Renaissance

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This article is about the European Renaissance of the 14th17th centuries. For the earlier European
Renaissance, see Renaissance of the 12th century. For other uses, see Renaissance (disambiguation).

David, by Michelangelo (Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence) is a masterpiece of Renaissance and

world art.

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The Renaissance (UK /rnesns/, US /rnsns/)[1] is a period in European history, from the 14th to
the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started
as a cultural movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe,
marking the beginning of the Early Modern Age.
The intellectual basis of the Renaissance was its own invented version of humanism, derived from the
rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that of Protagoras, who said that "Man is the
measure of all things." This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science and
literature. Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled
knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of metal movable type sped the

dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century, the changes of the Renaissance were not uniformly
experienced across Europe.
As a cultural movement, the Renaissance encompassed innovative flowering of Latin and 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. 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. Although the Renaissance saw
revolutions in many intellectual pursuits, as well as social and political upheaval, it is perhaps best
known for its artistic developments and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da
Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance man".[2][3]
The Renaissance first began in Florence, in the 14th century.[4] Various theories have been proposed to
account for its origins and characteristics, focusing on a variety of factors including the social and civic
peculiarities of Florence at the time: its political structure; the patronage of its dominant family,
the Medici;[5][6] and the migration of Greek scholars and texts to Italy following the Fall of
Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks.[7][8][9] Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such
as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, and finally Rome during the Renaissance Papacy.
The Renaissance has a long and complex historiography, and, in line with general scepticism of
discrete periodizations, there has been much debate among historians reacting to the 19th-century
glorification of the "Renaissance" and individual culture heroes as "Renaissance men", questioning the
usefulness of Renaissance as a term and as a historical delineation.[10] 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
civilizationhistorians of economic and social developments, political and religious situations, and, most
particularly, natural sciencebut only exceptionally by students of literature and hardly ever by historians
of Art.[11]
Some observers have called into question whether the Renaissance was a cultural "advance" from the
Middle Ages, instead seeing it as a period of pessimism and nostalgia for classical antiquity,[12] while
social and economic historians, especially of the longue dure, have instead focused on the continuity
between the two eras,[13] which are linked, as Panofsky observed, "by a thousand ties".[14]
The word Renaissance, literally meaning "Rebirth" in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s.
[15]
The word also occurs in Jules Michelet's 1855 work, Histoire de France. The word Renaissance has
also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian
Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century.[16]

Contents
[hide]

1Overview

2Origins
o

2.1Latin and Greek phases of Renaissance humanism

2.2Social and political structures in Italy

2.3Black Death/Plague

3Characteristics

3.1Humanism

3.2Art

3.3Science

3.4Music

3.5Religion

3.6Self-awareness
4Spread

4.1Northern Europe

4.2England

4.3France

4.4Germany

4.5Netherlands

4.6Spain

4.7Portugal

4.8Hungary

4.9Poland

4.10Russia

4.11Further countries
5Historiography

2.4Cultural conditions in Florence

5.1Conception

5.2Debates about progress

6Other Renaissances

7See also

8References
o

8.1Notes

8.2Citations

9Bibliography

10Further reading

10.1Historiography

10.2Primary sources
11External links

Overview
Renaissance

Topics

Humanism

Exploration

Architecture

Dance

Finearts

Literature

Music
Philosophy

Science
Technology

Warfare
Regions

Bengal

England

Germany

Poland

Portugal

Italy

France

Spain
Scotland
NorthernEurope
LowCountries

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 literature, philosophy, art, music, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual
inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism and
human emotion in art.[17]
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 migr Greek scholars bringing precious manuscripts in ancient Greek, many of which had
fallen into obscurity in the West. It is 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.

