, these wars were fought primarily by armies of mercenaries known as condottieri, bands of soldiers drawn from around Europe, but especially Germany and Switzerland, led largely by Italian captains. The mercenaries were not willing to risk their lives unduly, and war became one largely of sieges and maneuvering, occasioning few pitched battles. It was also in the interest of mercenaries on both sides to prolong any conflict, to continue their employment. Mercenaries were also a constant threat to their employers; if not paid, they often turned on their patron. If it became obvious that a state was entirely dependent on mercenaries, the temptation was great for the mercenaries to take over the running of it themselves—this occurred on a number of occasions.[8]
At sea, Italian city-states sent many fleets out to do battle. The main contenders were Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, but after a long conflict the Genoese succeeded in reducing Pisa. Venice proved to be a more powerful adversary, and while at first relatively equal, the Genoese fleet was eliminated in the battle of Chioggia at the mouth of the Venetian lagoon, 1380; henceforth Venice was pre-eminent on the seas. As Venetian territories in the Aegean were lost one by one to the Turks, and the Black Sea trade was closed to them, Venetian interests turned towards the terrafirma as the Venetian Renaissance opened.
On land, decades of fighting saw Florence and Milan emerge as the dominant players, and these two powers finally set aside their differences and agreed to the Peace of Lodi in 1454, which saw relative calm brought to the region for the first time in centuries. This peace would hold for the next forty years, and Venice's unquestioned hegemony over the sea also led to unprecedented peace for much of the rest of the fifteenth century.
In the beginning of the fifteenth century, adventurer and traders such as Niccolò Da Conti (1395–1469) traveled as far as Southeast Asia and back, bringing fresh knowledge on the state of the world, presaging further European voyages of exploration in the years to come.
Florence under the Medici
In the late fourteenth century, Florence's leading family had been the Albizzi. Their main challengers were the Medicis, first under Giovanni de' Medici, then under his son Cosimo. The Medici controlled the Medici bank - then Europe's largest bank, and an array of other enterprises in Florence and elsewhere. In 1433, the Albizzi managed to have Cosimo exiled. The next year, however, saw a pro-Medici Signoria elected and Cosimo returned. The Medici became the town's leading family, a position they would hold for the next three centuries. Florence remained a republic until 1537, traditionally marking the end of the High Renaissance in Florence, but the instruments of republican government were firmly under the control of the Medici and their allies, save during the intervals after 1494 and 1527. Cosimo and Lorenzo only rarely held official posts, but were the unquestioned leaders.
Cosimo de' Medici was highly popular among the citizenry, mainly for bringing an era of stability and prosperity to the town. One of his most important accomplishments was negotiating the Peace of Lodi with Francesco Sforza ending the decades of war with Milan and bringing stability to much of Northern Italy. Cosimo was also an important patron of the arts, directly and indirectly, by the example he set.
Cosimo was succeeded by his sickly son Piero de' Medici, who died after five years in charge of the city. In 1469 the reins of power passed to Cosimo's twenty-one-year-old grandson Lorenzo, who would become known as "Lorenzo the Magnificent." Lorenzo was the first of the family to be educated from an early age in the humanist tradition and is best known as one of the Renaissance's most important patrons of the arts. Under Lorenzo, the Medici rule was formalized with the creation of a new Council of Seventy, which Lorenzo headed. The republican institutions continued, but they lost all power. Lorenzo was less successful than his illustrious forebears in business, and the Medici commercial empire was slowly eroded. Lorenzo continued the alliance with Milan, but relations with the papacy soured, and in 1478, Papal agents allied with the Pazzi family in an attempt to assassinate Lorenzo. Although the plot failed, Lorenzo's young brother, Giuliano, was killed, and the failed assassination led to a war with the Papacy and was used as justification to further centralize power in Lorenzo's hands.[9]
Spread of the Renaissance
Renaissance ideals first spread from Florence to the neighbouring states of Tuscany such as Siena and Lucca. The Tuscan culture soon became the model for all the states of Northern Italy, and the Tuscan variety of Italian came to predominate throughout the region, especially in literature. In 1447 Francesco Sforza came to power in Milan and rapidly transformed that still medieval city into a major centre of art and learning that drew Leone Battista Alberti. Venice, one of the wealthiest cities due to its control of the Mediterranean Sea, also became a centre for Renaissance culture, especially architecture. Smaller courts brought Renaissance patronage to lesser cities, which developed their characteristic arts: Ferrara, Mantua under the Gonzaga, Urbino under Federico da Montefeltro. In Naples, the Renaissance was ushered in under the patronage of Alfonso I who conquered Naples in 1443 and encouraged artists like Francesco Laurana and Antonello da Messina and writers like the poet Jacopo Sannazaro and the humanist scholar Angelo Poliziano.
In 1417 the Papacy returned to Rome, but that once imperial city remained poor and largely in ruins through the first years of the Renaissance.[10] The great transformation began under Pope Nicholas V, who became pontiff in 1447. He launched a dramatic rebuilding effort that would eventually see much of the city renewed. The humanist scholar Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini became pope as Pius II in 1458. As the papacy fell under the control of the wealthy families from the north, such as the Medici and the Borgias the spirit of Renaissance art and philosophy came to dominate the Vatican. Pope Sixtus IV continued Nicholas' work, most famously ordering the construction of the Sistine Chapel. The popes also became increasingly secular rulers as the Papal States were forged into a centralized power by a series of "warrior popes".
