Project Imagine: Trace the Birth and Development of the Renaissance

Origins and Spread of the Renaissance

In this immersive activity, you will trace the development of the Renaissance from its roots in the late Middle Ages to its spread beyond the Italian Peninsula by the 1600s.

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Introduction Video

This video will give a brief understanding of what the Renaissance is, how it shaped European societies, and where it spread to a wider world.

Choose a theme below to explore a map that highlights some of the major events relating to the rise, achievements, and spread of the Renaisssance. You will explore through each of the four themes. On each map, select red dots to view primary sources and learn about the experiences and accomplishments of cultures across and beyond the European continent.

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Account of the Black Death

• In 1348, an epidemic of bubonic plague began sweeping through Europe with catastrophic consequences. A staggering 60% of Europe's population succumbed to what become known as the Black Death. William Dene, who was living in Rochester, England, penned this account of the plague.
• Primary Source Document: Account of the Black Death
• Excerpt from Historia Roffensis, ca. 1348, by William Dene
• This account was written as a part of the history of the town of Rochester. Why do you think the Black Death was included in the town history?

Click on the plus icon below to see the translated version and see the impact of the Black Death on Europe as a whole.

How did the Black Plague change European Society?

Primary Source "Historia Roffensis" Excerpt

Click on the icon below to find out about the effects on European society.

"A great mortality...destroyed more than a third of the men, women, and children. As a result, there was such a shortage of servants, craftsmen, and workmen, and of agricultural workers and laborers, that a great many lords and people, although... endowed with goods and possessions, were yet without service and attendance. Alas, this mortality devoured such a multitude of both sexes that no one could be found to carry the bodies of the dead to burial, but men and women carried the bodies of their own little ones to church on their shoulders and threw them into mass graves, from which arose such a stench that it was barely possible for anyone to go past a churchyard."

Images of Chartres Cathedral

What are the features of Gothic architecture?

Click on the icon below to find out about gothic architecture.

Paintings by Giotto

In the Middle Ages, most European painting was highly religious in nature and two-dimensional in form. Figures were unrealistically sized - often proportioned based on their deemed importance. Figures occupied the entire space, and some were as tall as the room in which they stood. perhaps the most notable medieval artist was the Italian painter Giotto.

What were the main characteristics of late medieval painting?

• In the late Middle Ages, painting was not yet the realistic work that would later characterize Renaissance art. Instead, styles were flat and two-dimensional. Figures in paintings weren't sized realistically - a person could be drawn the same size as a house! This wasn't due to lack of skill; medieval artists valued spiritual meaning more than realism. Also, most early medieval art was anonymous, because artists thought their works were for the glory of God, not for personal recognition.
• One medieval artist who achieved fame was Italian painter Giotto di Bondone. Although his first paintings were medieval in style, Giotto eventually incorporated more believable human forms and showed signs of Renaissance characteristics. A talented storyteller, Giotto depicted gestures and emotions in a way that made biblical stories understandable to his audience.

This portrait of Giotta is one of the five in Italian mathematician and painter Paolo Uccello's Fathers of Perspective, ca. 1450.

Why was Dante's work significant?

Poetry with Ancient Roots

The Middle Ages used to be a thought of as a "dark age," but in fact late medieval culture was highly advanced. many medieval writers produced masterpieces. In his epic poem The Divine Comedy, Florentine poet Dante Alighieri imagines a journey through hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. He references ancient thinkers, previewing the Renaissance's focus on the classics. Read the excerpt of The Divine Comedy to the right, and then click the interactive icon to learn more about why it mattered.

In 1320, Florentine writer Dante Alighieri completed The Divine Comedy. This epic poem describes a journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory, and Heaven. In each place, Dante learns lessons about right and wrong. He also gets revenge by placing his enemies in the Inferno. Dante admired classical Greek and Roman literature. He infused his work with ancient stories and characters - many decades before they became popular during the Renaissance. In the poem, Virgil, the Roman poet, guides Dante through Hell and introduces him to other ancient Roman and Greek poets. Virgil also guides Dante through Purgatory, while Beatrice, a young noblewoman Dante admired, guides him through Heaven. Dante was a trailblazer in other ways. He wrote in vernacular Italian, the language spoken by the people, rather than latin. In so doing, he made his work more accessible to ordinary people.

Dante framed The Divine Comedy as a dream. here, the ancient poets Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lucan, and Horace gather around the sleeping figure of Dante.

