Renaissance and scientific progress

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. It shifted thinking from blind faith and authority to human reason, observation and experiment, which laid the base for science and technology.

Artistic innovation

• Artists studied nature and the human body closely; linear perspective, anatomy, light and shade made art realistic.
• Leonardo da Vinci combined art with engineering: sketches of flying machines, bridges, pumps and anatomy.
• Michelangelo and Brunelleschi (dome of Florence Cathedral) used geometry and new construction methods.
• Art thus trained people in careful observation and measurement, the basic habits of science.

Humanism

• Humanists (Petrarch, Erasmus) put human ability, reason and dignity at the centre instead of only religion.
• Revival of Greek and Latin texts; education in grammar, history, mathematics and philosophy.
• Encouraged questioning of the Church's authority and individual thinking, leading to the Reformation (1517).

Scientific inquiry

• Printing press by Gutenberg (about 1440) spread books and ideas quickly and cheaply.
• Copernicus (1543) proposed the Sun-centred universe; Galileo used the telescope and experiments; Kepler gave the laws of planetary motion.
• Vesalius (1543) corrected human anatomy by dissection.
• Francis Bacon and others promoted the experimental (scientific) method.
• Navigation tools (compass, astrolabe) supported voyages of discovery (Columbus 1492, Vasco da Gama 1498).

Together, art, humanism and inquiry produced the Scientific Revolution of the 16th–17th centuries (Newton, 1687) and later the Industrial Revolution, moving the world towards scientific and technological progress.