The nature of the Renaissance also changed in the late fifteenth century. The Renaissance ideal was fully adopted by the ruling classes and the aristocracy. In the early Renaissance artists were seen as craftsmen with little prestige or recognition. By the later Renaissance the top figures wielded great influence and could charge great fees. A flourishing trade in Renaissance art developed. While in the early Renaissance many of the leading artists were of lower- or middle-class origins, increasingly they became aristocrats.[11]
Wider population
As a cultural movement, the Italian Renaissance affected only a small part of the population. Northern Italy was the most urbanized region of Europe, but three quarters of the people were still rural peasants.[12] For this section of the population, life was essentially unchanged from the Middle Ages.[13] Classic feudalism had never been prominent in Northern Italy, with the peasants mostly working private farms or as sharecroppers. Some scholars see a trend towards refeudalization in the later Renaissance as the urban elites turned themselves into landed aristocrats.[14]
In the cities the situation was quite different. They were dominated by a commercial elite, which was just as exclusive as the aristocracy of any Medieval kingdom. It was this group that was the main patron of and audience for Renaissance culture. Below them there was a large class of artisans and guild members who lived comfortable lives and had significant power in the republican governments. This was in sharp contrast to the rest of Europe where artisans were firmly in the lower class. Literate and educated, this group did participate in the Renaissance culture.[15] The largest section of the urban population was the urban poor of semi-skilled workers and the unemployed. Like the peasants the Renaissance had little effect on them. Historians debate how easy it was to move between these groups during the Italian Renaissance. Examples of individuals who rose from humble beginnings can be instanced, but Burke notes two major studies in this area that have found that the data do not clearly demonstrate an increase in social mobility. Most historians feel that early in the Renaissance social mobility was quite high, but that it faded over the course of the fifteenth century.[16] Inequality in society was very high. An upper-class figure would control hundreds of times more income than a servant or labourer. Some historians feel that this unequal distribution of wealth was important to the Renaissance, as art patronage relies on the very wealthy.[17]
The Renaissance was not a period of great social or economic change, only of cultural and ideological development. It only touched a small fraction of the population, and in modern times this has led many historians, such as any that follow historical materialism, to reduce the importance of the Renaissance in human history. These historians tend to think in terms of "Early Modern Europe" instead.
End of the Italian Renaissance
The end of the Renaissance is as imprecisely marked as its starting point. For many, the rise to power in Florence of the austere monk Girolamo Savonarola in 1494-1498 marks the end of the city's flourishing; for others, the triumphant return of the Medici marks the beginning of the late phase in the arts called Mannerism. Savonarola rode to power on a widespread backlash over the secularism and indulgence of the Renaissance – his brief rule saw many works of art destroyed in the "Bonfire of the Vanities" in the centre of Florence. With the Medici returned to power, now as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, the counter movement in the church continued. In 1542 the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition was formed and a few years later the Index Librorum Prohibitorum banned a wide array of Renaissance works of literature.
Just as important was the end of stability with a series of foreign invasions of Italy known as the Italian Wars that would continue for several decades. These began with the 1494 invasion by France that wreaked widespread devastation on Northern Italy and ended the independence of many of the city-states. Most damaging was the May 6, 1527, Spanish and German troops' sacking Rome that for two decades all but ended the role of the Papacy as the largest patron of Renaissance art and architecture.[10]
- Main article: Northern Renaissance.
While the Italian Renaissance was fading, the Northern Renaissance adopted many of its ideals and transformed its styles.
A number of Italy's greatest artists chose to emigrate. The most notable example was Leonardo da Vinci who left for France in 1516, but teams of lesser artists invited to transform the Château de Fontainebleau created the school of Fontainebleau that infused the style of the Italian Renaissance in France. From Fontainebleau, the new styles, transformed by Mannerism, brought the Renaissance to Antwerp and thence throughout Northern Europe.
This spread north was also representative of a larger trend. No longer was the Mediterranean Europe's most important trade route. In 1498 Vasco da Gama reached India, and from that date the primary route of goods from the Orient was through the Atlantic ports of Lisbon, Seville, Nantes, Bristol, and London. These areas quickly surpassed Italy in wealth and power.
Culture
Literature and poetry
The thirteenth-century Italian literary revolution helped set the stage for the Renaissance [1]. Prior to the Renaissance, the Italian language was not the literary language in Italy. It was only in the 13th century that Italian authors began writing in their native language rather than Latin, French, or Provençal. The 1250s saw a major change in Italian poetry as the Dolce Stil Novo (Sweet New Style, which emphasized Platonic rather than courtly love) came into its own, pioneered by poets like Guittone d'Arezzo and Guido Guinizelli. Especially in poetry, major changes in Italian literature had been taking place decades before the Renaissance truly began.
With the printing of books initiated in Venice by Aldus Manutius, an increasing number of works began to be published in the Italian language in addition to the flood of Latin and Greek texts that constituted the mainstream of the Italian Renaissance. The source for these works expanded beyond works of theology and towards the pre-Christian eras of Imperial Rome and Ancient Greece. This is not to say that no religious works were published in this period: Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy reflects a distinctly medieval world view. Christianity remained a major influence for artists and authors, with the classics coming into their own as a second primary influence.
In the early Italian Renaissance, much of the focus was on translating and studying classic works from Latin and Greek. Renaissance authors were not content to rest on the laurels of ancient authors, however. Many authors attempted to integrate the methods and styles of the ancient greats into their own works. Among the most emulated Romans are Cicero, Horace, Sallust, and Virgil. Among the Greeks, Aristotle, Homer, and Plato were now being read in the original for the first time since the fourth century, though Greek compositions were few.
The literature and poetry of the Renaissance was also largely influenced by the developing science and philosophy. The humanist Francesco Petrarch, a key figure in the renewed sense of scholarship, was also an accomplished poet, publishing several important works of poetry. He wrote poetry in Latin, notably the Punic War epic Africa, but is today remembered for his works in the Italian vernacular, especially the Canzoniere, a collection of love sonnets dedicated to his unrequited love Laura. He was the foremost writer of sonnets in Italian, and translations of his work into English by Thomas Wyatt established the sonnet form in that country, where it was employed by William Shakespeare and countless other poets.
Petrarch's disciple, Giovanni Boccaccio, became a major author in his own right. His major work was the Decameron, a collection of 100 stories told by ten storytellers who have fled to the outskirts of Florence to escape the black plague over ten nights. The Decameron in particular and Boccaccio's work in general were a major source of inspiration and plots for many English authors in the Renaissance, including Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare.