Portrait of a young woman(c. 1480-85) (Simonetta Vespucci) by Sandro Botticelli

In the revival of neo-Platonism Renaissance humanists did not reject Christianity; quite the contrary,
many of the Renaissance's greatest works were devoted to it, and the Church patronized many works of
Renaissance art. However, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that
was reflected in many other areas of cultural life.[18] 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, would help pave the way for the Protestant Reformation.
Well after the first artistic return to classicism had been exemplified in the sculpture of Nicola Pisano,
Florentine painters led by Masaccio strove to portray the human form realistically, developing techniques
to render perspective and light more naturally. Political philosophers, most famously Niccol 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 the famous text "De hominis
dignitate" (Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486), which consists of 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 printing, this would allow many more
people access to books, especially the Bible.[19]

In all, the Renaissance could 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. Some scholars, such as Rodney Stark,[20] play 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. This analysis argues that, whereas the great European states
(France and Spain) were absolutist 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.

Origins
Main article: Italian Renaissance

View of Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance

Many argue that the ideas characterizing the Renaissance had their origin in late 13th-century Florence,
in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri (12651321) and Petrarch (13041374), as well as the
paintings of Giotto di Bondone (12671337). 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 (Ghiberti won).[21] Others see more general competition 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.
During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand. Artists depended entirely on patrons while
the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th
centuries by expanding trade into Asia and Europe. Silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money.
Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa
and Venice.[22]
Jules Michelet defined the 16th-century Renaissance in France as a period in Europe's cultural history
that represented a break from the Middle Ages, creating a modern understanding of humanity and its
place in the world.[23]

Latin and Greek phases of Renaissance humanism

See also: Transmission of the Greek Classics

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Coluccio Salutati
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,[24] 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 (13311406), Niccol de' Niccoli(13641437) and Poggio
Bracciolini (13801459) scoured the libraries of Europe in search of works by such Latin authors
as Cicero, Lucretius, Livy and Seneca.[25] By the early 15th century, the bulk of 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.[26]
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, maths and philosophy had been studied since the High Middle Ages in Western Europe and in
the medieval Islamic world (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. 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. Arab logicians 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 Spain and Sicily, which
became important centers for this transmission of ideas. This work of translation from Islamic culture,
though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in
history.[27] This 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.13551415) to teach
Greek in Florence.[28] This legacy was continued by a number of expatriate Greek scholars, from Basilios
Bessarion to Leo Allatius.

Social and political structures in Italy

A political map of the Italian Peninsula circa 1494

The unique political structures of late Middle Ages Italy 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 Kingdom of
Naples controlled the south, the Republic of Florence and the Papal States at the center,
the Milanese and the Genoese to the north and west respectively, and the Venetians to the east.
Fifteenth-century Italy was one of the most urbanised areas in Europe.[29] 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.[30]
Historian and political philosopher Quentin Skinner points out that Otto of Freising (c. 11141158), a
German bishop visiting north Italy during the 12th century, noticed a widespread new form of political
and social organization, observing that Italy appeared to have exited from Feudalism 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 Allegory of Good and Bad Government in Siena by Ambrogio
Lorenzetti (painted 13381340), 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 (14061475) 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".[31]
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.[32][33]
[34]
The relative political freedom they afforded was conducive to academic and artistic advancement.
[35]
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.[35]

Black Death/Plague
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.[36] It has also been argued that the Black Death prompted a new wave of piety, manifested in
the sponsorship of religious works of art.[37] However, this does not fully explain why the Renaissance
occurred specifically in Italy in the 14th century. The Black Death was a pandemic that affected all of
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.[10]
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 1347. 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.[38]
The demographic decline due to the plague had economic consequences: the prices of food dropped
and land values declined by 30 to 40% in most parts of Europe between 1350 and 1400.[39] 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 syphilis target the
immune system and left young children without a fighting chance. Children in city dwellings were more
affected by the spread of disease than the children of the wealthy.[40]
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.[41]

Cultural conditions in Florence

Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence and patron of arts (Portrait by Girolamo Macchietti)
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. Lorenzo de' Medici (14491492) was the
catalyst for an enormous 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.[5] Works by Neri di Bicci, Botticelli, da Vinci and Filippino Lippi had been commissioned
additionally by the convent di San Donato agli Scopeti of the Augustinians order in Florence.[42]
The Renaissance was certainly underway before Lorenzo de' Medici came to power indeed, before the
Medici family itself achieved hegemony in Florentine society. 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:[43] Leonardo da Vinci, 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.[44]

