History UsefulNotes / TheRenaissance

A reawakening of UsefulNotes/{{Europe}} to the arts and sciences. This era took many distinct forms depending on the decade and geographic location. In HollywoodHistory, The Renaissance is home to [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor Tudor]] Mansions, Medici Palazzi and Valois Châteaux, Creator/WilliamShakespeare, King Henry VI and his eight wives (or was it King UsefulNotes/HenryVIII and his six wives?), [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethI Queen Elizabeth I]], UsefulNotes/MaryOfScotland, UsefulNotes/CharlesV, UsefulNotes/TheBorgias, Martin Luther, UsefulNotes/TheProtestantReformation, global exploration in search for gold and spices, and Creator/LeonardoDaVinci (who spent nearly all of his time painting ''Art/TheLastSupper'' or ''Art/TheMonaLisa'' and working on that damn [[Literature/TheDaVinciCode "code"]] of his...). Outside of Western Europe, we have UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler of [[UsefulNotes/{{Romania}} Wallachia]], UsefulNotes/IvanTheTerrible of [[UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia Russia]], The UsefulNotes/PolishLithuanianCommonwealth, [[UsefulNotes/OttomanEmpire Turkish sultans]] surrounded by [[RoyalHarem gorgeous belly dancers]] fighting great land and naval battles against Europe, [[MysticalIndia Mughal rajahs]] building their pristine white marble mausoleums, UsefulNotes/{{Ming|Dynasty}} emperors in their [[ImperialChina Forbidden Palace]] whose halls are adorned with [[PricelessMingVase beautiful porcelain vases]], [[JidaiGeki Sengoku warlords]] served by loyal {{samurai}} and [[YamatoNadeshiko delicate]] {{geisha}}s, and bloodthirsty [[{{Mayincatec}} Mayincatec overlords]] overlooking [[CityOfGold their rising empires]] only to have them crushed by UsefulNotes/HernanCortez, UsefulNotes/FranciscoPizarro and other gold-hungry conquistadores.

Revisionist scholars inspired by {{Postmodernism}} point out that the Renaissance was not nearly as progressive as it believed or wished it was (no era is, but the Renaissance was the first which truly expected and believed it was). The Age of Discovery led to the start of the Atlantic Slave Trade and colonization of the New World, and this led to the depopulation of native peoples by smallpox and massacres. The Protestant Reformation unleashed witch-hunts and witch-burnings (actually hangings, usually) in their heyday, far more so than in the medieval period, and the Wars of Religion that followed led to horrific acts of violence unprecedented even in the heights of UsefulNotes/TheCrusades. Antisemitism also reached new heights, what with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal.[[note]]The Spanish one was less of an expulsion of Jews and more of an expulsion of Judaism, as Jews were given the ultimatum to either leave or convert to Christianity, so most of them simply converted (either sincerely or insincerely) and stayed. Possibly only a quarter of the Spanish Jewish population actually left.[[/note]] Furthermore, while serfdom ended in Western Europe, thanks to greater agricultural demand from Western Europe, serfdom which had never existed in Eastern Europe in any significant level and fashion increased and spread. Likewise, many point out that the cultural and intellectual glories of UsefulNotes/{{Italy}} so often celebrated in HistoricalFiction belies the fact that the UsefulNotes/ItalianWars were ongoing and never-ending parts of this era, and that Italy was more or less colonized by neighboring states who repeatedly sacked and looted its wealth.

* ''Art/TheSchoolOfAthens''

* [[Art/SistineChapel The Sistine Chapel]]

* ''Literature/ElHijoDelQuincallero'' is set in Spain and Central America in the early sixteenth century.

