What caused the Renaissance?

Question

What happened?

This is not a homework question so please answer in your own words.

Answer 1

Part of the problem in answering this question is that the so-called "Renaissance" was not quite as glorious as its participants portrayed it. More importantly, it was NOT so unique. The way it has often been potrayed your question is esp. appropriate, because one almost thinks it sprang out of nowhere!!

In fact, recent scholars have taken to speaking of MULTIPLE renaissances, of which "THE Renaissance" (the one beginning in Italy in the 15th century) was but one. As a matter of fact, there is a fair case to be made that the "Renaissance of the 12th century" (of the "High Middle Ages") played a more pivotal role in advancing society, esp. in areas of STUDY (academics, founding of science). Note that this earlier renaissance was the time of the creation of the UNIVERSITY system, from which many of the scholarly began to flow as scholars from across Europe began to work together. These earlier advances (including also advances in government, technology, etc.) over several CENTURIES were the ground in which Italy's Renaissance grew.

"The Italian “Renaissance” was not a “rediscovery” of classical learning. Rather, it was a period of cultural emulation during which people of fashion copied the classical style in manners, art, literature, and philosophy. Out of passion for their own ancient days of glory, explains French historian Régine Pernaud, Italians began to claim that Western history consisted of “two periods of light: antiquity and the Renaissance...and between the two...crude centuries and obscure times.” Thus, from fashionable enthusiasm and ethnic pride was born the notion of a dark age followed by a dawning of a new enlightenment. But, it wasn’t so. Scholastic scholars knew and understood the works of Plato, Aristotle, and all the rest."
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17713/article_detail.asp

Now the Italian (cultural) Renaissance (and its successors in other countries), was made possible in large part because of growing economic prosperity of And this was due to a number of advances, and esp to growing TRADE. How did this happen? The interactions with the Islamic world, including the Crusades played a large part.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Renaissance#Origins

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_of_the_12th_century

Answer 2

The printing press.

I think there were Renaissance-type impulses here and there a couple of hundred years earlier than printing, but no efficient way to circulate them, so they just fizzled out. When the printing press came along, it's true that there were several other changes at the same time that helped the Renaissance a lot, but I think an unbiased view is that if these other changes hadn't happened when they did, the huge increase in circulation of books would have brought them about pretty soon anyway.

Answer 3

Reformation of the Catholic church and the emergence of the Protestant faith. It was a time for people to become enlightened by new forms of art, music, and thought. Science advancements in astronomy, weaponry. Europe saw the need to stop the advance of Islam after the failed Crusades and Spain became the main battleground. Then the search for new trade routes with the eastern countries sprouted discoveries of new lands and products.

Answer 4

Europe was plunged into the dark ages by fall of Rome, the light of civilization went out. With the darkness that followed in those ages, there were wars, famine, disease ect; And of course the church supressed alot of art as it claimed it heresy. So I believe that things like the Dutch independence from Spain and England's break with the church ect; saw the rise of freedom again in states where love of art and freedom and passion were valued. I just walked through the whole National Gallery of Art yesterday in D.C. I'll be posting some of what I saw in a 360 album in the future so be looking for it, but just saying when those freedoms did start occuring, some beautiful work was done!

Answer 5

I just got back from 9 days in Italy, and saw some of the towns like Florence and Venice who were influential in bringing a different view of mankind. The Medici family were wealthy, powerful, and intelligent. They and other wealthy families supported artists like Leonardo Da Vinci, actually fed and housed him as a child. Michaelangelo changed people's view of God and Adam with his artwork in the Sistine Chapel. God was no longer the stern punisher, but a loving giver of life and spirt, and man shared that spirit. This opened people's minds up, and men like Galileo began to see the world from a different perspective. However, the church was very much against the idea of humanism, and women weren't even considered to have souls until the 1600's!!

Answer 6

Division in the Catholic church and the Reformation resulted in a transference of power from the church to secular patrons; namely, the Medici family in Florence. Also the Reformation was accompanied by a new renewed interest in Humanism. There are many, many other factors contributed, but it is largely attributed to division in the church. I have no idea who Erasmus is.

Answer 7

there is no definate point in time when it started. i think it was like in the 1300-1600? i could be wrong tho... but pretty much what happened is people started moving away from the church and focused less on God, and started focusing more on what they wanted. thats how they got self portraits. also, people started to use different techniques in painting. there was more color, and it started to become more 3-D. rather than just flat. they also started to use more detail.