Aside from Christianity, classical antiquity, and scholarship, a fourth influence on Renaissance literature was politics. The political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli's most famous works are Discourses on Livy, Florentine Histories and finally The Prince, which has become so well-known in Western society that the term "Machiavellian" has come to refer to the realpolitik advocated by the book. However, what is ordinarily called "Machiavellianism" is a simplified textbook view of this single work rather than an accurate term for his philosophy. Further, it is not at all clear that Machiavelli himself was the apologist for immorality as whom he is often portrayed: the basic problem is the apparent contradiction between the monarchism of the Prince and the republicanism of the Discourses. Regardless, along with many other Renaissance works, The Prince remains a relevant and influential work of literature today.
Philosophy
One role of Petrarch is as the founder of a new method of scholarship, Renaissance Humanism. Humanism was an optimistic philosophy that saw man as a rational and sentient being, with the ability to decide and think for himself. This was an implicit rejection of the Roman Catholic Church's vision of souls as the only absolute reality, which was then seen as mystical and imaginary. Humanism saw man as inherently good by nature, which was in tension with the Christian view of man as the original sinner needing redemption. It provoked fresh insight into the nature of reality, questioning beyond God and spirituality, and provided for knowledge about history beyond Christian history.
Petrarch encouraged the study of the Latin classics and carried his copy of Homer about, at a loss to find someone to teach him to read Greek. An essential step in the humanist education being propounded by scholars like Pico della Mirandola was the hunting down of lost or forgotten manuscripts that were known only by reputation. These endeavors were greatly aided by the wealth of Italian patricians, merchant-princes and despots, who would spend substantial sums building libraries. Discovering the past had become fashionable and it was a passionate affair pervading the upper reaches of society. I go, said Cyriac of Ancona, I go to awake the dead.
As the Greek works were acquired, manuscripts found, libraries and museums formed, the age of the printing press was dawning. The works of Antiquity were translated from Greek and Latin into the contemporary modern languages throughout Europe, finding a receptive middle-class audience, which might be, like Shakespeare, "with little Latin and less Greek".
While concern for philosophy, art and literature all increased greatly in the Renaissance the period is usually seen as one of scientific backwardness. The reverence for classical sources further enshrined the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic views of the universe. Humanism stressed that nature came to be viewed as an animate spiritual creation that was not governed by laws or mathematics. At the same time philosophy lost much of its rigour as the rules of logic and deduction were seen as secondary to intuition and emotion.
Science
- Main article: History of science in the Renaissance.
It would not be until the Renaissance moved to Northern Europe that science would be revived, with such figures as Copernicus, Francis Bacon, and Descartes.
Sculpture and painting
In painting, the false dawn of Giotto's realism, his fully three-dimensional figures occupying a rational space, and his humanist interest in expressing the individual personality rather than the iconic images, was followed by a retreat into conservative late Gothic conventions. The Italian Renaissance in painting began anew, in Florence and Tuscany, with the frescos of Masaccio then the panel paintings and frescos of Piero della Francesca and Paolo Uccello began to enhance the realism of their work by using new techniques in perspective, thus representing three dimensions in two-dimensional art more authentically. Piero della Francesca wrote treatises on scientific perspective. The creation of credible space allowed artists to also focus on the accurate representation of the human body and on naturalistic landscapes. Masaccio's figures have a plasticity unknown up to that point in time. Compared to the flatness of Gothic painting, his pictures were revolutionary. At the turn of the 16th century, especially in Northern Italy, artists also began to use new techniques in the manipulation of light and darkness, such as the tone contrast evident in many of Titian's portraits and the development of sfumato and chiaroscuro by Leonardo da Vinci and Giorgione. The period also saw the first secular (non- religious) themes. Debate has ensued as to the secularism of the Renaissance emphasized by early 20th-century writers like Jacob Burckhardt due to the presence of these - actually few - mythological paintings. Botticelli was one of the main painters whose secular work comes down to us today, though he was deeply religious (a follower of Savonarola) and painted plenty of traditional religious paintings as well.
In sculpture, Donatello's (1386–1466) study of classical sculpture lead to his development of classicizing positions (such as the contrapposto pose) and subject matter (like the unsupported nude – his second sculpture of David was the first free-standing bronze nude created in Europe since the Roman Empire.) The progress made by Donatello was influential on all who followed; perhaps the greatest of whom is Michelangelo, whose David of 1500 is also a male nude study. Michelangelo's David is more naturalistic than Donatello's and has greater emotional intensity. Both sculptures are standing in contrapposto, their weight shifted to one leg.
The period known as the High Renaissance represents the culmination of the goals of the earlier period, namely the accurate representation of figures in space rendered with credible motion and in an appropriately decorous style. The most famous painters from this time period are Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo Buonarroti. Their images are among the most widely known works of art in the world. Leonardo's Last Supper, Raphael's School of Athens and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Ceiling are the textbook examples of this period.
High Renaissance painting evolved into Mannerism, especially in Florence. Mannerist artists, who consciously rebelled against the principles of High Renaissance, tend to represent elongated figures in illogical spaces. Modern scholarship has recognized the capacity of Mannerist art to convey strong (often religious) emotion where the High Renaissance failed to do so. Some of the main artists of this period are Pontormo, Bronzino, Rosso Fiorentino, Parmigianino and Raphael's pupil Giulio Romano.
Architecture
In Italy, the Renaissance style, introduced with a revolutionary but incomplete monument in Rimini by Leone Battista Alberti, was developed, however, in Florence. Some of the earliest buildings showing Renaissance characteristics are Filippo Brunelleschi's church of San Lorenzo and the Pazzi Chapel. The interior of Santo Spirito expresses a new sense of light, clarity and spaciousness, which is typical of the early Italian Renaissance. Its architecture reflects the philosophy of Humanism, the enlightenment and clarity of mind as opposed to the darkness and spirituality of the Middle Ages. The revival of classical antiquity can best be illustrated by the Palazzo Rucellai. Here the pilasters follow the superposition of classical orders, with Doric capitals on the ground floor, Ionic capitals on the piano nobile and Corinthian capitals on the uppermost floor.