Characteristics
Humanism

Main article: Renaissance humanism

Pico della Mirandola wrote the famous Oration on the Dignity of Man, which has been called the
"Manifesto of the Renaissance".[45]
In some ways humanism was not a philosophy but a method of learning. In contrast to the
medieval scholastic mode, which focused on resolving contradictions between authors, humanists would
study ancient texts in the original 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 philosophyand 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".[46] Above all, humanists asserted "the genius of man ... the unique and extraordinary
ability of the human mind".[47]
Humanist scholars shaped the intellectual landscape throughout the early modern period. Political
philosophers such as Niccol Machiavelli and Thomas More revived the ideas of Greek and Roman
thinkers and applied them in critiques of contemporary government. Pico della Mirandola wrote the
"manifesto" of the Renaissance, the Oration on the Dignity of Man, a vibrant defence of thinking. Matteo
Palmieri (14061475), 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 also Quintilian. Perhaps the most succinct expression of his perspective on
humanism is in a 1465 poetic work La citt di vita, but an earlier work, Della vita civile (On Civic Life), is
more wide-ranging. Composed as a series of dialogues set in a country house in the Mugello
countryside outside 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.[48] 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.

Art

Main articles: Renaissance art, Renaissance painting, and Renaissance architecture

See also: Islamic influences on Western art

The tomb of Michelangelo in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence

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 (12671337) is credited with first treating a painting as a window into
space, but it was not until the demonstrations of architect Filippo Brunelleschi (13771446) and the
subsequent writings of Leon Battista Alberti(14041472) that perspective was formalized as an artistic
technique.[49]
The development of perspective was part of a wider trend towards realism in the arts.[50] 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.[51] Other notable artists include Sandro Botticelli, working for the Medici in Florence, Donatello,
another Florentine, and Titian in Venice, among others.

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man(c. 1490) demonstrates the effect writers of Antiquity had on
Renaissance thinkers. Based on the specifications in Vitruvius' De architectura (1st century BC),
Leonardo tried to draw the perfectly proportioned man.
In the Netherlands, 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
representation (see Renaissance in the Netherlands). Later, the work of Pieter Brueghel the Elder would
inspire artists to depict themes of everyday life.[52]
In architecture, Filippo Brunelleschi, the most inventive and gifted designer of all time, was foremost in
studying the remains of ancient classical buildings. With rediscovered knowledge from the 1st-century
writer Vitruvius and the 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 the Florence Cathedral.[53] Another building demonstrating this style is the church of St. Andrew
in 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, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian 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 (14211440) by Brunelleschi.[54] 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. 1220c. 1278) imitated classical forms by portraying scenes from

the Bible. His Annunciation, from the Baptistry at Pisa, demonstrates that classical models influenced
Italian art before the Renaissance took root as a literary movement [55]

Science

Main articles: History of science in the Renaissance and Renaissance technology

Portrait of Luca Pacioli, father of accounting, painted by Jacopo de' Barbari, 1495, (Museo di
Capodimonte).

1543' Vesalius' studies inspired interest in human anatomy.

Galileo Galilei. Portrait in ink by Renaissance sculptor Leone Leoni

The rediscovery of ancient texts and the invention of printing democratized learning and allowed a faster
propagation of ideas. In the first period of the Italian Renaissance, humanists favoured 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
Cusanus anticipated the heliocentric worldview of Copernicus, but in a philosophical fashion.
Science and art were intermingled in the early Renaissance, with polymath artists such as Leonardo da
Vinci making observational drawings of anatomy and nature. Da Vinci 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".[56]
A suitable environment had developed to question scientific doctrine. The discovery in 1492 of the New
World 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 Protestant 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).[57] 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,[58] others as an
acceleration of a continuous process stretching from the ancient world to the present day.[59] Significant
scientific advances were made during this time by Galileo Galilei, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.
[60]
Copernicus, in De Revolutionibus, 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.[61]
Another important development was in the process for discovery, the scientific method,[61] focusing
on empirical evidence and the importance of mathematics, while discarding Aristotelian science. Early
and influential proponents of these ideas included Copernicus, Galileo, and Francis Bacon.[62][63] The new
scientific method led to great contributions in the fields of astronomy, physics, biology, and anatomy.[64][65]
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.[66]

Music

Main article: Renaissance 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 Palestrina, Lassus, Victoria and William Byrd.

