x
The Renaissance was the cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Starting in Italy and spreading to the rest of Europe until the 16th century, its influence was felt in literature , philosophy , art , music , politics , science , religion , as well as in other fields of research. Renaissance scholars adopted the humanistic method in their study and focused on realism and human emotion in art. Humanists like Poggio Bracciolini searched the monastic literary, historical and oratorical texts of antiquity in the monastic libraries of Europe.The fall of Constantinople in 1453 led to an exodus of Greek scholars who brought precious manuscripts into the ancient Greek language , many of which had fallen into obscurity in the West . A new emphasis is placed on literary and historical texts, on the works of natural sciences , philosophy , mathematics , written in Greek and Arabic .
In the Neoplatonic renaissance, humanists did not reject Christianity ; on the contrary, most of the Renaissance works were dedicated to the church, which patronized works of art. A subtle change took place in the way intellectuals approached religion, reflected in many cultural fields. Many Greek Christian works, including the New Testament written in Greek, were brought from Byzantium to Western Europe and researched. Humanists as Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus of Rotterdam championed the return to the original New Testament in Greek , which opened the way for the Protestant Reformation.
The artistic return to classicism can be exemplified in Nicola Pisano 's sculpture , and the Florentine painters led by Masaccio tried to portray his portrait as realistically as possible, developing techniques to render a perspective, light and shadows as natural as possible. Political philosophers, such as Niccolò Machiavelli , sought to describe political life as it really was in order to understand it. An essential contribution was made by the Italian humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who wrote, in 1486, "De hominis dignitate" (The Discourse on Human Dignity), which consists of a series of philosophical theses on natural thought and faith. Renaissance authors also began to use vernacular languages, and the advent of print allowed access to books (like the Bible) for as many people as possible.
The renaissance also involves an attempt by intellectuals to study and improve the secular world, by invigorating ancient ideas and adopting new methods of thinking. The innovations of the renaissance made political and church structures more receptive and led to the emergence of capitalism. While the great European kingdoms, like France and Spain , remained absolutist monarchies and others were under the direct control of the Church, the Italian republics took over the principles of capitalism, which led to an unprecedented commercial flourishing.
