Renaissance

The Renaissance (UK: /rɪˈneɪsəns/ rin-AY-sənss, US: /ˈrɛnəsɑːns/ ⓘ REN-ə-sahnss)[1][2][a] is a period

of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the
transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and surpass the
ideas and achievements of classical antiquity. Associated with great social change in most fields and
disciplines, including art, architecture, politics, literature, exploration and science, the Renaissance was
first centered in the Republic of Florence, then spread to the rest of Italy and later throughout Europe. The
term rinascita ("rebirth") first appeared in Lives of the Artists (c. 1550) by Giorgio Vasari, while the
corresponding French word renaissance was adopted into English as the term for this period during the
1830s.[4][b]

The Renaissance's intellectual basis was founded in its version of humanism, derived from the concept of
Roman humanitas and the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that of Protagoras, who said
that "man is the measure of all things". Although the invention of metal movable type sped the
dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century, the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform
across Europe: the first traces appear in Italy as early as the late 13th century, in particular with the
writings of Dante and the paintings of Giotto.

As a cultural movement, the Renaissance encompassed innovative flowering of literary Latin and an
explosion of vernacular literatures, beginning with the 14th-century resurgence of learning based on
classical sources, which contemporaries credited to Petrarch; the development of linear perspective and
other techniques of rendering a more natural reality in painting; and gradual but widespread educational
reform. It saw myriad artistic developments and contributions from such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci
and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance man".[5][6] In politics, the Renaissance
contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, and in science to an
increased reliance on observation and inductive reasoning. The period also saw revolutions in other
intellectual and social scientific pursuits, as well as the introduction of modern banking and the field of
accounting.[7]

Period
The Renaissance period started during the crisis of the Late Middle Ages and conventionally ends with
the waning of humanism, and the advents of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and in art, the
Baroque period. It had a different period and characteristics in different regions, such as the Italian
Renaissance, the Northern Renaissance, the Spanish Renaissance, etc.

In addition to the standard periodization, proponents of a "long Renaissance" may put its beginning in the
14th century and its end in the 17th century.[c]

The traditional view focuses more on the Renaissance's early modern aspects and argues that it was a
break from the past, but many historians today focus more on its medieval aspects and argue that it was
an extension of the Middle Ages.[11][12]
Italian Renaissance
The beginnings of the period—the early Renaissance of the 15th century and the Italian Proto-
Renaissance from around 1250 or 1300—overlap considerably with the Late Middle Ages,
conventionally dated to c. 1350–1500, and the Middle Ages themselves were a long period filled with
gradual changes, like the modern age; as a transitional period between both, the Renaissance has close
similarities to both, especially the late and early sub-periods of either.

The Renaissance began in Florence, one of the many states of Italy.[13] The Italian Renaissance concluded
in 1527 when Holy Roman Emperor Charles V launched an assault on Rome during the war of the
League of Cognac. Nevertheless, its impact endured in the art of renowned Italian painters like Tintoretto,
Sofonisba Anguissola, and Paolo Veronese, who continued their work during the mid-to-late 16th
century.[14]

Various theories have been proposed to account for its origins and characteristics, focusing on a variety of
factors, including Florence's social and civic peculiarities at the time: its political structure, the patronage
of its dominant family, the Medici,[15] and the migration of Greek scholars and their texts to Italy
following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire.[16][17][18] Other major centers were Venice,
Genoa, Milan, Rome during the Renaissance Papacy, and Naples. From Italy, the Renaissance spread
throughout Europe and also to American, African and Asian territories ruled by the European colonial
powers of the time or where Christian missionaries were active.

The Renaissance has a long and complex historiography, and in line with general skepticism of discrete
periodizations, there has been much debate among historians reacting to the 19th-century glorification of
the "Renaissance" and individual cultural heroes as "Renaissance men", questioning the usefulness of
Renaissance as a term and as a historical delineation.[19]

Some observers have questioned whether the Renaissance was a cultural "advance" from the Middle
Ages, instead seeing it as a period of pessimism and nostalgia for classical antiquity,[20] while social and
economic historians, especially of the longue durée, have instead focused on the continuity between the
two eras,[21] which are linked, as Panofsky observed, "by a thousand ties".[22][d]

The word has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian
Renaissance (8th and 9th centuries), Ottonian Renaissance (10th and 11th century), and the Renaissance
of the 12th century.[24]

Overview
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early
modern period. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence
was felt in art, architecture, philosophy, literature, music, science, technology, politics, religion, and other
aspects of intellectual inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and
searched for realism and human emotion in art.[25]

Renaissance humanists such as Poggio Bracciolini sought out in Europe's monastic libraries the Latin
literary, historical, and oratorical texts of antiquity, while the fall of Constantinople (1453) generated a
wave of émigré Greek scholars bringing precious manuscripts in ancient Greek, many of which had fallen
into obscurity in the West. It was in their new focus on literary and historical texts that Renaissance
scholars differed so markedly from the medieval scholars of the Renaissance of the 12th century, who had
focused on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural sciences, philosophy, and mathematics, rather
than on such cultural texts.

In the revival of neoplatonism, Renaissance humanists did not reject

Christianity; on the contrary, many of the Renaissance's greatest works
were devoted to it, and the Church patronized many works of
Renaissance art. But a subtle shift took place in the way that
intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas
of cultural life.[26] In addition, many Greek Christian works, including
the Greek New Testament, were brought back from Byzantium to
Western Europe and engaged Western scholars for the first time since
late antiquity. This new engagement with Greek Christian works, and
particularly the return to the original Greek of the New Testament
promoted by humanists Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus, helped pave the
way for the Reformation.

Well after the first artistic return to classicism had been exemplified in
Portrait of a Young Woman the sculpture of Nicola Pisano, Florentine painters led by Masaccio
(c. 1480–85) (Simonetta strove to portray the human form realistically, developing techniques to
Vespucci) by Sandro Botticelli render perspective and light more naturally. Political philosophers,
most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe political life as
it really was, that is to understand it rationally. A critical contribution to
Italian Renaissance humanism, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola wrote De hominis dignitate (Oration on
the Dignity of Man, 1486), a series of theses on philosophy, natural thought, faith, and magic defended
against any opponent on the grounds of reason. In addition to studying classical Latin and Greek,
Renaissance authors also began increasingly to use vernacular languages; combined with the introduction
of the printing press, this allowed many more people access to books, especially the Bible.[27]

In all, the Renaissance can be viewed as an attempt by intellectuals to study and improve the secular and
worldly, both through the revival of ideas from antiquity and through novel approaches to thought.
Political philosopher Hans Kohn describes it as an age where "Men looked for new foundations"; some
like Erasmus and Thomas More envisioned new reformed spiritual foundations, others. in the words of
Machiavelli, una lunga sperienza delle cose moderne ed una continua lezione delle antiche (a long
experience with modern life and a continuous learning from antiquity).[28]

Sociologist Rodney Stark plays down the Renaissance in favor of the earlier innovations of the Italian
city-states in the High Middle Ages, which married responsive government, Christianity and the birth of
capitalism.[29] This analysis argues that, whereas the great European states (France and Spain) were
absolute monarchies, and others were under direct Church control, the independent city-republics of Italy
took over the principles of capitalism invented on monastic estates and set off a vast unprecedented
Commercial Revolution that preceded and financed the Renaissance.

Historian Leon Poliakov offers a critical view in his seminal study of European racist thought: The Aryan
Myth. According to Poliakov, the use of ethnic origin myths are first used by Renaissance humanists "in
the service of a new born chauvinism".[30][31]
Origins
Many argue that the ideas characterizing the Renaissance had
their origin in Florence at the turn of the 13th and 14th
centuries, in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri
(1265–1321) and Petrarch (1304–1374), as well as the
paintings of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337). Some writers
date the Renaissance quite precisely; one proposed starting
point is 1401, when the rival geniuses Lorenzo Ghiberti and
Filippo Brunelleschi competed for the contract to build the
bronze doors for the Baptistery of the Florence Cathedral
View of Florence, birthplace of the
(Ghiberti won).[32] Others see more general competition Renaissance
between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti,
Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking
the creativity of the Renaissance.

Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, and why it began when it did.
Accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. Peter Rietbergen posits that
various influential Proto-Renaissance movements started from roughly 1300 onwards across many
regions of Europe.[33]

Latin and Greek phases of Renaissance humanism

In stark contrast to the High Middle Ages, when Latin scholars focused
almost entirely on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural science,
philosophy and mathematics,[e] Renaissance scholars were most
interested in recovering and studying Latin and Greek literary,
historical, and oratorical texts. Broadly speaking, this began in the 14th
century with a Latin phase, when Renaissance scholars such as
Petrarch, Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), Niccolò de' Niccoli (1364–
1437), and Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) scoured the libraries of
Europe in search of works by such Latin authors as Cicero, Lucretius,
Livy, and Seneca.[34] By the early 15th century, the bulk of the
surviving such Latin literature had been recovered; the Greek phase of
Renaissance humanism was under way, as Western European scholars
turned to recovering ancient Greek literary, historical, oratorical and
theological texts.[35]
Coluccio Salutati Unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in
Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts
was very limited in medieval Western Europe. Ancient Greek works on science, mathematics, and
philosophy had been studied since the High Middle Ages in Western Europe and in the Islamic Golden
Age (normally in translation), but Greek literary, oratorical and historical works (such as Homer, the
Greek dramatists, Demosthenes and Thucydides) were not studied in either the Latin or medieval Islamic
worlds; in the Middle Ages these sorts of texts were only studied by Byzantine scholars. Some argue that
the Timurid Renaissance in Samarkand and Herat, whose magnificence toned with Florence as the center
of a cultural rebirth,[36][37] were linked to the Ottoman Empire, whose conquests led to the migration of
Greek scholars to Italian cities.[38][39][16][40] One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars
was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since
late antiquity.