Constantinople Diary

Primary Source Document: Constantinople Diary Excerpt from Diary of the Siege of Constantinople, 1453, by Nicolo Barbaro The Turks made eagerly for the piazza (an open square), five miles from the point where they made their entrance at San Romano, and when they reached it, at once some of them climbed up a tower where the flags of Saint Mark and the most Serene Emperor were flying, and they cut down the flag of Saint Mark and took away the flag of the Most Seren Emperor, and then on the same tower they raised the flag of the Sultan. When they had taken away these two flags, those of Saint Mark and of the Emperor, and raised the flag of the Turkish dog (derogatory term), then all we Christians who were in the city were full of sorrow because it had been captured by the Turks. When their flag was raised and ours cut down, we saw that the whole city was taken, and that there was no further hope of recovering from this... Now that Constantinople had fallen, and since there was nothing further to be hoped for, our own people prepared to save themselves and our fleet, all the galleys and ships, and get them out of the harbor, breaking the boom across the entrance.

In 1453, the Ottoman Turkish army captured Constantinople, capital city of the Byzantine empire, and put an end to nearly a thousand years of Byzantine rule. Nicolo Barbaro, a doctor from Venice, witnessed the siege and subsequent fall of the city.

Click on the plus icon to see the timeline of the rise and fall of Constantinople.

1. I have plans for very light, strong and easily portable bridges with which to pursue and, on some occasions, flee the enemy, and others, sturdy and indestructible either by fire or in battle, easy and convenient to lift and place in position. Also means of burning and destroying those of the enemy. 2. I know how, in the course of the siege of a terrain, to remove water from the moats and how to make an infinite number of bridges, mantlets (large shields used in warfare) and scaling ladders and other instruments necessary to such as enterprise... 6. Also, I will make covered vehicles, safe and unassailable (unable to be attacked), which will penetrate the enemy and their artillery, and there is no host of armed men so great that they would not break through it. And behind these the infantry will be able to follow, quite uninjured and unimpeded (not obstructed.) 7. Also, should the need arise, I will make cannon, mortar and light ordnance (military weapons) of very beautiful and functional design that are quite out of the ordinary.... 10. In time of peace I believe I can give as complete satisfaction as any other in the field of architecture, and the construction of both public and private buildings, and in conducting water from one place to another. Also, I can create sculptures in marble, bronze and clay. Likewise in painting, I can do everything possible as well as any other, whosoever he may be. Moreover, work could be undertaken on the bronze horse which will be to the immoral glory and eternal honor of the auspicious memory of His Lordship your father, and the illustrious house of Sforza. (Ruling family of Milan, 1411-1535)

Leonardo, The Renaissance Man

TODAY, the term "Renaissance Man" refers to someone with expertise in a variety of subjects. An apt example of this is Leonardo da Vinci. Best known as an artist, Leonardo also developed a keen interest in machines and engineering. In 1482, he wrote a letter to the duke of Milan, seeking a job. The source to the right is a letter from Leonardo da Vinci to the Duke of Milan, 1482

Primary Source Document: Treatise on Perspective (Excerpt from On Painting by Leon Battista Alberti, 1435 Since man is the thing best known to man, perhaps as Protagoras (ancient Greek philosopher), by saying that man is the mode and measure of all things, meant that all the accidents of things are known through comparison to the accidents (meaning qualities or circumstances) of man. In what I say here, I am trying to make it understood that no matter how well small bodies are painted in the picture they will appear large and small by comparison with whatever man is painted there... I will tell what I do when I paint. First of all about where I draw. I inscribe a quadrangle of right angles, as large as I wish, which is considered to be an open window through which I see what I want to paint. here I determine as it pleases me the size of the men in my picture. I divide the length of this man in three parts. These parts to me are proportional to that measurement called a braccio, for, measuring the average man it is seen that he is about three braccia. With these braccia I divide the baseline of the quadrangle is proportional to the nearest transverse (situated or extended across something) and equidistant (at equal distances)quantity seen on the pavement. Then, within this quadrangle, where it seems best to me, I make a point which occupies that place where the central ray strikes. For this it is called the centric point. This point is properly placed when it is no higher from the base line of the quadrangle than the height of the man that I have to paint there. Thus both the beholder (a person who sees or observes something) and the painted things he sees will appear to be on the same plane.