Religion

Main articles: Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation

Alexander VI, a Borgia Pope infamous for his corruption

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 Church.[18] However, the Renaissance had a profound effect on
contemporary theology, particularly in the way people perceived the relationship between man and God.
[18]
Many of the period's foremost theologians were followers of the humanist method,
including Erasmus, Zwingli, Thomas More, Martin Luther, and John Calvin.

Adoration of the Magi and Solomonadored by the Queen of Sheba from the Farnese
Hours by Giulio Cloviomarks the end of the Italian Renaissance of illuminated manuscripttogether
with the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
The Renaissance began in times of religious turmoil. The late Middle Ages was 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.[67] 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 supreme in ecclesiastical matters by the Fifth Council of
the Lateran (1511), it was dogged by continued accusations of corruption, most famously in the person

of Pope Alexander VI, who was accused variously of simony, nepotism and fathering four children (most
of whom were married off, presumably for the consolidation of power) while a cardinal.[68]
Churchmen such as Erasmus and Luther proposed reform to the Church, often based on
humanist textual criticism of the New Testament.[18] In October 1517 Luther published the 95 Theses,
challenging papal authority and criticizing its perceived corruption, particularly with regard to instances of
sold indulgences.[note 1] 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 (15341549) after the sack of Rome in 1527, with uncertainties
prevalent in the Catholic Church following the Protestant 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 (cardinal), 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

Leonardo Bruni
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).[69] From Petrarch's Italian perspective, this new period (which included his own time) was
an age of national eclipse.[69] Leonardo Bruni was the first to use tripartite periodization in his History of
the Florentine People (1442).[70] 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 (14391453).
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).[71] The term la rinascita (rebirth)
first appeared, however, in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, 1550, revised 1568).[72]

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.[74]
[73]

Spread

Chteau de Chambord (15191547), one of the most famous examples of Renaissance

architecture
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.

Northern Europe

Main article: Northern Renaissance

Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death (c. 1562) reflects the social upheaval and terror that
followed the plague that devastated medieval 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.[75] 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.[75] The culmination of the Netherlandish school
was in the music of the Italian composer Palestrina. At the end of the 16th century Italy again became a

center of musical innovation, with the development of the polychoral style of the Venetian School, which
spread northward into Germany around 1600.
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 Drer. Later, the works
of Pieter Bruegel 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.[76] 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.[77] The spread of
the printing press technology boosted the Renaissance in Northern Europe as elsewhere, with Venice
becoming a world center of printing.

England

Main article: English Renaissance

"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving
how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!"
from William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
In England, the sixteenth century marked the beginning of the English Renaissance with the work of
writers William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Sir Thomas More, Francis
Bacon, Sir Philip Sidney, as well as great artists, architects (such as Inigo Jones who introduced
Italianate architecture to England), and composers such as Thomas Tallis, John Taverner, and William
Byrd.

France

Main article: French Renaissance

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).[78][79]
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 imported Italian art and artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, and built

ornate palaces at great expense. Writers such as Franois Rabelais, Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du
Bellay and Michel de Montaigne, painters such as Jean Clouet, and musicians such as Jean
Mouton also borrowed from the spirit of the Renaissance.
In 1533, a fourteen-year-old Caterina de' Medici (15191589), born in Florence to Lorenzo II de' Medici
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 France's religious wars, 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

Main article: German Renaissance

The Arnolfini Portrait, by Jan van Eyck, 1434

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 early Renaissance artists such as the
painters Jan van Eyck(13951441) and Hieronymus Bosch (14501516) and the composers Johannes
Ockeghem (14101497), Jacob Obrecht (14571505) and Josquin des Prez (14551521) predated the
influence from Italy. In the early Protestant areas of the country humanism became closely linked to the
turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, and the art and writing of the German Renaissance frequently
reflected this dispute.[80] However, the gothic style and medieval scholastic philosophy remained
exclusively until the turn of the 16th century. Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg (ruling 14931519) was
the first truly Renaissance monarch of the Holy Roman Empire.

