what was the renaissance essay

A Beginner's Guide to the Renaissance

What was the renaissance.

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The Renaissance was a cultural and scholarly movement which stressed the rediscovery and application of texts and thought from classical antiquity, occurring in Europe c. 1400 – c. 1600. The Renaissance can also refer to the period of European history spanning roughly the same dates. It's increasingly important to stress that the Renaissance had a long history of developments that included the twelfth-century renaissance and more.

There remains debate about what exactly constituted the Renaissance. Essentially, it was a cultural and intellectual movement, intimately tied to society and politics, of the late 14th to early 17th centuries, although it is commonly restricted to just the 15th and 16th centuries. It is considered to have originated in Italy. Traditionally people have claimed it was stimulated, in part, by Petrarch, who had a passion for rediscovering lost manuscripts and a fierce belief in the civilizing power of ancient thought and in part by conditions in Florence.

At its core, the Renaissance was a movement dedicated to the rediscovery and use of classical learning, that is to say, knowledge and attitudes from the Ancient Greek and Roman eras. Renaissance literally means ‘rebirth’, and Renaissance thinkers believed the period between themselves and the fall of Rome, which they labeled the Middle Ages , had seen a decline in cultural achievement compared with the earlier eras. Participants intended, through the study of classical texts, textual criticism, and classical techniques, to both reintroduce the heights of those ancient days and improve the situation of their contemporaries. Some of these classical texts survived only amongst Islamic scholars and were brought back to Europe at this time.

The Renaissance Period

“Renaissance” can also refer to the period, c. 1400 – c. 1600. “ High Renaissance ” generally refers to c. 1480 – c. 1520. The era was dynamic, with European explorers “finding” new continents, the transformation of trading methods and patterns, the decline of feudalism (in so far as it ever existed), scientific developments such as the Copernican system of the cosmos and the rise of gunpowder. Many of these changes were triggered, in part, by the Renaissance, such as classical mathematics stimulating new financial trading mechanisms, or new techniques from the east boosting ocean navigation. The printing press was also developed, allowing Renaissance texts to be disseminated widely (in actual fact this print was an enabling factor rather than a result).

Why Was This Renaissance Different?

Classical culture had never totally vanished from Europe, and it experienced sporadic rebirths. There was the Carolingian Renaissance in the eighth to ninth centuries and a major one in the “Twelfth Century Renaissance”, which saw Greek science and philosophy returned to European consciousness and the development of a new way of thinking which mixed science and logic called Scholasticism. What was different in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was that this particular rebirth joined together both the elements of scholarly inquiry and cultural endeavor with social and political motivations to create a much broader movement, albeit one with a long history.

The Society and Politics Behind the Renaissance

Across the fourteenth century , and perhaps before, the old social and political structures of the medieval period broke down, allowing new concepts to rise. A new elite emerged, with new models of thought and ideas to justify themselves; what they found in classical antiquity was something to use both as a prop and a tool for their aggrandizement. Exiting elites matched them to keep pace, as did the Catholic Church. Italy, from which the Renaissance evolved, was a series of city-states, each competing with the others for civic pride, trade, and wealth. They were largely autonomous, with a high proportion of merchants and artisans thanks to the Mediterranean trade routes.

At the very top of Italian society, the rulers of the key courts in Italy were all “new men”, recently confirmed in their positions of power and with newly gained wealth, and they were keen to demonstrate both. There was also wealth and the desire to show it below them. The Black Death had killed millions in Europe and left the survivors with proportionally greater wealth, whether through fewer people inheriting more or simply from the increased wages they could demand. Italian society and the results of the Black Death allowed for much greater social mobility, a constant flow of people keen to demonstrate their wealth. Displaying wealth and using culture to reinforce your social and political was an important aspect of life in that period, and when artistic and scholarly movements turned back to the classical world at the start of the fifteenth century there were plenty of patrons ready to support them in these endeavors to make political points.

The importance of piety, as demonstrated through commissioning works of tribute, was also strong, and Christianity proved a heavy influence for thinkers trying to square Christian thought with that of “pagan” classical writers.

The Spread of the Renaissance

From its origins in Italy, the Renaissance spread across Europe, the ideas changing and evolving to match local conditions, sometimes linking into existing cultural booms, although still keeping the same core. Trade, marriage, diplomats, scholars, the use of giving artists to forge links, even military invasions, all aided the circulation. Historians now tend to break the Renaissance down into smaller, geographic, groups such as the Italian Renaissance, The English Renaissance, the Northern Renaissance (a composite of several countries) etc. There are also works which talk about the Renaissance as a phenomenon with global reach, influencing – and being influenced by – the east, Americas, and Africa.

The End of the Renaissance

Some historians argue that the Renaissance ended in the 1520s, some the 1620s. The Renaissance didn’t just stop, but its core ideas gradually converted into other forms, and new paradigms arose, particularly during the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. It would be hard to argue we are still in the Renaissance (as you can do with the Enlightenment), as culture and learning move in a different direction, but you have to draw the lines from here back to then (and, of course, back to before then). You could argue that new and different types of Renaissance followed (should you want to write an essay).

