The Renaissance

During our seminar, Rise of the West, we have spoke about many different people, events, movements, and occurrences between 500BC - 1500AD. This 2000 year time period covered the beginning of classical Greece to the end of the Renaissance, with Hellenistic Greece, the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages and the Viking Age occurring in between. All of these movements have had their own significant importance to the world, but there is only one my attention has been drawn to, the Renaissance.

The late Middle Ages (14th Century) brought catastrophe and extreme hardships, such as famine, plague, war and religious instability, which diminished the population of Western Europe including the turbulent Italian city-states. With such disaster many would conclude that it would bring panic and despair, but it was just the opposite. During this troubled time, individuals began to respond positively through realism. These individuals hoped to restore the Roman Empire back to its beauty and bring back the memories of ancient Greece and Rome, a time of tranquility that has been swept away by the Middle Ages. After rejecting the scholarship and religious thought of the Middle Ages, all were on their way to a “rebirth” known as the Renaissance. “Scholars and statesmen alike resuscitated a pride in human dignity, a confidence in human activism, and a fascination with classical ideals, and they expressed these ideas primarily in the secular arena. Writers, painters, and politicians looked with new realism at the world around them and strove to exert an impact on it. Although all these ideas had a precedent in the Middle Ages, their prevalence and novel applications created a new spirit that historians call the Renaissance.”

The Renaissance had a long lasting affect across all of Europe. In Italy, the Renaissance was known as the “Golden Ages”, a time of flourish and new innovations. Italy advanced in art, architecture, philosophy, education, religion, and...