The Renaissance (UK: /rɪˈneɪsəns/ rin-AY-sənss, US: /ˈrɛnəsɑːns/ ⓘ REN-ə-sahnss)

[1][2][a] is a period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th
and 16th centuries.[citation needed] It marked the transition from the Middle Ages
to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and surpass the ideas and
achievements of classical antiquity.[citation needed] Associated with great social
change in most fields and disciplines, including art, architecture, politics,
literature, exploration and science, the Renaissance was first centered in the
Republic of Florence, then spread to the rest of Italy and later throughout Europe.
The term rinascita ("rebirth") first appeared in Lives of the Artists (c. 1550) by
Giorgio Vasari, while the corresponding French word renaissance was adopted into
English as the term for this period during the 1830s.[4][b]

The Renaissance's intellectual basis was founded in its version of humanism,

derived from the concept of Roman humanitas and the rediscovery of classical Greek
philosophy, such as that of Protagoras, who said that "man is the measure of all
things". Although the invention of metal movable type sped the dissemination of
ideas from the later 15th century, the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform
across Europe: the first traces appear in Italy as early as the late 13th century,
in particular with the writings of Dante and the paintings of Giotto.

As a cultural movement, the Renaissance encompassed innovative flowering of

literary Latin and an explosion of 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. It saw myriad artistic developments and contributions from such
polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance
man".[5][6] 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. The period also saw revolutions in other
intellectual and social scientific pursuits, as well as the introduction of modern
banking and the field of accounting.[7]

Period
The Renaissance period started during the crisis of the Late Middle Ages and
conventionally ends with the waning of humanism, and the advents of the Reformation
and Counter-Reformation, and in art, the Baroque period. It had a different period
and characteristics in different regions, such as the Italian Renaissance, the
Northern Renaissance, the Spanish Renaissance, etc.

In addition to the standard periodization, proponents of a "long Renaissance" may

put its beginning in the 14th century and its end in the 17th century.[c]

The traditional view focuses more on the Renaissance's early modern aspects and
argues that it was a break from the past, but many historians today focus more on
its medieval aspects and argue that it was an extension of the Middle Ages.[11][12]

Italian Renaissance
The beginnings of the period—the early Renaissance of the 15th century and the
Italian Proto-Renaissance from around 1250 or 1300—overlap considerably with the
Late Middle Ages, conventionally dated to c. 1350–1500, and the Middle Ages
themselves were a long period filled with gradual changes, like the modern age; as
a transitional period between both, the Renaissance has close similarities to both,
especially the late and early sub-periods of either.

The Renaissance began in Florence, one of the many states of Italy.[13] The Italian
Renaissance concluded in 1527 when Holy Roman Emperor Charles V launched an assault
on Rome during the war of the League of Cognac. Nevertheless, its impact endured in
the art of renowned Italian painters like Tintoretto, Sofonisba Anguissola, and
Paolo Veronese, who continued their work during the mid-to-late 16th century.[14]

Various theories have been proposed to account for its origins and characteristics,
focusing on a variety of factors, including Florence's social and civic
peculiarities at the time: its political structure, the patronage of its dominant
family, the Medici,[15] and the migration of Greek scholars and their texts to
Italy following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire.[16][17][18] Other
major centers were Venice, Genoa, Milan, Rome during the Renaissance Papacy, and
Naples. From Italy, the Renaissance spread throughout Europe and also to American,
African and Asian territories ruled by the European colonial powers of the time or
where Christian missionaries were active.

The Renaissance has a long and complex historiography, and in line with general
skepticism of discrete periodizations, there has been much debate among historians
reacting to the 19th-century glorification of the "Renaissance" and individual
cultural heroes as "Renaissance men", questioning the usefulness of Renaissance as
a term and as a historical delineation.[19]

Some observers have questioned whether the Renaissance was a cultural "advance"
from the Middle Ages, instead seeing it as a period of pessimism and nostalgia for
classical antiquity,[20] while social and economic historians, especially of the
longue durée, have instead focused on the continuity between the two eras,[21]
which are linked, as Panofsky observed, "by a thousand ties".[22][d]

The word has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as
the Carolingian Renaissance (8th and 9th centuries), Ottonian Renaissance (10th and
11th century), and the Renaissance of the 12th century.[24]