In Mantua, Leone Battista Alberti ushered in the new antique style, though his culminating work, Sant'Andrea, was not begun until 1472, after the architect's death.
The High Renaissance, as we call the style today, was introduced to Rome with Donato Bramante's Tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio (1502, illustration, left) and his original centrally-planned St. Peter's Basilica (1506), which was the most notable architectural commission of the era, influenced by almost all notable Renaissance artists, including Michelangelo and Giacomo della Porta. The beginning of the late Renaissance in 1550 was marked by the development of a new column order by Andrea Palladio. Colossal columns that were two or more stories tall decorated the facades.
Music
In Italy in the 14th century there was an explosion of musical activity that corresponded in scope and level of innovation to the activity in the other arts. Although musicologists typically group the music of the Trecento (music of the 1300s) with the late medieval period, it included features which align with the early Renaissance in important ways: an increasing emphasis on secular sources, styles and forms; a spreading of culture away from ecclesiastical institutions to the nobility, and even to the common people; and a quick development of entirely new techniques. The principal forms were the Trecento madrigal, the caccia, and the ballata. Overall, the musical style of the period is sometimes labelled as the "Italian ars nova." See Music of the Trecento for more detail on this period.
From the early 15th century to the middle of the 16th century, the center of innovation in sacred music was in the Low Countries, and a flood of talented composers came to Italy from this region. Many of them sang in either the papal choir in Rome or the choirs at the numerous chapels of the aristocracy, in Rome, Florence, Milan, Ferrara and elsewhere; and they brought their polyphonic style with them, influencing many native Italian composers during their stay.
The predominant forms of church music during the period were the mass and the motet. By far the most famous composer of church music in 16th century Italy was Palestrina, the most prominent member of the Roman School, whose style of smooth, emotionally cool polyphony was to become the defining sound of the late 16th century, at least for generations of 19th- and 20th century musicologists. Other Italian composers of the late 16th century focused on composing the main secular form of the era, the madrigal: and for almost a hundred years these secular songs for multiple singers were distributed all over Europe. Composers of madrigals included Jacques Arcadelt, at the beginning of the age, Cipriano de Rore, in the middle of the century, and Luca Marenzio, Philippe de Monte, Carlo Gesualdo, and Claudio Monteverdi at the end of the era.
Italy was also a centre of innovation in instrumental music. By the early 16th century keyboard improvisation came to be greatly valued, and numerous composers of virtuoso keyboard music appeared. Many familiar instruments were invented and perfected in late Renaissance Italy, such as the violin, the earliest forms of which came into use in the 1550s.
By the late 16th century Italy was the musical centre of Europe. Almost all of the innovations which were to define the transition to the Baroque period originated in northern Italy in the last few decades of the century. In Venice, the polychoral productions of the Venetian School, and associated instrumental music, moved north into Germany; in Florence, the Florentine Camerata developed monody, the important precursor to opera, which itself first appeared around 1600; and the avant-garde, manneristic style of the Ferrara school, which migrated to Naples and elsewhere through the music of Carlo Gesualdo, was to be the final statement of the polyphonic vocal music of the Renaissance
Arts Towns are cities or towns that are dedicated and recognized as having art or arts as a central feature to their cultural identity.over 5,000 artists living within city limits, and so is an excellent example of a revitalized art town: with a convergence of arts people, year round arts events, and infrastructure, including 10 art museums, and 100 art galleries, as well as classes and educational seminars and conferences.
Arts towns generate a good portion of their economy, their existence, and their tourist draws, from establishing a culture of the arts. By definition, a disproportionately large number of the citizens in these towns are involved in the arts: differentiation between other towns is based on that criterion.
Further arts towns or towns of art as the Europeans designate them include such internationally famous cities as Florence, the heritage home of renaissance art and of Michelangelo and Leonardo; centers for arts festivals like Tanglewood or continued larger centers of arts like Santa Fe; or such small towns as Nelsonville, Ohio, that have dedicated themselves to an artistic identity based on traditional ceramics and folk-art centered on an arts oriented town square.
Key elements of arts towns
Arts towns have at least ten primary clusters that define them.
These include an area of arts density considered the centre of the town which would contain multiple: art galleries that also host art walks; crafts workshops that use local materials; theaters and theater group facilities, folk-arts training and exhibition facilities; cafes with locally produced art items; at least three to five arts cooperatives; historical buildings that have undergone proper renovation and kept their character with historical interpretation; at least two or three arts foundations offices; an arts council that works with town planners and the city council; and daily classes in the arts that involve many of the townsfolk, and draw students and tourists for seminars.
Most typically, these towns also have a ratio of one museum per 2000 citizens.
Recognition by surveys of the towns having an artistic tourist draw is also important. In some countries arts towns are given an official designation by national cultural authorities.
Contemporary arts towns in the USA
Globally, tourists recognize at least twenty cities, towns, or villages as arts towns. In America there are at least 100 towns that are regularly cited, in Canada 10.
Such a list would include towns famous for theatrical events (Stratford, Niagara on the Lake), musical events (Tanglewood, Woodstock), high concentrations of artisans working in one artistic area (Nelsonville, Ohio; Northport, Alabama; Portland, Maine; Oxford, Mississippi); or which host large numbers of artists, actors, or writers (Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Northampton, Provincetown, in Massachusetts).
Certain university towns that are in rural areas, through sheer number of cultural events, as well have achieved world reputations as arts towns (Ithaca, NY; Chapel Hill, NC; Taos, New Mexico; and Jackson, Wyoming).