The Interpretation of the Renaissance

The term ‘renaissance’ actually dates from the nineteenth century and has been heavily debated ever since, with some historians questioning whether it’s even a useful word anymore. Early historians described a clear intellectual break with the medieval era, but in recent decades scholarship has turned to recognize growing continuity from the centuries before, suggesting that the changes Europe experienced were more an evolution than a revolution. The era was also far from a golden age for everyone; at the start, it was very much a minority movement of humanists, elites, and artists, although it disseminated wider with printing. Women , in particular, saw a marked reduction in their educational opportunities during the Renaissance. It's no longer possible to talk of a sudden, all changing golden age (or no longer possible and be considered accurate), but rather a phase that wasn't entirely a move 'forward', or that dangerous historical problem, progress.

Renaissance Art

There were Renaissance movements in architecture, literature, poetry, drama, music, metals, textiles and furniture, but the Renaissance is perhaps best known for its art. Creative endeavor became viewed as a form of knowledge and achievement, not simply a way of decoration. Art was now to be based on observation of the real world, applying mathematics and optics to achieve more advanced effects like perspective. Paintings, sculpture and other art forms flourished as new talents took up the creation of masterpieces, and enjoying art became seen as the mark of a cultured individual.

Renaissance Humanism

Perhaps the earliest expression of the Renaissance was in humanism, an intellectual approach which developed among those being taught a new form of curriculum: the studia humanitatis, which challenged the previously dominant Scholastic thinking. Humanists were concerned with the features of human nature and attempts by man to master nature rather than develop religious piety.

Humanist thinkers implicitly and explicitly challenged the old Christian mindset, allowing and advancing the new intellectual model behind the Renaissance. However, tensions between humanism and the Catholic Church developed over the period, and humanist learning partly caused the Reformation . Humanism was also deeply pragmatic, giving those involved the educational basis for work in the burgeoning European bureaucracies. It is important to note that the term ‘humanist’ was a later label, just like “renaissance”.

Politics and Liberty

The Renaissance used to be regarded as pushing forward a new desire for liberty and republicanism - rediscovered in works about the Roman Republic —even though many of the Italian city-states were taken over by individual rulers. This view has come under close scrutiny by historians and partly rejected, but it did cause some Renaissance thinkers to agitate for greater religious and political freedoms over later years. More widely accepted is the return to thinking about the state as a body with needs and requirements, taking politics away from the application of Christian morals and into a more pragmatic, some might say devious, world, as typified by the work of Machiavelli. There was no marvelous purity in Renaissance politics, just the same twisting about as ever.

Books and Learning

Part of the changes brought by the Renaissance, or perhaps one of the causes, was the change in attitude to pre-Christian books. Petrarch, who had a self-proclaimed “lust” to seek out forgotten books among the monasteries and libraries of Europe, contributed to a new outlook: one of (secular) passion and hunger for the knowledge. This attitude spread, increasing the search for lost works and increasing the number of volumes in circulation, in turn influencing more people with classical ideas. One other major result was a renewed trade in manuscripts and the foundation of public libraries to better enable widespread study. Print then enabled an explosion in the reading and spread of texts, by producing them faster and more accurately, and led to the literate populations who formed the basis of the modern world.

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Italian Renaissance

By: History.com Editors

Updated: July 17, 2020 | Original: October 18, 2010

Toward the end of the 14th century A.D., a handful of Italian thinkers declared that they were living in a new age. The barbarous, unenlightened “ Middle Ages ” were over, they said; the new age would be a “rinascità” (“rebirth”) of learning and literature, art and culture. This was the birth of the period now known as the Renaissance. 

For centuries, scholars have agreed that the Italian Renaissance (another word for “rebirth”) happened just that way: that between the 14th century and the 17th century, a new, modern way of thinking about the world and man’s place in it replaced an old, backward one. In fact, the Renaissance (in Italy and in other parts of Europe) was considerably more complicated than that: For one thing, in many ways the period we call the Renaissance was not so different from the era that preceded it. However, many of the scientific, artistic and cultural achievements of the so-called Renaissance do share common themes, most notably the humanistic belief that man was the center of his own universe.

The Italian Renaissance in Context

Fifteenth-century Italy was unlike any other place in Europe. It was divided into independent city-states, each with a different form of government. Florence, where the Italian Renaissance began, was an independent republic. It was also a banking and commercial capital and, after London and Constantinople , the third-largest city in Europe. Wealthy Florentines flaunted their money and power by becoming patrons, or supporters, of artists and intellectuals. In this way, the city became the cultural center of Europe and of the Renaissance.

Did you know? When Galileo died in 1642, he was still under house arrest. The Catholic Church did not pardon him until 1992.

The New Humanism: Cornerstone of the Renaissance

Thanks to the patronage of these wealthy elites, Renaissance-era writers and thinkers were able to spend their days doing just that. Instead of devoting themselves to ordinary jobs or to the asceticism of the monastery, they could enjoy worldly pleasures. They traveled around Italy, studying ancient ruins and rediscovering Greek and Roman texts.