* ''[[Art/TheBirthOfVenusBotticelli The Birth of Venus]]''

A reawakening of UsefulNotes/{{Europe}} to the arts and sciences. This era took many distinct forms depending on the decade and geographic location. In HollywoodHistory, The Renaissance is home to [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor Tudor]] Mansions, Medici Palazzi and Valois Châteaux, Creator/WilliamShakespeare, King Henry VI and his eight wives (or was it King UsefulNotes/HenryVIII and his six wives?), [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethI Queen Elizabeth I]], UsefulNotes/MaryOfScotland, UsefulNotes/CharlesV, UsefulNotes/TheBorgias, Martin Luther, UsefulNotes/TheProtestantReformation, global exploration in search for gold and spices, and Creator/LeonardoDaVinci (who spent nearly all of his time painting ''Art/TheLastSupper'' or ''Art/TheMonaLisa'' and working on that damn [[Literature/TheDaVinciCode "code"]] of his...). Outside of Western Europe, we have UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler of [[UsefulNotes/{{Romania}} Wallachia]], UsefulNotes/IvanTheTerrible of [[UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia Russia]], The UsefulNotes/PolishLithuanianCommonwealth, [[UsefulNotes/OttomanEmpire Turkish sultans]] surrounded by [[RoyalHarem gorgeous belly dancers]] fighting great land and naval battles against Europe, [[MysticalIndia Mughal rajahs]] building their pristine white marble mausoleums, [[ImperialChina Ming emperors]] in their Forbidden Palace whose halls are adorned with [[PricelessMingVase beautiful porcelain vases]], [[JidaiGeki Sengoku warlords]] served by loyal {{samurai}} and [[YamatoNadeshiko delicate]] {{geisha}}s, and bloodthirsty [[{{Mayincatec}} Mayincatec overlords]] overlooking [[CityOfGold their rising empires]] only to have them crushed by UsefulNotes/HernanCortez, UsefulNotes/FranciscoPizarro and other gold-hungry conquistadores.

* ''Literature/1632'', set in 1631 and deals with a West Virginian town from 2000 ending up in the middle of the Holy Roman Empire (Thuringia, Germany to be exact)

[[AC:Switzerland]]

* ''Art/{{Fortezza}}''

** In music, after the monotonous, Latin-packed Ominous Gregorian Chanting of UsefulNotes/MedievalMusic stood its places in the churches, suddenly, out of the blue, came an influx of harmoniously vernacular multi-vocal pieces accompanied with harps, trumpets and newly invented instruments such as lutes, organs, keyboards and violins.

A reawakening of UsefulNotes/{{Europe}} to the arts and sciences. This era took many distinct forms depending on decade and geographic location. In HollywoodHistory, The Renaissance is home to [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor Tudor]] Mansions, Medici Palazzi and Valois Châteaux, Creator/WilliamShakespeare, King Henry VI and his eight wives (or was it King UsefulNotes/HenryVIII and his six wives?), [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethI Queen Elizabeth I]], UsefulNotes/MaryOfScotland, UsefulNotes/CharlesV, UsefulNotes/TheBorgias, Martin Luther, UsefulNotes/TheProtestantReformation, global exploration in search for gold and spices, and Creator/LeonardoDaVinci (who spent nearly all of his time painting ''Art/TheLastSupper'' or ''Art/TheMonaLisa'' and working on that damn [[Literature/TheDaVinciCode "code"]] of his...). Outside of Western Europe, we have UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler of [[UsefulNotes/{{Romania}} Wallachia]], UsefulNotes/IvanTheTerrible of [[UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia Russia]], The UsefulNotes/PolishLithuanianCommonwealth, [[UsefulNotes/OttomanEmpire Turkish sultans]] surrounded by [[RoyalHarem gorgeous belly dancers]] fighting great land and naval battles against Europe, [[MysticalIndia Mughal rajahs]] building their pristine white marble mausoleums, [[ImperialChina Ming emperors]] in their Forbidden Palace whose halls are adorned with [[PricelessMingVase beautiful porcelain vases]], [[JidaiGeki Sengoku warlords]] served by loyal {{samurai}} and [[YamatoNadeshiko delicate]] {{geisha}}s, and bloodthirsty [[{{Mayincatec}} Mayincatec overlords]] overlooking [[CityOfGold their rising empires]] only to have them crushed by UsefulNotes/HernanCortez, UsefulNotes/FranciscoPizarro and other gold-hungry conquistadores.