Perspective

ONE of Renaissance art's most distinguishing characteristics is its use of linear perspective, which departed greatly from medieval styles. Architect and scholar Leon Battista Alberti wrote the rulebook for this technique, which applies math to art in order to create distance and depth.

Renaissance art embraced perspective, while medieval art did not. Can you tell the difference in depth between medieval artist Giotto's The Vision of the Chariot of Fire (left) and Renaissance artist Raphael's The Marriage of the Virgin (right)?

Primary Source Document: Essay on Humanism (Excerpt from Oration on the Dignity of Man," by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, 1486) Imagine! The great generosity of God! The happiness of man! To man it is allowed to be whatever he chooses to be! As soon as an animal is born, it brings out of its mother's womb all that it will ever possess. Spiritual beings from the beginning become what they are to be for all eternity. Man, when he entered life, the Father gave the seeds of every kind and every way of life possible. Whatever seeds each man sows and cultivates will grow and bear him their proper fruit. If these seeds are vegetative (In this case, having physical life but no awareness) he will be like a plant. if these seeds are sensitive, he will be like an animal. If these seeds are intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God. And if, satisfied with no created thing, he removes himself to the center of his own unity, his spiritual soul, united with God, alone in the darkness of God. And if, satisfied with no created thing, he removes himself to the center of his own unity, his spiritual soul, united with God, alone in the darkness of God, who is above all things, he will surpass (be superior to) every created thing. Who could not help but admire this great shape-shifter? In fact, how could one admire anything else?

Renaissance manifesto

ITALIAN Renaissance thinkers found inspiration in classical ideas and revived humanism, a philosophy that focuses on human accomplishments and potential. Fueled by a quest for knowledge and enlightenment, Italian philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola captured the ideals of his time.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, author of the Renaissance's unofficial manifesto on human potential.

Building the Duomo

Why was constructing the Duomo such an impressive feat?

SOME engineering and artistic achievements of the Italian Renaissance were unprecedented and remain unmatched even today. The Duomo, a dome atop the Cathedral of Santa Maria in Florence, is a prime example. The largest masonry dome in the world, it stands as a work of brilliant Renaissance construction.

For decades, Florence's Cathedral of Santa Maria had sat with a huge hole in its unfinished roof. Although its architects envisioned a tall dome to fill the space, they didn't know how to construct it. In 1418, Florentine leaders issued a challenge to the city's architects to complete the cathedral's dome. Filippo Brunelleschi, a sculptor turned architect, won the job. He designed a soaring octagonal two-dome system that combined Gothic engineering and classical design. During the construction, Brunelleschi even invented pulleys and lifts to hoist building materials into place. Finished in 1436, the Duomo remains the pride of Florence. It came to represent the artistic and technical ingenuity that saturated Renaissance Italy, expressing Florentine power and classical influences.

Watch a clip explaining how Brunelleschi built the Duomo.

Building the Duomo, Part 2

The Duomo is just as impressive as seen from the inside. it includes a series of frescoes that together depict the Last Judgement. The work is enormous: 38,750 square feet.

The Duomo of Florence's Cathedral of Santa Maria stands as the largest masonry dome in the world and a lasting symbol of the Italian Renaissance.

Architect Filippo Brunelleschi gazes up at his masterful work, tool in hand, contemplating its construction. This statue from the 1800s sits just outside the Duomo in Florence.

Primary Source Document: Michelangelo Poem, 1509 I've already grown a goiter (an abnormal lump on the neck) from this torture, hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy (or anywhere else where the stagnant (motionless or still) water's poison.) My stomach's squashed under my chin, my beard's pointing at heaven, my brain's crushed in a casket, my torso twists like a harpy's (mythological monster). My brush, above me all the time, dribbles paint so my face makes a fine floor for droppings! My haunches are grinding into my guts... Every gesture I make is blind and aimless. My skin hangs loose below me, my spine's all knotted from folding over itself. I'm bent taut (stretched or pulled tight) as a Syrian bow. Because I'm struck like this, my thoughts are crazy, perfidious tripe (nonsense): anyone shoots badly through a crooked blowpipe. My paintings is dead. Defend it for me, Giovanni, protect my honor. I am not in the right place - I am not a painter (Michelangelo considered himself primarily a sculptor, not a painter.)

