The Renaissance

Date: 1400 - 1600

Location: Western Europe

The Renaissance, a French word meaning 'rebirth' is the time in Western Europe between the 15th and 17th century when a reviving of literature, arts, and education took place. It first began when two major events happened. The first was when Italian scholars travelled to the Muslim cities of Cordova, Granada, and Seville for better research, as the Muslims were much more advanced than the Europeans, and came back with the highest standards of education. The other cause was the Ottoman annexation of Greece and Constantinople, where the greatest scientists and philosophers existed from Classical times. The reason was that Greeks had to travel elsewhere for safety from the Ottomans, and Italy was roughly 200 kilometers by sea. This is why Venice, Florence, and Genoa became rather prosperous centers for learning and the arts. Europe was going through a beautiful era; with the printing press recently invented (mid-15th century) by Johannes Gutenberg also made selling books much cheaper, which meant that even the poor could afford to learn. In Florence, Michelangelo Buonarotti, a brilliant artist, designed the beginning of the Renaissance with his tremendous painting and sculptures, such as the statues of 'David' - the most famous of his works of art - and 'Pieta', and the entire inside of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Some of these paintings included the 'Creation of Man', which is found on the front wall. Leonardo Da Vinci was another great artist and engineer; he painted the famous 'Mona Lisa' and is well recognized for his earliest invention of a 'Flying Machine' which forms the basics of flight today.
Other Italian men in the Renaissance included Raphaello and Andrea Boticelli. Navigation at sea also became much safer and ships much more efficient, which led to the discovery of America by Christopher Colombus in 1492. The Renaissance soon spread to France, Germany, England, Spain, and Portugal. As for Germany, the Renaissance allowed man to question his religion, which led to the Protestant Reformation in the early 1500s led by Martin Luther. This caused the church to split in two, as Protestantism spread into England, Germany, and Switzerland. The significant weakening of the Holy Roman Emperor led to the loss of several German Kingdoms to Charles V, King of Spain, and later to the Independence of the Netherlands between 1581 and 1648. Many Dutch artists and scholars soon arose, such as Rembrandt, and Dutch sailors set sail in search for colonization in the Americas, the East Indies, South Africa, and Australia. Colonialism was mostly recognized by the Spanish, who established an vast empire in the Americas in the early 1500s. The last period of the Renaissance, which ended the era and began a new one (the Age of Reason) was to be the Baroque Period, between the early 1600s and the early 1700s.