] Contemporary arts towns in Canada
The most recognized arts towns in Canada are: Stratford, Ontario, home of the Stratford Festival of Canada and a large Shakespearean theatrical community; and Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, home of the Shaw Festival, preserving the work of George Bernard Shaw and other Edwardian playwrights, such as Galsworthy, restored 18th and 19th century buildings with historical interpretation; and classes in costume and drama, academic conferences, and year round arts initiatives, all in a town with five museums and a population under 14,000.
In Banff, the Banff Centre for the Arts is the key element that allows in a very small town, the capacity for a short film festival with an emphasis on animation; arts and crafts festivals, facilities for a large number of artisans who have rejuvenated a formerly isolated rural community into a global arts centre. And to which artists who live in subsidized nearby retreats for month long residencies create new works in music, theatre, literary translations, and multi-media by providing synergy within an artistic community.
High-speed rail is emerging in Europe as an increasingly popular and efficient means of transportation. The first high-speed rail lines in Europe, built in the 1980s and 1990s, improved travel times on intra-national corridors. Since then, several countries have built extensive high-speed networks, and there are now several cross-border high-speed rail links. Rail operators frequently run international services, and tracks are continuously being built and upgraded to international standards on the emerging European high-speed rail network. In 2007, a consortium of European rail operators, Railteam, emerged to coordinate and boost cross-border high-speed rail travel. Developing a Trans-European high-speed rail network is a stated goal of the European Union, and most cross-border rail lines receive EU funding. Today only the core countries of Western Europe are 'plugged in' to a cross-border high-speed rail network. This will change rapidly in the coming years as Europe invests heavily in tunnels, bridges and other infrastructure and development projects across the continent.
France leads the way
Europe was introduced to high speed rail when the LGV Sud-Est from Paris to Lyon opened in 1981. Since then, France has continued to build an extensive network, with lines extending in every direction from Paris. France has the most developed high-speed network in Europe. The TGV network started in 1981 with the opening of the line between Lyon and Paris (LGV Sud-Est).
The TGV network gradually spread out to other cities, and into other countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK. Due to the early adoption of high-speed rail and the central location of France in Western Europe, most other dedicated high-speed rail lines in Europe have been built to the same speed, voltage and signalling standards. The most obvious exception are the high-speed lines in Germany, which are built to existing German train line standards. Also, many high-speed services, including TGV and ICE utilize existing rail lines in addition to those designed for high speed rail. For that reason, and due to differing national standards, trains that cross national boundaries may need to have special characteristics, such as the ability to handle different power supplies and signalling systems. This means that not all TGVs are the same, and there are interoperability considerations.
Channel Tunnel and the Low Countries
The cd in 1994onstruction of the Channel Tunnel, complete, provided the impetus for the first cross-border high speed rail line. In 1993, the LGV Nord, which connects Paris to the Belgian border and the Channel Tunnel via Lille was opened. Initial travel times through the tunnel from London to Paris and Brussels were about 3 hours. In 1997, a dedicated high-speed line to Brussels, HSL 1 was opened. In 2007, High Speed 1, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link to London was completed after a partial opening in 2003. All three lines were built to the French LGV standards, including electrification at 25kV.
Passenger trains built to specific safety standards are operated by Eurostar through the Channel Tunnel. Direct trains now travel from London St. Pancras to Paris in 2h15, and to Brussels in 1h51. Thalys high-speed international trains service the Paris to Brussels corridor, which is now covered in 1h20. Additional Thalys services extend to Amsterdam and Cologne in addition to Belgian cities.
Belgium will be the first country to complete its high speed rail network. The HSL 2 line to Liege entered service in 2002. HSL 3, from Liege to the German border near Aachen, will enter service in 2009. HSL 4, which is also nearly complete, will connect Brussels and Antwerp to the Dutch border and the HSL Zuid line.
NS Hispeed services will operate on that line, which is also nearly complete.[1] The German ICE also operates between Amsterdam - Frankfurt (sometimes also goes to Switzerland) and between Brussels and Frankfurt.
The completion of the Channel Tunnel rail link (High Speed 1) and the nearing completion of the lines from Brussels to Amsterdam and Cologne led to news reports in November 2007 that both Eurostar and Deutsche Bahn were pursuing direct services from London to Amsterdam and Cologne. Both trips would be under 4 hours, the length generally considered competitive with air travel.
InterCityExpress
Construction on first German high-speed lines began shortly after that of the French LGVs. Legal battles caused significant delays, so that the InterCityExpress (ICE) trains were deployed ten years after the TGV network was established. The ICE network is more tightly integrated with pre-existing lines and trains as a result of the different settlement structure in Germany, which has almost twice the population density of France. ICE trains reached destinations in Austria and Switzerland soon after they entered service, taking advantage of the same voltage used in these countries. Starting in 2000, multisystem third-generation ICE trains entered the Netherlands and Belgium. The third generation of the ICE reached a speed of 363 km/h (226 mph) during trial runs, and is certified for 330 km/h (205 mph) in regular service.
Admission of ICE trains onto French LGVs was applied for in 2001, but trial runs have only just been completed in 2005. In June 2007, the LGV Est from Paris to the middle of the Lorraine region of France was opened. For the first time, high speed services over the Franco-German border were offered. SNCF operates the TGV service between Paris and Stuttgart via Strasbourg while ICE trains operate the Paris to Frankfurt route via Saarbrucken.
The Austrian Western Railway is being upgraded to allow the German ICE trains and also some locomotive-hauled trains currently running on the line to travel with speeds of up to 200km/h. The latter service will be called Railjet and it will be launched in 2008.[2]
Railteam
In July 2007, Railteam, an alliance of 7 passenger train operators was announced. The operators are Eurostar plus the national operators of Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Austria. The operators agreed to coordinate scheduling and pricing in order to take advantage of the opening of several new high-speed lines and in response to the success of budget airline alliances. The move is something of a benchmark in the development of an international European high-speed rail network.