Overview
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 art,
architecture, philosophy, literature, music, science, technology, politics,
religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed
the humanist method in study, and searched for realism and human emotion in art.
[25]

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 émigré Greek scholars
bringing precious manuscripts in ancient Greek, many of which had fallen into
obscurity in the West. It was 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.[citation needed]

Portrait of a Young Woman (c. 1480–85) (Simonetta Vespucci) by Sandro Botticelli

In the revival of neoplatonism, Renaissance humanists did not reject Christianity;
on the contrary, many of the Renaissance's greatest works were devoted to it, and
the Church patronized many works of Renaissance art.[26] But a subtle shift took
place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many
other areas of cultural life.[27][better source needed] 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, helped pave the way for the Reformation.[citation needed]
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 Niccolò 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 De hominis dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486), 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 the printing press, this allowed many more people
access to books, especially the Bible.[28]

In all, the Renaissance can 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. Political philosopher Hans Kohn describes
it as an age where "Men looked for new foundations"; some like Erasmus and Thomas
More envisioned new reformed spiritual foundations, others, in the words of
Machiavelli, una lunga sperienza delle cose moderne ed una continua lezione delle
antiche (a long experience with modern life and a continuous learning from
antiquity).[29]

Sociologist Rodney Stark plays 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.[30] This analysis
argues that, whereas the great European states (France and Spain) were absolute
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.[citation needed]

Historian Leon Poliakov offers a critical view in his seminal study of European
racist thought: The Aryan Myth. According to Poliakov, the use of ethnic origin
myths are first used by Renaissance humanists "in the service of a new born
chauvinism".[31][32]

Origins
Main article: Italian Renaissance

View of Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance

Many argue that the ideas characterizing the Renaissance had their origin in
Florence at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, in particular with the
writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and Petrarch (1304–1374), as well as the
paintings of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337). 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).[33] 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. Peter Rietbergen posits that various influential Proto-Renaissance
movements started from roughly 1300 onwards across many regions of Europe.[34]

Latin and Greek phases of Renaissance humanism

See also: Greek scholars in the Renaissance and Transmission of the Greek Classics
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,[e] 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 (1331–1406), Niccolò de' Niccoli
(1364–1437), and Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) scoured the libraries of Europe in
search of works by such Latin authors as Cicero, Lucretius, Livy, and Seneca.[35]
By the early 15th century, the bulk of the surviving 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.[36]

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, mathematics, and philosophy had
been studied since the High Middle Ages in Western Europe and in the Islamic Golden
Age (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. Some argue that the Timurid
Renaissance in Samarkand and Herat, whose magnificence toned with Florence as the
center of a cultural rebirth,[37][38] were linked to the Ottoman Empire, whose
conquests led to the migration of Greek scholars to Italian cities.[16][39] 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.

Muslim logicians, most notably Avicenna and Averroes, 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 Iberia and
Sicily, which became important centers for this transmission of ideas. Between the
11th and 13th centuries, many schools dedicated to the translation of philosophical
and scientific works from Classical Arabic to Medieval Latin were established in
Iberia, most notably the Toledo School of Translators. This work of translation
from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of
the greatest transmissions of ideas in history.[40]

The 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. 1355–1415) to teach Greek in Florence.
[41] 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 c. 1494

The unique political structures of Italy during the Late Middle Ages 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 Neapolitans controlled the south, the Florentines and the Romans at the center,
the Milanese and the Genoese to the north and west respectively, and the Venetians
to the north east. 15th-century Italy was one of the most urbanized areas in
Europe.[42] 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.[43]

Historian and political philosopher Quentin Skinner points out that Otto of
Freising (c. 1114–1158), 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 The Allegory of Good and
Bad Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (painted 1338–1340), 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 (1406–1475) 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".[44]

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.
[44][45][46] The relative political freedom they afforded was conducive to academic
and artistic advancement.[47] 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.[47]

Black Death
Main article: Black Death

Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death (c. 1562) reflects the social upheaval and
terror that followed the plague that devastated medieval Europe.
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.[48] It has also been argued that the Black Death prompted a new wave of
piety, manifested in the sponsorship of religious works of art.[49] 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.[19]

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 1348. 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.[50]