Netherlands

Main articles: Renaissance in the Netherlands and Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting

Erasmus of Rotterdam in 1523, as depicted by Hans Holbein the Younger

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.[81] 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[82]to the everyday life
depictions of Pieter Brueghel the Elder.[81]

Spain

Main article: Spanish Renaissance

The Renaissance arrived in the Iberian peninsula through the Mediterranean possessions of
the Aragonese Crown and the city of Valencia. Many early Spanish Renaissance writers come from
the Kingdom of Aragon, including Ausis March and Joanot Martorell. In the Kingdom of Castile, the
early Renaissance was heavily influenced by the Italian humanism, starting with writers and poets such
as the Marquis of Santillana, who introduced the new Italian poetry to Spain in the early 15th century.
Other writers, such as Jorge Manrique, Fernando de Rojas, Juan del Encina, Juan Boscn
Almogver and Garcilaso de la Vega, 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 Mexa.
Later Spanish Renaissance tended towards religious themes and mysticism, with poets such as fray
Luis de Len, Teresa of vila 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 Bartolom de las
Casas, giving rise to a body of work, now known as Spanish Renaissance literature. The late
Renaissance in Spain produced artists such as El Greco and composers such as Toms Luis de
Victoria and Antonio de Cabezn.

Portugal

Main article: Portuguese Renaissance

So Pedro Papa, 1530-1535, by Gro Vasco Fernandes. A pinnacle piece from when the
Portuguese Renaissance had considerable external influence.
Although Italian Renaissance had a modest impact in Portuguese arts, Portugal was influential in
broadening the European worldview,[83] 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, Joo de Castro, Abraham Zacuto and Martin Behaim. Cartographers Pedro
Reinel, Lopo Homem, Estvo Gomes and Diogo Ribeiro made crucial advances in mapping the world.
Apothecary Tom Pires and physicians Garcia de Orta and Cristvo 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.[84] The primary painters
were Nuno Gonalves, Gregrio Lopes and Vasco Fernandes. In music, Pedro de Escobar and Duarte
Lobo produced four songbooks, including the Cancioneiro de Elvas. In literature, S de
Miranda introduced Italian forms of verse. Bernardim Ribeiro developed pastoral romance, plays by Gil
Vicente fused it with popular culture, reporting the changing times, and Lus de Cames inscribed the
Portuguese feats overseas in the epic poem Os Lusadas. Travel literature especially flourished: Joo de
Barros, Castanheda, Antnio Galvo, Gaspar Correia, Duarte Barbosa, and Ferno Mendes Pinto,
among others, described new lands and were translated and spread with the new printing press.[83] After
joining the Portuguese exploration of Brazil in 1500, Amerigo Vespucci coined the term New World,[85] in
his letters to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici.
The intense international exchange produced several cosmopolitan humanist scholars,
including Francisco de Holanda, Andr de Resende and Damio de Gis, a friend of Erasmus who
wrote with rare independence on the reign of King Manuel I. Diogo and Andr de Gouveia made relevant
teaching reforms via France. Foreign news and products in the Portuguese factory in Antwerp attracted
the interest of Thomas More[86] and Drer to the wider world.[87]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.

Hungary
After Italy, Hungary was the first European country where the renaissance appeared.[88] The
Renaissance style came directly from Italy during the Quattrocento 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 Visegrd, Tata and Vrpalota. In Sigismund's court there were
patrons such as Pipo Spano, a descendant of the Scolari family of Florence, who invited Manetto
Ammanatini and Masolino da Pannicale to Hungary.[89]
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 Vitz Jnos, archbishop of Esztergom, one of the founders of Hungarian humanism.
[90]
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. 14581490) rebuilt the
palace in early Renaissance style and further expanded it.[91][92]
After the marriage in 1476 of King Matthias to Beatrice of Naples, Buda became one of the most
important artistic centres of the Renaissance north of the Alps.[93] The most important humanists living in
Matthias' court were Antonio Bonfini and the famous Hungarian poet Janus Pannonius.[93] Andrs
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.)[94]
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.[95] Other important figures of Hungarian Renaissance: Blint Balassi (poet), Sebestyn Tindi
Lantos (poet), Blint Bakfark (composer and lutenist) and Master MS (fresco painter).