To Renaissance scholars and philosophers, these classical sources from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome held great wisdom. Their secularism, their appreciation of physical beauty and especially their emphasis on man’s achievements and expression formed the governing intellectual principle of the Italian Renaissance. This philosophy is known as “humanism.”

Renaissance Science and Technology

Humanism encouraged people to be curious and to question received wisdom (particularly that of the medieval Church). It also encouraged people to use experimentation and observation to solve earthly problems. As a result, many Renaissance intellectuals focused on trying to define and understand the laws of nature and the physical world. 

Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci created detailed scientific “studies” of objects ranging from flying machines to submarines. He also created pioneering studies of human anatomy. 

Likewise, the scientist and mathematician Galileo Galilei investigated one natural law after another. By dropping different-sized cannonballs from the top of a building, for instance, he proved that all objects fall at the same rate of acceleration. He also built a powerful telescope and used it to show that the Earth and other planets revolved around the sun and not, as religious authorities argued, the other way around. (For this, Galileo was arrested for heresy and threatened with torture and death, but he refused to recant: “I do not believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use,” he said.)

However, perhaps the most important technological development of the Renaissance happened not in Italy but in Germany, where Johannes Gutenberg invented the mechanical movable-type printing press in the middle of the 15th century. For the first time, it was possible to make books–and, by extension, knowledge–widely available.

Renaissance Art and Architecture

Michelangelo’s “David.” Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus.” During the Italian Renaissance, art was everywhere. (Just look up at Michelangelo’s “The Creation” painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel!) Patrons such as Florence’s Medici family sponsored projects large and small, and successful artists became celebrities in their own right.

Renaissance artists and architects applied many humanist principles to their work. For example, the architect Filippo Brunelleschi applied the elements of classical Roman architecture–shapes, columns and especially proportion–to his own buildings. The magnificent eight-sided dome he built at the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence was an engineering triumph–it was 144 feet across, weighed 37,000 tons and had no buttresses to hold it up–as well as an aesthetic one.

Brunelleschi also devised a way to draw and paint using linear perspective. That is, he figured out how to paint from the perspective of the person looking at the painting, so that space would appear to recede into the frame. After the architect Leon Battista Alberti explained the principles behind linear perspective in his treatise “Della Pittura” (“On Painting”), it became one of the most noteworthy elements of almost all Renaissance painting. Later, many painters began to use a technique called chiaroscuro to create an illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat canvas.

Fra Angelico, the painter of frescoes in the church and friary of San Marco in Florence, was called “a rare and perfect talent” by the Italian painter and architect Vasari in his “Lives of The Artists.” Renaissance painters like Giotto, Raphael and Titian and Renaissance sculptors like Donatello, Michelangelo and Lorenzo Ghiberti created art that would inspire generations of future artists.

The End of the Italian Renaissance

By the end of the 15th century, Italy was being torn apart by one war after another. The kings of England, France and Spain, along with the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, battled for control of the wealthy peninsula. At the same time, the Catholic Church, which was itself wracked with scandal and corruption, had begun a violent crackdown on dissenters. In 1545, the Council of Trent officially established the Roman Inquisition . In this climate, humanism was akin to heresy. The Italian Renaissance was over.

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Music in the renaissance.

ex "Kurtz" Violin

Andrea Amati

Double Virginal

Hans Ruckers the Elder

Cornetto in A

possibly Georg Voll

Sixtus Rauchwolff

Claviorganum

Lorenz Hauslaib

Tenor Recorder

Rectangular Octave Virginal

Rebecca Arkenberg Department of Education, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2002

Music was an essential part of civic, religious, and courtly life in the Renaissance. The rich interchange of ideas in Europe, as well as political, economic, and religious events in the period 1400–1600 led to major changes in styles of composing, methods of disseminating music, new musical genres, and the development of musical instruments. The most important music of the early Renaissance was composed for use by the church—polyphonic (made up of several simultaneous melodies) masses and motets in Latin for important churches and court chapels. By the end of the sixteenth century, however, patronage had broadened to include the Catholic Church, Protestant churches and courts, wealthy amateurs, and music printing—all were sources of income for composers.

The early fifteenth century was dominated initially by English and then Northern European composers. The Burgundian court was especially influential, and it attracted composers and musicians from all over Europe. The most important of these was Guillaume Du Fay (1397–1474), whose varied musical offerings included motets and masses for church and chapel services, many of whose large musical structures were based on existing Gregorian chant. His many small settings of French poetry display a sweet melodic lyricism unknown until his era. With his command of large-scale musical form, as well as his attention to secular text-setting, Du Fay set the stage for the next generations of Renaissance composers.

By about 1500, European art music was dominated by Franco-Flemish composers, the most prominent of whom was Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450–1521). Like many leading composers of his era, Josquin traveled widely throughout Europe, working for patrons in Aix-en-Provence, Paris, Milan, Rome, Ferrara, and Condé-sur-L’Escaut. The exchange of musical ideas among the Low Countries, France, and Italy led to what could be considered an international European style. On the one hand, polyphony or multivoiced music, with its horizontal contrapuntal style, continued to develop in complexity. At the same time, harmony based on a vertical arrangement of intervals, including thirds and sixths, was explored for its full textures and suitability for accompanying a vocal line. Josquin’s music epitomized these trends, with Northern-style intricate polyphony using canons, preexisting melodies, and other compositional structures smoothly amalgamated with the Italian bent for artfully setting words with melodies that highlight the poetry rather than masking it with complexity. Josquin, like Du Fay, composed primarily Latin masses and motets, but in a seemingly endless variety of styles. His secular output included settings of courtly French poetry, like Du Fay, but also arrangements of French popular songs, instrumental music, and Italian frottole.