Spain and Portugal
The Alta Velocidad Española (AVE) high-speed rail system in Spain is currently under construction. High-speed trains have been running on the Madrid–Sevilla route since 1992. Should the aims of the ambitious AVE construction program be met, by 2020 Spain will have 7000 km (4300 mi) of high-speed trains linking almost all provincial cities to Madrid in under 3 hours and Barcelona within 4 hours. The Spanish and Portuguese high speed lines are being built to French TGV gauge, signalling and electrification standards. Elsewhere in Europe, the success of high speed services has been due in part to interoperability with existing normal rail lines. Interoperability between the new AVE lines and the older Iberian gauge network presents additional challenges. The introduction of Talgo technology allows trainsets to change their gauge at special gauge-changing installations.
The first AVE line to link up with the French standard gauge network will be the LGV Perpignan-Figueres, which will include a new tunnel under the Pyrenees. This line, along with the AVE lines from Figueres to Barcelona and Madrid, should be operational by 2009. Upon completion, trains will be able to operate between the French and Spanish capitals without break of gauge for the first time. Other links, including one at Irun/Hendaye are also planned.
Three corporations have built or will build trains for the Spanish high-speed rail network: Spanish Talgo, French Alstom and German Siemens AG. Bombardier Transportation is a partner in both the Talgo-led and the Siemens-led consortium. Because France has yet to electrify its rail lines at the TGV voltage of 25kV all the way to the Spanish border, initial connections between the two countries will require special train sets.
High speed connections between Spain and Portugal have been agreed upon and planned, but initial works have yet to begin. The Portuguese government has approved the construction of three high-speed lines from the capital Lisbon to Porto , from Porto to Vigo and from Lisbon to Madrid, Spain, bringing the countries' capital cities within three hours of each other. Since the late 1990s, the Italian tilting train, the Pendolino runs the Alfa Pendular service, connecting Portugal's mainland from the north border to the Algarve (southern counterpart) at a speed of up to 220 km/h (135 mph).
[edit] Italy and Switzerland
The earliest high-speed train deployed in Europe was the Italian "Direttissima" that connected Rome with Florence (254 km/158 mi) in 1978. The maximum speed of this line was 250 km/h (150 mph). The journey time between the two cities is just over 90 minutes and the trains average about 200 km/h (125 mph). The service is carried out by Eurostar Italia (ETR 4xx, better known as Pendolino, and ETR 500 series) trains (not related to the Eurostar trains operating to the United Kingdom). Italy makes extensive use of tilting train technology, "Pendolino" (ETR 4xx series), based on research work undertaken in the 1970s by Fiat Ferroviaria. The Rome-Naples line opened for service in December 2005, and Turin-Milan partially opened in February 2006. Both lines have speeds up to 300 km/h (185 mph).
Treno Alta Velocità is building a new high speed network on the routes Milan - Bologna - Florence - Rome - Naples and Turin - Milan - Verona - Venice - Trieste. Some lines are already opened.
Crossing the Alps
Switzerland has no high-speed trains of its own yet. French TGV and German ICE lines extend into Switzerland, but given the dense rail traffic, short distances between Swiss cities and the often difficult terrain, they currently do not attain speeds higher than 140 km/h there. The fastest Swiss trains are the ICN tilting trains, operated by the Swiss Federal Railways since May 2000. They can reach higher speeds than conventional trains on the curve-intensive Swiss network, however the top speed of 200 km/h can only be reached on high-speed lines. The Cisalpino consortium owned by the Swiss Federal Railways and Trenitalia uses Pendolino tilting trains on two of its international lines.
International links between Italy and France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia are underway. These links all incorporate extensive new tunneling under the Alps. European Union funding has already been approved for the Lyon Turin Ferroviaire, which will connect the TGV and TAV networks, and for a link with Slovenia. In Slovenia, Pendolino-based trainsets are operated by Slovenian Railways as the InterCitySlovenija. Trains connect the capital Ljubljana with Maribor and also with Koper in summer months. One unit operates as EC Casanova on the line Ljubljana-Venice.
In order to address transalpine freight and passenger bottlenecks on its roads and railways, Switzerland launched the Rail2000 and AlpTransit projects. The first stage of the Rail2000 project finished in 2005, included a new high-speed rail track between Bern and Olten with an operating speed of 200 km/h. AlpTransit project is building faster north-south rail tracks across the Swiss Alps by constructing base tunnels several hundred metres below the level of the current tunnels. The 35 km Lötschberg Base Tunnel has opened in 2007 where new Pendolino 4 trains will run at 250 km/h. The 57 km Gotthard Base Tunnel (Top speed 250 km/h) is scheduled for opening in 2015. The second stage of Rail2000 includes line upgrades in canton Valais (200 km/h) and betweend Biel and Solothurn (200 km/h). Start of work is 2012.
A Brenner Base Tunnel through Austria is also proposed.
Scandinavia
The countries of Scandinavia have yet to build any intercity dedicated high speed lines. Sweden is likely to be the first, but there is no final decision about it yet.
Denmark
Large-scale bridge projects in Denmark have made fast rail links between Scandinavia and Germany a real possibility. The completed Great Belt Fixed Link and Oresund Bridge have made possible overland transportation between Germany and Sweden. A Fehmarn Belt bridge has been approved, and upon completion in 2018, will reduce rail travel between Hamburg and Copenhagen to 3.5 hours.
The main lines in Denmark allow at some places 200 km/h, but until now the fastest trains reach 180 km/h. A new train, the IC4, can reach 200 km/h and has during 2007 been put into test operation with passengers in western Denmark. This project is delayed and it remains to be seen when they will run long-distance full-scale operation.
It is not likely that any train will run above 200 km/h in Denmark for many years. Denmark is a small country having about 300 km between its two biggest cities Copenhagen and Aarhus. 200 km/h is enough to compete with air travel here. Possibly the trains across the Fehmarn Belt bridge will go faster than that around 2019, since the railway line must be heavily upgraded anyway and that the Germans could be interested in using high-speed trains.