Muslim logicians, most notably Avicenna and Averroes, had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded
and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their
way through the Arab West into Iberia and Sicily, which became important centers for this transmission
of ideas. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, many schools dedicated to the translation of philosophical
and scientific works from Classical Arabic to Medieval Latin were established in Iberia, most notably the
Toledo School of Translators. This work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned
and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history.[41]

The movement to reintegrate the regular study of Greek literary, historical, oratorical, and theological
texts back into the Western European curriculum is usually dated to the 1396 invitation from Coluccio
Salutati to the Byzantine diplomat and scholar Manuel Chrysoloras (c. 1355–1415) to teach Greek in
Florence.[42] This legacy was continued by a number of expatriate Greek scholars, from Basilios
Bessarion to Leo Allatius.

Social and political structures in Italy

The unique political structures of Italy during the Late Middle
Ages have led some to theorize that its unusual social climate
allowed the emergence of a rare cultural efflorescence. Italy
did not exist as a political entity in the early modern period.
Instead, it was divided into smaller city-states and territories:
the Neapolitans controlled the south, the Florentines and the
Romans at the center, the Milanese and the Genoese to the
north and west respectively, and the Venetians to the north
east. 15th-century Italy was one of the most urbanized areas
in Europe.[43] Many of its cities stood among the ruins of
ancient Roman buildings; it seems likely that the classical
nature of the Renaissance was linked to its origin in the
Roman Empire's heartland.[44]

Historian and political philosopher Quentin Skinner points

out that Otto of Freising (c. 1114–1158), a German bishop
visiting north Italy during the 12th century, noticed a
widespread new form of political and social organization, A political map of the Italian Peninsula c.
observing that Italy appeared to have exited from feudalism 1494
so that its society was based on merchants and commerce.
Linked to this was anti-monarchical thinking, represented in
the famous early Renaissance fresco cycle The Allegory of Good and Bad Government by Ambrogio
Lorenzetti (painted 1338–1340), whose strong message is about the virtues of fairness, justice,
republicanism and good administration. Holding both Church and Empire at bay, these city republics
were devoted to notions of liberty. Skinner reports that there were many defences of liberty such as the
Matteo Palmieri (1406–1475) celebration of Florentine genius not only in art, sculpture and architecture,
but "the remarkable efflorescence of moral, social and political philosophy that occurred in Florence at
the same time".[45]

Even cities and states beyond central Italy, such as the Republic of Florence at this time, were also
notable for their merchant republics, especially the Republic of Venice. Although in practice these were
oligarchical, and bore little resemblance to a modern democracy, they did have democratic features and
were responsive states, with forms of participation in governance and belief in liberty.[45][46][47] The
relative political freedom they afforded was conducive to academic and artistic advancement.[48]
Likewise, the position of Italian cities such as Venice as great trading centres made them intellectual
crossroads. Merchants brought with them ideas from far corners of the globe, particularly the Levant.
Venice was Europe's gateway to trade with the East, and a producer of fine glass, while Florence was a
capital of textiles. The wealth such business brought to Italy meant large public and private artistic
projects could be commissioned and individuals had more leisure time for study.[48]

Black Death
One theory that has been advanced is that the devastation in
Florence caused by the Black Death, which hit Europe
between 1348 and 1350, resulted in a shift in the world view
of people in 14th century Italy. Italy was particularly badly hit
by the plague, and it has been speculated that the resulting
familiarity with death caused thinkers to dwell more on their
lives on Earth, rather than on spirituality and the afterlife.[49]
It has also been argued that the Black Death prompted a new
wave of piety, manifested in the sponsorship of religious
Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death
works of art.[50] However, this does not fully explain why the
(c. 1562) reflects the social upheaval and
Renaissance occurred specifically in Italy in the 14th century.
terror that followed the plague that
The Black Death was a pandemic that affected all of Europe devastated medieval Europe.
in the ways described, not only Italy. The Renaissance's
emergence in Italy was most likely the result of the complex
interaction of the above factors.[19]

The plague was carried by fleas on sailing vessels returning from the ports of Asia, spreading quickly due
to lack of proper sanitation: the population of England, then about 4.2 million, lost 1.4 million people to
the bubonic plague. Florence's population was nearly halved in the year 1348. As a result of the
decimation in the populace the value of the working class increased, and commoners came to enjoy more
freedom. To answer the increased need for labor, workers traveled in search of the most favorable
position economically.[51]

The demographic decline due to the plague had economic consequences: the prices of food dropped and
land values declined by 30–40% in most parts of Europe between 1350 and 1400.[52] Landholders faced a
great loss, but for ordinary men and women it was a windfall. The survivors of the plague found not only
that the prices of food were cheaper but also that lands were more abundant, and many of them inherited
property from their dead relatives.
The spread of disease was significantly more rampant in areas of poverty. Epidemics ravaged cities,
particularly children. Plagues were easily spread by lice, unsanitary drinking water, armies, or by poor
sanitation. Children were hit the hardest because many diseases, such as typhus and congenital syphilis,
target the immune system, leaving young children without a fighting chance. Children in city dwellings
were more affected by the spread of disease than the children of the wealthy.[53]

The Black Death caused greater upheaval to Florence's social and political structure than later epidemics.
Despite a significant number of deaths among members of the ruling classes, the government of Florence
continued to function during this period. Formal meetings of elected representatives were suspended
during the height of the epidemic due to the chaotic conditions in the city, but a small group of officials
was appointed to conduct the affairs of the city, which ensured continuity of government.[54]

Cultural conditions in Florence

It has long been a matter of debate why the Renaissance began in
Florence, and not elsewhere in Italy. Scholars have noted several
features unique to Florentine cultural life that may have caused such a
cultural movement. Many have emphasized the role played by the
Medici, a banking family and later ducal ruling house, in patronizing
and stimulating the arts. Some historians have postulated that Florence
was the birthplace of the Renaissance as a result of luck, i.e., because
"Great Men" were born there by chance:[55] Leonardo, Botticelli and
Michelangelo were all born in Tuscany. Arguing that such chance
seems improbable, other historians have contended that these "Great
Men" were only able to rise to prominence because of the prevailing
cultural conditions at the time.[56]
Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of
Florence and patron of arts
Lorenzo de' Medici (1449–1492) was the catalyst for an enormous
(portrait by Vasari)
amount of arts patronage, encouraging his countrymen to commission
works from the leading artists of Florence, including Leonardo da
Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Michelangelo Buonarroti.[15] Works by Neri di Bicci, Botticelli, Leonardo,
and Filippino Lippi had been commissioned additionally by the Convent of San Donato in Scopeto in
Florence.[57]

The Renaissance was certainly underway before Lorenzo de' Medici came to power – indeed, before the
Medici family itself achieved hegemony in Florentine society.

Characteristics

Humanism
In some ways, Renaissance humanism was not a philosophy but a method of learning. In contrast to the
medieval scholastic mode, which focused on resolving contradictions between authors, Renaissance
humanists would study ancient texts in their original languages and appraise them through a combination
of reasoning and empirical evidence. Humanist education was based on the programme of Studia
Humanitatis, the study of five humanities: poetry, grammar, history, moral philosophy, and rhetoric.
Although historians have sometimes struggled to define humanism precisely, most have settled on "a
middle of the road definition... the movement to recover, interpret, and assimilate the language, literature,
learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome".[58] Above all, humanists asserted "the genius of man ...
the unique and extraordinary ability of the human mind".[59]

Humanist scholars shaped the intellectual landscape throughout the

early modern period. Political philosophers such as Niccolò
Machiavelli and Thomas More revived the ideas of Greek and Roman
thinkers and applied them in critiques of contemporary government,
following the Islamic steps of Ibn Khaldun.[61][62] Pico della
Mirandola wrote the "manifesto" of the Renaissance, the Oration on
the Dignity of Man, a vibrant defence of thinking. Matteo Palmieri
(1406–1475), another humanist, is most known for his work Della vita
civile ("On Civic Life"; printed 1528), which advocated civic
humanism, and for his influence in refining the Tuscan vernacular to
the same level as Latin. Palmieri drew on Roman philosophers and
theorists, especially Cicero, who, like Palmieri, lived an active public
life as a citizen and official, as well as a theorist and philosopher and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola,
also Quintilian. Perhaps the most succinct expression of his perspective writer of the famous Oration on
on humanism is in a 1465 poetic work La città di vita, but an earlier the Dignity of Man, which has
work, Della vita civile, is more wide-ranging. Composed as a series of been called the "Manifesto of
dialogues set in a country house in the Mugello countryside outside the Renaissance"[60]
Florence during the plague of 1430, Palmieri expounds on the qualities
of the ideal citizen. The dialogues include ideas about how children
develop mentally and physically, how citizens can conduct themselves morally, how citizens and states
can ensure probity in public life, and an important debate on the difference between that which is
pragmatically useful and that which is honest.