Leonardo, The Renaissance Man

TODAY, we know Michelangelo as one of the greatest Renaissance artists. But like many talented artists, he agonized over his creations and experienced self-doubt. He wrote about the struggle he faced when painting a massive series of biblical scenes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

Click on the grey icon first, and then click on the red question mark. Once you have completed the five locations on the Birth of Renaissance map click on the red arrow to take you back to the next theme of the Renaissance.

=Truth shall nurse (nurture) her, Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her: She shall be loved and feared: her own shall bless her. Her foes (enemies) shake like a field of beaten corn, And hang their heads with sorrow: good grows with her In her days every man shall eat in safety Under his own vine what he plants, and sing The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours: God shall be turly known; and those about her From her shall read the perfect ways of honour, And by these claim their greatness, not by blood. Whereever the bright sun of Heaven shall shine, Her honour and the greatness of her name Shall be, and make nations. She shall flourish, And, like a mountain cedar, reach her branches To all the plains about her: our children's children Shall see this and bless Heaven.

The Elizabethan Age

THE reign of Queen Elizabeth I launched England's golden age - a time of prosperity and relative stability. After her death, playwright William Shakespeare (possible in collaboration with John Fletcher) penned Henry VIII, a play based on her father's life. In the passage to the right, a character predicts the coming glories of Elizabeth's reign.

Under Elizabeth I, English pride soared. When the Spanish Armada, or fleet of warships, tried to invade England in 1588, as shown in the background here, England defeated them, bolstering nationlist sentiment.

How did the madrigal spread from Italy and change in England?The madrigal arose as an entertaining secular, or nonreligious, type of music in Renaissance Italy. In a madrigal, singers sang Italian poetry. Madrigals typically had multiple vocalists, who alternated singing the lyrics. Sung in the Italian vernacular, rather than Latin, madrigals were easily understandable and became widespread.This mustic tradition eventually lost its popularity in Italy. In England, musician Nicholas Yonge published an extensive collection of Italian madrigals translated into English, called Musica Transalpina. Thomas Morley and fellow English composers began to match Italian madrigals to English texts, sparking a revitalization of the madrigal hundreds of miles from its origin.Aided by the printing press and resulting excahnge of ideas, the madrigal flourished as a secular musical tradition in multiple lands during the Renaissance.

An English madrigal

AS the Northern renaissance gained traction in the 1500s, it absorbed and transformed some of Italy's artistic creations, such as the madrigal. This waning musical tradition saw a great rebirth and reformation north of its origins, especially in Renaissance England.

A statue of English singer and publisher Nicholas Yonge stands in his hometown of Sussex, England. It commemorates his role in bringing the madrigal from Italy to England.

Primary Source Document: Northern Humanist Essay Excerpt from The Praise of Folly, Desiderius Erasmus, 1509. And next these come those that commonly call themselves the religious and monks, most false in both titles, when both a great part of them are farthest from religion. Nor can I think of anything that could be more miserable than supporting them. All men detest them so much, that they can take as bad luck to meet one of them by chance, yet they act extremely happy that it flatters the monks. For first, the monks reckon it one of the main points of piety (quality of being religious) if they are so illiterate that they can't so much as read. And then when they abuse their offices (positions of authority), they rely more tale than understanding of scripture. They believe in gods more than ordinarily folk. And some there are among them that charge for their trumperies (beliefs or practices that seem appealing but have little actual substance or worth) at vast rates (cost), yet beg up and down for the bread they eat. Nay, there is scarely an inn, wagon, or ship into which they don't intrude, to the no small damage of the commonwealth of beggars. And yet, like pleasant fellows, with all this vileness, ignorance, rudeness, and impudence (disrespect), they represent to us, for so they call it, the lives of the apostles.

Northern Humanism

CLASSICAL humanism, revived in Italy during the Renaissance, also flourished in northern Europe. Contemplating religion from a humanist perspective, Dutch thinker Desiderius Erasmus attacked the corruption he saw in the Roman Catholic Church and urged a simpler, more individual approach to Christianity.

Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, surrounded by scholarship, poses in his study for this portrait by German artist Albrecht Durer, ca. 1526.

What were the characteristics of northern european humanism?

