Hello, as a singer-songwriter major myself, I think I can help.
The profession of a "Troubadour" started in the late 1000's and lasted through the mid 1300's.
Troubadours were different from the classical artist, in the sense that they were highly lyrical and poetic, rather than being focused on the composition of the music itself. They were very melodic and most were metaphysical/intellectual.
They sang about love, loss, and even some humorous/vulgar stuff.
Near the peak of their prevalence, there was even the option to go to school to be a Troubadour.
Like the troubadour, a singer-songwriter is less classical in their music. It is hard, no doubt, to get into school to major in that field with out some understanding of music theory and composition.
Usually singer songwriters play one or more instruments to accompany them, but some just have others play for them. Most songs written in modern days, deal with the same stuff that the troubadours went through: death, loss, love, and life.
I would say that they are most similar in the way that they seek creativity and how they use music as an outlet. Another similarity is that not many troubadours were respected in their profession, and from experience I know that this mentality is the same today; being a musician is not looked at seriously in the business world.
The biggest difference, I would assume, is the resources. The troubadours mainly played on the streets and they might have gotten gigs, but not likely. Now, we have bars, and people who want musicians to come play. It is also much easier to get your music out there now, thanks to social media and iTunes.
I hope I could be of help! I go to a preforming arts school, and I gig weekly at a bar called "The Carousel Lounge" in Austin, Texas!
The Basilica<span> di Santa Maria del Fiore (Saint Mary of the Flower), nicknamed the Duomo after the enormous octagonal </span>dome<span> on its east end, is the </span>cathedral<span> of Florence, Italy, and, arguably, the birthplace of the </span>Renaissance.
<span>A cathedral is a </span>bishop<span>'s church. There are many other </span>Catholicchurches in Florence, many of them associated with the Renaissance, including Santa Maria Novella, Santa Croce, and the Brancacci Chapel. However, the Duomo is the home church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese<span> of Florence, which traces its roots to 394 CE.</span>
<span>Although construction was begun in 1296, the cathedral did not get the structure that gives it its name until 1436. The east end of the church was open to the </span>elements<span> or covered with flat, unstable roofing for more than a </span>century<span>. </span>
<span>The huge octagonal shape proved </span>daunting<span> to </span>engineer<span>s and </span>architect<span>s. Italian architects were familiar with circular domed shapes, such as the Pantheon in Rome. However, those domes were constructed with </span>concrete<span>. The recipe for concrete had been lost in the </span>Dark Ages<span>. </span>
Medieval<span> gothic cathedrals, such as Notre Dame de Paris in France, relied on </span>flying buttresses to support their massive stone weight. Architects and engineers of the budding Renaissance were determined not to use flamboyant Gothic style or flying buttresses—they wanted to look back to the simple, clean lines of their Roman past.
<span>The architect </span>Filippo Brunelleschi<span> came up with a solution. The Duomo is actually </span>two<span> domes. The inner dome is made of </span>sandstone<span> and </span>marble<span>. The outer dome is made of </span>brick-and-mortar<span>—each brick carefully designed, shaped, and fired to support the dome. The dome was constructed without any supports beneath it. </span>
<span>The Duomo was an immediate success, and Brunelleschi became the chief architect associated with the Renaissance. </span>
<span>In an ironic twist, the marble facade of the cathedral (not visible in this photograph) was only completed in the late 1800s, during a period when medieval, not Renaissance, art was popular. The birthplace of the Renaissance has a medieval face.
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red, yellow, and blue are considered primary colors because every color in the visible spectrum of light is a combination of those colors
