Short note: European Renaissance

The Renaissance ("rebirth") was the cultural and intellectual revival in Europe from about the 14th to the 16th century (roots in the 13th century), beginning in Italian city-states such as Florence and Venice and spreading across Europe. It revived the learning of ancient Greece and Rome and marked the change from the Middle Ages to the modern age.

Causes: growth of trade and rich Italian city-states, patronage (Medici family), rediscovery of Greek and Roman texts (especially after the fall of Constantinople, 1453), invention of the printing press (Gutenberg, c. 1440), and the weakening of feudalism and Church after the Black Death.

Main features:

• Humanism – focus on human reason, dignity and worldly life.
• Realistic art – perspective and anatomy (Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael).
• Science – Copernicus (Sun-centred theory), Galileo, Kepler, Vesalius; experiment and observation.
• Literature in local languages – Dante, Shakespeare.
• Exploration – Columbus, Vasco da Gama.

Effects: Reformation, Scientific Revolution, spread of education, rise of nation-states, and the foundation of the Industrial Revolution and modern civilisation.