In Italy, humanism centered on pursuing knowledge. In Northern Europe, many humanists also turned a critical eye toward religion. They did not attack religion itself but the way they often saw it practiced. Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus wrote The Praise of Folly in 1509. In this book, he criticized European society and, specifically, what he saw as the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church. Erasmus railed against corrupt bishops and monks and denounced indulgences, or payments the church accepted in return for forgiveness of sin. Erasmus and other northern humanists encouraged people to cultivate a deep, consistent, individual relationship with God. Although Erasmus never believed the Catholic Church should be broken apart, his ideas influenced a later movement that would forever change and divide European Christianity: the Protestant Reformation.

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Account of a French Master Printer

Primary Source Document: Account of a French Master Printer, Date Unknown There have to be four, five, and sometimes six journeymen (workers who have completed apprenticeships, but not quiet masters at their trade) at each press, according whether the letters are big or small, and they can scarcely do anything without one another. Two of them are called printers, for their job is to work the press and to print the paper with that admirable ink which dries as soon as it is applied. The other journeymen necessary to make the press roll are called compositors, because their job consists in composing and collecting the characters into words, the words into lines, the lines into pages, and the pages into complete forms. it is an incredible thing to see that four or five journeymen, thanks to this most excellent art of printing, can do in a day the work of three or four thousand of the best scribes (people who copy text by hand) in the world.

IN the 1450s, Johannes Gutenberg introduced a pivotal new invention: the printing press. Suddenly, books could be quickly mass-produced. Gutenberg worked in Germany, but soon his invention spread to other European countries. In this excerpt, a French master printer describes a printing shop.

How did Gutenberg's printing press forver transform European society?

Although the first moveable type originated in China, book production remained a tedious task in Europe. Books were written by hand, many in monasteries, where monks laboriously copied each page. As a result, books were expensive, rare, and inaccessible to ordinary people. Even items that had to be printed in large quantities, like money, were made by using hand-carved blocks, dipped in ink. German craftsman and inventor Johannes Gutenberg began working on printing in 1440. In the next decade, he invented a mechanized printing press with metal letters as movable type and used it to mass-produce the Bible. Texts that ook years to produce were suddenly easily available. So were the ideas they contained. By 1500, print shops opened across Europe and circulated religious and secular texts. Literacy and knowledge spread throughout the continent like never before, fueling Renaissance ideas.

Northern Renaissance Artworks

CONSTANT interchange between northern Europe and Italian cities helped spread the Renaissance. Some northern artists visited Italy and employed Italian subjects and styles. Others developed new styles. They created intricate woodcuts and used oil paints on wood paneling. The use of oil paints more secular subjects, such as portraits and scenes of everyday life.

WHAT WERE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF NORTHERN EUROPEAN RENAISSANCE ART? In the north, artists were inspired by Italian humanism. But northern Europeans lacked the strong ties to ancient Greek and Roman culture that the Italians had. As a result, their art was less saturated with depictions of ancient mythology. Works ranged from the realism of Albrecht Durer's paintings and woodcuts to the grotesque imagery of Hieronymus Bosch. The Northern Renaissance peaked as its participants became the disenchanted with the Catholic Church and hoped to find a simpler, more personal relationship with God. In turn, artists focused much more on secular, or nonreligious, subjects - especially everday life and landscapes. Northern artists also developed brilliant new techniques. They created durable oil paints, which could withstand colder climates, and applied them to wood and paneling. They created intrictate woodcuts, which gave dimension and texture to their work.

What were the characteristics of northern European Renaissance art?

Artistic expression flourished during the Renaissance in both northern Europe and Italy. Use the graphic organizer below to describe how artistic expression in italy and northern Europe were different and similar. (Click on the "Type what you are thinking" square. Work left to right.)

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German artist Albrecht Durer's Portrait of the Artist's Mother at the Age of 63 reveals his masterful charcoal artistry and his attention to realistic detail.

In the North

The Northern Renaissance accelerated the spread of knowledge and ideas. Innovation moved back and forth on trade routes across the Alps. Inspired in part by Italian ideas, northern artists and thinkers also produced their own unique works.

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Designed by Michelangelo in his later years, the lavish interior of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica became a model for other domes in the West.

Ornithopter wings in da Vinci's sketchbook convey his fascination with flight and capacity for intervention. His flying machine was meant to mimic the motion of birds' wings.

A modern model of da Vinci's self-propelled cart, sometimes considered the first automobile, sits on display at the final residence: the Chateau du Clos Luce in France.

Foundations

The late medieval period set the stage for the Renaissance. Terrible diseases and wars caused societal upheaval but also made room for new cultural developments to thrive.

