Highlights of da Renaissance

Da Renaissance

Period: Jan 1, 1400 to Dec 31, 1700

The renaissance was the rebirth of Europe after the middle ages came to an end.

Witch Hunts

Jan 1, 1450

From 1450 to 1750, tens of thousands of men and woman had died as victims to witch hunts. Although mostly women were accused of being witches, some men also faced the same punishments. At this time, most people believed in magic and spirits. They believed there was a close link between magic and heresy. In addition to that, people often looked for scapegoats to blame their problems on during times of crisis and trouble. Those accused of witchcraft were often tortured or burned at the stake.

Gutenberg invents printing press

Jan 1, 1456

In the year 1456, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and started a printing revolution. Before this invention, if you wanted a copy of a book, you had to copy it by hand. This new method was much easier and quicker. It still took a while, but compared to earlier methods, it was almost instant. This allowed books and knowledge to be much more common.

Raphael paints the school of Athens

Jan 1, 1510

One of the most famous paintings of the Italian Renaissance is the School of Athens. Painted by Raphael, it depicts a gathering of great thinkers and scientists, such as Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, as well as Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and himself.

Michaelangelo paints the Sistine Chapel ceiling

Jan 1, 1512

In 1512, Michaelangelo finally finishes painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling. For 4 years he lay on his back on a wooden platform suspended just below the ceiling. He described the ordeal with this poem:
"My stomach is thrust toward my chin.
My beard curls up toward the sky.
My head leans right over onto my back...
The brush endlessly dripping on my face."
~Michaelangelo

The Prince

Jan 1, 1513

In 1513, Niccolo Machiavelli published The Prince, a different kind of handbook. It combined his personal experience with politics and knowledge of the past to offer a guide to rulers on how to gain and maintain power.

Leonardo's self-portrait

Jan 1, 1515

Not long before he died, Leonardo drew a portrait of an old man. He drew it on paper using red chalk. It hasn't been proven yet if this really is a self-portrait, but many have guessed it to be.

Ghettos

Jan 1, 1516

By 1516, most Jews who didn't convert to Christianity were forced to live in ghettos. A ghetto is a separate quarter of a city with extremely poor living conditions. If they left the ghetto, they had to wear a yellow badge. Up until 1516, the Renaissance had been a time of prosperity for many Jews. Events like the Catholic Reformation brought many hard times for Jews.

Martin Luther protests

Jan 1, 1517

By the late 1400s, the corruption and abuse in the Roman Catholic Church had become far beyond excessive. Popes competed with other rulers for power. Fees were increased for marriage and baptism. Some clergy even gave indulgences for money. A German monk named Martin Luther was fed up with the corruption and worldliness of the Church. When he discovered that a priest named Johann Tetzel was selling indulgences, it was the last straw. He posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church.

The Mona Lisa

Jan 1, 1519

Painted by Leonardo da Vinci and completed in 1519, this intruiging painting was a comissioned portrait of Mona Lisa, the wife of a Florentine merchant. When it was finished Leonardo liked it so much he decided to keep it for himself instead of giving it away. To this day, the Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the world.

Luther is excommunicated

Jan 1, 1521

In the year 1521, Martin Luther was excommunicated for refusing to give up his arguments against the corrupted ways of the Church. Later that same year, the new emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, called him to the Diet of Worms. Luther expected to defend his writings, but instead Charles ordered he give them up. Again he refused to recant, and was declared an outlaw. Still, he had many powerful followers. A prince hid him in a castle in Wartburg while thousands called him a hero.

Peasants' revolt

Jan 1, 1524

By the 1530s, many people had become followers of the new Lutheran Church- including peasants. They hoped to gain Luther's support for social and economic change. During 1524, a peasant revolt exploded across Germany. They called for changes in their harsh lives, such as the end of serfdom. However, Luther favored social order and respected political power. With his support, nobles killed tens of thousands of peasants and left many more homeless.