The humanists believed that it is important to transcend to the afterlife with a perfect mind and body,
which could be attained with education. The purpose of humanism was to create a universal man whose
person combined intellectual and physical excellence and who was capable of functioning honorably in
virtually any situation.[63] This ideology was referred to as the uomo universale, an ancient Greco-Roman
ideal. Education during the Renaissance was mainly composed of ancient literature and history as it was
thought that the classics provided moral instruction and an intensive understanding of human behavior.

Humanism and libraries

A unique characteristic of some Renaissance libraries is that they were open to the public. These libraries
were places where ideas were exchanged and where scholarship and reading were considered both
pleasurable and beneficial to the mind and soul. As freethinking was a hallmark of the age, many libraries
contained a wide range of writers. Classical texts could be found alongside humanist writings. These
informal associations of intellectuals profoundly influenced Renaissance culture. An essential tool of
Renaissance librarianship was the catalog that listed, described, and classified a library's books.[64] Some
of the richest "bibliophiles" built libraries as temples to books and knowledge. A number of libraries
appeared as manifestations of immense wealth joined with a love of books. In some cases, cultivated
library builders were also committed to offering others the opportunity to use their collections. Prominent
aristocrats and princes of the Church created great libraries for the use of their courts, called "court
libraries", and were housed in lavishly designed monumental buildings decorated with ornate woodwork,
and the walls adorned with frescoes (Murray, Stuart A.P.).

Art
Renaissance art marks a cultural rebirth at the close of the Middle Ages and rise of the Modern world.
One of the distinguishing features of Renaissance art was its development of highly realistic linear
perspective. Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337) is credited with first treating a painting as a window into
space, but it was not until the demonstrations of architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and the
subsequent writings of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) that perspective was formalized as an artistic
technique.[65]

The development of perspective was part of a wider trend

toward realism in the arts.[66] Painters developed other
techniques, studying light, shadow, and, famously in the case
of Leonardo da Vinci, human anatomy. Underlying these
changes in artistic method was a renewed desire to depict the
beauty of nature and to unravel the axioms of aesthetics, with
the works of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael
representing artistic pinnacles that were much imitated by
other artists.[67] Other notable artists include Sandro
Botticelli, working for the Medici in Florence, Donatello,
another Florentine, and Titian in Venice, among others.

In the Low Countries, a particularly vibrant artistic culture

developed. The work of Hugo van der Goes and Jan van Eyck
was particularly influential on the development of painting in
Italy, both technically with the introduction of oil paint and
canvas, and stylistically in terms of naturalism in
Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (c. representation. Later, the work of Pieter Brueghel the Elder
1490) demonstrates the effect writers of
would inspire artists to depict themes of everyday life.[68]
Antiquity had on Renaissance thinkers.
Based on the specifications in Vitruvius'
In architecture, Filippo Brunelleschi was foremost in studying
De architectura (1st century BC),
Leonardo tried to draw the perfectly
the remains of ancient classical buildings. With rediscovered
proportioned man. (Gallerie knowledge from the 1st-century writer Vitruvius and the
dell'Accademia, Venice) flourishing discipline of mathematics, Brunelleschi
formulated the Renaissance style that emulated and improved
on classical forms. His major feat of engineering was building
the dome of Florence Cathedral. [69] Another building demonstrating this style is the Basilica of
Sant'Andrea, Mantua, built by Alberti. The outstanding architectural work of the High Renaissance was
the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, combining the skills of Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, Sangallo
and Maderno.

During the Renaissance, architects aimed to use columns, pilasters, and entablatures as an integrated
system. The Roman orders types of columns are used: Tuscan and Composite. These can either be
structural, supporting an arcade or architrave, or purely decorative, set against a wall in the form of
pilasters. One of the first buildings to use pilasters as an integrated system was in the Old Sacristy (1421–
1440) by Brunelleschi.[70] Arches, semi-circular or (in the Mannerist style) segmental, are often used in
arcades, supported on piers or columns with capitals. There may be a section of entablature between the
capital and the springing of the arch. Alberti was one of the first to use the arch on a monumental.
Renaissance vaults do not have ribs; they are semi-circular or segmental and on a square plan, unlike the
Gothic vault, which is frequently rectangular.

Renaissance artists were not pagans, although they admired antiquity and kept some ideas and symbols of
the medieval past. Nicola Pisano (c. 1220 – c. 1278) imitated classical forms by portraying scenes from
the Bible. His Annunciation, from the Pisa Baptistry, demonstrates that classical models influenced Italian
art before the Renaissance took root as a literary movement.[71]

Science
Applied innovation extended to commerce. At the end of the
15th century, Luca Pacioli published the first work on
bookkeeping, making him the founder of accounting.[7]

The rediscovery of ancient texts and the invention of the

printing press in about 1440 democratized learning and
allowed a faster propagation of more widely distributed ideas.
In the first period of the Italian Renaissance, humanists
favored the study of humanities over natural philosophy or
applied mathematics, and their reverence for classical sources
further enshrined the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic views of the
universe. Writing around 1450, Nicholas of Cusa anticipated
the heliocentric worldview of Copernicus, but in a Anonymous portrait of Nicolaus
philosophical fashion. Copernicus (c. 1580)

Science and art were intermingled in the early Renaissance,

with polymath artists such as Leonardo da Vinci making
observational drawings of anatomy and nature. Leonardo set
up controlled experiments in water flow, medical dissection,
and systematic study of movement and aerodynamics, and he
devised principles of research method that led Fritjof Capra to
classify him as the "father of modern science".[g] Other
examples of Da Vinci's contribution during this period
include machines designed to saw marbles and lift monoliths,
and new discoveries in acoustics, botany, geology, anatomy,
and mechanics.[74]
Portrait of Luca Pacioli, father of
A suitable environment had developed to question classical accounting, painted by Jacopo de'
scientific doctrine. The discovery in 1492 of the New World Barbari,[f] 1495 (Museo di Capodimonte)
by Christopher Columbus challenged the classical worldview.
The works of Ptolemy (in geography) and Galen (in
medicine) were found to not always match everyday observations. As the Reformation and Counter-
Reformation clashed, the Northern Renaissance showed a decisive shift in focus from Aristotelean natural
philosophy to chemistry and the biological sciences (botany, anatomy, and medicine).[75] The willingness
to question previously held truths and search for new answers resulted in a period of major scientific
advancements.

Some view this as a "scientific revolution", heralding the beginning of the modern age,[76] others as an
acceleration of a continuous process stretching from the ancient world to the present day.[77] Significant
scientific advances were made during this time by Galileo Galilei, Tycho Brahe, and Johannes Kepler.[78]
Copernicus, in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres),
posited that the Earth moved around the Sun. De humani corporis fabrica (On the Workings of the
Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius, gave a new confidence to the role of dissection, observation, and the
mechanistic view of anatomy.[79]

Another important development was in the process for discovery, the scientific method,[79] focusing on
empirical evidence and the importance of mathematics, while discarding much of Aristotelian science.
Early and influential proponents of these ideas included Copernicus, Galileo, and Francis Bacon.[80][81]
The new scientific method led to great contributions in the fields of astronomy, physics, biology, and
anatomy.[h][82]

Navigation and geography

During the Renaissance, extending from 1450 to 1650,[83]
every continent was visited and mostly mapped by
Europeans, except the south polar continent now known as
Antarctica. This development is depicted in the large world
map Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Tabula made by the Dutch
cartographer Joan Blaeu in 1648 to commemorate the Peace
of Westphalia. The Cantino planisphere (1502), the
earliest world map detailing Portuguese
In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic maritime exploration
Ocean from Spain seeking a direct route to India of the Delhi
Sultanate. He accidentally stumbled upon the Americas, but
believed he had reached the East Indies.

In 1606, the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon sailed from the East Indies in the Dutch East India
Company ship Duyfken and landed in Australia. He charted about 300 km of the west coast of Cape York
Peninsula in Queensland. More than thirty Dutch expeditions followed, mapping sections of the north,
west, and south coasts. In 1642–1643, Abel Tasman circumnavigated the continent, proving that it was
not joined to the imagined south polar continent.

By 1650, Dutch cartographers had mapped most of the coastline of the continent, which they named New
Holland, except the east coast which was charted in 1770 by James Cook.

The long-imagined south polar continent was eventually sighted in 1820. Throughout the Renaissance it
had been known as Terra Australis, or 'Australia' for short. However, after that name was transferred to
New Holland in the nineteenth century, the new name of 'Antarctica' was bestowed on the south polar
continent.[84]
Music
From this changing society emerged a common, unifying musical language, in particular the polyphonic
style of the Franco-Flemish school. The development of printing made distribution of music possible on a
wide scale. Demand for music as entertainment and as an activity for educated amateurs increased with
the emergence of a bourgeois class. Dissemination of chansons, motets, and masses throughout Europe
coincided with the unification of polyphonic practice into the fluid style that culminated in the second
half of the sixteenth century in the work of composers such as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Orlande
de Lassus, Tomás Luis de Victoria, and William Byrd.