With the beginning of the sixteenth century, European music saw a number of momentous changes. In 1501, a Venetian printer named Ottaviano Petrucci published the first significant collection of polyphonic music, the Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A . Petrucci’s success led eventually to music printing in France, Germany, England, and elsewhere. Prior to 1501, all music had to be copied by hand or learned by ear; music books were owned exclusively by religious establishments or extremely wealthy courts and households. After Petrucci, while these books were not inexpensive, it became possible for far greater numbers of people to own them and to learn to read music.

At about the same period, musical instrument technology led to the development of the viola da gamba , a fretted, bowed string instrument. Amateur European musicians of means eagerly took up the viol, as well as the lute , the recorder , the harpsichord (in various guises, including the spinet and virginal), the organ , and other instruments. The viola da gamba and recorder were played together in consorts or ensembles and often were produced in families or sets, with different sizes playing the different lines. Publications by Petrucci and others supplied these players for the first time with notated music (as opposed to the improvised music performed by professional instrumentalists). The sixteenth century saw the development of instrumental music such as the canzona, ricercare, fantasia, variations, and contrapuntal dance-inspired compositions, for both soloists and ensembles, as a truly distinct and independent genre with its own idioms separate from vocal forms and practical dance accompaniment.

The musical instruments depicted in the studiolo of Duke Federigo da Montefeltro of Urbino (ca. 1479–82; 39.153 ) represent both his personal interest in music and the role of music in the intellectual life of an educated Renaissance man. The musical instruments are placed alongside various scientific instruments, books, and weapons, and they include a portative organ, lutes, fiddle, and cornetti; a hunting horn; a pipe and tabor; a harp and jingle ring; a rebec; and a cittern .

From about 1520 through the end of the sixteenth century, composers throughout Europe employed the polyphonic language of Josquin’s generation in exploring musical expression through the French chanson, the Italian madrigal, the German tenorlieder, the Spanish villancico, and the English song, as well as in sacred music. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation directly affected the sacred polyphony of these countries. The Protestant revolutions (mainly in Northern Europe) varied in their attitudes toward sacred music, bringing such musical changes as the introduction of relatively simple German-language hymns (or chorales) sung by the congregation in Lutheran services. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525/26–1594), maestro di cappella at the Cappella Giulia at Saint Peter’s in Rome, is seen by many as the iconic High Renaissance composer of Counter-Reformation sacred music, which features clear lines, a variety of textures, and a musically expressive reverence for its sacred texts. The English (and Catholic) composer William Byrd (1540–1623) straddled both worlds, composing Latin-texted works for the Catholic Church, as well as English-texted service music for use at Elizabeth I ‘s Chapel Royal.

Sixteenth-century humanists studied ancient Greek treatises on music , which discussed the close relationship between music and poetry and how music could stir the listener’s emotions. Inspired by the classical world, Renaissance composers fit words and music together in an increasingly dramatic fashion, as seen in the development of the Italian madrigal and later the operatic works of Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643). The Renaissance adaptation of a musician singing and accompanying himself on a stringed instrument, a variation on the theme of Orpheus, appears in Renaissance artworks like Caravaggio’s Musicians ( 52.81 ) and Titian ‘s Venus and the Lute Player ( 36.29 ).

Arkenberg, Rebecca. “Music in the Renaissance.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/renm/hd_renm.htm (October 2002)

Additional Essays by Rebecca Arkenberg

• Arkenberg, Rebecca. “ Renaissance Violins .” (October 2002)
• Arkenberg, Rebecca. “ Renaissance Keyboards .” (October 2002)
• Arkenberg, Rebecca. “ Renaissance Organs .” (October 2002)

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Renaissance Period Essay

The Renaissance is one of the most fascinating periods in European history. It was a time of great rebirth and cultural flowering, as well as political and social change.

The Renaissance began in Italy in the 14th century and spread to the rest of Europe over the following two centuries. This period marked a dramatic change from the preceding Middle Ages. People began to value individualism and reason more than tradition and religion. Art and literature flourished, as did scientific discoveries.

During the Renaissance, Europeans made significant advances in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and anatomy. The Printing Press was invented, which allowed for widespread dissemination of knowledge. New ideas about government and society emerged, including concepts such as democracy and human rights.

The French term renaissance means “rebirth.” The Renaissance was a period in European history that took place between 1300 and 1600, according to modern historians. Significant changes occurred during the Italian Renaissance, which is when I began studying art.

The Renaissance was a time of significant innovation and change. This era was characterized by substantial contrasts with the Middle Ages. During the Middle Ages, the church dominated politics and had a primarily agricultural economy. Exploration and learning came close to being halted entirely.

