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In the upcoming pages, we’ll continue our tour through world history by examining the timeframe between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, an era that encompassed some important artistic and intellectual movements and also gave the world some of its most important thinkers and writers.
In the previous lessons, we touched on a few events of the Middle Ages, and also reviewed some of the major events in Christianity’s rise to dominance in western Europe.
St. Peter’s Basilica
The Renaissance marked a shift in thinking about humans’ relationship with God. In medieval times, humans were thought of as debased and removed from God; however, Renaissance thinkers saw humans and their activity as reflections of God’s greatness. This major shift inspired much of the intellectual activity of the era.
In turn, this shift sparked a renewed interest in the literary works of the ancient Greeks and Romans, which were no longer widely read. Some scholars mark the beginning of the Renaissance with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The Ottoman Turks takeover of that city brought many Byzantine-Greek scholars west to Italy.
| Renaissance Timeline | |
|---|---|
| c. 1440s | Donatello depicts ancient king David, victorious from his biblical battle, in bronze; the bodily proportions are designed to be symbolic rather than realistic. |
| c. 1460 | The Flagellation, painted by Piero della Francesca, exemplifies the strong trend toward proper perspective and realistic proportioning in visual art. |
| 1506 | Construction begins in Rome on the Basilica of Saint Peter, the largest Christian church. |
| 1512 | Michelangelo completes his work decorating the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace. The frescoes, begun in 1508, depict more than 300 biblical figures. |
| 1516 | King François I purchases and brings to France for the first time an untitled painting by Leonardo da Vinci. It came to be known as La Gioconda and later the Mona Lisa. |
| 1546 | Construction begins on the modern Chateau du Louvre, designed by Pierre Lescot, which would become a public museum in 1793. |
| 1564 | William Shakespeare, reputedly the greatest writer in the English language, is born. |
With the unearthing of Greek and Roman thinkers, the Catholic Church’s hold on absolute truth began to slip. Coupled with the fact the church was a sprawling, wealthy bureaucracy, the stage was set for a big change.
Enter Martin Luther, a priest and professor at Wittenberg College. Upset over the church’s policy concerning indulgences, Luther put together his Ninety-five Theses on October 31, 1517. Luther and his steadfast refusal to back off his ideas touched off a powder keg of anti-church sentiment, and violence against church leaders was widespread.
Which Renaissance artist and inventor drew the Vitruvian Man?
Answer B is correct. One of history’s most famous artists, Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, inventor, and much more. His Vitruvian Man is a study of human anatomy based on the ideas of Roman architect Vitruvius. Da Vinci lived between 1452 and 1519.
Europe in the fourteenth century took a cue from the Greeks and Romans and began reaching out to new lands and new markets. First the Portuguese, then the Spanish, and later the British, French, and Dutch sent ships out to the New World for economic and political empire building. With the high-risk, high-profit business of exploration, nations raced to claim new land in the name of financial gain and religious fervor. The motives behind the exploration and colonization of the New World were an often selfish desire for power and commerce that set the foundation for modern capitalism. Click here to see some of the major figures of this era.
Which of the following conquistadors vanquished the Aztec Empire?
Answer C is correct. In 1521, Cortés and his indigenous allies brought down the mighty Aztec empire and claimed the land for Spain. Choice A, da Gama, is incorrect (see section above); the other choices are conquistadors who subjugated other regions: Ponce de León conquered Puerto Rico, and Diego Velázquez took Cuba. Both men are important to remember.
Reason is the mark of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment. In contrast to the previous century’s reliance on the Catholic Church as the sole arbiter of truth, the Enlightenment saw humans and their intellect as the authority on morality, logic, and politics. Humanism, the Protestant Reformation, and the Renaissance all helped loosen the grip of the church.
Let’s refresh your memory about two of the movement’s leading thinkers.
Locke was an English philosopher who believed that the senses were the ultimate arbiter of truth. This idea is known as empiricism and is one of the cornerstones of Enlightenment thinking. Locke also believed that political power could only be derived from the consent of the governed. His ideas about government greatly influenced the American Revolution.
Another heavyweight of the Enlightenment, Rousseau wrote The Social Contract. He was concerned with how the individual relates to society as a whole. The Social Contract begins “Man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains,” and proceeds to argue that men need a civil society based on a genuine social contract.