Religion
The new ideals of humanism, although more secular in some aspects,
developed against a Christian backdrop, especially in the Northern
Renaissance. Much, if not most, of the new art was commissioned by
or in dedication to the Roman Catholic Church.[26] However, the
Renaissance had a profound effect on contemporary theology,
particularly in the way people perceived the relationship between man
and God.[26] Many of the period's foremost theologians were followers
of the humanist method, including Erasmus, Huldrych Zwingli,
Thomas More, Martin Luther, and John Calvin.

The Renaissance began in

times of religious turmoil.
Alexander VI, a Borgia Pope
The Late Middle Ages was
infamous for his corruption a period of political
intrigue surrounding the
Papacy, culminating in the
Western Schism, in which three men simultaneously claimed
to be true Bishop of Rome.[85] While the schism was resolved
by the Council of Constance (1414), a resulting reform
movement known as Conciliarism sought to limit the power
of the pope. Although the papacy eventually emerged Adoration of the Magi and Solomon
supreme in ecclesiastical matters by the Fifth Council of the adored by the Queen of Sheba from the
Lateran (1511), it was dogged by continued accusations of Farnese Hours (1546) by Giulio Clovio
marks the end of the Italian Renaissance
corruption, most famously in the person of Pope Alexander
of illuminated manuscript together with
VI, who was accused variously of simony, nepotism, and
the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
fathering children (most of whom were married off,
presumably for the consolidation of power) while a
cardinal.[86]

Churchmen such as Erasmus and Luther proposed reform to the Church, often based on humanist textual
criticism of the New Testament.[26] In October 1517, Luther published the Ninety-five Theses,
challenging papal authority and criticizing its perceived corruption, particularly with regard to instances
of sold indulgences.[i] The 95 Theses led to the Reformation, a break with the Roman Catholic Church
that previously claimed hegemony in Western Europe. Humanism and the Renaissance therefore played a
direct role in sparking the Reformation, as well as in many other contemporaneous religious debates and
conflicts.
Pope Paul III came to the papal throne (1534–1549) after the sack of Rome in 1527, with uncertainties
prevalent in the Catholic Church following the Reformation. Nicolaus Copernicus dedicated De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) to Paul III, who became
the grandfather of Alessandro Farnese, who had paintings by Titian, Michelangelo, and Raphael, as well
as an important collection of drawings, and who commissioned the masterpiece of Giulio Clovio,
arguably the last major illuminated manuscript, the Farnese Hours.

Self-awareness
By the 15th century, writers, artists, and architects in Italy were well
aware of the transformations that were taking place and were using
phrases such as modi antichi (in the antique manner) or alle romana et
alla antica (in the manner of the Romans and the ancients) to describe
their work. In the 1330s Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as
antiqua (ancient) and to the Christian period as nova (new).[87] From
Petrarch's Italian perspective, this new period (which included his own
time) was an age of national eclipse.[87] Leonardo Bruni was the first to
use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People
(1442).[88] Bruni's first two periods were based on those of Petrarch,
but he added a third period because he believed that Italy was no longer
in a state of decline. Flavio Biondo used a similar framework in
Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire Leonardo Bruni
(1439–1453).

Humanist historians argued that contemporary scholarship restored direct links to the classical period,
thus bypassing the Medieval period, which they then named for the first time the "Middle Ages". The
term first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas (middle times).[89] The term rinascita (rebirth)
first appeared, however, in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, 1550, revised
1568.[90][91] Vasari divides the age into three phases: the first phase contains Cimabue, Giotto, and
Arnolfo di Cambio; the second phase contains Masaccio, Brunelleschi, and Donatello; the third centers
on Leonardo da Vinci and culminates with Michelangelo. It was not just the growing awareness of
classical antiquity that drove this development, according to Vasari, but also the growing desire to study
and imitate nature.[92]

Spread
In the 15th century, the Renaissance spread rapidly from its birthplace in Florence to the rest of Italy and
soon to the rest of Europe. The invention of the printing press by German printer Johannes Gutenberg
allowed the rapid transmission of these new ideas. As it spread, its ideas diversified and changed, being
adapted to local culture. In the 20th century, scholars began to break the Renaissance into regional and
national movements.
England
The Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually
regarded as the height of the English Renaissance. Many scholars see
its beginnings in the early 16th century during the reign of Henry
VIII.[93]

The English Renaissance is different from the Italian Renaissance in

several ways. The dominant art forms of the English Renaissance were
literature and music, which had a rich flowering.[94] Visual arts in the
English Renaissance were much less significant than in the Italian
Renaissance. The English Renaissance period in art began far later than
the Italian, which had moved into Mannerism by the 1530s.[95]

In literature the later part of the 16th century saw the flowering of
Elizabethan literature, with poetry heavily influenced by Italian
"What a piece of work is a
Renaissance literature but Elizabethan theatre a distinctive native style.
man, how noble in reason, how
Writers include William Shakespeare (1564–1616), Christopher infinite in faculties, in form and
Marlowe (1564–1593), Edmund Spenser (1552–1599), Sir Thomas moving how express and
More (1478–1535), and Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586). English admirable, in action how like an
Renaissance music competed with that in Europe with composers such angel, in apprehension how
as Thomas Tallis (1505–1585), John Taverner (1490–1545), and like a god!" – from William
William Byrd (1540–1623). Elizabethan architecture produced the Shakespeare's Hamlet

large prodigy houses of courtiers, and in the next century Inigo Jones
(1573–1652), who introduced Palladian architecture to England.[96]

Elsewhere, Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was the pioneer of modern scientific thought, and is
commonly regarded as one of the founders of the Scientific Revolution.[97][98]

France
The word "Renaissance" is borrowed from the French
language, where it means "re-birth". It was first used in the
eighteenth century and was later popularized by French
historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874) in his 1855 work,
Histoire de France (History of France).[99][100]

In 1495 the Italian Renaissance arrived in France, imported

by King Charles VIII after his invasion of Italy. A factor that
promoted the spread of secularism was the inability of the
Church to offer assistance against the Black Death. Francis I
Château de Chambord (1519–1547), one
of the most famous examples of imported Italian art and artists, including Leonardo da Vinci,
Renaissance architecture Primaticcio, Rosso Fiorentino, Niccolò dell'Abbate and
Benvenuto Cellini and built ornate palaces at great expense,
like the Palace of Fontainebleau and the castle of Chambord.
Writers such as François Rabelais, Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay, and Michel de Montaigne,
painters such as Jean Clouet and François Clouet, and musicians such as Jean Mouton also borrowed
from the spirit of the Renaissance. French Renaissance sculptors include Michel Colombe, Jean Goujon,
Pierre Bontemps, Ligier Richier and Germain Pilon while important architects of the time were Pierre
Lescot, who built the Henri II aisle of the Louvre, Philibert Delorme and Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau.

In 1533, a fourteen-year-old Catherine de' Medici (1519–1589), born in Florence to Lorenzo de' Medici,
Duke of Urbino and Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne, married Henry II of France, second son of King
Francis I and Queen Claude. Though she became famous and infamous for her role in the French Wars of
Religion, she made a direct contribution in bringing arts, sciences, and music (including the origins of
ballet) to the French court from her native Florence.

Germany
In the second half of the 15th century, the Renaissance spirit spread to
Germany and the Low Countries, where the development of the
printing press (ca. 1450) and Renaissance artists such as Albrecht
Dürer (1471–1528) predated the influence from Italy. In the early
Protestant areas of the country humanism became closely linked to the
turmoil of the Reformation, and the art and writing of the German
Renaissance frequently reflected this dispute.[101] However, the Gothic
style and medieval scholastic philosophy remained exclusively until
the turn of the 16th century. Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg (ruling
1493–1519) was the first truly Renaissance monarch of the Holy
Roman Empire.

