The Renaissance (jan 1, 1485 – jan 1, 1660)

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The Renaissance is the rebirth of Europe, a period when scholars became more interested in studying the world around them, when art became more lifelike, and when Europeans began to explore new lands. The Renaissance began in northern Italy and then spread through Europe. Italian cities such as Naples, Genoa, and Venice became centers of trade between Europe and the Middle East. Arab scholars preserved the writings of the ancient Greeks in their libraries. When the Italian cities traded with the Arabs, ideas and goods were exchanged. When the Byzantine Empire fell to Muslim Turks in 1453, many Christian scholars left Greece for Italy.

It all effloresced in Italy with the famous artists Petrarch, da Vinci, and Michelangelo. Petrarch (1304-1974) was a humanist scholar and poet of Renaissance Italy. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was an Italian polymath of the Renaissance, whose areas of interest included invention, painting, architecture, mathematics and more. He is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time and created a drawing called the Vitruvian Man. Michelangelo (1475-1564) was also an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. All of these well-known artists created important interventions that transformed society and people´s lives.

The Renaissance started with the revival of classical learning. Wisdom after a long period of cultural decline and stagnation during the Middle Ages were key factors to this period. The humanism started to grow and the confidence in the possibilities of human thought and creations were important during this period. Discovery and exploration of new continents were very important for the big power nations in the world. Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator. In 1492, he sailed across the Atlantic from Spain in the Santa Maria hoping to find a new route to India. Between 1492 and 1504, he made a total of four voyages to the Caribbean and South America and has been credited for opening up the Americas to European colonization. The growth of commerce, trade and the inventions such as paper, printing, the marine´s the compass, and gunpowder characterized a global world. The world globalized during this period and the Renaissance is a very important period in our history. Historians consider the Renaissance to be the beginning of modern history.

The Renaissance influenced painting, sculpture, and architecture. Painting became more realistic and focused less often on religious topics. In Britain, there was a flowering in literature and drama that included the plays of William Shakespeare.

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