The european renaissance began in 1300 in which of the following countries?
The Renaissance 1350-1550 Show The Renaissance began in the city-states of Italy in the mid-1300s. The city-state of Florence is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, which means "rebirth" in French. During this time, Italians, living closer to the Middle East and Greece, were introduced to classic literature and philosophy, like the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as the works of ancient philosophers like Plato. These texts were preserved by the Byzantines and Arabs of the Middle East. Humanism was born during the Renaissance. The Middle Ages had always been an age of faith and fate. Now, after reading the ancient philosophers, some people in Italy began to think that great things were possible through individual achievement, this is what is called the Humanist movement. Francesco Petrarch was an early humanist who studied the ancient texts for inspiration. Humanism allowed arts and literature to reach new heights during this time.
One of the most important achievements of the Renaissance was the promotion of the arts. Wealthy businessmen became patrons and supported the efforts of various artists. During the early Renaissance, the painter Giotto (1266-1337) used perspective (shading) to create life-like paintings. Before Giotto, the Byzantine, two-dimensional style was the norm. Although these paintings look lifeless, it was the religious message behind the painting that was considered important, not the art. Giotto rejected this idea and painted it with realism. Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo would follow Giotto and are the best-known artists from this period. Feudalism began to crumble during the Late Middle Ages, as strong kings seized power from their vassals. The Black Plague had wiped out many of the vassals, and their power weakened. King Ferdinand of Aragon married Queen Isabella of Castile, uniting the two kingdoms into one super-kingdom of Spain. In France, King Louis XI divided and conquered his vassals, while in England, out of the ashes of the Wars of the Roses, Henry Tudor united the Houses of York and Lancaster. Knowing that the English people sought peace, Henry married off his sons and daughters to the ruling families of other countries, including Scotland and Spain. People began to leave feudal lands, heading to cities where they formed guilds. A guild is a group of people who do the same type of work, like making clothes. The Roman Catholic Church also began to lose its power as church officials bickered. At one point there were even two popes at the same time, each one claiming to be the true Pope. During the Renaissance, men began to challenge some of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. An Englishman, named John Wycliffe, was one of the early challengers. Wycliffe felt the Church should be poor, like the early apostles of Jesus. Wycliffe also believed that the Bible should be translated into English, so people could understand its message. Wycliffe's reforms made little difference, but in the early 16th century, a man named Martin Luther changed the Church forever. Luther, a Roman Catholic priest in Germany, posted 95 poor practices of the church on the door of a church in Germany. This document was called the 95 theses and was meant to point out how the Church could be improved. One of the problems he saw was the selling of indulgences. An indulgence is a pardon or forgiveness for a sin that a person has committed. Pope Leo X at the time was selling indulgences to raise money to build a grand new church in Rome. An advance in technology that helped to spread the message of Martin Luther was the invention of the moveable-type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg. Gutenberg, a German, created the press that used movable type pieces for characters, rather than woodcuts of entire pages that had been used in presses in the past. Moveable-type made books faster and these books were less expensive than books made from woodcuts. The Reformation Martin Luther started a movement called the Reformation. Many people tried to reform the Church during the 1500s. When Pope Leo X ordered Luther's writings burned, many people sided with Luther and decided to break away from the Roman Catholic Church. These break-away Christians are called Protestants because they were protesting the practices of the Catholic Faith. All Protestants have one thing in common, they refuse to follow the Pope. Lutherans are the Protestant group that follows the teachings of Martin Luther. The Protestant movement divided Western European Christians into Catholic and Protestant. Wars followed between Catholic and Protestant nations, as well as attempts to convert the people of the New World to each type of faith. The discovery of the New World by Europeans was a result of exploring and sailing to find faster and safer trade routes to Asia than the long and dangerous land routes. The most successful movement by Catholics to stop the tide of the Reformation was called the Jesuit movement. The Jesuits spread the Catholic faith to people in Asia and Latin America. The Jesuits still exist today, Mcquaid High School, in Rochester, is a Jesuit school. The ideas of the Renaissance arrived last to England, but following the Reformation, King Henry VIII of England decided to break away from the Catholic Church, creating the Anglican (English) Church. Henry believed in a national church without interference from the Pope in Rome. The Pope at the time refused to grant Henry VIII the divorce he needed from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to remarry, in hopes of having a son and heir to the throne. Had it not been for Martin Luther and the Protestant movement, we are left to wonder whether Henry VIII would have been so bold as to have England leave the Catholic faith, and make an enemy of Spain, the powerful Catholic country of his first wife. England's writer, William Shakespeare, contributed great works during the Renaissance. His plays and poems are still read today and form the basis of many modern movie themes. Shakespeare wrote in the late 1500s and early 1600s, during the time of England's Queen Elizabeth I, Henry VIII's daughter. Romeo and Juliet may be his most recognizable play.
Views on science were also changing during the Renaissance. The Catholic Church had always accepted the findings of the ancient Hellenistic Greek named Ptolemy, that the earth was the center of the universe, and all the planets, moon, Sun, and stars revolve around the stationary earth. This theory is called the geocentric, or earth-centered, theory. Nicolas Copernicus (from Poland) challenged this theory, he was convinced that the planets, including earth, revolved around the sun, and that the earth spun in its axis. Knowing that his findings would be unpopular, Copernicus waited until he was dying to publish his work called On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543. In the 1600s, a man named Galileo, using a telescope saw that the planet Venus showed phases similar to the moon, proving that it revolved around the Sun. This supported Copernicus' Heliocentric, or Sun-centered, theory. For his findings, Galileo was sent to prison. One important fact to consider concerning the Renaissance is that only the wealthy took part in the advances and learning of the time; for the poor and the majority of people, life continued on as it always had, with people working hard, with little time or money to enjoy the benefits of art and literature. Disclaimer: By clicking on any links the user is leaving the Penfield School District website, the district is not responsible for any information associated with these links, including any pop-up ads.
Mr. Giotto's Site Why did Renaissance occur during the 1300s in Europe?In conclusion, historians have identified several causes of the Renaissance in Europe, including: increased interaction between different cultures, the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman texts, the emergence of humanism, different artistic and technological innovations, and the impacts of conflict and death.
What countries did the Renaissance occur in?The Renaissance is most closely associated with Italy, where it began in the 14th century, though countries such as Germany, England and France went through many of the same cultural changes and phenomena.
What is the period from 1300 to 1650 in Europe called?Major changes in Europe caused the medieval period to give way to a new period. As trade with the East increased, Europeans rediscovered the classical knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome.
When and where did Renaissance in Europe begin?There is some debate over the actual start of the Renaissance. However, it is generally believed to have begun in Italy during the 14th century, after the end of the Middle Ages, and reached its height in the 15th century. The Renaissance spread to the rest of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.
|
