Name: Brief History of the Renaissance | 5 MINUTES
Uploaded: 2025-04-15T13:32:58.000Z
Duration: 5 min 16 s
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Adverbs of manner

We're talking about a period of European history mainly taking place in Italy from the 14th to the 16th century, bridging the gap between the Middle Ages and modern day civilization.

The word Renaissance means rebirth, in this case the rebirth of the classical Greek and Roman arts and philosophy following the Middle Ages, an era often branded as a time of war, cultural decline, and pandemics such as the Black Death.

Humanism was really at the heart of the Renaissance, a philosophy inspired by classical Greek and Roman texts celebrating human creativity, individual achievement in different fields, and promoting the idea that man was the center of his own universe, not God.

This new mindset contrasted with medieval philosophy which centered on the divine and on following the rules set forth by the Catholic Church as God's plan.

The Renaissance started in Florence, Italy, which became very wealthy thanks to trade with the Ottoman Empire, the biggest economic power in the region.

Theories accounting for the origins of the Renaissance include the reintroduction of classical texts to Italy through the immigration of scholars following the fall of Constantinople, and through returning crusaders who had encountered advanced Muslim civilizations that had kept copies and translations.

Also, members of the powerful and wealthy Medici family of Florence were famous backers of the movement and supported public art for recognition, for the love of beauty, and also to legitimize their wealth.

The movement later expanded to other Italian city-states such as Venice, Milan, Rome, and then throughout Western and Northern Europe by scholars such as Dutch philosopher Erasmus.

Thanks to the development of printing by Gothenburg and Europe, little-known texts from early humanist authors such as Petrarch were distributed to the masses as literature rose as an important aspect of everyday life.

Dante's Divine Comedy, Machiavelli's Prince, and Shakespeare's Hamlet were some of the most notable pieces of literature of the Renaissance.

Perhaps the most prominent feature of the Renaissance was the furthering of the arts.

The apex of artistic talent came later during the High Renaissance in the form of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo who were supported by the Medici family.

Their paintings and sculptures featured anatomically accurate human bodies in complex poses, dramatic and emotional compositions, naturalistic depictions of space, and intellectually sophisticated subject matter.

Notable examples include the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Statue of David, The Birth of Venus, and The Creation of Adam.

The most prevalent societal change during the Renaissance was the fall of feudalism and the rise of a capitalist market economy.

Increased trade and the labor shortage caused by the Black Death gave rise to something of a middle class as workers started demanding wages and better living conditions.

The development of a middle class and the rise of humanism encouraged Europeans to question the role of the Catholic Church and caused its influence to wane.

In such context, a German monk named Martin Luther challenged many of the practices of the Church like nepotism and the selling of indulgences, and led the Protestant Reformation, a revolutionary movement that caused a split in the Catholic Church.

To break Ottoman dominance over access to India and the Far East, Europeans were eager to explore new trade routes for gold and spices.

In the Age of Exploration, Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492 and Magellan became the first person to successfully circumnavigate the globe in the early 1500s.

Placing the sun at the center of the solar system rather than the Earth was a major breakthrough in the history of science by Polish astronomer Copernicus, though his book was banned by the Catholic Church.

Galileo Galilei later also found evidence for a heliocentric solar system, in addition to improving the telescope and conducting experiments that paved the way for Newton's discoveries about gravity.

By the early 17th century, the Renaissance movement had died out for different reasons, including the invasion of Italian territories by neighboring powers and the Catholic Church's censorship of artists and writers in response to the Protestant Reformation, as well as the establishment of the Inquisition which made any views that challenged the Church an act of heresy punishable by death.

Many historians prefer to think of the Renaissance as an arts and cultural movement rather than a historical period that is distinct from the Middle Ages, since there are no clear dividing lines between the two periods.

Also, most historians claim the Renaissance was only experienced by the very rich, whereas for the vast majority of Europeans who were peasants, it was not really a thing.

The reason we study the Renaissance so much is not because it was so central to the 15th century, but because it matters to us now, because of the legacy of humanism and individualism that strongly influenced the Euro-American world ever since.