Renaissance means rebirth, everything starts to reborn during Renaissance. means people were full of energy and ambitions. They wanted to achieve something great in their life. This era was different from the Middle Ages in many ways such as art, literature, science, religion, and ways of thinking.

In the Renaissance, artists used light and shadow to give more realistic depictions of their subjects. Renaissance painters also began using a technique called perspective to create the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface. Renaissance writers created works that celebrated individual achievement and humanity’s potential for greatness.

During the Renaissance, Europeans became more interested in studying classical texts from Greece and Rome. Renaissance scholars rediscovered the writings of Aristotle, who had a major influence on scientific thought during this time. The Renaissance was also a time of religious reform. Protestant leaders such as Martin Luther challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. They believed that people could have a personal relationship with God without the help of priests.

This period of time was also a time of exploration and discovery. European explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama sailed to new parts of the world in search of wealth and new trade routes. The Renaissance was an exciting time to be alive! There were many changes happening and people were eager to learn and explore new things.

During the Renaissance period, society was revolutionized into a society that became more and more dominated by central political institutions with an urban commercial mentality. Furthermore, people’s interest overcame their anxiety, and many individuals began to explore the new world. Many rich Italian cities, such as Florence, Ferrara, Milan, and Venice, started the Renaissance.

Some of the most famous Renaissance artists were Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Renaissance art was often very detailed and realistic. Renaissance architects also designed beautiful buildings, such as the Florence Cathedral and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Renaissance scholars studied ancient Greek and Roman texts and came up with new ways of thinking about the world. They believed that people could improve their lives through education and hard work. This period is known as the rebirth or Renaissance because many new things were invented or discovered during this time.

The Renaissance was a time of rebirth for Europe’s culture, art, politics, and economy following the Middle Ages. The term “Renaissance” is used to describe a period that spanned roughly the 14th century to the 17th century.

It also saw the development of new technologies in fields such as banking, navigation and printing. Renaissance thinkers championed humanism – an emphasis on the value of the individual – and scientific inquiry, laying the groundwork for the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century.

The Renaissance was a time of great creativity and change. Artistic movements like the Renaissance Mannerist and Baroque evolved, as did architectural styles like Gothic and Renaissance. In literature, Dante Alighieri, Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare were among the most famous authors of the period.

Science advanced with discoveries such as Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion and Harvey’s discovery of blood circulation. Banking became more sophisticated with the invention of double-entry bookkeeping, and exploration expanded with the discovery of new continents.

Despite its many achievements, the Renaissance was not without its problems. Inequality and social unrest increased, as did religious tensions. The period also saw a number of devastating natural disasters, including the Black Death pandemic and the Great Fire of London. Nevertheless, the Renaissance remains one of the most significant periods in European history. It heralded a new era of creativity, intellectualism and progress that would have a lasting impact on the world.

Artisans discovered that mathematics and art could be combined to make their measurements more accurate and ensure that an item was adequately supported both logically and proportionally.

Painters, in order to make their works “a window into the world,” frequently attempted but rarely succeeded. Artists also studied how light hits objects and how our eyes perceive light. Oil paint was introduced as a new type of paint. This permitted the artist to create texture, combine hues, and give themselves more time for adjustments before it dried.

Renaissance artists also started to create paintings with perspective. This gave the illusion of depth and made their paintings more realistic.

The Renaissance was a time when people were questioning everything that had been done in the past and looking for new ways to do things. They started to explore the world around them and learn about other cultures. This was also a time of great advances in science and technology. People began to use reason and observation instead of relying on what they were told by the church. The Renaissance was a time of great change and progress.

The Renaissance Period was a time of rebirth and new beginnings in European history. It was a time when people started to question the old ways of thinking and explore new ideas. This led to many advancements in art, science, and other fields. The Renaissance Period is often considered to be one of the most important times in human history.

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Modern Western Civilization: The Renaissance Essay

The medieval period, introduction, the renaissance starts in italy, the spread of renaissance in larger europe, the political aspect, the christian humanism, the renaissance heritage, break away from medieval thought, the mundane philosophy.

The main idea behind studying the European History since 1450 is to evaluate the past developments especially in political, social, economic and cultural fields which are considered highly important in shaping the present-day world. Besides the highly valuable narrative of past events and great historic movements, the motives of the AP Program in European History include the development of:

• The understanding of fundamental themes in the European History .
• The skills to analyze historical evidence and interpretation thereof, and
• The expertise to express the understanding of the modern history .

Note: The study-collections relating European history helps students with the Graduate School of Arts & Science programs enabling them to acquire the BA, MA, and Ph.D. degrees in history. The history department offering graduate study in European history from the medieval period to 20 th century focuses on:

• The Medieval Europe i.e. the fall of Europe to 1453,
• The Early Modern Europe i.e. from1400 to 1789,
• The Modern Europe i.e. from1789 to the present-day.

The period from 400s to 1400s in European history has been termed as the Middle Ages or Medieval Period, by the historians simply because it lies between the ancient times and the modern world in which we live today. The most turbulent and revolutionary part of this period between 1300s and 1400s was later termed by them as Renaissance . The Middle Ages, in fact, was a dynamic period in Europe history during which Europe had achieved political, linguistic and ethnic modernity. (Deborah, n.d.)

