European Renaissance
Italy's artistic awakening
The European Renaissance was a cultural and intellectual movement spanning roughly the 14th through 17th centuries, originating in Italy and spreading across Europe.
It marked a revival of interest in classical Greek and Roman learning, producing transformative achievements in art, literature, science, and philosophy.
The period saw figures like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Shakespeare.
Renaissance means rebirth in French, reflecting the era's self-conception as emerging from medieval darkness into renewed enlightenment.
- MichelangeloFlorentine sculptor and painter
- CopernicusRenaissance astronomer, heliocentrism
- PetrarchMedieval Italian lyric poet
- Medici familyFlorentine banking dynasty
- patron of the artsFunder of cultural work
Leonardo da Vinci · Machiavelli · Thomas More · Giordano Bruno · Age of Discovery · Erasmus · Dante Alighieri · Humanism · classical antiquity · Vesalius · Botticelli · Boccaccio · Raphael · Florence · Donatello · Titian · printing press · Brunelleschi
European RenaissanceDark Ages
Post-Roman European decline
Medieval period · Middle Ages · barbarism · Counter-Reformation
European Renaissanceanti-humanism
Rejection of human-centered worldviews
asceticism · otherworldliness · scholasticism · Counter-Reformation
Europe, European, Europeans, Europeanization, renaissance, renascence, native, nation, nationalize