Explain the causes of the Renaissance and describe how humanism and classical learning shaped Renaissance art and thought.
Renaissance means "rebirth" in French, and it describes a cultural explosion that began in the wealthy Italian city-states, especially Florence, in the 1300s and reached its height in the 1400s and 1500s. Several forces fed it at once: wealthy merchant and banking families, especially the Medici of Florence, funded artists and scholars the way a modern foundation might fund research; ancient Greek and Roman texts, some newly arrived with Byzantine scholars fleeing Constantinople before its fall in 1453, and others already reaching Europe through the Cordoba-to-Toledo translation chain you studied in week 6, gave thinkers fresh material to study; and a new philosophy called humanism shifted attention toward human potential, individual achievement, and life in this world.
Renaissance art shows humanism in action: painters like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo studied human anatomy to make figures look astonishingly real, and used a technique called linear perspective, pioneered by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi, to make flat paintings look three-dimensional, as though you could step into them. Leonardo's curiosity ran far beyond painting -- his notebooks are full of anatomical studies, engineering sketches, and inventions centuries ahead of his time. This explosion of art, science, and philosophy in Florence and other Italian cities would soon spread across Europe, carried in part by a brand-new technology you will study next week: the printing press.
Mastery looks like: They can name at least two causes of the Renaissance and explain how humanism influenced Renaissance art, citing a specific technique or artist.
Common stumbles: Treating the Renaissance as a sudden, unexplained burst of genius rather than the result of specific economic, intellectual, and historical causes.