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Renaissance

The Renaissance was a period in European history between the 14th and 17th centuries that saw a revival of interest in classical scholarship. This followed a period of decline known as the Middle Ages. Key developments included a shift away from religion towards more secular humanist ideals that emphasized human dignity and mastery over nature. The movement began in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spread north throughout Europe, aided by the spread of literacy and classical texts due to the invention of the printing press. It was characterized by an emphasis on scholarship, rational thinking, and individualism.

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36 views

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a period in European history between the 14th and 17th centuries that saw a revival of interest in classical scholarship. This followed a period of decline known as the Middle Ages. Key developments included a shift away from religion towards more secular humanist ideals that emphasized human dignity and mastery over nature. The movement began in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spread north throughout Europe, aided by the spread of literacy and classical texts due to the invention of the printing press. It was characterized by an emphasis on scholarship, rational thinking, and individualism.

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Oscar Masinde
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Renaissance, (French: “Rebirth”) period in European civilization immediately following the Middle Ages

and conventionally held to have been characterized by a surge of interest in Classical scholarship and
values. The Renaissance also witnessed the discovery and exploration of new continents, the
substitution of the Copernican for the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, the decline of the feudal system
and the growth of commerce, and the invention or application of such potentially powerful innovations
as paper, printing, the mariner’s compass, and gunpowder. To the scholars and thinkers of the day,
however, it was primarily a time of the revival of Classical learning and wisdom after a long period of
cultural decline and stagnation.

A brief treatment of the Renaissance follows. For full treatment, see history of Europe: The Renaissance.

Origins and rise of humanism

The term Middle Ages was coined by scholars in the 15th century to designate the interval between the
downfall of the Classical world of Greece and Rome and its rediscovery at the beginning of their own
century, a revival in which they felt they were participating. Indeed, the notion of a long period of
cultural darkness had been expressed by Petrarch even earlier. Events at the end of the Middle Ages,
particularly beginning in the 12th century, set in motion a series of social, political, and intellectual
transformations that culminated in the Renaissance. These included the increasing failure of the Roman
Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire to provide a stable and unifying framework for the
organization of spiritual and material life, the rise in importance of city-states and national monarchies,
the development of national languages, and the breakup of the old feudal structures.

Marsilio Ficino

Marsilio Ficino

While the spirit of the Renaissance ultimately took many forms, it was expressed earliest by the
intellectual movement called humanism. Humanism was initiated by secular men of letters rather than
by the scholar-clerics who had dominated medieval intellectual life and had developed the Scholastic
philosophy. Humanism began and achieved fruition first in Italy. Its predecessors were men like Dante
and Petrarch, and its chief protagonists included Giannozzo Manetti, Leonardo Bruni, Marsilio Ficino,
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Lorenzo Valla, and Coluccio Salutati. The fall of Constantinople in 1453
provided humanism with a major boost, for many eastern scholars fled to Italy, bringing with them
important books and manuscripts and a tradition of Greek scholarship.

"Madonna and Child" tempera on panel by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1470; in the collection of the National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Florentine Renaissance)
Britannica Quiz

Artists of the Italian Renaissance Quiz

Humanism had several significant features. First, it took human nature in all of its various manifestations
and achievements as its subject. Second, it stressed the unity and compatibility of the truth found in all
philosophical and theological schools and systems, a doctrine known as syncretism. Third, it emphasized
the dignity of man. In place of the medieval ideal of a life of penance as the highest and noblest form of
human activity, the humanists looked to the struggle of creation and the attempt to exert mastery over
nature. Finally, humanism looked forward to a rebirth of a lost human spirit and wisdom. In the course
of striving to recover it, however, the humanists assisted in the consolidation of a new spiritual and
intellectual outlook and in the development of a new body of knowledge. The effect of humanism was
to help men break free from the mental strictures imposed by religious orthodoxy, to inspire free inquiry
and criticism, and to inspire a new confidence in the possibilities of human thought and creations.

Hans Holbein the Younger: Erasmus

Hans Holbein the Younger: Erasmus

From Italy the new humanist spirit and the Renaissance it engendered spread north to all parts of
Europe, aided by the invention of printing, which allowed literacy and the availability of Classical texts to
grow explosively. Foremost among northern humanists was Desiderius Erasmus, whose Praise of Folly
(1509) epitomized the moral essence of humanism in its insistence on heartfelt goodness as opposed to
formalistic piety. The intellectual stimulation provided by humanists helped spark the Reformation, from
which, however, many humanists, including Erasmus, recoiled. By the end of the 16th century the battle
of Reformation and Counter-Reformation had commanded much of Europe’s energy and attention,
while the intellectual life was poised on the brink of the Enlightenment.

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Artistic developments and the emergence of Florence

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci: ornithopter

Leonardo da Vinci: ornithopter

Pietro Lorenzetti: Birth of the Virgin

Pietro Lorenzetti: Birth of the Virgin


Fra Angelico: The Annunciation

Fra Angelico: The Annunciation

Sandro Botticelli: Birth of Venus

Sandro Botticelli: Birth of Venus

Leon Battista Alberti

Leon Battista Alberti

Santa Maria Novella

Santa Maria Novella

Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi

Milan: Ospedale Maggiore

Milan: Ospedale Maggiore

Andrea Palladio: Loggia del Capitanio

Andrea Palladio: Loggia del Capitanio

It was in art that the spirit of the Renaissance achieved its sharpest formulation. Art came to be seen as
a branch of knowledge, valuable in its own right and capable of providing man with images of God and
his creations as well as with insights into man’s position in the universe.

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