Poland

Main article: Renaissance in Poland

Pozna Town Hall rebuilt from the Gothic style by Giovanni Batista di Quadro(15501555)

An early Italian humanist who came to Poland in the mid-15th century was Filippo Buonaccorsi. Many
Italian artists came to Poland with Bona Sforza of Milan, when she married King Sigismund I the Old in
1518.[96] This was supported by temporarily strengthened monarchies in both areas, as well as by newly
established universities.[97] The Polish Renaissance lasted from the late 15th to the late 16th century and
was the Golden Age of Polish culture. Ruled by the Jagiellon dynasty, the Kingdom of Poland (from 1569
known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) actively participated in the broad European
Renaissance. 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. The Reformation spread peacefully throughout the country (giving rise to
the Polish Brethren), while living conditions improved, cities grew, and exports of agricultural products
enriched the population, especially the nobility (szlachta) who gained dominance in the new political
system of Golden Liberty. The Polish Renaissance architecture has three periods of development.
The greatest monument of this style in the territory of former Duchy of Pomerania is Ducal
Castle in Szczecin.

Russia
Renaissance trends from Italy and Central Europe influenced Russia in many ways. Their influence was
rather limited, however, due to the large distances between Russia and the main European cultural
centers and the strong adherence of Russians to their Orthodox traditions and Byzantine legacy.
Prince Ivan III introduced Renaissance architecture to Russia by inviting a number of architects
from Italy, who brought new construction techniques and some Renaissance style elements with them,
while in general following the traditional designs of Russian architecture. In 1475 the Bolognese
architect Aristotele Fioravanti came to rebuild the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Moscow Kremlin,
which had been damaged in an earthquake. Fioravanti was given the 12th-century Vladimir Cathedral as
a model, and he produced a design combining traditional Russian style with a Renaissance sense of
spaciousness, proportion and symmetry.

The Palace of Facets on the Cathedral Square of the Moscow Kremlin

In 1485 Ivan III commissioned the building of the royal residence, Terem Palace, within the Kremlin,
with Aloisio da Milano as the architect of the first three floors. He and other Italian architects also
contributed to the construction of the Kremlin walls and towers. The small banquet hall of the Russian
Tsars, called the Palace of Facets because of its facetted upper story, is the work of two Italians, Marco
Ruffo and Pietro Solario, and shows a more Italian style. In 1505, an Italian known in Russia as Aleviz
Novyi or Aleviz Fryazin arrived in Moscow. He may have been the Venetian sculptor, Alevisio Lamberti
da Montagne. He built 12 churches for Ivan III, including the Cathedral of the Archangel, a building
remarkable for the successful blending of Russian tradition, Orthodox requirements and Renaissance
style. It is believed that the Cathedral of the Metropolitan Peter in Vysokopetrovsky Monastery, another
work of Aleviz Novyi, later served as an inspiration for the so-called octagon-on-tetragon architectural
form in the Moscow Baroque of the late 17th century.