Now when people talk about Renaissance they are really talking about two things. The art-historian Giorgio Vasari used the word "rinascita" purely to describe the revival of Italian painting and sculpture since the time of Giotto. The especially grand and overarching way that later historians use to tie together the power and growth of UsefulNotes/{{Ital|y}}ian [[UsefulNotes/TheCityStateEra City States]] as represented in its artistic and literary output, with the Age of Discovery, the dawn of humanism and the flourishing of classical literature is entirely a modern construction.

"The Renaissance" as an overall historical phenomenon covering about 200 to 300 years (from say 1350s-1620s), [[NewerThanTheyThink applied to an entire era dates to 1855]]. It was coined by French Historian Jules Michelet and later adopted by English and German historians. Modern historians, inspired by {{Postmodernism}} use the phrase "Early Modern Era" as a umbrella term of which the Italian Renaissance is merely one chapter, accompanied by the Age of Discovery, UsefulNotes/TheProtestantReformation, the Wars of Religion and so on. Other definitions will date it from UsefulNotes/TheFallOfConstantinople in 1453 (others prefer 1492, the year of UsefulNotes/ChristopherColumbus' first voyage to the [[UsefulNotes/NorthAmerica New World]]) to the [[SteamPunk invention of the first steam engine in the 1750s]];[[note]]Although ironically, a Renaissance inventor, UsefulNotes/JeronimoDeAyanz, predated this.[[/note]] but it is more common to see it ending earlier and to refer to what came after ca. 1650 as the [[BaroqueMusic Baroque era]] and[=/=]or the [[UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment the Age of the Enlightenment]].

For history buffs, it can be quite annoying to see that most "{{Renaissance fair}}s" select England rather than Italy as their model, since England was the last Western European state to be [[BuffySpeak Renaissanced]]. At the time Leonardo and Michelangelo were in their youth, England was still mired in the tail-end of the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses (which cost the House of Medici so much florins that they quit banking and went into the hereditary nobility business). Your average RenaissanceFair in America will as likely as not feature [[TheDungAges a parade of dirty peasants and noisy farm animals]] - giving the impression that the Renaissance was a lot more backward than it actually was. Of course, it may also be because some people have a hard time in general telling apart the Renaissance from the late Middle Ages aesthetics-wise (also, it's a lot harder on a [=RenFaire=] budget to recreate a city like Florence than a village). Also, to be fair, once England ''did'' get "Renaissanced", they went for it wholesale and were on par with if not ahead of everyone by the 1650s, at least ideas-wise (when their [[UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar civil war]] gave rise to some ideas that we moderns would recognise easily as, well, modern).

It was Petrarch who coined the concept of the Dark Ages, which he used to lament the cultural wasteland of his era with the antique glories of Ancient Rome. The revival of Latin led to the revival of historical science, a more thorough study of history, architecture and art, and then to political dreams and experiments involving a united Italy. Thus, a new concept of learning was founded, which led to new science, new political theory, and in turn, a massive upheaval of the medieval society. The pope, puzzled at first, let the humanists struggle on, dumbfounded when he was witness to the excavation of Ancient Rome in his backyard, a little bit frightened when the same humanists began to ask questions around the topics of God and Man, and went ''seriously batshit'' when the movement in turn led to full religious and social revolution. But then it was too late.

* [[ThePlague Black Death]]: The Black Death had caused many of the Europeans to question the authority of the Catholic church, as many felt that god has abandoned man to fend for themselves. Even though the plague did hit Florence, the effects of the plague was not extreme in Florence when compared to other parts of Europe, as Florence was considered to be one of the wealthiest cities in Italy around the time period. The fact that the Black Death killed off a large number of lower class citizens have caused a drastic change of the social structure throughout Europe; peculiarly, it may have increased the well-being of those who survived, as (1) whole families dying meant that a lot a property was left for the taking and (2) skilled laborers could now charge higher prices (on account of reduced competition).

However, like the Enlightenment before the American and French Revolutions, the Renaissance, whether in Italy, or its offshoots in Holland, England, France, Germany, Spain and Portugal, was the province of intellectual aristocrats and emerging middle-classes, a small minority at best. The Reformation to some extent succeeded in weakening the hold of the Church and brought power to secular rulers, but it rarely resulted in mass movements, although some of the movements that resulted, like those leading to the Peasants' Wars and the English Revolution were steps in that direction.