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The age of the Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the period roughly from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. Also included a huge artistic movement.
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A Timeline of the Renaissance and the impact of Europe
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The Italian poet Petrarch or Francesco Petrarca, is best known for the Iyric poetry of his Canzoniere and is considered one of the greatest love poets of world literature. A scholar of classical antiquity, he was the founder of humanism.
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The East–West Schism, also called the Great Schism and the Schism of 1054, was the break of communion between what are now the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches, which had lasted until the 11th century.
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The Medici family, which controlled Florence throughout much of the Renaissance, played a large part in the patronage of the arts and the political development of the city.
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In 1401, Italian artist Lorenzo Ghiberti was awarded a commission to create bronze doors for the baptistry of San Giovanni in Florence; architect Filippo Brunelleschi and sculptor Donatello traveled to Rome to begin their 13-year stay sketching, studying, and analyzing the ruins there; and the first painter of the early Renaissance, Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone and better known as Masaccio, was born.
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They are recognized as a major masterpiece of the Early Renaissance and were famous and influential from their unveiling. Ghiberti first became famous when as a 21-year-old he won the 1401 competition for the first set of bronze doors, with Brunelleschi as the runner up.
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One of the most significant architectural achievements of the entire Renaissance was undoubtedly the construction, by Filippo Brunelleschi, of the dome over the Florence Cathedral. The dome was built without employing centering to support the masonry.
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Brunelleschi is famous for two aonel paintings illustrating geometric optical linear perspective made in the early 1400s. His biographer, Antonio Manetti, described this famous experiment in which Brunelleschi painted two panels. The first of the Florentine Baptistery as viewed frontally from the western portal of the unfinished cathedral, and second the Palazzo Vecchio as seen obliquely from its northwest corner.
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The most influential decision in the reign of Pope Gregory XI (1370–1378) was the return to Rome, beginning on 13 September 1376 and ending with his arrival on 17 January 1377.
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Francesco Foscari was the 65th Doge of the Republic of Venice from 1423 to 1457. His reign, the longest of all Doges in Venetian history, lasted 34 years, 6 months and 8 days, and coincided with the inception of the Italian Renaissance.
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Cosimo de' Medici was an Italian banker and politician, the first member of the Medici family that de facto ruled Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance.
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De' Medici gained control of Florence in 1434. He tried to end workers' uprisings by starting an income tax that placed a heavier burden on wealthier people. He used the revenue to make improvements to the city.
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At Cosimo's invitation, a council of the church moves from Ferrara to Florence to continue a debate between Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox clerics on their long-standing doctrinal differences. The rival churches eventually fail to agree. But the interest of Cosimo and of Florence in Greek culture is increased by the encounter.
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Johannes Gutenberg introduced the concept of movable type and the printing press to Europe. The printing press is often considered as the most important invention in modern times. Without books and computers, you wouldn't be able to learn, to pass on information, or to share scientific discoveries.
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Francesco Sforza Seizes Control of Milan After a short experiment with republican government, Milan returns to monarchy when Francesco Sforza takes control of the city. His most prominent successor is Ludovico Sforza.
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In 1452, Leonardo da Vinci was born. 1543 the Hundred Years War ended, bringing stability to northwestern Europe. Arguably one of the key events in the Renaissance, in 1454, Johannes Gutenberg published the Gutenberg Bible, using a new printing press technology that would revolutionize European literacy. Lorenzo de Medici "The Magnificent" took over power in Florence in 1469.
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The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the French House of Valois, over the right to rule the Kingdom of France. Each side drew many allies into the war.
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The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital city of the Byzantine Empire by an invading Ottoman army on the Sunday of Pentecost, 29 May 1453
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Johann Gutenberg holds the distinction of being the inventor of the movable-type printing press. In 1455, Gutenberg produced what is considered to be the first book ever printed: a Latin language Bible, printed in Mainz, Germany.
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The Italian merchant prince Cosimo de' Medici (1389-1464), also known as “the Elder,” was the unofficial and benevolent despot of Florence, contributing much to making it the intellectual and cultural jewel of 15th-century Europe.
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Giovanni de Medici first brought the family to prominence in Florence by starting the Medici bank. He also was the leader of the Florence merchants. His son, Cosimo de Medici became the Gran maestro (leader) of the Florence city-state in 1434. The Medici family ruled Florence for the next 200 years until 1737.
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Henry VII was the King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 to his death. He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor. Henry attained the throne when his forces defeated King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the culmination of the Wars of the Roses.
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Columbus's discovery would lead to the creation of the Americas 100 years late, which would lead to the western world as we know it
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After the overthrow of the Medici family (1494), Savonarola became leader of Florence, setting up a democratic but severely puritanical government, notable for its "bonfire of the vanities," in which frivolous materials were burned.
