In the mid-14th century, a pandemic hit North Africa and Europe: a pandemic so terrible that its estimated death toll was up to 200 million people. Its name was Black Death. Yet this period also gave birth to the Renaissance, the second birth of art, architecture, literature, and science! Learn how the European Renaissance changed history in this overview of the period and its prominent figures.
The Dance of Death, by Michael Wolgemut, 1493. Source: Nuremberg Chronicle of Hartmann Schedel, Wikipedia Commons (public domain)
European Renaissance: Definition
Renaissance began in Florence, Italy, and spread across Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries. The movement revived classical forms and ideas from ancient Greece and Rome in visual arts, architecture, literature, and philosophy.
The Renaissance changed Europe in many important ways. In visual arts, Renaissance artists and sculptors began to portray humans in a figurative, naturalistic, yet idealized way compared to their stylized and rigid Medieval counterparts. Scientists focused on empirical observation, which led to major paradigm shifts in the Scientific Revolution. In philosophy, European humanist thinkers returned to classical thought from ancient Greece and Rome. The printing press allowed the dissemination of ideas from Italy to northern Europe. Finally, explorers and conquerors launched the Age of Discovery.
The religious counterpart of the Renaissance was the Protestant Reformation which undermined the Catholic Church and gave birth to new Christian denominations. The Reformation provided the intellectual spirit for the Northern Renaissance.
European Renaissance: Timeline
Date | Event |
1347-1353 | Black Death (Bubonic Plague) in Europe causes mass death. |
14th century | The Renaissance begins in Italy: - Giotto is a transitional figure between late Gothic and Renaissance art.
- Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Dante promote humanist ideals and the vernacular Italian language.
- Filippo Brunelleschi, the father of Renaissance architecture, works in Florence.
|
1430s | Painter Jan van Eyck works in present-day Belgium. Northern Renaissance in visual arts begins. |
1440-1450 | Johannes Gutenberg invents a movable printing press in Germany. The Printing Revolution begins in Europe. |
1492 | Columbus sets out on his Transatlantic journey in 1492. The Age of Discovery and Conquest begins. |
1501-1504 | Michelangelo sculpts David. |
1503 | Leonardo paints Mona Lisa. |
1508-1514 | Copernicus arrives at his key ideas, including the heliocentric astronomic model. They were published in 1543. |
1509 | Raphael paints the School of Athens. |
1517 | Protestant Reformation begins with Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Germany. |
The Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck, 1434. Source: National Gallery, London, Wikipedia Commons (public domain).
European Renaissance and Reformation
Renaissance humanism moved away from Medieval thought, defined by the strict theological Scholasticism. Instead, humanist thinkers channeled ancient Greece and Rome as inspiration in the context of Early Modern Europe.
Philosophy and Literature
First, humanist thinking defined the Renaissance. Second, the Italian Renaissance used the vernacular Italian language in contrast to Medieval Latin. Authors Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch are called the "three crowns" (tre corone) of Italian literature at this time.
Humanism
Humanism drew from ancient Greece and Rome and focused on:
- classical education: philosophy, grammar, history, and rhetoric;
- virtues, including prudence, eloquence, and honor;
- a life balancing contemplation and action.
Dante
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was an essential Italian poet who influenced subsequent Renaissance writers such as Boccaccio and Petrarch. His best-known work is the Divine Comedy, one of the essential poems from the Medieval period. A key reason for Dante’s impact was his use of the vernacular Italian language instead of Latin, which was customary during the Middle Ages. Dante's importance also lies in linking the Medieval and Renaissance periods.
The Tomb of Lucifer, in Dante's Divine Comedy, by Antonio Manetti, 1506. Source: Cornell University: Persuasive Cartography, The PJ Mode Collection, Wikipedia Commons (public domain).
Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 -1375) was a key writer of the Italian Renaissance. His most famous work is Decameron comprising one hundred stories. The text serves as a testament to the Black Death that devastated Europe in the mid-14th-century. The characters in Decameron leave Florence to be secluded in the countryside, where they tell stories to each other to escape this pandemic.
A page from Decameron, 1492. Source: La Biblioteca europea di informazione e cultura, Wikipedia Commons (public domain).
Petrarch
Petrarch (1304-1374), Francesco Petrarca, was an important early Renaissance thinker and poet. Petrarch is considered one of the first humanists. Along with Dante and Boccaccio, he set forth the vernacular Italian language. Scholars argue that Petrarch developed the sonnet format—a poem comprised of 14 lines—as is evident from his Il Canzoniere collection of love poetry.
Petrarch's Virgil, title page (frontispiece), an illuminated manuscript by Simone Martini, ca. 1336-1340. Source: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Wikipedia Commons (public domain).
Printing Revolution
German inventor Johannes Gutenberg (ca 1390s-1468) introduced the movable-type printing press to Europe between 1440 and 1450. His work in typography—arranging text—was also important. Before this, books existed as hand-written, decorated manuscripts that took a long time to produce.
Did you know?
Printing was invented in China much earlier by using carved blocks of wood to print entire pages. However, Gutenberg arrived at his idea independently.
One of the inventor's most famous works was the Gutenberg Bible. Mechanized book publishing gradually improved, helping spread ideas across Europe. Printed books contributed to the growth of literacy, communication, and education.
Today, graphic designers create book layouts digitally. However, some of their terminology goes back to the early days of publishing. For example, the space between the lines is called "leading" because, in the past, pieces of lead were used to separate the text on each line.
Religion and Theology
The 16th century in Europe saw a radical transformation of the Church. The Protestants rebelled against the shortcomings of the Catholic Church. In turn, the Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church was a response to the Protestants.