The demographic decline due to the plague had economic consequences: the prices of
food dropped and land values declined by 30–40% in most parts of Europe between
1350 and 1400.[51] 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 congenital syphilis, target the
immune system, leaving young children without a fighting chance. Children in city
dwellings were more affected by the spread of disease than the children of the
wealthy.[52]

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.[53]

Cultural conditions in Florence

See also: Florentine Renaissance art

Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence and patron of arts (portrait by Vasari)
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. 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:[54] Leonardo, 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.[55]

Lorenzo de' Medici (1449–1492) 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.[15] Works by Neri di Bicci, Botticelli, Leonardo, and Filippino Lippi
had been commissioned additionally by the Convent of San Donato in Scopeto in
Florence.[56]

The Renaissance was certainly underway before Lorenzo de' Medici came to power –
indeed, before the Medici family itself achieved hegemony in Florentine society.

Characteristics
Humanism
Main articles: Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanism in Northern Europe, and
List of Renaissance humanists
In some ways, Renaissance humanism was not a philosophy but a method of learning.
In contrast to the medieval scholastic mode, which focused on resolving
contradictions between authors, Renaissance humanists would study ancient texts in
their original languages 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
philosophy, and 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".[57] Above all, humanists asserted "the
genius of man ... the unique and extraordinary ability of the human mind".[58]
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, writer of the famous Oration on the Dignity of Man,
which has been called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance"[59]
Humanist scholars shaped the intellectual landscape throughout the early modern
period. Political philosophers such as Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas More revived
the ideas of Greek and Roman thinkers and applied them in critiques of contemporary
government, following the Islamic steps of Ibn Khaldun.[60][61] Pico della
Mirandola wrote the "manifesto" of the Renaissance, the Oration on the Dignity of
Man, a vibrant defence of thinking.[citation needed] Matteo Palmieri (1406–1475),
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 città di vita, but an earlier work, Della vita
civile, 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.[citation needed]

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.[62] 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.

Humanism and libraries

A unique characteristic of some Renaissance libraries is that they were open to the
public. These libraries were places where ideas were exchanged and where
scholarship and reading were considered both pleasurable and beneficial to the mind
and soul. As freethinking was a hallmark of the age, many libraries contained a
wide range of writers. Classical texts could be found alongside humanist writings.
These informal associations of intellectuals profoundly influenced Renaissance
culture. An essential tool of Renaissance librarianship was the catalog that
listed, described, and classified a library's books.[63] Some of the richest
"bibliophiles" built libraries as temples to books and knowledge. A number of
libraries appeared as manifestations of immense wealth joined with a love of books.
In some cases, cultivated library builders were also committed to offering others
the opportunity to use their collections. Prominent aristocrats and princes of the
Church created great libraries for the use of their courts, called "court
libraries", and were housed in lavishly designed monumental buildings decorated
with ornate woodwork, and the walls adorned with frescoes (Murray, Stuart A.P.).

Art
Main article: Renaissance art
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 (1267–1337)
is credited with first treating a painting as a window into space, but it was not
until the demonstrations of architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and the
subsequent writings of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) that perspective was
formalized as an artistic technique.[64]

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. (Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice)
The development of perspective was part of a wider trend toward realism in the
arts.[65] 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.
[66] Other notable artists include Sandro Botticelli, working for the Medici in
Florence, Donatello, another Florentine, and Titian in Venice, among others.

In the Low Countries, 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.
Later, the work of Pieter Brueghel the Elder would inspire artists to depict themes
of everyday life.[67]

In architecture, Filippo Brunelleschi 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 Florence Cathedral.[68] Another
building demonstrating this style is the Basilica of Sant'Andrea, 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 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 (1421–1440) by Brunelleschi.[69] 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. 1220 – c. 1278) imitated
classical forms by portraying scenes from the Bible. His Annunciation, from the
Pisa Baptistry, demonstrates that classical models influenced Italian art before
the Renaissance took root as a literary movement.[70]

