The Renaissance was a vibrant European cultural, artistic, political, and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted classical philosophy, literature, and art. The Renaissance started in Florence, Italy, a rich cultural history where wealthy citizens could afford budding artists. Then, during the 15th century, Renaissance ideas spread from Italy to France and then throughout western and northern Europe.
Some observers have questioned whether the Renaissance was a cultural “advance” from the Middle Ages instead of seeing it as a period of pessimism and nostalgia for classical antiquity social and economic historians, especially of the longue Durie, has instead focused on the continuity between the two eras,[17] which are linked, as Panofsky observed, “by a thousand ties.”[18]
Florence was ground zero, plus: Rome. Florence, Spain, and England. The Renaissance, a vibrant period of European cultural, artistic, political, and scientific “rebirth” after the Middle Ages, was led by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and the Medici family. The Medici family, over everything, was terrible; they were especially very cruel and would kill anyone who would dare to stand in their way. The power of the Medici stretches from Florence to Rome. In Rome, even the pope could be bought by the Medici because they had so much energy.
Characteristics of the Renaissance include a renewed interest in classical antiquity, a rise in humanist philosophy (a belief in self, human worth, and individual dignity), and radical changes in ideas about religion, politics, and science.
The four characteristic features of the Renaissance period are the advent of new and powerful ideas of Humanism, rationalism, scientific spirit, and inquiry.
The stage was set for capitalism, but it didn’t start in Italy. Capitalism began to develop into its modern form during the Early Modern period in the Protestant countries of North-Western Europe, especially the Netherlands (Dutch Republic) and England: traders in Amsterdam. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519): Italian painter, architect, inventor, and “Renaissance man” responsible for painting “The Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper. Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536): Scholar from Holland who defined the humanist movement in Northern Europe. Translator of the New Testament into Greek.
Galileo (1564-1642): Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer whose pioneering work with telescopes enabled him to describes the moons of Jupiter and rings of Saturn. He was placed under house arrest for his views of a heliocentric universe.
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543): Mathematician and astronomer who made the first modern scientific argument for a heliocentric solar system concept.
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality, or the Plague)[a] was the deadliest pandemic recorded in human history. The Black Death pandemic resulted in up to 75–200 million[1] people in Eurasia and North Africa,[2peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. The Black Death began in the Himalayan Mountains of South Asia in the 1200s. Because living conditions were often cramped and dirty, humans lived in close contact with rats. Black rats were the most common and carried the bacteria called Yersinia pestis, which caused the plague. The plague killed an estimated 25 million people, almost a third of the continent’s population. The Black Death lingered on for centuries, particularly in cities. Outbreaks included the Great Plague of London (1665-66), in which 70,000 residents died.
In England, the end of serfdom began with the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. It had largely died out in England by 1500 as a personal status and was fully ended when Elizabeth I freed the last remaining serfs in 1574. Serfdom was formally abolished in France in 1789.
It caused the lord of the manor and the serfs within the manor’s lands to be bound together socially and economically. For instance, in exchange for living and working on the manor’s lands, serfs received protection and justice from the lord. This highlights the ‘bondage’ portion of serfdom.
Serfdom developed in Eastern Europe after the Black Death epidemics of the mid-14th century, which stopped the eastward migration. The resulting high land-to-labor ratio – combined with Eastern Europe’s vast, sparsely populated areas – gave the lords an incentive to bind the remaining peasantry to their land. The House of Medici was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosmo de’ Medici in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Morello region of Tuscany and prospered gradually until it could fund the Medici Bank. This bank was the largest in Europe during the 15th century, and it facilitated the Medici’s rise to political power in Florence. However, they officially remained citizens rather than monarchs until the 16th century.