An enlightening movement in Europe that started in Italy in 1300s and later spread to major parts of Europe like Spain, Holland, Germany, England etc. and ending approximately in the year 1600 has been termed by historians the ‘Renaissance’. During this period of Renaissance, many eminent scholars in Italy studied the arts and learning of the ancient Rome and Greece in their endeavor to capture their great works in the fields of philosophy, art and literature.

So renaissance, in a way, can be called a period of the revival of Roman and Greek cultures and learning. Theology was considered the prime subject by renaissance philosophers. One religious leader Girolamo Savonarola believed corrupt towns could be changed only once their dwellers passionately practiced Christianity. The renaissance which spread gradually saw the peak of its glory during 1500s. Many men of letters, famed scholars and scientists have accepted beyond doubt that nearly all facets of modern life today has its roots embedded in the renaissance period. (James, n.d)

At the beginning of the Renaissance, Italy was politically unstable and was split into 250 states, each separately governed by a city. Some of the largest cities like Venice, Florence and Milan had approximately100, 000 people each and were ruled by the Roman Empire. Since most emperors lived in Germany and virtually had no control over their states, and since there was no central authority who could unify these states, the popes began to take over the whole of Central Italy especially Rome.

During 1400’s, several major cities of Italy came under the dominance of prominent families. The form of government established by the ruling families of the Italian cities was like the principality called Signoria . Other cities had a form of government known as republicanism. The republican government of Florence, for example, was made up of nearly 800 cities mostly the wealthiest of contemporary families. Most proficient Renaissance architects had constructed great monuments and most impressive civic and religious buildings across Florence.

The Medici family dominated the ruling class of Florence until the closing of1430’s. The republican government of Venice, like that of Florence came from the most wealthiest and influential families. Venice was governed by almost 180 of such families. Venice also became a leading center of Cultural Revolution most peculiar to Renaissance art, architecture and philosophical learning, and soon became popular as the great seat of civilization. (James, n.d)

After its rebirth in Italy, and with untiring efforts for the revival of learning, the renaissance gradually spread outside Italy to larger Europe and in other parts as Germany, France, Spain and England. The scholars and visitors like diplomats, merchants and bankers especially carried forward Renaissance culture to the places they migrated especially in late 1400s. The humanity study tools like history and philology which the scholars carried invariably related to the knowledge and learning of humanistic study.

Another factor leading up to the spread of renaissance to remotest corners of Europe was a series of invasions of Italy. The armies of Germany, Spain, and France continued with their invasions of Italy from 1494 to 1500. Dazzled and greatly impressed by the charm and beauty of the Italian art, the invaders, while on their return, carried Italian culture back to their homes and respective countries The ruin of the Roman Empire as depicted from monuments and buildings that stood in every Italian city showed evidence of classical pieces of antiquities that once flooded the capital city of Rome.

This connection or relationship especially between the present and the classical past was not much to be seen elsewhere in Europe. In the wake of Roman conquests and Italian invasions most of the ancient Roman culture had been directly or indirectly thrust upon the western and northern Europeans. An example of the classical antiquity which was imitated throughout Europe was the Gothic art of the middle Ages.

The Renaissance painting outside Italy appeared in the works of artists living in Flanders, a region that lies in what is now France and Belgium. In Flemish Painting particularly even minute details were taken care of very precisely. But the human figure painting, which was although realistic, it lacked the sculptural quality characteristic of the Italian painting. (James,n.d)

In the renaissance period the political set-up of western and northern Europe differed drastically from the political structure of Italy. France and England had united under monarchies by the end of 1400, providing to their countries cultural and political stability and leadership. Like Italy Germany too was split-up into many independent states seeking partial unifying or cohesive force through Roman renaissance culture.

The renaissance in western and northern Europe was able to muster support from the great royal courts similar to those provided by princes in Italy. The then king of France, Francis 1 (1515 to 1547) was completely surrounded by the Italian artists like Leonardo da Vinci, and various other reputed scholars and ambassadors of the renaissance. The house of Tudor in England was considered the patron of renaissance. King Henry VII was the first Tudor monarch of England. The Tudor dynasty ruled England from 1485 to 1603 with eminent English scholars always turning to and advocating the renaissance philosophy of the ancient Rome and Greece. (James, n.d)

In the late 1500s, the famously known Humanists in the northern Europe stressed on the study of Bible and encouraged the revival of ancient Christian teachings. These religious scholars called Humanists also edited the ancient text of the Bible and removed many distortions that had been inserted into its text over the years. The texts included pertained to the Bible and such Catholic scholars and churchmen as Saint Jerome and famous Saint Augustine.

Also included were the works by the ancient Greek Church. This editing effort into purgation of the holy text from distortions and perversions was, in fact, a great attempt to purify nearly all of the biblical texts of the Roman Catholic Church. In fact the Humanists believed that in doing so they would be doing a great service to humanity by reforming the Christian religion through logical and educationist approach. (Deborah, n.d.)