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Northern artists did not ignore religious themes. The oil-on-oak Annuciation panel by the Flemish artist Hans Memling shows Mary, the archangel Gabriel, and the Holy Spirit.

Madonna Enthroned is often considered the first Renaissance painting. Mary, Jesus, saints, and angels appear three-dimensional in this departure from flat medieval art.

Flemish painter Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait provides a glipse into marital customs in the 1400s. It depicts a wealthy Italian merchant and his bride who lived in Flanders.

Grotesque faces abound in Christ Carrying the Cross, an expressive oil-on-panel painting attributed to a follower of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch.

An Austrian journalist and museum printer stand at a replica of the Gutenberg press and print a page from the Gospel of St. John.

What made Queen Elizabeth's I's reign a golden age of England?

Queen Elizabeth I of England ascended the throne in 1558, an unlikely outcome of a harrowing past. Her mother, Anne Boleyn, was the second wife of King Henry VIII. Anne was beheaded at Henry's order, and Elizabeth herself survived imprisonment by her older half-sister, Queen Mary I. Finally, the crown passed to her. She ruled England for nearly five decades, until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was a politically shrewd ruler. Under her reign, England enjoyed relative political stability, economic propserity, and cultural flourishing. Elizabeth was also a great patron of the arts. During the Elizabethan era, poets devised new ways of expressing love, loss, and despair. English audiences flocked to playhouses like the Globe in London to see actors perform in comedies, tragedies, and histories. Actors also performed William Shakespeare's plays at Queen Elizabeth's court by her very own acting company, called the Queen's Men.

Who was Michelangelo?

Born in the midst of Florence's Renaissance, Michelangelo became an artist despite his father's objections. His talent as a painter, sculptor, poet, and architect led powerful figures such as Lorenzo de' Medici to commission his work. Michelangelo sculpted the statue David in 1504, which showed his talent for realistically depicting the human form. In 1508, the pope hired him to paint the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. But Michelangelo was frustrated because he considered himself primarily as a sculptor and was more eager to work on the Pope's massive tomb monument which he never did get to finish. The task was also grueling, demoralizing, and littered with setbacks. But Michelangelo persevered: for four years, he painted scenes from the Bible's Old Testament onto the chapel's ceiling with painstaking precision and breathtaking vibrancy. he transformed an exceptional challenge into an exceptional legacy.

Metal moveable type blocks sit organized by letter and ready to print. In addition to using movable type, Gutenberg also experimented with new oil-based inks.

Architects designed Chartres Cathedral with an architecturally masterful exterior, complete with flying buttresses and towering pinnacles.

Beautiful stained glass windows decorate Chartres Cathedral and portray Biblical stories. The Good Samaritan Cares for the Pilgrim is shown here.

How did the fall of Constaninople impact the Italian Renaissance?

For nearly a thousand years, the Byzantine empire controlled land around the Mediterranean Sea, at its height stretching from modern-day Spain to Asia. After its peak in the 500s, the empire gradually lost most of its territory and power, but remained a center of trade and culture. In 1453, the Ottoman Turkish Empire besieged Byzantium's capital city, Constantinople, for nearly two months before capturing it. While the fall of Constantinople marked the collapse of the Byzantine empire in the East, it also led to a rejuvenation of ancient scholarship in the West. As buildings and lives crumbled around them, thousands fled Constantinople and sought safety in Italy's cities. These refugees included Greek scholars, who brought along manuscripts of ancient and early Christian texts. Such works found an eager audience among early Renaissance thinkers, with their keen interest in the classics.

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Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper on the wall of a convent in Milan. It uses the technique of perspective to create a sense of depth, with all lines on the walls and ceiling receding toward a vanishing point.

What is humanism?

At the heart of the Italian Renaissance was humanism, a classical philosophy that emphasized the potential of each individual. Renaissance thinkers believed that people could live well by pursuing knowledge and using rational thought. Humanism departed from the medieval emphasis on faith over the individual and the notion that people's fates were largely predetermined. As people started to think of their ideas as valuable, creativity thrived. In 1486, at age 23, Italian philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola penned what is now considered the "Manifesto of the Renaissance." In his piece, called "Oration of the Dignity of Man," Mirandola declared that humans could be anything they chose to be. He insisted that people were different from animals and could make decisions. Mirandola's manifesto prioritized human capacity above all else, making it a model of Renaissance humanist thought.