Sweden
Sweden today runs many trains at 200 km/h, including the X2 tilting trains, widebody and double-decker regional trains, and the Arlanda Airport Express X3. Since both the X2 and X3 are allowed to run at 205 in case of delay, they can technically be considered as high-speed trains. The X2 runs between many cities in Sweden including Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö. The Arlanda Express trains connect Stockholm and Stockholm-Arlanda Airport. Hundreds of kilometres of track are ready for 250 km/h operation, with the exception of the signalling system, catenary, and the trains. A test train, called "the Green Train" has been tested at up to 280 km/h [2]. The Swedish Rail Administration has plans for 300 km/h and faster trains in regular service.
There were plans to run a 180 km long part of the railway Stockholm-Malmö to be upgraded to allow for 250 km/h at around 2015. These plans have been delayed until further notice because of lack of funding because of cost overrun on construction projects. Other railways that later will allow 250 km/h (today 200 km/h) are long parts of Stockholm-Gothenburg, Gothenburg-Malmö, and some that are under construction: Trollhättan-Gothenburg and the Bothnia Railway, Botniabanan [3]. All these will be mixed passenger/freight railways. The Botniabanan will be ready for 250 km/h trains in 2010, but no such trains will run there for the first several years. The trains will probably have 200 km/h as top speed for cost reasons (existing train types), possibly little more since new trains will be purchased anyway.
There are proposals for long completely new high-speed railways Stockholm-Linköping-Jönköping-Gothenburg and Jönköping-Helsingborg(-Helsingør-Copenhagen), since the existing railways are relatively congested, with mixed 200 km/h passenger trains, slower regional trains and even slower cargo trains. The plans suggest that the new railways would be built similar to the French LGV-lines with long curve radii and relatively steep inclines allowing for speeds between 300-320 km/h with non-tilting trains, dedicated for high-speed passenger trains. [4] There is political and (primarily) regional pressure to build Stockholm-Linköping (Ostlänken) and Linköping-Jönköping-Gothenburg as soon as possible. However, no specific time plans have been determined for the construction of these lines. A southern extension to these two lines, through Jönköping-Helsingborg-Copenhagen is considered economically unfeasible for the time being. The existing line through Linköping-Malmö-Copenhagen is however planned to be upgraded to 250 km/h.
Norway
Currently, the only high speed train service is the Flytoget, commuting between the Oslo Airport and the metropolitan areas of Oslo, operating at speeds of up to 210 km/h (130 mph).
There is a political climate for building more high speed railway services in Norway, including long-distance lines from Oslo to Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger and Gothenburg. They are assumed to be dedicated single-track high speed railways having up to 250 km/h (155 mph). This is still at the feasibility planning stages. See High-speed rail in Norway.
Britain
The United Kingdom's first dedicated high-speed line, High Speed 1 between London and the Channel Tunnel, opened 14 November 2007. There are no other high speed lines planned, however. Most proposals have been dubbed High Speed 2. Unlike other countries, the strongest reasons for new high speed lines are to relieve congestion on the existing network.
The Eurostar trains, which run through the Channel Tunnel between the UK and both France and Belgium, are substantially different versions of the TGV trains, with support for two voltages, both pantograph and third-rail power collection, the ability to adapt to multiple platform heights, and to cope with no fewer than seven different signalling modes. Like the TGVs, Eurostar trains are articulated with bogies between the carriages, and typical operating units have 18 carriages. A fully loaded train of 994 passengers is roughly equivalent to seven Boeing 737s (the aircraft typically used by low-cost airlines). These trains operate at the highest scheduled speeds of any in the UK, using specially-built track between the Channel Tunnel and London. High Speed 1 currently supports high speed trains between Folkestone to Fawkham Junction, and the extension to London St Pancras opened in 2007.
The remainder of Britain's railway network is considerably slower. Most inter-city traffic is restricted to a maximum speed of 200 km/h (125 mph) using routes largely established in the middle years of the nineteenth century. The main reason for this restriction is that, unlike several countries on the continent, Britain has never invested in building specialised lines for intercity services, which therefore have to share even the main lines with freight and local passenger traffic. Any increase in line speed on the existing routes would require an expensive upgrade to in-cab signalling. Even so, the speed limit on some sections of the East Coast Main Line was raised to 140 mph during the upgrade and electrification of the route during the 1980s (both the Pendolinos used on the West Coast Main Line and the Intercity 225s used on the East Coast Main Line are capable of 140 mph). Much of this traffic is handled by 200 km/h diesel-electric powered InterCity 125 High Speed Trains which are around three decades old. However National Express East Coast trains on the East Coast Main Line between London Kings Cross and York (which also use more modern InterCity 225s) still achieve an average point-to-point speed that puts them in the world top six.
An attempt was made in the 1970s and 1980s to introduce a high-speed train that could operate on Britain's winding infrastructure—British Rail developed the Advanced Passenger Train using active tilting technology. After four prototypes had been built and tested, the project was closed down when Margaret Thatcher and British Railways management lost confidence in the technology. The tilting action on demonstration runs induced a feeling akin to seasickness in the passengers, leading to the train being nicknamed the 'vomit comet,' and the prototypes were expensive to operate and unreliable. However, the problems were near to a solution, and ultimately the technology was a success. British Rail sold it to an Italian firm, who fixed the problems. Trains based on the older technology have been in service in Italy for several years. In 2004, following a large investment in the West Coast Main Line, tilting Pendolinos, based on the Italian trains, were introduced. These trains are currently limited to a top speed of 125 mph although they were designed to run faster—cost over-runs on the track and signalling refurbishment project led to the line being rebuilt with the lower speed limit rather than the 140 mph originally planned. The Pendolinos are operated by Virgin Trains, on services from London Euston to Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester (with occasional services to Holyhead although for the foreseeable future these will continue to be hauled by diesel locomotives west of Crewe due to the lack of overhead line equipment).
Last year, several proposals for domestic British high speed lines have been put forward and the government is considering building a north-south line. For more information, see High-speed rail in the United Kingdom.