Answer 8

The cities of Italy prospered during the late Middle Ages, serving as trading posts connecting Europe to the Byzantine Empire and the Moslem world via the Mediterranean Sea. Commerce enriched and empowered regions in which the feudal system had not taken a strong hold, especially in northern Italy. The most prosperous of these cities--Florence, Venice, and Milan--became powerful city-states, ruling the regions surrounding them. Further south, the Papal States, centered in Rome, gradually grew to rival the wealth of the northern cities, and as the seat of the papacy, exerted a tremendous influence over Italian life and politics. Along with a few other minor centers of wealth and power, including Urbino, Mantua, and Ferrara, these four regions became the cradle of the Renaissance, beginning in the fourteenth century to undergo political, economic, and artistic changes.
The beginning of the Renaissance in the mid-fourteenth century was marked by a turn from medieval life and values dominated by the Church toward the philosophical principles of humanism. The Italian people, especially the educated middle class, became interested in individual achievement and emphasized life in this world, as opposed to preparation for life in the next world, which was stressed by religion. They believed strongly in the potential for individual accomplishment in the arts, literature, politics, and personal life. Individuals began to be encouraged to excel in a wide range of fields and showcase their talents. Renaissance thinkers decried medieval life as primitive and backwards, and looked further back in history, to the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, for inspiration.
One of the earliest and most prominent humanist writers was Francesco Petrarch, often known as the founder of humanism. Many historians cite April 6, 1341, the date on which Petrarch was crowned Poet Laureate upon the Capitol in Rome, as the true beginning of the Renaissance. Petrarch believed that true eloquence and ethical wisdom had been lost during the Middle Ages, and could only be found by looking to the writings of the ancients, especially Virgil and Cicero. Petrarch wrote extensively, producing poetry, biographies of historical figures, and wrote scores of letters, many of which were eventually published and widely read. One of his most popular letters, "The Ascent of Mount Vertoux," describes his journey to the summit of a mountain, but more importantly, it is an allegory comparing the hardships of the climb to the struggle to attain true Christian virtue.
Commentary
Geography, more than anything else, gave Italy an advantage over northern Europe in regard to potential for amassing wealth and breaking free from the feudal system. Jutting into the Mediterranean Sea, and strategically located between the majority of Europe and the Byzantine Empire, Italian cities had almost no choice but to participate in international trade and the market economy, and to integrate the activities of commerce into daily life. In this way, Italy became exposed to the large-scale flow of both goods and ideas much earlier than most other regions in Europe. Thus, during the later years of the Middle Ages, northern Italy flourished economically and intellectually. Further, because Italy's maintained its market economy while the rest of Europe developed a self- contained barter economy of feudal territories spawned by agrarian life, feudalism did not take hold in northern Italy as it did elsewhere in Europe. In both society and mind, it can be argued, northern Italy was more sophisticated and freer than the rest of Europe.
The history and ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans, cast into shadow throughout Europe in medieval times, had perhaps remained closer to the surface of contemporary thought in Italy than elsewhere, due to the geographical location of the Italian city-states, which had been built basically on top of the ruins of the Roman Empire. However, this geographical proximity should not be overstated. Even in the city of Rome, the buildings of the empire had fallen into ruin, and many were covered by centuries of waste and overgrowth. It seems unlikely, but even the citizens of Rome who lived in the shadow of the Coliseum and the Pantheon had little sense and less reverence for the history around them during the Middle Ages. The Greek influence on the cities of northern Italy was maintained by the trade with the Byzantine Empire, which had as its byproduct the flow of ideas and history. The Greek influence grew throughout the late fourteenth century and into the fifteenth, as the Ottoman Turks increasingly threatened Constantinople, the center of the Byzantine Empire, which finally fell in 1453. This constant pressure forced many Greeks into refuge in northern Italy, which benefited greatly from the treasures and knowledge of ancient Greece that these refugee/immigrants they brought with them. Many Italian and Greek contemporaries commented that it seemed Constantinople had not fallen at all, but simply been transplanted to Florence.
The influence of the revival of interest in Greek and Roman history is undeniable, and contributed greatly to the spirit of the times. Petrarch's writings demonstrate that while the intellectual focus of the time was evolving and changing to reflect this influence, the primary aspect of medieval life, the Church, remained powerful, and religion continued to exert an extraordinary power over the thoughts and actions of individuals. Petrarch and many other Renaissance intellectuals thus often described feelings of being torn between two sides of their personalities. Petrarch, like many Renaissance intellectuals, was comfortable in the seclusion of pious monastery life, but he also loved to travel. He believed in the Christian ideal of self-denial, but also enjoyed the pleasures of the world. He advocated study and learning, but feared that the accumulation of worldly knowledge might prevent him from achieving salvation. This was a common dilemma for Renaissance thinkers, as the principles of humanism rose up to rival the doctrines of the Church.