History of European Renaisance
Renaissance is the meaning of rebirth in French. It is considered as the time for the modern scholars as many changes have happened during the time period 1300 to 1600. It is at this time new inventions were made. During the Middle Ages church has the top power and all its economy is based in the agriculture. The society was dominated by political institutions with commercial attitudes. Many schools and colleges were constructed during this period.
Many rich Italian cities like Venice, Milan and others started the renaissance. The merchants who are wealthy enough started spending money on paintings, new banking techniques and made changes in the government. They gave rise to a type of scholar called humanist, which is concerned with the studies of humans and culture. They have studied the literature and philosophy of Latin and Greek languages. Many new sciences were studied with music and mathematics was given the top preference.
Painting
Art and sculpture were the new forms of painting which are discovered. The artists were compared with the poets and writer for the time first time during the renaissance. Mathematics and painting was combined to draw a relatively precise image which is both rational and proportional. It is during this time they have discovered the oil paint and mix colors. They have studied how light travels and strikes the objects and how human eyes receive it.
Printing
Printing is one of the important technologies developed progressively in this time period. They first used movable metal pieces, and then could be rearranged to form words and sentences. Johan Gutenberg was the first to print the book. It was a copy of bible. By 1500 printing presses were spread all over and printing was affordable and everyone could read the books. It made books cheaper and everyone could afford them. So literature spread worldwide at that time where only priests and monks and church officials were only able to read. They became intreasted in other language books as everyone started to read the local languages and hence people started reading other languages like English, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Other than painting and reading, people developed interest in politics. Everyone started to know about the town other than one they are in. They have belief of serving the church and getting to heaven. As the literacy increased people recognized that Catholic churches only told populous what they wanted them to hear. This caused many people to break away and form protestant religious.
Renaissance produced many great minds like Leonardo da Vinci. He was not regarded as a genious at his time. His art work of Mona Lisa and The last supper we one of the best even today. He earned the crdit for the idea of the helicopter. Another great mind was the Martin Luther. His beliefs challenged the church although many people agreed with his ideas.
It was the time of awakening in Europe. It include the general loss of power by church and increase in literacy and education.
References
European Renaissance, (2006), Essay finder.com, retrieved form http://www.cyberessays.com/History/24.htm