Renaissance

Renaissance is the name of the great intellectual and cultural movement of the revival of interest in classical culture that occurred in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries -- a period which saw the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times. The inpenetration of Greek and Latin culture that occurred as a result of the formation of extensive Latin dominions in the Eastern Mediterranean after the 4th Crusade can be regarded as the basic condition, if not directly the cause, of the Renaissance. It began in Italy, and its first period was marked by a revival of interest in classical literature and the classical ideals. It was a great revolt against the intellectual sterility of the medieval spirit, and especially against scholasticism, in favour of intellectual freedom and its first sign was a passion for the cultural magnitude and richness of the pagan world. Traces of this revolt can be seen in Dante (1265- 1321), who, although thoroughly medieval in his sympathies, chose the Roman poet Virgil as his model, and who, in the vigour and magnificence of his own verse, was a striking contrast to his contemporaries and earlier medieval authors. Petrarch (1304-1374) was the first true poet of the Renaissance. His poems written in Latin hexameter followed the classical models of poetry. He travelled to foreign countries and thus was familiar with a larger world than his predecessors. Further, he may be said to have rediscovered Greek, which for some six centuries had been lost to the western world. His friend and disciple Boccaccio studied that language, and by his master's advice made a translation of Homer into Latin. In 1360 the first chair of Greek was established in Florence. Greek scholars were now encouraged to come from Byzantium to Italy, and in 1396 in turn the learned Manuel Chrysoloras began to teach in the chair of Greek at Florence which become the cradle of the classical revival. Outstanding Italian humanists of that epoch visited Byzantium in order to learn Greek and to buy old manuscripts, saved from pillages, conflagrations, and devastation of the invaded country. Many Greek texts were brought from Constantinople. Europe was ransacked for copies of the long unused Latin classics and copyists multiplied them. Libraries were founded, and schools for the study of both Greek and Latin in their classic forms were opened at Rome, Mautua, Verona, and many other towns. Pope Nicholas V earnestly fostered the new movement and laid the foundation of the great Vatican collection. Cardinal Bessarion presided over the formation of the Library of St. Mark at Venice. Individual scholars went about looking for manuscripts of lost authors, for coins, medals; for anything that could give a better knowledge of classical antiquity. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 Renaissance gained a further impetus because of a number of Greek humanists who moved from Byzantium to Italy. In 1462 the Platonic Academy was opened in Florence under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici. Its leader became Marcilio Ficino.

The second period of the Renaissance is marked by a continued zeal for classical study, and by the developmental of a broad learning and the new view of the intellectual life which is now known as Humanism. By this time the movement had spread to Germany, Poland and France, the Netherlands and to other northern countries, where it developed into the wide scholarship and sound learning of men like Thomas More, Campanella, Bruno, Ronsard, Erasmus, and Copernicus. The movement had gone far beyond the mere revival of classical studies and was felt in every department of life. In philosophy it gradually replaced the purely formal methods of thought that scholasticism had fostered. In science it led to the great discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton. In architecture it brought about the revival of the classical style. In the fine arts it inspired new schools of painting in Italy, such as of Giorgione, Raphael, Leonardo, Bellini, and Michael Angelo, and the Flemish school in the Netherlands. In religion its influence can be seen in the revolt of Martin Luther. Also, it indirectly inspired the passion for exploration that led to the discovery of the New World.