Portrait of Emperor Maximilian

Hungarian trecento and quattrocento
I, by Albrecht Dürer, 1519
After Italy, Hungary was the first European country where the
Renaissance appeared.[102] The Renaissance style came directly from
Italy during the Quattrocento (1400s) to Hungary first in the Central European region, thanks to the
development of early Hungarian-Italian relationships — not only in dynastic connections, but also in
cultural, humanistic and commercial relations – growing in strength from the 14th century. The
relationship between Hungarian and Italian Gothic styles was a second reason – exaggerated
breakthrough of walls is avoided, preferring clean and light structures. Large-scale building schemes
provided ample and long term work for the artists, for example, the building of the Friss (New) Castle in
Buda, the castles of Visegrád, Tata, and Várpalota. In Sigismund's court there were patrons such as Pippo
Spano, a descendant of the Scolari family of Florence, who invited Manetto Ammanatini and Masolino da
Pannicale to Hungary.[103]

The new Italian trend combined with existing national traditions to create a particular local Renaissance
art. Acceptance of Renaissance art was furthered by the continuous arrival of humanist thought in the
country. Many young Hungarians studying at Italian universities came closer to the Florentine humanist
center, so a direct connection with Florence evolved. The growing number of Italian traders moving to
Hungary, specially to Buda, helped this process. New thoughts were carried by the humanist prelates,
among them Vitéz János, archbishop of Esztergom, one of the founders of Hungarian humanism.[104]
During the long reign of Emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg the Royal Castle of Buda became probably
the largest Gothic palace of the late Middle Ages. King Matthias Corvinus (r. 1458–1490) rebuilt the
palace in early Renaissance style and further expanded it.[105][106]
After the marriage in 1476 of King Matthias to Beatrice of Naples, Buda became one of the most
important artistic centers of the Renaissance north of the Alps.[107] The most important humanists living
in Matthias' court were Antonio Bonfini and the famous Hungarian poet Janus Pannonius.[107] András
Hess set up a printing press in Buda in 1472. Matthias Corvinus's library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana, was
Europe's greatest collections of secular books: historical chronicles, philosophic and scientific works in
the 15th century. His library was second only in size to the Vatican Library. (However, the Vatican
Library mainly contained Bibles and religious materials.)[108] In 1489, Bartolomeo della Fonte of
Florence wrote that Lorenzo de' Medici founded his own Greek-Latin library encouraged by the example
of the Hungarian king. Corvinus's library is part of UNESCO World Heritage.[109]

Matthias started at least two major building projects.[110] The works in Buda and Visegrád began in about
1479.[111] Two new wings and a hanging garden were built at the royal castle of Buda, and the palace at
Visegrád was rebuilt in Renaissance style.[111][112] Matthias appointed the Italian Chimenti Camicia and
the Dalmatian Giovanni Dalmata to direct these projects.[111] Matthias commissioned the leading Italian
artists of his age to embellish his palaces: for instance, the sculptor Benedetto da Majano and the painters
Filippino Lippi and Andrea Mantegna worked for him.[113] A copy of Mantegna's portrait of Matthias
survived.[114] Matthias also hired the Italian military engineer Aristotele Fioravanti to direct the
rebuilding of the forts along the southern frontier.[115] He had new monasteries built in Late Gothic style
for the Franciscans in Kolozsvár, Szeged and Hunyad, and for the Paulines in Fejéregyháza.[116][117] In
the spring of 1485, Leonardo da Vinci travelled to Hungary on behalf of Sforza to meet King Matthias
Corvinus, and was commissioned by him to paint a Madonna.[118]

Matthias enjoyed the company of Humanists and had lively discussions on various topics with them.[119]
The fame of his magnanimity encouraged many scholars—mostly Italian—to settle in Buda.[120] Antonio
Bonfini, Pietro Ranzano, Bartolomeo Fonzio, and Francesco Bandini spent many years in Matthias's
court.[121][119] This circle of educated men introduced the ideas of Neoplatonism to Hungary.[122][123]
Like all intellectuals of his age, Matthias was convinced that the movements and combinations of the
stars and planets exercised influence on individuals' life and on the history of nations.[124] Martius
Galeotti described him as "king and astrologer", and Antonio Bonfini said Matthias "never did anything
without consulting the stars".[125] Upon his request, the famous astronomers of the age, Johannes
Regiomontanus and Marcin Bylica, set up an observatory in Buda and installed it with astrolabes and
celestial globes.[126] Regiomontanus dedicated his book on navigation that was used by Christopher
Columbus to Matthias.[120]

Other important figures of Hungarian Renaissance include Bálint Balassi (poet), Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos
(poet), Bálint Bakfark (composer and lutenist), and Master MS (fresco painter).

Renaissance in the Low Countries

Culture in the Netherlands at the end of the 15th century was influenced by the Italian Renaissance
through trade via Bruges, which made Flanders wealthy. Its nobles commissioned artists who became
known across Europe.[127] In science, the anatomist Andreas Vesalius led the way; in cartography,
Gerardus Mercator's map assisted explorers and navigators. In art, Dutch and Flemish Renaissance
painting ranged from the strange work of Hieronymus Bosch[128] to the everyday life depictions of Pieter
Brueghel the Elder.[127]
Erasmus was arguably the Netherlands' best known humanist and
Catholic intellectual during the Renaissance.[33]

Northern Europe
The Renaissance in Northern Europe has been termed the "Northern
Renaissance". While Renaissance ideas were moving north from Italy,
there was a simultaneous southward spread of some areas of
innovation, particularly in music.[129] The music of the 15th-century
Burgundian School defined the beginning of the Renaissance in music,
and the polyphony of the Netherlanders, as it moved with the
musicians themselves into Italy, formed the core of the first true
international style in music since the standardization of Gregorian
Chant in the 9th century.[129] The culmination of the Netherlandish Erasmus of Rotterdam in 1523,
school was in the music of the Italian composer Giovanni Pierluigi da as depicted by Hans Holbein
Palestrina. At the end of the 16th century Italy again became a center of the Younger
musical innovation, with the development of the polychoral style of the
Venetian School, which spread northward into Germany around 1600.
In Denmark, the Renaissance sparked the translation of the works of Saxo Grammaticus into Danish as
well as Frederick II and Christian IV ordering the redecoration or construction of several important works
of architecture, i.e. Kronborg, Rosenborg and Børsen.[130] Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe greatly
contributed to turn astronomy into the first modern science and also helped launch the Scientific
Revolution.[131][132]

The paintings of the Italian Renaissance differed from those of the Northern Renaissance. Italian
Renaissance artists were among the first to paint secular scenes, breaking away from the purely religious
art of medieval painters. Northern Renaissance artists initially remained focused on religious subjects,
such as the contemporary religious upheaval portrayed by Albrecht Dürer. Later, the works of Pieter
Bruegel the Elder influenced artists to paint scenes of daily life rather than religious or classical themes. It
was also during the Northern Renaissance that Flemish brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck perfected the
oil painting technique, which enabled artists to produce strong colors on a hard surface that could survive
for centuries.[133] A feature of the Northern Renaissance was its use of the vernacular in place of Latin or
Greek, which allowed greater freedom of expression. This movement had started in Italy with the
decisive influence of Dante Alighieri on the development of vernacular languages; in fact the focus on
writing in Italian has neglected a major source of Florentine ideas expressed in Latin.[134] The spread of
the printing press technology boosted the Renaissance in Northern Europe as elsewhere, with Venice
becoming a world center of printing.

Poland
The Polish Renaissance lasted from the late 15th to the late 16th century and was the Golden Age of
Polish culture. Ruled by the Jagiellonian dynasty, the Kingdom of Poland (from 1569 known as the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) actively participated in the broad European Renaissance. An early
Italian humanist who came to Poland in the mid-15th century was Filippo Buonaccorsi, who was
employed as royal advisor and councillor. The tomb of John I Albert, completed in 1505 by Francesco
Fiorentino, is the first example of a Renaissance composition in the country.[135][136] Many Italian artists
 A 16th-century Renaissance tombstone of Polish kings within the Sigismund Chapel in Kraków, Poland. The
golden-domed chapel was designed by Bartolommeo Berrecci.

subsequently came to Poland with Bona Sforza of Milan, when she married King Sigismund I in
1518.[137] This was supported by temporarily strengthened monarchies in both areas, as well as by newly
established universities.[138]

The Renaissance was a period when the multi-national Polish state experienced a substantial period of
cultural growth thanks in part to a century without major wars, aside from conflicts in the sparsely
populated eastern and southern borderlands. Architecture became more refined and decorative.
Mannerism played an important part in shaping what is now considered to be the truly Polish
architectural style – high attics above the cornice with pinnacles and pilasters.[139] It was also the time
when the first major works of Polish literature were published, particularly those of Mikołaj Rey and Jan
Kochanowski, and the Polish language became the lingua franca of East-Central Europe.[140] The
Jagiellonian University transformed into a major institution of higher education for the region and hosted
many notable scholars, chiefly Nicolaus Copernicus and Conrad Celtes. Three more academies were
founded at Königsberg (1544), Vilnius (1579), and Zamość (1594). The Reformation spread peacefully
throughout the country, giving rise to the Nontrinitarian Polish Brethren.[141] Living conditions improved,
cities grew, and exports of agricultural products enriched the population, especially the nobility (szlachta)
and magnates. The nobles gained dominance in the new political system of Golden Liberty, a
counterweight to monarchical absolutism.[142]

Portugal
Although Italian Renaissance had a modest impact in Portuguese arts, Portugal was influential in
broadening the European worldview,[143] stimulating humanist inquiry. Renaissance arrived through the
influence of wealthy Italian and Flemish merchants who invested in the profitable commerce overseas. As
the pioneer headquarters of European exploration, Lisbon flourished in the late 15th century, attracting
experts who made several breakthroughs in mathematics, astronomy and naval technology, including
Pedro Nunes, João de Castro, Abraham Zacuto, and Martin Behaim. Cartographers Pedro Reinel, Lopo
Homem, Estêvão Gomes, and Diogo Ribeiro made crucial advances in mapping the world. Apothecary
Tomé Pires and physicians Garcia de Orta and Cristóvão da Costa collected and published works on
plants and medicines, soon translated by Flemish pioneer botanist Carolus Clusius.

