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! ==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 [[Renaissance art|art]], [[Renaissance architecture|architecture]], [[Renaissance philosophy|philosophy]], [[Renaissance literature|literature]], [[Renaissance music|music]], [[History of science in the Renaissance|science]], [[Renaissance technology|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.<ref name="perry-humanities">Perry, M. [http://college.hmco.com/humanities/perry/humanities/1e/students/summaries/ch13.html Humanities in the Western Tradition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090429045555/http://college.hmco.com/humanities/perry/humanities/1e/students/summaries/ch13.html |date=29 April 2009 }}, Ch. 13</ref> [[Renaissance humanism|Renaissance humanists]] such as [[Poggio Bracciolini]] sought out in Europe's monastic libraries the Latin literary, historical, and oratorical texts of [[Classical antiquity|antiquity]], while the [[fall of Constantinople]] (1453) generated a wave of [[émigré]] [[Greek scholars in the Renaissance|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 language|Greek]] and [[Arabic]] works of natural sciences, philosophy, and mathematics, rather than on such cultural texts.{{cn|date=November 2023}} [[File:Sandro Botticelli - Idealized Portrait of a Lady (Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci as Nymph) - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|left|upright|''[[Portrait of a Young Woman (Botticelli, Frankfurt)|Portrait of a Young Woman]]'' ({{Circa|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.{{cn|date=November 2023}} But a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life.<ref name="openuni">Open University, ''[http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/renaissance2/religion.htm Looking at the Renaissance: Religious Context in the Renaissance]'' (Retrieved 10 May 2007)</ref>{{better source needed|date=November 2023}} 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]].{{cn|date=November 2023}} 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 (graphical)|perspective]] and light more naturally. [[Political philosophy|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 ''[[Oration on the Dignity of Man|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.<ref>Open University, [http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/renaissance2/economic.htm#urban ''Looking at the Renaissance: Urban economy and government''] (Retrieved 15 May 2007)</ref> 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).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kohn |first1=Hans |title=The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background |date=1944 |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York}}</ref> 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]].<ref>Stark, Rodney, ''The Victory of Reason'', Random House, NY: 2005</ref> This analysis argues that, whereas the great European states (France and Spain) were [[Absolute monarchy|absolute monarchies]], and others were under direct Church control, the independent [[City-state|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.{{cn|date=November 2023}} 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".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fernandez-Armesto |first1=Felipe |title=The Medieval Frontiers of Latin Christendom |date=2017 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |location=United Kingdom}}</ref><ref>Leon Poliakov, [https://archive.org/details/aryanmythhistory0000poli ''The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe''], trans. E. Howard (Basic Books, 1974), pp. 21-22, cited in Fernandez-Armesto (2017)</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! 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