Ireland
Though no plans exist for a tunnel under the Irish Sea, a fixed link between Ireland and Britain may prove economically feasible in the future, as Dublin to London is one the world's busiest air corridors.
Ireland's current fastest Intercity service is the Dublin to Cork "InterCity" service, which operates at 160 km/h (100mph). Iarnrod Éireann (Irish Rail) has recently bought new Mark4 Coaches from CAF of Spain, which have a design speed of 200 km/h (125 mph). However, they are currently operated with 10 year old Class 201 locomotives with a maxiumum speed of 160 km/h (100 mph). Iarnród Éireann plan to purchase powercars and upgrade the route to 200 km/h (125 mph) standard. On the Dublin to Belfast line, IÉ are considering the following options for after 2020 (when the existing De Dietrich Ferroviaire coaches will be life expired):
- Upgrading the route to 200 km/h (125 mph) with new carriages with journey times of 90 mins.
- Upgrading the route to 240 km/h (140 mph) with tilting trains, which would cut times to 60 minutes
European development projects
There are extensive plans to develop the rail, road and water transportation infrastructure of Central and Eastern Europe. Most plans involve rail speed below TGV standards, but would still vastly improve travel times.
Czech Republic
The ČD Railway has been running the Super City Pendolino between Prague to Vienna and Bratislava since 2005. The Pendolino is capable of reaching a speed of 230 km/h. They don't operate at that speed, rather like 160 km/h (see Czech rail records), but this will be increased in future.
Croatia
With the highway construction program in its final stages, the Croatian parliament has passed a bill to build its first high-speed line, a new Botovo-Zagreb-Rijeka line, with an initial maximum planned speed of 250 km/h. [3]. The cost of the new line is estimated at 9,244,200,000 kuna (approx. 1.6 bil USD). The project will include the modernisation of the current Botovo-Zagreb-Karlovac line and a construction of a completely new line between Karlovac and Rijeka.
Also, the European Corridor X (ten), running from the Slovenian border through Zagreb over to Serbian Border is a likely future candidate for the high-speed extension to this line, since it is the most modern Croatian track, already initially built for 160 km/h and fully electrified. It also connects most branch lines in Croatia, connecting also the rapidly growing Croatian cities of Slavonski Brod and Vinkovci, with also the Corridor Vc (five c) crossing here, towards Osijek.
Poland and the Baltics
New links to Warsaw from Berlin and Prague are planned, as is a North/South Rail Baltica line from Tallinn to Warsaw via Riga and Kaunas.
Finland
In Finland tilting Pendolino trains made by Alstom are operating. They have a maximum speed of 220 km/h. This speed is reached in regular operation between Helsinki and Lahti. This railway was opened in 2006. The trains reach 200 km/h between Helsinki and Tampere. Other parts of the network has lower speed. The Pendolino trains reach several major cities. Service is currently under construction from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, Russia utilizing Pendolinos, due to open in 2008.
Russia
Russia's current highest speed railway is the Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway with a top speed of 200km/h, using domestic trainsets. It is being upgraded to 250 km/h to be using German ICE's. Plans for other railways are following, including a Helsinki-St. Petersburg Pendolino, and Moscow-Sochi using Japanese Shinkansen. See article for planned high speed rail for Russia.
Russia has the following lines in consideration or under construction:
- The Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway is being updated to allow a home-built ICE-based cooperative design to reach 250 km/h (150 mph) by 2009, though the trains are 300 km/h normal operation capable. Construction started in 2004 and train work assembly in 2007, with 8 widened Siemens Velaros ordered, pic here. At the moment, the fastest trains in that route are «Er-200» and «Nevsky Express» with cruising speed 160-180 km/h (100-120 mph).
- Helsinki - St. Petersburg: Finland and Russia have agreed on a high speed rail line linking Helsinki and St. Petersburg, originally planned to be cut to 3.5 hrs using existing Finnish Pendolinos by 2008, now Alstom has signed a contract in August 2007 with Oy Karelian Trains for four (4) New Pendolino derivatives and options for 2 more. Times will be cut from 5.5 hours to 3 hours, with passport checks being carried out on-board the trains. Due to begin open in 2010.[4][5] It is not clear if the Pendolino plan was cancelled in favor of the Alstom trains or if they will simply be replaced or added.
- Moscow-Kaliningrad: high speed line plan existed previously.
- Moscow-Sochi route: Recently, serious talks with Sumitomo Corporation of Japan for Shinkansen for the Moscow-Sochi route (for Sochi's successful bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics).
- Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod route, to use Shinkansen along with Sochi, although the contract was previously eyed for use by the German ICE's.[6]
- Transiberian Railway : Russia is in preliminary talks with Japan for long term plans to replace the Transiberian Railway with a Shinkansen derivate.
According to RZhD Director Vladimir Yakunin, Russia will have several high-speed railroads by 2012 - 2014.[7]
Turkey
- For more details on this topic, see High-speed rail in Turkey.
Turkey has started building high-speed rail lines in 2003. The first line, from İstanbul (via Eskişehir to Ankara , is under construction and will open in 2007 reducing the traveling time from 6 – 7 hours to 3 hours 10 minutes. The Ankara - Konya line began construction in 2006. A travel time of 70 minutes is foreseen for this track. Several other lines between major cities such as Ankara - Afyon - Uşak - İzmir, Ankara - Yozgat - Sivas, İstanbul - Bursa, Ankara - Kayseri, Eskişehir - Antalya, Konya - Mersin ( - Adana), İstanbul - Kapıkule (Bulgarian border) are planned to be built in coming years. The commercial high speed trains are expected to reach a top speed of 250-300 km/h (150-200 mph). The first 10 high speed train sets are ordered from CAF company, Spain. For further sets to be used in new planned tracks and the current ones under construction, EUROTEM, a joint enterprise between Korean ROTEM and Turkish TÜVASAŞ had been established, and a factory in Adapazarı, Sakarya had been founded.
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