Henry's break with the Catholic Church

Jan 1, 1527

Henry VIII thought that the stability of England depended on him having a male heir, but he and his Spanish wife, Catherine of Aragon, had one survivng child, Mary Tudor. Believing she might bear him a son, he wanted to marry Anne Boleyn. Catholic law doesn't allow divorce, so Henry asked the Pope to annul his marriage. But the pope refused, as he didn't want to offend Catherine's nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor. Henry was furious. He decided to break from Rome and take over the English Church.

Catholic reformation

Jan 1, 1530

While the Protestant Reformation swept across Europe, a reform movement took place in the Catholic Church. This reform movement, called the Catholic Reformation, was led by Pope Paul III. Throughout the 1530s and 1540s, he tried to revive the Church's moral authority and defeat the Protestant tide. To end corruption within the papacy, he appointed reformers to key posts. They, along with their successors, then guided the Catholic Reformation for the rest of the 15th century.

Henry's annulment

Jan 1, 1534

After ending papal control over the Church of England, King Henry VIII appointed Thomas Cranmer archbishop, who annuled Henry's marriage. After that Henry married Anne Boleyn, who only bore him another daughter, Elizabeth. Anne Boleyn was then executed and Henry married four more times but only had one son, Edward.

John Calvin

Jan 1, 1536

The most important reformer to come after Luther was John Calvin, who had a logical, razor-sharp mind. He had a huge effect on the Protestant Reformation. In 1536, he published his religious beliefs as well as how to run a Protestant Church in his book, The Institutes of Christian Religion. Like Luther, Calvin believed that spiritual salvation was gained only through faith in God and that the Bible was the only source of religious truth.

The Church of England

Jan 1, 1536

From 1536 to 1540, royal officials were investigating English monastaries and covents. Henry claimed they were centers of immortality and had them closed. Then he confiscated their lands and wealth and gave them to nobles and other high-ranking citizens. By doing this, he secured their support for the new English Church, called the Anglican Church. Aside from breaking from Rome and allowing use of the English Bible, Henry kept most Catholic traditions and forms of worship.

The Society of Jesus

Jan 1, 1540

In 1540, Pope Paul III recognized a new religious order, the Jesuits. Founded by Ignatiaus of Loyola, the order of the Jesuits were determined to combat heresy and spread the Catholic faith. Ignatiaus of Loyola was a Spanish knight born in crusading tradition. After shattering his leg in battle, he found comfort in reading about saints who had overcome physical and mental torture. He vowed to become a "soldier of God" and created a strict program for Jesuits to follow.

Calvin's theocracy

Jan 1, 1541

As well as agreeing with Luther, John Calvin had some of his own ideas. For example, he believed that long ago God had decided who would have salvation. In the eyes of Calvinists, there were 2 kinds of people: saints and sinners. They tried to live holy lives like saints, believing only one saved from sin could truly live a Christian life. People in the city-state of Geneva, Switzerland asked Calvin to lead their town. So he set up a government run by church leaders, called a theocracy.

Nicholas Copernicus

Jan 1, 1543

In the year 1543, a scholar named Nicholas Copernicus published his view of the universe in his book, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. He believed that the universe was heliocentric, or sun-centered, meaning that the sun was the center of the universe and the Earth was just one of a few planets that revolved around the sun. Most experts dismissed this theory, as all scientific knowledge came from arguments of ancient and classical thinkers.

Council of Trent

Jan 1, 1545

In order to control the direction in which reforms would take, the Pope invoked the Council of Trent in 1545. Off and on it met for nearly 20 years. The council reaffirmed many of the traditional Catholic veiws, which had been challenged by Protestants. Salvation comes through faith AND good work,"
declared the council. While a major source of religious truth, the Bible is not the only source. The council also ended abuses in the Church by providing stiff penalties for corruption among clergy.