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The Medici were forced to turn over the rule of Florence to Savonarola, who imposed strict rules on citizens behavior. Savonarola wanted citizens to give up their "worldly" ways. He had people make bonfires to burn books and paintings, but people in Florence soon came to dislike Savonarola's strict ways.
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By the first half of the 16th century, the Renaissance was impacting and impacted by political events throughout Europe. In 1503, Julius II was appointed pope, bringing in the start of the Roman Golden Age. Henry VIII came to power in England in 1509 and Francis I succeeded to the French Throne in 1515. Charles V took power in Spain in 1516, and in 1530, he became Holy Roman Emperor, the last emperor to be so crowned.
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Julius II who was pope from 1503 to 1513, was a noted Renaissance patron of the arts. A warrior pope, he failed to bring Italy under papal control. His costly concern with the arts and politics alienated northern Europe and helped pave the way for the Reformation.
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The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci that has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world."
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Henry VIII was King of England from 1509 until his death in 1547. He was the second Tudor monarch, succeeding his father Henry VII. Henry is best known for his six marriages, in particular, his efforts to have his first marriage annulled.
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The Prince is a 16th-century political treatise by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From his correspondence, a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus.
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Michelangelo begins painting the ceiling of the Sistine chapel it includes many biblical scenes and it is one of the most known/most important pieces of art from the renaissance.
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Martin Luther challenges the traditional practices of the church and Pope Leo X. Luther believed that a person's wealth should not impact their status in the afterlife.
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The Reformation was a movement within Western Christianity in the sixteenth-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Roman Catholic Church and papal authority in particular.
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Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther. Three months later, Luther was called to defend his beliefs before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms, where he was famously defiant. For his refusal to recant his writings, the emperor declared him an outlaw and a heretic.
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The European wars of religion were a series of wars waged in Europe from ca. 1524 to 1648, following the onset of the Protestant Reformation in Western and Northern Europe. Although sometimes unconnected, all of these wars were strongly influenced by the religious change of the period and the conflict and rivalry that it produced.
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War breaks out between Zwingli's followers and a Catholic army and Zwingli were defeated. It was the year 1517 when the German monk Martin Luther pinned his 95 Theses to the door of his Catholic church, denouncing the Catholic sale of indulgences and questioning papal authority.
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Henry was excommunicated from the Catholic Church because he annulled his first marriage and married again without the permission of the church
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In 1534 radical Anabaptist seized the German city of Munster. They burned books and took over private property. They were crushed by Lutherans and Catholics. The leaders were killed and any surviving Anabaptist believers were persecuted. As a result, many Anabaptist groups left Europe for North America during the 1600s.
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Erasmus was a classical scholar who wrote in a pure Latin style. He was an early proponent of religious toleration, and enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists"; he has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists." Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament
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In 1533, Henry VIII broke from the church and married the now pregnant Anne Boleyn in a secret ceremony. This solved his heir problem, but Henry was excommunicated by the Pope .
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In 1540 the pop recognized a new order, the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits. It was founded by Ignatius of Loyola, who was a Spanish noble. The Jesuits followed a strict spiritual discipline. They lived the simple lives of monks but they did not withdraw from the world.
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The scientific revolution was an era in which new ideas like physics, chemistry, medicine, and biology formed and paved the way for modern science.
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In 1545, Pope Paul 3 called a council of bishops at Trent, Italy. The Council of Trent met in several sessions until 1563. It declared that salvation comes through faith and good works. It said that Church tradition and the Bible were equal as a source or religious truth.
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Martin Luther was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk, and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. Luther was ordained to the priesthood in 1507. He came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church; in particular, he disputed the view on indulgences.
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When Henry died in 1547, 9-year-old Edward succeeded him. The new king was dominated by devout Protestant officials. When Edward died in his teens, Mary became queens. She tried to restore Catholicism and ended up burning many Protestants at the stake.
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Peace of Augsburg, 1555, temporary settlement within the Holy Roman Empire of the religious conflict arising from the Reformation. Each prince was to determine whether Lutheranism or Roman Catholicism was to prevail in his lands.
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Philip II of Spain had to declare four state bankruptcies in 1557, 1560, 1575 and 1596. Spain became the first sovereign nation in history to declare bankruptcy.
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Mobs of French Catholics killed Protestants during the French Religious Wars. It is presumed that the Massacre started because of King Charles the IX's sister Margret married the Protestant King Henry the IV (the future king of France).
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A 15th-century mural painting in Milan created by Leonardo da Vinci for his patron Duke Ludovico Sforza and his duchess Beatrice d'Este. It represents the scene of The Last Supper from the final days of Jesus as it is told in the Gospel of John 13:21 when Jesus announces that one of his Twelve Apostles would betray him.
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The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, on land owned by Thomas Brend and inherited by his son, Nicholas Brend and grandson Sir Matthew Brend, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613.