Theotokos and The Child, the late 17th century Russian icon by Karp Zolotaryov, with notably
realistic depiction of faces and clothing.
Between the early 16th and the late 17th centuries, an original tradition of stone tented roof architecture
developed in Russia. It was quite unique and different from the contemporary Renaissance architecture
elsewhere in Europe, though some research terms the style 'Russian Gothic' and compares it with the
European Gothic architecture of the earlier period. The Italians, with their advanced technology, may
have influenced the invention of the stone tented roof (the wooden tents were known in Russia and
Europe long before). According to one hypothesis, an Italian architect called Petrok Maly may have been
an author of the Ascension Church in Kolomenskoye, one of the earliest and most prominent tented roof
churches.[98]
By the 17th century the influence of Renaissance painting resulted in Russian icons becoming slightly
more realistic, while still following most of the old icon painting canons, as seen in the works of Bogdan
Saltanov, Simon Ushakov, Gury Nikitin, Karp Zolotaryov and other Russian artists of the era. Gradually
the new type of secular portrait painting appeared, called parsna (from "persona" person), which was
transitional style between abstract iconographics and real paintings.
In the mid 16th-century Russians adopted printing from Central Europe, with Ivan Fyodorov being the
first known Russian printer. In the 17th century printing became widespread, and woodcutsbecame
especially popular. That led to the development of a special form of folk art known as lubok printing,
which persisted in Russia well into the 19th century.
A number of technologies from the European Renaissance period were adopted by Russia rather early
and subsequently perfected to become a part of a strong domestic tradition. Mostly these were military
technologies, such as cannon casting adopted by at least the 15th century. The Tsar Cannon, which is
the world's largest bombard by caliber, is a masterpiece of Russian cannon making. It was cast in 1586
by Andrey Chokhov and is notable for its rich, decorative relief. Another technology, that according to
one hypothesis originally was brought from Europe by the Italians, resulted in the development of vodka,
the national beverage of Russia. As early as 1386 Genoese ambassadors brought the first aqua vitae
("the living water") to Moscow and presented it to Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy. The Genoese likely
developed this beverage with the help of the alchemists of Provence, who used an Arab-

invented distillation apparatus to convert grapemust into alcohol. A Moscovite monk called Isidore used
this technology to produce the first original Russian vodka c. 1430.[99]

Further countries

Renaissance in Croatia

Renaissance in Scotland

Historiography
Conception

A cover of the Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari

The Italian artist and critic Giorgio Vasari (15111574) first used the term rinascita retrospectively 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 (12401301) and Giotto (1267
1337) began to reverse this decline in the arts. Vasari saw antique art as central to the rebirth of Italian
art.[100]
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 historianJules Michelet (17981874) 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 sense.[16] For
Michelet, the Renaissance was more a 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.[78] 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.[10] A French nationalist, Michelet also sought to claim the
Renaissance as a French movement.[10]

The Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (18181897) 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.[101] His book was widely read and became
influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the Italian Renaissance.[102] However,
Buckhardt has been accused[by whom?] of setting forth a linear Whiggish view of history in seeing the
Renaissance as the origin of the modern world.[13]
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".[13]

Debates about progress

See also: Continuity thesis

Painting of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, an event in the French Wars of Religion,
by Franois Dubois
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 towards
the modern age. Burckhardt likened the change to a veil being removed from man's eyes, allowing him
to see clearly.[43]
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.[103]
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 certain 19th-century authors, but were
concerned by these social maladies.[104] Significantly, though, the artists, writers, 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.[72] 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 towards capitalism, resulting in a bourgeois class with leisure time to devote to the arts.
[105]

Johan Huizinga (18721945) acknowledged the existence of the Renaissance but questioned whether it
was a positive change. In his book The Waning of the Middle Ages, he argued that the Renaissance was
a period of decline from the High Middle Ages, destroying much that was important.[12] The 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. Robert S. Lopez has contended that it was a period of
deep economic recession.[106] Meanwhile, George Sarton and Lynn Thorndike have both argued
that scientific progress was perhaps less original than has traditionally been supposed.[107] Finally, Joan
Kelly argued that the Renaissance led to greater gender dichotomy, lessening the agency women had
had during the Middle Ages.[108]
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
historians now prefer to use the term "early modern" for this period, a more neutral designation that
highlights the period as a transitional one between the Middle Ages and the modern era.[109] 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.[110]

Other Renaissances
The term Renaissance has also been used to define periods outside of the 15th and 16th
centuries. Charles H. Haskins (18701937), for example, made a case for a Renaissance of the 12th
century.[111] Other historians have argued for a Carolingian Renaissance in the 8th and 9th centuries, and
still later for an Ottonian Renaissance in the 10th century.[112] Other periods of cultural rebirth have also
been termed "renaissances", such as the Bengal Renaissance, Tamil Renaissance, Nepal Bhasa
renaissance, al-Nahda or the Harlem Renaissance.