The Renaissance had left indelible imprints of cultural, artistic, and intellectual heritage on the minds and hearts of subsequent generations. The scholars especially of humanistic approach had been attempting over the centuries to improve upon the works of eminent Renaissance writers such as Boccaccio and Petrarch . The swaying power of the Renaissance architects, painters and sculptors in particular had been very strong indeed. Especially the painters of Rome and Florence have set the lasting standards in painting in the Western world. For centuries together, painters have been traveling to Florence to capture the artistic touch and great skills available in the Giotto and Masaccio’s paintings.

The artists and painters from all over Europe also had been visiting Rome to study the paintings of Michelangelo and Raphael particularly. Besides, the works of Michelangelo and Donatello have greatly inspired painters and sculptors for generations. The stunning paintings of Brunelleschi involving scaled buildings and other Renaissance architects still serve as models for architects today. (Deborah,.n.d.)

It was in the period from1300 and 1500 that the Medieval Europe very steadily succumbed to today’s Modern Europe . In this period especially between 14 th and 16 th centuries, the period of the Middle Ages overlapping the period in European history came to be called as the Renaissance. However a halt in progress within European nations was made mainly because of factors as:

• Natural Calamities as Floods badly affecting Agriculture and causing great famine.
• The outbreak of Plague also called ‘ Black Death ‘ killing half of European population
• The famous Hundred Years’ War (1337 to 1453) between England and France almost broke the backbone and crippled the economy of the two nations, so also casting adverse effects on the overall economic conditions in Europe. (Deborah, n.d.)

It was during the late middle Ages that scholars, scientists and artists started to show lesser concern for religion and religious thinking and devoted more time in the understanding of worldly affairs, the world and people. This new approach or the outlook was termed as Humanism . In this renaissance period more and more authors composed poetry and prose mostly in their native languages (vernacular), and not specifically in Latin.

This increasing use of the vernacular opened a new literary era, and gradually brought learning and literature to the common people. Eventually in the year 1450s, the invention of the printing press in Europe showed that all printed material for learning could thus be created much cheaper. As a result of this different books on myriad subjects began appearing on the market as well as on shelves for many more people to read and make further research in the art of learning.

Thus the cultural, political and economic changes of the Medieval Ages in particular the renaissance period gradually changed the entire Europe, and therefore by the early 1500’s, Europe had no longer been a medieval one. Instead the institutions and more strongly the renaissance culture of the Middle Ages or Medieval Period continued to cast its influence on modern European history. (Deborah,.n.d.)

College Board. “European History”. Web.

Deliyannis, Deborah Mauskopf. “Middle Ages.” Web.

Hankins, James. “Renaissance.” Web.

Bobst N.Y. Library. “European History Collection Development Policy.” Web.

“Renaissance”. Web.

“Renaissance-Architecture”. Web.

Exhibits Collection – Interactives. “Renaissance”. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 2). Modern Western Civilization: The Renaissance. https://ivypanda.com/essays/modern-western-civilization-the-renaissance/

"Modern Western Civilization: The Renaissance." IvyPanda , 2 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/modern-western-civilization-the-renaissance/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Modern Western Civilization: The Renaissance'. 2 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Modern Western Civilization: The Renaissance." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/modern-western-civilization-the-renaissance/.

1. IvyPanda . "Modern Western Civilization: The Renaissance." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/modern-western-civilization-the-renaissance/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Modern Western Civilization: The Renaissance." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/modern-western-civilization-the-renaissance/.

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Smart News | April 5, 2024

Why Were So Many Renaissance Portraits Multisided?

A new exhibition at the Met is the first to examine the tradition of covered 15th- and 16th-century portraits, which were designed to be interactive and often portable

Meilan Solly

Associate Editor, History

The Renaissance portraits that adorn the walls of the world’s museums hold countless secrets: painted-over underdrawings , hidden self-portraits , even a giant skull designed to remind viewers of their mortality. Now, a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City seeks to unmask yet another little-known layer of meaning, revealing that many of these portraits were once concealed by a cover, within a box or by a dual-faced format in which the reverse of the painting contained an entirely different image.

“The portrait is the primary image,” Alison Manges Nogueira , the show’s curator, tells Smithsonian magazine. “But it wasn’t the first one seen. It was preceded by something else, [and] we should give greater thought to the impact that the other image had on the object as a whole.”

“ Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance ” is the first exhibition to examine the tradition of multisided portraiture during the 15th and 16th centuries. Featuring 60 works by artists such as Hans Memling , Titian and Lucas Cranach the Elder , the show underscores the interactive nature of covered portraits, which were “often stored away and unveiled for special viewings,” says Nogueira in a statement .

Multisided portraiture emerged in the Netherlands in the early 15th century, then spread to Italy and elsewhere in Northern Europe. According to Nogueira, the practice built on traditions dating back to antiquity, including the unveiling of sacred art during liturgical rituals, the concealment of erotic imagery behind curtains that could be opened at the owner’s discretion, and the minting of coins and medals whose reverses featured imagery glorifying the influential figures shown on the objects’ obverses. Fourteenth-century devotional paintings also influenced the genre, as many contained painted scenes on the reverse that simultaneously protected against damage from moisture and “enhance[d] the devotional narrative,” Nogueira says.