In architecture, the huge profits of the spice trade financed a sumptuous composite style in the first
decades of the 16th century, the Manueline, incorporating maritime elements.[144] The primary painters
were Nuno Gonçalves, Gregório Lopes, and Vasco Fernandes. In music, Pedro de Escobar and Duarte
 Lobo produced four songbooks, including the Cancioneiro de Elvas.

In literature, Luís de
Camões inscribed the
Portuguese feats overseas
in the epic poem Os
Lusíadas. Sá de Miranda
introduced Italian forms of
verse and Bernardim
Ribeiro developed pastoral
romance, while plays by
Luís de Camões, and his Gil Vicente fused it with
seminal work Os Lusíadas, are The renaissance cloister at the Convent
popular culture, reporting of Christ in Tomar
considered the greatest poet of
the changing times. Travel
the Portuguese language and
the pinnacle of Portuguese
literature especially
literature, respectively. flourished: João de Barros, Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, António
Galvão, Gaspar Correia, Duarte Barbosa, and Fernão Mendes Pinto,
among others, described new lands and were translated and spread with
the new printing press. [143] After joining the Portuguese exploration of Brazil in 1500, Amerigo Vespucci
coined the term New World,[145] in his letters to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici.

The intense international exchange produced several cosmopolitan humanist scholars, including
Francisco de Holanda, André de Resende, and Damião de Góis, a friend of Erasmus who wrote with rare
independence on the reign of King Manuel I. Diogo de Gouveia and André de Gouveia made relevant
teaching reforms via France. Foreign news and products in the Portuguese factory in Antwerp attracted
the interest of Thomas More[146] and Albrecht Dürer to the wider world.[147] There, profits and know-
how helped nurture the Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age, especially after the arrival of the wealthy
cultured Jewish community expelled from Portugal.

Spain
The Renaissance arrived in the Iberian peninsula through the
Mediterranean possessions of the Crown of Aragon and the
city of Valencia. Many early Spanish Renaissance writers
come from the Crown of Aragon, including Ausiàs March and
Joanot Martorell. In the Crown of Castile, the early
Renaissance was heavily influenced by the Italian humanism,
starting with writers and poets such as Íñigo López de
Mendoza, marqués de Santillana, who introduced the new
Italian poetry to Spain in the early 15th century. Other The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo del
writers, such as Jorge Manrique, Fernando de Rojas, Juan del Escorial, by Juan de Herrera and Juan
Encina, Juan Boscán Almogáver, and Garcilaso de la Vega, Bautista de Toledo
kept a close resemblance to the Italian canon. Miguel de
Cervantes's masterpiece Don Quixote is credited as the first
Western novel. Renaissance humanism flourished in the early 16th century, with influential writers such
as philosopher Juan Luis Vives, grammarian Antonio de Nebrija and natural historian Pedro de Mexía.
The poet and philosopher Luisa de Medrano, celebrated among her Renaissance contemporaries as one of
the puellae doctae ("learned girls"), was the first female professor in Europe at the University of
Salamanca.

Later Spanish Renaissance tended toward religious themes and mysticism, with poets such as Luis de
León, Teresa of Ávila, and John of the Cross, and treated issues related to the exploration of the New
World, with chroniclers and writers such as Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Bartolomé de las Casas, giving
rise to a body of work, now known as Spanish Renaissance literature. The late Renaissance in Spain
produced political and religious authors such as Tomás Fernández de Medrano and artists such as El
Greco and composers such as Tomás Luis de Victoria and Antonio de Cabezón.

Further countries
Renaissance in Croatia
Renaissance in Scotland

Historiography

Conception
The Italian artist and critic Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) first
used the term rinascita in his book The Lives of the Artists
(published 1550). In the book Vasari attempted to define what
he described as a break with the barbarities of Gothic art: the
arts (he held) had fallen into decay with the collapse of the
Roman Empire and only the Tuscan artists, beginning with
Cimabue (1240–1301) and Giotto (1267–1337) began to
reverse this decline in the arts. Vasari saw ancient art as
central to the rebirth of Italian art.[148]

However, only in the 19th century did the French word

renaissance achieve popularity in describing the self-
conscious cultural movement based on revival of Roman
models that began in the late 13th century. French historian
Jules Michelet (1798–1874) defined "The Renaissance" in his
1855 work Histoire de France as an entire historical period,
whereas previously it had been used in a more limited A cover of the Lives of the Artists by
sense. [24] For Michelet, the Renaissance was more a Giorgio Vasari
development in science than in art and culture. He asserted
that it spanned the period from Columbus to Copernicus to
Galileo; that is, from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 17th century.[99] Moreover, Michelet
distinguished between what he called, "the bizarre and monstrous" quality of the Middle Ages and the
democratic values that he, as a vocal Republican, chose to see in its character.[19] A French nationalist,
Michelet also sought to claim the Renaissance as a French movement.[19]
The Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) in his The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
(1860), by contrast, defined the Renaissance as the period between Giotto and Michelangelo in Italy, that
is, the 14th to mid-16th centuries. He saw in the Renaissance the emergence of the modern spirit of
individuality, which the Middle Ages had stifled.[149] His book was widely read and became influential in
the development of the modern interpretation of the Italian Renaissance.[150]

More recently, some historians have been much less keen to define the Renaissance as a historical age, or
even as a coherent cultural movement. The historian Randolph Starn, of the University of California
Berkeley, stated in 1998:

Rather than a period with definitive beginnings and endings and consistent content in between,
the Renaissance can be (and occasionally has been) seen as a movement of practices and ideas
to which specific groups and identifiable persons variously responded in different times and
places. It would be in this sense a network of diverse, sometimes converging, sometimes
conflicting cultures, not a single, time-bound culture.[21]

Debates about progress

There is debate about the extent to which the Renaissance improved on the culture of the Middle Ages.
Both Michelet and Burckhardt were keen to describe the progress made in the Renaissance toward the
modern age. Burckhardt likened the change to a veil being removed from man's eyes, allowing him to see
clearly.[55]

In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness – that which was turned within as that
which was turned without – lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was
woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were
seen clad in strange hues.[151]

— Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

On the other hand, many historians now point out that most of
the negative social factors popularly associated with the
medieval period – poverty, warfare, religious and political
persecution, for example – seem to have worsened in this era,
which saw the rise of Machiavellian politics, the Wars of
Religion, the corrupt Borgia Popes, and the intensified witch-
hunts of the 16th century. Many people who lived during the
Renaissance did not view it as the "golden age" imagined by
Painting of the St. Bartholomew's Day certain 19th-century authors, but were concerned by these
Massacre, an event in the French Wars
social maladies.[152] Significantly, though, the artists, writers,
of Religion, by François Dubois
and patrons involved in the cultural movements in question
believed they were living in a new era that was a clean break
from the Middle Ages. [90] Some Marxist historians prefer to describe the Renaissance in material terms,
holding the view that the changes in art, literature, and philosophy were part of a general economic trend
from feudalism toward capitalism, resulting in a bourgeois class with leisure time to devote to the
arts.[153]
Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) acknowledged the existence of the Renaissance but questioned whether it
was a positive change. In his book The Autumn of the Middle Ages, he argued that the Renaissance was a
period of decline from the High Middle Ages, destroying much that was important.[20] The Medieval
Latin language, for instance, had evolved greatly from the classical period and was still a living language
used in the church and elsewhere. The Renaissance obsession with classical purity halted its further
evolution and saw Latin revert to its classical form. This view is however somewhat contested by recent
studies. Robert S. Lopez has contended that it was a period of deep economic recession.[154] Meanwhile,
George Sarton and Lynn Thorndike have both argued that scientific progress was perhaps less original
than has traditionally been supposed.[155] Finally, Joan Kelly argued that the Renaissance led to greater
gender dichotomy, lessening the agency women had had during the Middle Ages.[156]

Some historians have begun to consider the word Renaissance to be unnecessarily loaded, implying an
unambiguously positive rebirth from the supposedly more primitive "Dark Ages", the Middle Ages. Most
political and economic historians now prefer to use the term "early modern" for this period (and a
considerable period afterwards), a designation intended to highlight the period as a transitional one
between the Middle Ages and the modern era.[157] Others such as Roger Osborne have come to consider
the Italian Renaissance as a repository of the myths and ideals of western history in general, and instead
of rebirth of ancient ideas as a period of great innovation.[158]

The art historian Erwin Panofsky observed of this resistance to the concept of "Renaissance":

It is perhaps no accident that the factuality of the Italian Renaissance has been most
vigorously questioned by those who are not obliged to take a professional interest in the
aesthetic aspects of civilization – historians of economic and social developments, political
and religious situations, and, most particularly, natural science – but only exceptionally by
students of literature and hardly ever by historians of Art.[159]

Other Renaissances
The term Renaissance has also been used to define periods outside of the 15th and 16th centuries in the
earlier Medieval period. Charles H. Haskins (1870–1937), for example, made a case for a Renaissance of
the 12th century.[160] Other historians have argued for a Carolingian Renaissance in the 8th and 9th
centuries, Ottonian Renaissance in the 10th century and for the Timurid Renaissance of the 14th century.
The Islamic Golden Age has been also sometimes termed with the Islamic Renaissance.[161] The
Macedonian Renaissance is a term used for a period in the Roman Empire in the 9th-11th centuries CE.

