The Renaissance is a name given to a period in European history between the 14th and 17th centuries. It literally translates as “rebirth”, and is generally regarded as one of the most important periods in the history of humanity.
If the Renaissance was a rebirth in the sense of artists, poets, mathematicians, scientists and philosophers rediscovering the wisdom and ideals of the Ancient Romans and Greeks, it is also represents a rebirth for mankind.
It is when we, as a species, emerged from the Dark Ages into a more enlightened modern era. It represents a dramatic flowering of culture and civilisation – and its effects continue to resonate today.
The Renaissance began in the Italian city of Florence. The patronage of the ruling Medici family, a sudden influx of Greek scholars after the fall of Constantinople (now Istanbul) and a rise in wealth and social mobility after the ravages of the Black Death all contributed to a desire to rediscover the knowledge and attitudes of Classical civilisations.
The movement quickly spread across Europe – notably to England, where Henry VIII was an enthusiastic proponent of the new cultural ideas – and produced Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest ever poet and dramatist.
Much of the period’s advances in science and mathematics are the base for present-day understanding of our universe
While it profoundly affected architecture, music, philosophy, politics, religion and science, the Renaissance is perhaps best known for its literature and art.
Although it looked to the ancient world for inspiration, the Renaissance was nevertheless at its heart fiercely forward-thinking. The idea was not to return to the time of the Classical civilisations but to take their desire for knowledge and beauty as a model for the advancement of mankind itself.
Under this new way of thinking, knowledge was seen as one of the primary raisons d'être for life itself – and there followed a passion to seek out forgotten books among the monasteries and libraries of Europe. With every “lost” classic rediscovered, the influence of these texts grew.
This boom in literature naturally spread to the other arts. The stories and characters of Classical mythology became subjects and motifs for painting and sculpture; and under this new intellectual flowering, art was considered a worthy intellectual practice in its own right, not simply a means of decoration.
Renaissance art may have been influenced by the great Classical stories and legends, but it was firmly based on observation of the real world, applying mathematics and realism to enhance the beauty.
Perspective was formalised as an essential artistic technique, as was the application of light and shadow. Under the great artists Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Botticelli, human anatomy was rigorously studied and brought to bear on their works. Never had nature – or man himself – looked so real or so beautiful.
Paintings, sculpture and other art forms flourished as new talents, influenced by the works of men such as Leonardo and Botticelli, took up the creation of their own masterpieces, and enjoying art became seen as the mark of a cultured individual.
This same influence also brought about a revolution in science and humanism. Just as artists reassessed the way we looked at the world, so did scientists.
Explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo opened up new lands, cultures and ideas to the east and west, and when Ferdinand Magellan lead an expedition to sail around the world in 1519 – followed by the English sailor Sir Francis Drake some 60 years later – all the old ideas about the world and man’s place in it were blown away.
Likewise the astronomical experiments of men such as Copernicus and Galileo: once they suggested – and then proved – that the Earth revolved around the Sun (and not the other way around, as had always been believed), a Pandora’s box had been opened.
Religion was questioned in a way that it never had before. A new way of thinking called humanism emerged, centred around the attempts by man to shape and control nature – rather than simply view us, and nature itself, as merely part of God’s creation.
The Renaissance laid the foundations for the modern world. Much of the period’s advances in science and mathematics are the base for present-day understanding of our universe, and in the art and literature of the period we find some of mankind’s greatest aesthetic achievements.
Many of the period’s great figures, artists, scientists and explorers, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Copernicus, Ferdinand Magellan and Shakespeare remain household names half a millennium after their deaths, bearing testament to the extraordinary power and influence of the Renaissance – perhaps the greatest flowering of human knowledge ever.
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