Portrait covers took a variety of forms, including wood panels that slid in and out of grooves on a painting’s frame, hinged diptychs, double-sided panels that pivoted on a hook and chain, curtains, boxes, and lockets. Historical records testify to the prevalence of such covers, but few survive today, meaning the tradition has long been overlooked. The rare surviving examples tend to be too damaged or too difficult to display. Double-sided portraits face similar challenges, as exhibiting both sides simultaneously in a traditional gallery setting usually isn’t feasible. “Often, there are portraits that are hung in a museum as a single-sided work, but they actually have a painted reverse,” Nogueira says.

In other instances, the painting and its cover were separated at some point in time and now reside in different collections. The Met show reunites one such pair: a Lorenzo Lotto allegorical scene housed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and a portrait of a woman housed at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon in France. Lotto’s correspondence offers valuable information on the tradition of multisided painting, with the Venetian artist’s patrons expressing confusion about the imagery he chose to adorn the covers of his sacred commissions.

“He wrote back and advised his patrons that imagination is needed to bring their meaning to light,” says Nogueira. “That’s a very reassuring thing for us today, because these images remain very puzzling. And at the time, they were intended to be read in many different ways.”

In addition to limiting access to the likeness, multisided portraits allowed artists to comment on their own work, painting allegorical scenes that reflected the sitters’ character on removable covers or the reverse sides of panels. Memling’s Allegory of Chastity , for example, may have originally been paired with a now-lost portrait of a woman named Barbara, who hoped to evoke associations with the saint of the same name.

Nogueira came up with the idea for the exhibition while studying a pair of double-sided portraits in the Met’s collection. Created by the Venetian artist Jacometto , the petite panels date to between 1485 and 1495. One depicts a man identified as Alvise Contarini , with a tethered male deer painted on its reverse. The other shows a woman , possibly a nun, with a badly damaged reverse that appears to contain a grisaille scene (a technique in which the artist uses shades of gray to imitate sculpture in a two-dimensional format).

The paired likenesses “originally were integrated in the form of a box,” says Nogueira. “They’ve long been studied, and it’s been a continuing puzzle [of] who the sitters are, what their relationship was and what the imagery on the reverse means.” In the exhibition catalog , the curator suggests that the key to the puzzle lies in the grisaille reverse, which she identifies as a depiction of the mythical hero Orpheus playing a lute while pleading with Charon, the ferryman of the River Styx, to give him another chance to find his dead wife. “Through the figure of Orpheus,” Nogueira writes, “Alvise proclaimed himself not only as a bereaved husband but also as a cultured lover of music and poetry.”

Nogueira notes that contemporary viewers have a “natural tendency to favor the portrait and consider the reverse lesser,” in part because this side of the panel was often painted by an artist’s workshop , with finishing touches from the master himself. A similar bias existed during the Renaissance. Around 1485, Memling painted a jug of flowers on the reverse side of a portrait of a young man, creating one of the first still lifes in European history. “That is really an outstanding example of how artists use the reverses of portraits, and the covers, to experiment with subjects that … were not necessarily [considered] worthy of painting in their own right” at the time, the curator says.

Ultimately, Nogueira hopes that visitors to the exhibition come away with a clearer sense of Renaissance portraiture’s thematic complexity. “Sometimes when we look at portraits, we’re looking at a fragment of something that was originally more complex or had other parts to it,” she says. “That’s something we recognize when we look at fragments of an altarpiece. We have a sense that it was once something larger. But when it comes to portraits, that’s not something we normally think of. … There’s still a lot that we need to discover.”

“ Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance ” is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City through July 7.

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Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history.

Home — Essay Samples — History — Renaissance — The Importance of The Renaissance Period

The Importance of The Renaissance Period

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UVA Wise Medieval/Renaissance, Sept. 19-21, 2024 (Undergrad) (proposals by June 21, 2024)

UVA Wise Medieval-Renaissance Conference XXXVII

Undergraduate Sessions

The University of Virginia’s College at Wise

September 19-21, 2024

Keynote Address:  

“Teaching Milton Reading Shakespeare”

Matthew Biberman, University of Louisville

The University of Virginia's College at Wise’s Medieval-Renaissance Conference is pleased to accept abstracts for our thirty-sixth conference.  The conference is an open event that promotes scholarly discussion in all disciplines of Medieval and Renaissance studies.  Papers by undergraduates covering any area—including literature, language, history, philosophy, science, pedagogy, and the arts—are welcome.  Abstracts for papers should be around 300 words in length and should be accompanied by a brief letter of recommendation from a faculty sponsor (the latter can be mailed or emailed separately).  A branch campus of the University of Virginia, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise is a public four-year liberal arts college located in the scenic Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia.  For more information, please visit our website:   https://www.uvawise.edu/academics/departments/language-literature/mediev... .

Abstracts (and letters) should be submitted electronically or by regular mail by June 21, 2024 to:

John Mark Adrian

University of Virginia’s College at Wise

One College Ave

Wise, VA 24293

(276) 376-4588

[email protected]