Renaissance:
Meaning of Term - Rebirth/ Revival.
Definition - Complex transitional movement that began in Italy(Florence) in the beginning of the 14th [Link] and
lasted into the 17th [Link].
- Marked revival of the freedom to THINK.
- Marked end of the ‘Feudal’ System in Europe, bringing the Modern Era.
CAUSES :
1. Capture of Constantinople:
- Capital of Roman Empire (Eastern)
- Centre for Greek and Roman Cultures.
- Captured by Turks in 1453.
- The Scholars fled to different parts mainly : Venice, Florence, Rome etc.
- They were intellectuals and spread their ideas wherever they went, Hence.
2. New Trade Routes:
- When Constantinople fell, navigators felt the need to discover new sea routes.
● Prince Henry ( Portugal ) – Route to Africa.
● Bartholomew Diaz – Reached Cape of Good Hope (Southernmost Africa)
● Columbus - Discovered America in 1492.
● Vasco Da Gama - Sailed to India.(Vasco in Goa).
● Ferdinand Magellan - Sailed around the world.
- Led to Contact between east and west; led to growth of new ideas.
3. Spirit of Enquiry:
- In the mediaeval period, everything was controlled by the Pope and Catholic Church.
- To summarise, a bunch of scholars questioned Why and How of things. They questioned the
Church’s Authority over human THINKing.
4. Invention Of the Printing Press:
- First PP was set up in Germany in the 15th [Link] Johannes Gutensberg.
- Introduced in England by Caxton.
- To summarise, the printing press allowed easy replication of books which gave growth to point 3..
IMPACT :
I. Art :
- During these times, paintings propagated religion
- Colours used by painters were strictly regulated. (But, as we have seen so far, they rebelled ; Obvi)
- They adopted new techniques such as *Frescos for wall pictures, *Oil colours and *Woodcuts.
Paintings:
- They approached paintings in a more humanistic method.
Leonardo Da Vinci:
- Painter, Sculptor, musician, scientist.
- No formal education; Apprenticed and 15yrs Old to Andrea del Verrocchio, Florence.
- He studied nature, mechanics, anatomy, physics, architecture and weaponry.
- He dissected human bodies to study them.
- In the early 1490s he started filling books on – Painting, Architecture, Mechanics and Human Anatomy.
- He painted ‘Mona Lisa’; ‘The Last Supper’; ‘Virgin of the Rocks’.
II. Literature:
- Most significant change is the Use of Local Languages.
- Authors gave birth to a new movement called “Humanism”.
a. Literature in Italy:
- Machiavelli wrote ‘The Prince’
- Dante’s Poem ‘Divine Comedy’
- Francesco Petrarcha – “Father of Humanism”; Wrote popular sonnets.
- Others : Aristo, Tasso and
- Baccacio who wrote Decameron(Prose collection) of 100 famous short stories.
b. Literature in England:
- Geoffrey Chaucer - “Father of English Poetry”- ‘ Canterbury Tales’.
- Thomas More - ‘Utopia’ - Place where rich did not exploit the poor.
- Francis Bacon - Essay Writer
- Ben Johnson, Marlowe - Dramatists
- John Milton - ‘Paradise Lost’.
- Edmund Spencer - ‘Faerie Queene’
William Shakespeare:
- English Poet, Playwright. England’s national poet - ‘BARD of AVON’.
- 38 plays, 154 sonnets, 2 long narrative poems.
- First plays ( Except Romeo & Juliet ) were historical dramas like “ Richard - II, Henry - VI, Henry - V.”
- Comedies : “ Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night”
- Tragedies : “ Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth.”
III. Science:
- Renaissance marked the beginning of modern science.
- Method of “ Enquiry, Questioning and Observation” started and even used today.
Nicolaus Copernicus:
- Mathematician and Astronomer who said the the Sun was at the centre of the universe, not earth.
- Publication of this model in his book - “De revolutionibus orbium celestium” (On the revolutions of the
celestial spheres) just before his death in 1543.
His Theory (Heliocentric) ( Helio = Sun) :
- There is no one centre of all celestial spheres.
- The centre of the earth is not the universal centre, only of gravity and the lunar sphere.
- All spheres revolve around the sun, hence the sun is the centre of the universe.
- The earth has more than one motion i.e. Rotation and Revolution.
- German scientist John Kepler discovered elliptical orbit.
- Galileo invented the telescope.
- Isaac Newton discovered the Law of Gravitation.
- Vesalius wrote a treatise on Human Anatomy.
- William Harvey - Double Circulation of Blood.
- Paracelsus discovered the connection between medicine and chemistry.
- Cordus prepared alcohol and H2SO4.
- Helmontt discovered CO2.
- Arabs gave algebra to the west.
- Desargus made modern geometry systematic.
- Stevin advocated decimal system of coins, weights and measures.