Navigation and geography

Further information: Age of Discovery

The Cantino planisphere (1502), the earliest world map detailing Portuguese
maritime exploration
During the Renaissance, extending from 1450 to 1650,[71] every continent was
visited and mostly mapped by Europeans, except the south polar continent now known
as Antarctica. This development is depicted in the large world map Nova Totius
Terrarum Orbis Tabula made by the Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu in 1648 to
commemorate the Peace of Westphalia.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain seeking a
direct route to India of the Delhi Sultanate. He accidentally stumbled upon the
Americas, but believed he had reached the East Indies. The science historian David
Wootton argues that the discovery of continents that were completely unknown to the
ancients had a profound impact on European intellectual life in the 16th century
and was (along with the printing press) one of the two key catalysts for the
Scientific Revolution. [72]

Between 1519 and 1522, the Magellan–Elcano expedition achieved the first
circumnavigation of Earth in history,[73] including the first crossing of the
Pacific by a European expedition, revealing the vast scale of that ocean.[74]

Between 1577 and 1580, Drake's Raiding Expedition achieved the second
circumnavigation of Earth (carried out in a single expedition). Drake was also the
first to complete a circumnavigation as captain while leading the expedition
throughout the entire voyage.

In 1606, the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon sailed from the East Indies in the
Dutch East India Company ship Duyfken and landed in Australia. He charted about 300
km of the west coast of Cape York Peninsula in Queensland. More than thirty Dutch
expeditions followed, mapping sections of the north, west, and south coasts. In
1642–1643, Abel Tasman circumnavigated the continent, proving that it was not
joined to the imagined south polar continent.

By 1650, Dutch cartographers had mapped most of the coastline of the continent,
which they named New Holland, except the east coast which was charted in 1770 by
James Cook.

The long-imagined south polar continent was eventually sighted in 1820. Throughout
the Renaissance it had been known as Terra Australis, or 'Australia' for short.
However, after that name was transferred to New Holland in the nineteenth century,
the new name of 'Antarctica' was bestowed on the south polar continent.[75]

Science
Main articles: Science in the Renaissance and Renaissance technology
See also: Medical Renaissance

Anonymous portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus (c. 1580)

Portrait of Luca Pacioli, father of accounting, painted by Jacopo de' Barbari,[f]

1495 (Museo di Capodimonte)
The rediscovery of ancient texts and the invention of the printing press in about
1440 democratized learning and allowed a faster propagation of more widely
distributed ideas.[77] In the first period of the Italian Renaissance, humanists
favored 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 of Cusa claimed that
the universe must be infinite in extent and therefore devoid of a center.[78]

Science and art were intermingled in the early Renaissance, with polymath artists
such as Leonardo da Vinci making observational drawings of anatomy and nature.
Leonardo 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".[g] Other examples of Da Vinci's contribution during this period include
machines designed to saw marbles and lift monoliths, and new discoveries in
acoustics, botany, geology, anatomy, and mechanics.[80]

A suitable environment had developed to question classical 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 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).[81]

Copernicus, in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the

Heavenly Spheres), 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.[82]

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.[7]

Music
Main article: Renaissance music
See also: Renaissance dance and List of Renaissance composers
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 Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Orlande de Lassus, Tomás Luis
de Victoria, and William Byrd.

Religion
Further information: Renaissance Papacy, 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 Roman Catholic
Church.[27] However, the Renaissance had a profound effect on contemporary
theology, particularly in the way people perceived the relationship between man and
God.[27] Many of the period's foremost theologians were followers of the humanist
method, including Erasmus, Huldrych Zwingli, Thomas More, Martin Luther, and John
Calvin.

Adoration of the Magi and Solomon adored by the Queen of Sheba from the Farnese
Hours (1546) by Giulio Clovio marks the end of the Italian Renaissance of
illuminated manuscript together 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.[83]
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 children (most of whom were married
off, presumably for the consolidation of power) while a cardinal.[84]

Churchmen such as Erasmus and Luther proposed reform to the Church, often based on
humanist textual criticism of the New Testament.[27] In October 1517, Luther
published the Ninety-five Theses, challenging papal authority and criticizing its
perceived corruption, particularly with regard to instances of sold indulgences.[h]
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 (1534–1549) after the sack of Rome in 1527,
with uncertainties prevalent in the Catholic Church following the 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, 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).
[85] From Petrarch's Italian perspective, this new period (which included his own
time) was an age of national eclipse.[85] Leonardo Bruni was the first to use
tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People (1442).[86]
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 (1439–1453).

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).[87] The term rinascita (rebirth) first appeared, however,
in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, 1550, revised 1568.
[88][89] 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.[90]