This red chalk image was long thought to be a self-portrait by Leonardo, although some scholars now believe the subject was his father or his uncle.

• Gothic architecture was fanciful, intricate, and towering. The style departed from Romanesque buildings of the past, which were blocky, short, and featured few windows. Gothic style originated in France, where builders were replacing churches burned by fires in the late medieval period. The result was awe-inspiring.
• Searching for a way to fill the interior with light, French engineers installed stained glass windows. Besides letting in more sunlight, these windows told religious stories for illiterate churchgoers. Engineers used pointed arches and flying buttresses, curving exterior columns that supported the structure's walls, allowing cathedrals to tower higher toward the heavens. With the church's weight concentrated on the columns rather than the walls, massive stained glass artworks were able to adorn cathedrals.

The Adoration of the Magi hints at later Renaissance Art, while retaining some medieval features. Figures appear as both austere (severe or strict looking) and gentle in this nativity scene.

The Vision of the Chariot of Fire is one of Giotto's early works, ca. 1295. It depicts a scene from the legend of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals and the environment.

The Bible was the first major book printed on Gutenberg's printing press. This page of Gutenberg's Bible includes efficient moveable type text and orgnate hand painted initials and margins.

Sporting armour and scaly legs, Durer's Rhinoceros is not anatomically accurate. But it is quite impressive: intrically carved on wood, it embodies northern innovation and curiosity about the natural world.

Why was Leonardo da Vinci a "Renaissance Man?"

Renaissance Italy embraced the notion of human potential and the quest for knowledge. No one embodied this more than Leonardo da Vinci, who grew up in Florence as humanistic thought spread throughout the city. Mostly self-taught, Leonardo immersed himself in a wide variety of fields throughout his life: art, architecture, engineering, anatomy, philosophy, and weaponry. He studied human anatomy to make his drawings and paintings more realistic. he dreamed of flying, so he studied birds to design a wing-flapping device for humans. He even designed a mechanical knight that walked using a system of cables and pulleys. Leonardo's letter to the duke worked. Leonardo moved to Milan, where he worked for the duke's family for nearly two decades.

His Pieta, on display in the Vatican, depicts Mary, the mother of jesus, holding his body after crucifixion.

The columns outside Chartres Cathedral depict statues of saints. Medieval sculptors rarely created free-standing statues. This classical style was not revived until the Renaissance.

Reaching toward the heavens, the soaring, arched ceilings of Chartres Cathedral are made possible by sophisticated Gothic supports.

Intricate drawings of muscles and other anatomical elements cover pages of da Vinci's notebook, alongside detailed notes. They reveal his dedication to realism.

What were the characteristics of linear perspective in art?

As Italian Renaissance artists learned about ancient works, they were inspired to combine mathematical reasoning and artistic appeal in their own endeavors. In the late Middle Ages, a few painters like Giotto attempted to use perspective in their pieces - making them less flat and disproportionate than most art of the time. But perspective would not be perfected for another century. In the 1400s, the principles of perspective began to flourish, aided by scientific studies of the eye and how it worked. Alberti outlined the technical skills needed to create realistic three-dimensional scenes on two-dimensional canvases. Artists and architects alike used the rules of geometry to create balance and depth, drawing viewers' eyes to a "vanishing point" in the distance while portraying humans in realistic ways. Alberti's studies informed countless artistic works in the Renaissance and beyond.

David is moments from slaying Goliath in this biblical fresco from the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted it alongside other scenes that together illustrate the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible.

Birth

A rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman works ignited Italy's Renaissance. Artists, engineers, and scholars saturated city-states on the Italian peninsula with innovative and masterful works. Their influence would radiate through time.

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• The Black Death began in East Asia in the early 1300s. As European trade with Asia increased, trading ships brought rats carrying fleas infected with Bubonic Plague.
• The plague spread like wildfire across Europe. Rural areas were safer than towns, where people lived in closer contact. Some towns were wiped out entirely. Between 1348 and 1351, in some regions, too few survivors remained to bury the dead.
• In the long term, the Black Death transformed European society. high mortality rates caused widespread labor shortages. Increased demand for labor allowed peasants to demand better wages or move from manors to towns in search of better work. Manors run by lords were thus thrown into upheaval. In some areas, attempts to keep serfs under control led to peasant revolts. The feudal system, which formed the foundation of the medieval social order, declined and eventually crumbled.