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation challenged the power and the corruption of the Catholic Church. Thinkers from different countries, including Martin Luther (Germany), Hyldrych Zwingli (Switzerland), John Calvin (France), and Erasmus (present-day Belgium), argued that the Church needed to be reformed. Humanist ideals also inspired them.
Protestantism eventually split off and formed its own Church. In some places in Europe, the Protestants comprised more radical movements, such as the Anabaptists of the German-speaking lands and the French Huguenots. These groups were persecuted, and many fled to the New World.
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (1466-1536) was a Dutch theologian and humanist. Despite being a Catholic, Erasmus was critical of the Church and therefore represented Reformation thinking. For example, he produced new editions of the New Testament in Greek and Latin that influenced both the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. His works display a blend of theology and Renaissance humanism.
Martin Luther, 95 Theses, 1517. Source: Wikipedia Commons (public domain).
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a German theologian. He is credited as the leader of the Protestant Reformation that sought reform of the Catholic Church. In 1517, Martin Luther is believed to have placed his 95 Theses, which criticized the Church, on the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.
European Renaissance: Art
Renaissance art spread from Italy, especially Florence, to other parts of Europe. Its idealized, figurative portrayal of the human form replaced more stylized Medieval art.
Painting and Sculpture
The three best-known painters of the High Renaissance in Italy were Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael. Dutch and Flemish artists like Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Dürer, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder represented the Renaissance in Northern Europe.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564) was a pivotal Italian painter, sculptor, architect, writer, and engineer. His multitude of talents led to coining the term “Renaissance man.”
The Last Judgment, The Sistine Chapel, 1536-1541. Source: Wikipedia Commons (public domain).
Michelangelo produced many iconic works, such as:
- Sistine Chapel Ceiling at the Vatican, including the Last Judgement;
- A marble sculpture of David;
- A marble sculpture Pieta;
- Saint Peter's Basilica (dome and the east end).
The artist had wealthy and powerful patrons, including the Florentine Medici family. Some of his thematic works, such as the Pieta, showing the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Christ, are the most famous iterations of the given theme.
Leonardo
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was an Italian painter, inventor, scientist, sculptor, and writer. Like Michelangelo, Leonardo is also considered a "Renaissance man."
Leonardo studied at the Florentine workshop of Verrocchio. Later, he worked for reknown patrons who commissioned his works, such as Cesare Borgia.
Portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo, Leonardo, 1503. Source: Louvre, Wikipedia Commons (public domain).
Leonardo created many famous paintings, including:
- The Last Supper;
- Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist;
- Mona Lisa.
He also drew a variety of inventions, such as his flying machine, most of which were not made.
Leonardo’s design for a flying machine, 1488. Source: Wikipedia Commons (public domain).
Raphael
Raphael, Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520) was another important Italian painter and architect. He painted various themes comprising Christian subject matter, such as the Madonna, and clergy, such as his Portrait of Pope Julius II (1511). His School of Athens (1511) depicts ancient Greek philosophers, with Plato and Aristotle among them, and emphasizes the Greco-Roman revival during the Renaissance.
Raphael, School of Athens, 1511. Source: Vatican Museums, Wikipedia Commons (public domain).
Architecture
Architects like Filippo Brunelleschi also turned to inspiration from the ancient world.
Filippo Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) was an Italian architect, and engineer considered the father of Italian Renaissance architecture. Brunelleschi’s most famous works are located in his hometown, Florence.
Brunelleschi's Dome, Florence, (1419-1436). Charles Herbert Moore's Character of Renaissance Architecture, Wikipedia Commons (public domain).
One quintessential Renaissance building is the Florence Cathedral, Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (1419–1436). Brunelleschi used ingenuity to build one of the largest domes in the world, 180 feet above the ground and close to 150 feet in diameter, on top of an existing structure. His solution became the norm for subsequent Renaissance and Baroque domes.
European Renaissance: Scientific Revolution
Inspired by humanist ideals, Renaissance scientists moved away from Medieval Scholastic thinking. Instead, they focused on empirical observation of nature, giving rise to the 16th-17th-century Scientific Revolution in physics, chemistry, biology, anatomy, astronomy, and mathematics.
Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), a Polish astronomer and mathematician, proposed the heliocentric solar system model with the Sun at the center rather than the ancient geocentric model focused on the Earth instead. His most important work is called Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs published in 1543.
Heliocentric solar system, Copernicus, 1543. Source: First printed edition of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, Wikipedia Commons (public domain).
Age of Discovery and Conquest
In 1492, Christopher Columbus set off on a Transatlantic journey to the New World. This event marked the beginning of the Age of Discovery and Conquest. Two years later, the Treaty of Tordesillas split the world in two between Spain and Portugal—the first European countries to explore new lands. The French established New France in 1534, and the British founded the colony of Roanoke, in present-day Virginia, in 1587.
This initiative meant territorial expansion, new trade opportunities and routes, scientific discovery, and Christian missions for Europeans. For the natives of these lands, this period brought negative consequences such as losing their culture and resources and facing epidemics.
After the Renaissance
By the 17th century, the Baroque style generally replaced the idealized human form with more realistic depictions and focused on the human condition. The Scientific Revolution pushed on with discoveries in astronomy and physics by Galileo and Isaac Newton.
European Renaissance - Key Takeaways
- The 14th-16th-century European Renaissance was a movement that spread from Italy to other areas in Europe, partly due to the invention of the movable printing press.
- Renaissance comprised humanism in philosophy, the Scientific Revolution, the Protestant Reformation, and the Age of Discovery and Conquest. It is best known for its painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature.
- The most important artists included Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, and Jan van Eyck.
- The key intellectuals were Petrarch, Boccaccio, Erasmus, and Martin Luther.
Explanations 
Textbooks 
Exams 
Magazine 