King Edward VI

Jan 1, 1547

After his father's death in 1547, Henry's 10-year-old son, Edward VI, inherited the throne. Edward passed new laws that brought protestant reforms to England. Thomas Cranmer wrote the Book of Common Prayer, which imposed moderate protestant services while keeping many of the Catholic doctrines. When Edward died in his teens, his sister, Mary Tudor, became Queen of England. Mary was determined to return England to the Catholic faith and had hundreds of English protestants burned at the stake.

The Peace of Augsburg

Jan 1, 1555

During the 1530s and 1540s, emperor Charles V attempted to force Lutheran princes back into the Catholic Church, but he had little success. After a few wars, Charles came to a settlement with the princes. In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg was signed, allowing princes to decide which religion (Catholic or Lutheran) would be preached in his land. Most of the northern German princes chose Lutheran, while the south remained mostly Catholic.

Elizabeth I

Jan 1, 1558

When Mary died in the year 1558, the throne was passed down to Elizabeth. As queen, she held the future of the Church of England. Cautiously at first, Elizabeth enforced a series of reforms called the Elizabethan Settlement. These new policies were a compromise between Catholic and Protestant practices. She restored the Book of Common Prayer, accepted Protestant doctrine, and allowed Latin to be replaced by English in mass. During her long reign, she used all her skills to unite England.

Spread of Calvinism

Jan 1, 1580

By the late 1500s, Calvinism had taken root in Germany, France, England, the Netherlands, and Scotland. This new challenge to the Catholic Church unleashed wars of religion all over Europe.

Tycho Brahe

Jan 1, 1580

In the late 1500s, the astronomer Tycho Brahe gathered evidence to support Corpernicus's heliocentric theory. He built an observatory and spent years carefully observing the sky every night and collecting data about the heavenly bodies.

A new approach to science

Jan 1, 1600

By the early 1600s, a new approach to science emerged, despite opposition from religious authorities. Unlike previous methods, it didn't rely on authorities such as Ptolemy or Aristotle or even the Bible. It depended upon observation and experimentation.

Aftermath of the Catholic Reformation

Jan 1, 1600

The Catholic Reformation was overall successful. By the 1600s, Rome was a much more devout and religious city than it had been a century earlier. The reforms slowed down the Protestant tides and even returned some areas to the original Catholic faith. Even so, Europe still remained divided into a mostly Catholic south and mostly Protestant north.

Bacon and Descartes

Jan 1, 1600

The new scientific method was a revolution in thought. 2 giants of this revolution were Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes. They both devoted themselves to the problem of knowledge. They both dismissed the scientific assumptions of classical thinkers like Aristotle.They also challenged traditions of medieval universities, which tried to make the physical world fit with the Church's teachings. Both of them argued that truth is not found right away, but after a long process of investigation.

Johannes Kepler

Jan 1, 1601

After Brahe's death his asistant, Johannes Keppler, used his data to calculate the orbits of the planets. His calculations supported Copernicus's heliocentric theory. But at the same time it showed that the planets did not revolve in circles like Ptolemy and Copernicus had both believed. Instead, it showed that the planets orbited the sun in elliptical, oval-shaped paths.

Galileo's telescope

Jan 1, 1609

In the year 1609 Galileo Galilei fixed his new telescope on the sky. He saw amazing sights no man had ever witnessed before. He saw fiery spots on the Sun, mountains on the Moon, and 4 moons circling the planet Jupiter. In addition to his work in astronomy, Galileo made significant discoveries about the motion of falling objects. Galileo supported Copernicism, the belief that the sun was the center of the universe. He was later placed under house arrest for the rest of his life for his beliefs.

Sir Isaac Newton

Jan 1, 1687

In 1687, Isaac Newton published Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, which contained his theories on the workings of the universe. One of the most brilliant of those theories is gravity. According to one story, Isaac saw an apple fall from a tree. He wondered if the force that pulled the apple to Earth might also control the movement of the planets. He later perfected his theory using mathematics to show that the force did indeed keep the planets in orbit. He called the force gravity.