| balustrade | In architecture, a rail and the row of posts that support it, as along the edge of a staircase or around a dome.
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| civic humanism | An Italian Renaissance ideal, characterized by dedicated and educated citizens who served as administrators and civil servants in their cities; inspired by the period’s Classical revival.
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| consort | A set of musical instruments in the same family, ranging from bass to soprano; also, a group of musicians who entertain by singing or playing instruments.
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| High Renaissance | The period from about 1495 to 1520, often associated with the patronage of the popes in Rome, when the most influential artists and writers of the Renaissance, including Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Machiavelli, were producing their greatest works.
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| Machiavellianism | [mahk-ih-uh-VEL-ih-uhn-iz-uhm] The view that politics should be separated from morals and dedicated to the achievement of desired ends through any means necessary ("the end justifies the means"); derived from the political writings of Machiavelli.
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| Mannerism | A cultural movement between 1520 and 1600 that grew out of a rebellion against the Renaissance artistic norms of symmetry and balance; characterized in art by distortion and incongruity and in thought and literature by the belief that human nature is depraved.
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| Pietà | [pee-ay-TAH] A painting or sculpture depicting the mourning Virgin and the dead Christ.
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| scenographic | [see-nuh-GRAF-ik] In Renaissance architecture, a building style that envisioned buildings as composed of separate units; in the painting of stage scenery, the art of perspective representation.
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