Other periods of cultural rebirth in Modern times have also been termed "renaissances", such as the
Bengal Renaissance, Tamil Renaissance, Nepal Bhasa renaissance, al-Nahda or the Harlem Renaissance.
The term can also be used in cinema. In animation, the Disney Renaissance is a period that spanned the
years from 1989 to 1999 which saw the studio return to the level of quality not witnessed since their
Golden Age of Animation. The San Francisco Renaissance was a vibrant period of exploratory poetry and
fiction writing in San Francisco in the mid-20th century.
See also

Society portal

Arts portal

Index of Renaissance articles

Outline of the Renaissance
List of Renaissance figures
List of Renaissance structures
Roman Renaissance
Venetian Renaissance

References

Explanatory notes
a. French: [ʁənɛsɑ̃s] ⓘ , meaning 'rebirth', from renaître 'to be born again'; Italian:
Rinascimento [rinaʃʃiˈmento], from rinascere, with the same meanings.[3]
b. The Oxford English Dictionary cites W Dyce and C H Wilson's Letter to Lord Meadowbank
(1837): "A style possessing many points of rude resemblance with the more elegant and
refined character of the art of the renaissance in Italy." And the following year in Civil
Engineer & Architect's Journal: "Not that we consider the style of the Renaissance to be
either pure or good per se." See Oxford English Dictionary, "Renaissance"
c. "Historians of different kinds will often make some choice between a long Renaissance (say,
1300–1600), a short one (1453–1527), or somewhere in between (the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, as is commonly adopted in music histories)."[8] Or between Petrarch
and Jonathan Swift, an even longer period.[9] Another source dates it from 1350 to 1620.[10]
d. Some scholars have called for an end to the use of the term, which they see as a product of
presentism – the use of history to validate and glorify modern ideals.[23]
e. For information on this earlier, very different approach to a different set of ancient texts
(scientific texts rather than cultural texts) see Latin translations of the 12th century, and
Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe.
f. It is thought that Leonardo da Vinci may have painted the rhombicuboctahedron.[72]
g. Exhaustive 2007 study by Fritjof Capra shows that Leonardo was a much greater scientist
than previously thought, and not just an inventor. Leonardo was innovative in science theory
and in conducting actual science practice. In Capra's detailed assessment of many surviving
manuscripts, Leonardo's science in tune with holistic non-mechanistic and non-reductive
approaches to science, which are becoming popular today.[73]
 h. Joseph Ben-David wrote:

Rapid accumulation of knowledge, which has characterized the development of

science since the 17th century, had never occurred before that time. The new kind
of scientific activity emerged only in a few countries of Western Europe, and it was
restricted to that small area for about two hundred years. (Since the 19th century,
scientific knowledge has been assimilated by the rest of the world).

i. It is sometimes thought that the Church, as an institution, formally sold indulgences at the
time. This, however, was not the practice. Donations were often received, but only
mandated by individuals that were condemned.

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131. Wootton, David (2015). The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution
(https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/883146361) (First U.S. ed.). New York, NY: HarperCollins.
ISBN 978-0-06-175952-9. OCLC 883146361 (https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/883146361).
132. "Tycho Brahe, 1546-1601" (https://danmarkshistorien.dk/vis/materiale/tycho-brahe-1546-160
1). danmarkshistorien.dk (in Danish). Retrieved 24 November 2023.
133. Painting in Oil in the Low Countries and Its Spread to Southern Europe (http://www.metmus
eum.org/toah/hd/optg/hd_optg.htm), Metropolitan Museum of Art website. (Retrieved 5 April
2007)
134. Celenza, Christopher (2004), The Lost Italian Renaissance: Humanists, Historians, and
Latin's Legacy. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press
135. Rundle, David (2012). Humanism in fifteenth-century Europe. Oxford: The Society for the
Study of Medieval Languages and Literature. p. 143. ISBN 9780907570400.
136. Suchodolski, Bogdan (1973). Poland, the Land of Copernicus. Wrocław: Ossolineum,
Polska Akademia Nauk PAN. p. 150. OCLC 714705 (https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/71470
5).
137. Bona Sforza (1494–1557) (http://en.poland.gov.pl/Bona,Sforza,%281494,%E2%80%93,155
7%29,1958.html) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20140506203103/http://en.poland.g
ov.pl/Bona,Sforza,(1494,%E2%80%93,1557),1958.html) 6 May 2014 at the Wayback
Machine. poland.gov.pl (Retrieved 4 April 2007)
138. For example, the re-establishment of Jagiellonian University in 1364. Waltos, Stanisław (31
October 2002). "The Past and the Present" (https://web.archive.org/web/20021120144715/h
ttp://www.uj.edu.pl/dispatch.jsp?item=uniwersytet%2Fhistoria%2Fhistoriatxt.jsp&lang=en).
Uniwersytet Jagielloński. Archived from the original (http://www.uj.edu.pl/dispatch.jsp?item=
uniwersytet/historia/historiatxt.jsp&lang=en#narodziny) on 20 November 2002.
139. "HISTORIA ARCHITEKTURY EUROPEJSKIEJ TYLKO DLA ORŁÓW - SKRÓT" (https://ww
w.historiasztuki.com.pl/strony/002-00-14-STYLE-RENESANS.html).
www.historiasztuki.com.pl.
140. Koyama, Satoshi (2007). "Chapter 8: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as a Political
Space: Its Unity and Complexity" (http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no15_ses/08
_koyama.pdf) (PDF). In Hayashi, Tadayuki; Fukuda, Hiroshi (eds.). Regions in Central and
Eastern Europe: Past and Present (http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no15_ses/c
ontents.html). Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University. pp. 137–153. ISBN 978-4-
938637-43-9. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20200225015447/http://src-h.slav.hoku
dai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no15_ses/contents.html) from the original on 25 February 2020.
Retrieved 23 May 2019.
141. Phillip Hewett, Racovia: An Early Liberal Religious Community, Providence, Blackstone
Editions, 2004, p.20-21.
142. Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland in Two Volumes, Oxford University
Press, 2005, ISBN 0-19-925339-0, p.262
143. "Portuguese Overseas Travels and European Readers" (https://web.archive.org/web/20111
112175553/http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/Portugal/Overseas.
html). Portugal and Renaissance Europe. The John Carter Brown Library Exhibitions, Brown
University. Archived from the original (http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_L
ibrary/Portugal/Overseas.html) on 12 November 2011. Retrieved 19 July 2011.
144. Bergin, Thomas G.; Speake, Jennifer, eds. (2004). Encyclopedia of the Renaissance and
the Reformation (https://books.google.com/books?id=VOb4hIp7EE8C&pg=PP1). Infobase
Publishing. ISBN 978-0816054510.
145. Bergin, Thomas G.; Speake, Jennifer (2004). Encyclopedia of the Renaissance and the
Reformation (https://books.google.com/books?id=VOb4hIp7EE8C&pg=PP490). Infobase
Publishing. p. 490. ISBN 978-0816054510.
146. Bietenholz, Peter G.; Deutscher, Thomas Brian (2003). Contemporaries of Erasmus: a
biographical register of the Renaissance and Reformation, Volumes 1–3 (https://books.goog
le.com/books?id=hruQ386SfFcC&pg=RA1-PA22). University of Toronto Press. p. 22.
ISBN 978-0802085771.
147. Lach, Donald Frederick (1994). Asia in the making of Europe: A century of wonder. The
literary arts. The scholarly disciplines (https://books.google.com/books?id=hhE3sPY78s0C&
pg=PA6). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226467337. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
148. "Defining the Renaissance, Open University" (https://web.archive.org/web/2008121813523
5/http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/renaissance2/defining.htm). Open.ac.uk. Archived from the
original (http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/renaissance2/defining.htm) on 18 December 2008.
Retrieved 31 July 2009.
149. Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (http://www.boisestate.edu/co
urses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/burckhardt.html) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20080
921145058/http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/burckhardt.html) 21
September 2008 at the Wayback Machine (trans. S.G.C. Middlemore, London, 1878)
150. Gay, Peter, Style in History, New York: Basic Books, 1974.
151. Burckhardt, Jacob. "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy" (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20081003000844/http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/2-1.html).
Archived from the original (http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/2-1.ht
ml) on October 3, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2008.
152. Girolamo Savonarola's popularity is a prime example of the manifestation of such concerns.
Other examples include Philip II of Spain's censorship of Florentine paintings, noted by
Edward L. Goldberg, "Spanish Values and Tuscan Painting", Renaissance Quarterly (1998)
p. 914
153. Renaissance Forum (http://www.hull.ac.uk/renforum/v2no2/siar.htm) Archived (https://web.ar
chive.org/web/20120614012823/http://www.hull.ac.uk/renforum/v2no2/siar.htm) 14 June
2012 at the Wayback Machine at Hull University, Autumn 1997 (Retrieved 10 May 2007)
154. Lopez, Robert S. & Miskimin, Harry A. (1962). "The Economic Depression of the
Renaissance". Economic History Review. 14 (3): 408–426. doi:10.1111/j.1468-
0289.1962.tb00059.x (https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1468-0289.1962.tb00059.x).
JSTOR 2591885 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2591885).
155. Thorndike, Lynn; Johnson, F.R.; Kristeller, P. O.; Lockwood, D.P.; Thorndike, L. (1943).
"Some Remarks on the Question of the Originality of the Renaissance". Journal of the
History of Ideas. 4 (1): 49–74. doi:10.2307/2707236 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F2707236).
JSTOR 2707236 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2707236).
156. Kelly-Gadol, Joan. "Did Women Have a Renaissance?" Becoming Visible: Women in
European History. Edited by Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1977.
157. Stephen Greenblatt Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, University of
Chicago Press, 1980.
158. Osborne, Roger (2006). Civilization: a new history of the Western world (https://archive.org/
details/00book2095698803). Pegasus Books. pp. 180 (https://archive.org/details/00book209
5698803/page/180)–. ISBN 978-1933648194. Retrieved 10 December 2011.
159. Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art 1969:38; Panofsky's chapter
"'Renaissance – self-definition or self-deception?" succinctly introduces the historiographical
debate, with copious footnotes to the literature.
160. Haskins, Charles Homer, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1927 ISBN 0674760751.
161. Hubert, Jean, L'Empire carolingien (English: The Carolingian Renaissance, translated by
James Emmons, New York: G. Braziller, 1970).

