For example, the architect Filippo Brunelleschi applied the elements of classical Roman architecture–shapes, columns and especially proportion–to his own buildings. Renaissance artists and architects applied many humanist principles to their work. Patrons such as Florence’s Medici family sponsored projects large and small, and successful artists became celebrities in their own right. Michelangelo’s “David.” Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” Sandro Boticelli’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!). For the first time, it was possible to make books–and, by extension, knowledge–widely available. 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 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.) 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. Likewise, the scientist and mathematician Galileo Galilei investigated one natural law after another. He also created pioneering studies of human anatomy. Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci created detailed scientific “studies” of objects ranging from flying machines to submarines.
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As a result, many Renaissance intellectuals focused on trying to define and understand the laws of nature and the physical world.Ģ010 Street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi self-immolates in Tunisia, igniting the Arab Spring It also encouraged people to use experimentation and observation to solve earthly problems. Humanism encouraged people to be curious and to question received wisdom (particularly that of the medieval Church). This philosophy is known as “humanism.” Renaissance Science and Technology 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. To Renaissance scholars and philosophers, these classical sources from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome held great wisdom. They traveled around Italy, studying ancient ruins and rediscovering Greek and Roman texts.
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Instead of devoting themselves to ordinary jobs or to the asceticism of the monastery, they could enjoy worldly pleasures. Thanks to the patronage of these wealthy elites, Renaissance-era writers and thinkers were able to spend their days doing just that. The New Humanism: Cornerstone of the Renaissance
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The Catholic Church did not pardon him until 1992. 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.ĭid you know? When Galileo died in 1642, he was still under house arrest. 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. This was the birth of the period now known as the Renaissance.įor 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. The barbarous, unenlightened “ Middle Ages” were over, they said the new age would be a “rinascità” (“rebirth”) of learning and literature, art and culture. Toward the end of the 14th century A.D., a handful of Italian thinkers declared that they were living in a new age. The New Humanism: Cornerstone of the Renaissance.