Renaissance Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Period== The Renaissance period started during the [[crisis of the Late Middle Ages]] and conventionally ends by the 1600s with the waning of [[humanism]], and the advents of [[Reformation]]s 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.{{efn| "Historians of different kinds will often make some choice between a long Renaissance (say, 1300–1600), a short one (1453–1527), or somewhere in between (the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as is commonly adopted in music histories)."<ref> ''The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music: Volume 1'', p. 4, 2005, Cambridge University Press, [https://books.google.com/books?id=mHJvKVq0vXoC&pg=PA4 Google Books].</ref> Or between [[Petrarch]] and [[Jonathan Swift]], an even longer period.<ref>See Rosalie L. Colie, quoted in Hageman, Elizabeth H., in ''Women and Literature in Britain, 1500–1700'', p. 190, 1996, ed. Helen Wilcox, Cambridge University Press, {{ISBN|978-0521467773}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=CVgF5yTALgAC&pg=PA190 Google Books].</ref> Another source dates it from 1350 to 1620.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Renaissance Era Dates|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/literature-general/renaissance#:~:text=Historians%20also%20argue%20over%20how,it%20lasted%20until%20about%201620.|website=encyclopedia.com}}</ref> }} The traditional view focuses more on the Renaissance's [[Early modern period|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.<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NCKoDQAAQBAJ&pg=PP14| title=Renaissance Humanism, from the Middle Ages to Modern Times| isbn=978-1351904391| last1=Monfasani| first1=John|year=2016|publisher=Taylor & Francis}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bdIBlQXSKi8C&pg=PA63|publisher=Reaktion Books|title=Forever Young: A Cultural History of Longevity|isbn=978-1861891549|last1=Boia|first1=Lucian|year=2004}}</ref> The beginnings of the period—the early Renaissance of the 15th century and the Italian [[Italian Renaissance painting#Proto-Renaissance painting|Proto-Renaissance]] from around 1250 or 1300—overlap considerably with the [[Late Middle Ages]], conventionally dated to {{circa|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.{{Renaissance}} The Renaissance began in [[Republic of Florence|Florence]], one of the many states of [[Italy in the Middle Ages|Italy]].<ref>Burke, P., ''The European Renaissance: Centre and Peripheries'' 1998</ref> 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 [[House of Medici|Medici]],<ref name="strathern">Strathern, Paul ''The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance'' (2003)</ref> and the migration of [[Greek scholars in the Renaissance|Greek scholars]] and their texts to Italy following the [[fall of Constantinople]] to the [[Turkish people|Ottoman Turks]].<ref name=Britannica1>''Encyclopædia Britannica'', "Renaissance", 2008, O.Ed.</ref><ref>Harris, Michael H. ''History of Libraries in the Western World'', Scarecrow Press Incorporate, 1999, p. 69, {{ISBN|0810837242}}</ref><ref name=Norwich>Norwich, John Julius, ''A Short History of Byzantium'', 1997, Knopf, {{ISBN|0679450882}}</ref> Other major centers were [[Republic of Venice|Venice]], [[Republic of Genoa|Genoa]], [[Duchy of Milan|Milan]], [[Papal States|Rome]] during the [[Renaissance Papacy]], and [[Kingdom of Naples|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.<ref name = "brotton"/> 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]],<ref name="huizinga">[[Johan Huizinga|Huizanga, Johan]], ''[[The Waning of the Middle Ages]]'' (1919, trans. 1924)</ref> while social and economic historians, especially of the ''[[longue durée]]'', have instead focused on [[Continuity thesis|the continuity]] between the two eras,<ref name="starn">{{cite journal|author=Starn, Randolph|jstor=2650779|title= Renaissance Redux|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=103|issue=1 |year=1998|pages=122–124|doi=10.2307/2650779}}</ref> which are linked, as [[Panofsky]] observed, "by a thousand ties".<ref>Panofsky 1969:6.</ref>{{efn| Some scholars have called for an end to the use of the term, which they see as a product of [[Presentism (literary and historical analysis)|presentism]] – the use of [[history]] to validate and glorify modern ideals.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Trinkaus |first1=Charles |last2=Rabil |first2=Albert |last3=Purnell |first3=Frederick |title=Renaissance Ideas and the Idea of the Renaissance |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |date=1990 |volume=51 |issue=4 |pages=667–684 |doi=10.2307/2709652 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709652 |issn=0022-5037}}</ref> }} 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]].<ref name=mur /> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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