General sources
Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), a famous classic;
excerpt and text search 2007 edition (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1426400934); also
 complete text online (https://books.google.com/books?id=kLkNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1).
Cartledge, Bryan (2011). The Will to Survive: A History of Hungary. C. Hurst & Co.
ISBN 978-1849041126.
E. Kovács, Péter (1990). Matthias Corvinus (in Hungarian). Officina Nova.
ISBN 9637835490.
Engel, Pál (2001). The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526. I.B.
Tauris Publishers. ISBN 1860640613.
Hendrix, Scott E. (2013). "Astrological forecasting and the Turkish menace in the
Renaissance Balkans" (http://www.anthroserbia.org/Content/PDF/Articles/9fedd563ae93475
ebb3cb94cd9bdf75e.pdf) (PDF). Anthropology. 13 (2). Universitatis Miskolciensis: 57–72.
ISSN 1452-7243 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/1452-7243).
Klaniczay, Tibor (1992). "The age of Matthias Corvinus" (https://archive.org/details/renaissan
ceinnat0000unse/page/164). In Porter, Roy; Teich, Mikuláš (eds.). The Renaissance in
National Context. Cambridge University Press. pp. 164–179 (https://archive.org/details/renai
ssanceinnat0000unse/page/164). ISBN 0521369703.
Kubinyi, András (2008). Matthias Rex. Balassi Kiadó. ISBN 978-9635067671.
Reynolds, L. D.; Wilson, Nigel (1974). Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of
Greek and Latin Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0199686339.
OL 26919731M (https://openlibrary.org/books/OL26919731M).
Tanner, Marcus (2009). The Raven King: Matthias Corvinus and the Fate of his Lost Library.
Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300158281.

Further reading
Cronin, Vincent (1969), The Flowering of the Renaissance, ISBN 0712698841
Cronin, Vincent (1992), The Renaissance, ISBN 0002154110
Campbell, Gordon. The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance. (2003). 862 pp. online at
OUP
Davis, Robert C. and Beth Lindsmith. Renaissance People: Lives that Shaped the Modern
Age. (2011). ISBN 978-1606060780
Ergang, Robert (1967), The Renaissance, ISBN 0442023197
Ferguson, Wallace K. (1962), [Europe in Transition, 1300–1500], ISBN 0049400088
Fisher, Celia. Flowers of the Renaissance. (2011). ISBN 978-1606060629
Fletcher, Stella. The Longman Companion to Renaissance Europe, 1390–1530. (2000). 347
pp.
Grendler, Paul F., ed. The Renaissance: An Encyclopedia for Students. (2003). 970 pp.
Hale, John. The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance. (1994). 648 pp.; a magistral
survey, heavily illustrated; excerpt and text search (https://www.amazon.com/dp/068480352
6)
Hall, Bert S. Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and
Tactics (2001); excerpt and text search (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801869943)
Hattaway, Michael, ed. A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture. (2000).
747 pp.
Jensen, De Lamar (1992), Renaissance Europe, ISBN 0395889472
Johnson, Paul. The Renaissance: A Short History. (2000). 197 pp. excerpt and text search
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002NKDU2); also online free (https://archive.org/details/ren
aissance00paul)
Keene, Bryan C. Gardens of the Renaissance. (2013). ISBN 978-1606061435
 King, Margaret L. Women of the Renaissance (1991) excerpt and text search (https://www.a
mazon.com/dp/0226436187)
Kristeller, Paul Oskar, and Michael Mooney. Renaissance Thought and its Sources (1979);
excerpt and text search (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0231045131)
Nauert, Charles G. Historical Dictionary of the Renaissance. (2004). 541 pp.
Patrick, James A., ed. Renaissance and Reformation (5 vol 2007), 1584 pages;
comprehensive encyclopedia
Plumb, J.H. The Italian Renaissance (2001); excerpt and text search (https://www.amazon.c
om/dp/0618127380)
Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke. Art in Renaissance Italy (4th ed. 2011)
Potter, G.R. ed. The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume 1: The Renaissance, 1493–
1520 (1957) online (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/the-new-cambridge-modern-hist
ory/1F3A455FF6D62052CBCFF0DBFD109803); major essays by multiple scholars.
Summarizes the viewpoint of the 1950s.
Robin, Diana; Larsen, Anne R.; and Levin, Carole, eds. Encyclopedia of Women in the
Renaissance: Italy, France, and England (2007) 459 pp.
Rowse, A.L. The Elizabethan Renaissance: The Life of the Society (2000); excerpt and text
search (https://www.amazon.com/dp/156663315X)
Ruggiero, Guido. The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the
Rinascimento (Cambridge University Press, 2015). 648 pp. online review (https://www.h-net.
org/reviews/showrev.php?id=43204)
Rundle, David, ed. The Hutchinson Encyclopedia of the Renaissance. (1999). 434 pp.;
numerous brief articles online edition (https://www.questia.com/read/95888138?title=The%2
0Hutchinson%20Encyclopedia%20of%20the%20Renaissance)
Turner, Richard N. Renaissance Florence (2005); excerpt and text search (https://www.ama
zon.com/dp/0131344013/)
Ward, A. The Cambridge Modern History. Vol 1: The Renaissance (1902) (http://www.uni-m
annheim.de/mateo/camenaref/cmh/cmh.html); older essays by scholars; emphasis on
politics

Historiography
Bouwsma, William J. "The Renaissance and the drama of Western history." American
Historical Review (1979): 1–15. in JSTOR (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1855657)
Caferro, William. Contesting the Renaissance (2010); excerpt and text search (https://www.
amazon.com/Contesting-Renaissance-William-Caferro/dp/1405123702/)
Ferguson, Wallace K. "The Interpretation of the Renaissance: Suggestions for a Synthesis."
Journal of the History of Ideas (1951): 483–495. online in JSTOR
Ferguson, Wallace K. "Recent trends in the economic historiography of the Renaissance."
Studies in the Renaissance (1960): 7–26.
Ferguson, Wallace Klippert. The Renaissance in historical thought (AMS Press, 1981)
Grendler, Paul F. "The Future of Sixteenth Century Studies: Renaissance and Reformation
Scholarship in the Next Forty Years", Sixteenth Century Journal Spring 2009, Vol. 40 Issue
1, pp. 182+
Murray, Stuart A.P. The Library: An Illustrated History. American Library Association,
Chicago, 2012.
Ruggiero, Guido, ed. A Companion to the Worlds of the Renaissance. (2002). 561 pp.
Starn, Randolph. "A Postmodern Renaissance?" Renaissance Quarterly 2007 60(1): 1–24 in
Project MUSE (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ren/summary/v060/60.1starn.html)
 Summit, Jennifer. "Renaissance Humanism and the Future of the Humanities". Literature
Compass (2012) 9#10 pp: 665–678.
Trivellato, Francesca. "Renaissance Italy and the Muslim Mediterranean in Recent Historical
Work", Journal of Modern History (March 2010), 82#1 pp: 127–155.
Woolfson, Jonathan, ed. Palgrave advances in Renaissance historiography (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005)

Primary sources
Bartlett, Kenneth, ed. The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance: A Sourcebook (2nd ed.,
2011)
Ross, James Bruce, and Mary M. McLaughlin, eds. The Portable Renaissance Reader
(1977); excerpt and text search (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140150617)

External links
"The Renaissance" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00546tq) episode of In Our Time,
a BBC Radio 4 discussion with Francis Ames-Lewis, Peter Burke and Evelyn Welch (8 June
2000).
Symonds, John Addington (1911). "Renaissance, The" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_
Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Renaissance,_The). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23
(11th ed.). pp. 83–93.
Renaissance Philosophy (https://iep.utm.edu/renaissa/) entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy
Official website (http://www.rensoc.org.uk/) of the Society for Renaissance Studies

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