There’s much said about the Renaissance even centuries later.
Why is that, and why does it matter so much?
The Rebirth of Humanism
“Renaissance” itself means “rebirth,” and what was being “reborn” in Europe was classical humanism. This was largely due to Greco-Roman texts being recovered via trade with Arab scholars who had preserved them during the Dark Ages. Thus, instead of eschewing the world of the flesh as inherently sinful or unworthy, Renaissance scholars began refocusing on the human condition.
The Dawn of Modernity
This coincided with the rise of mercantilism, the destruction of the feudal order which had resulted in class stratification and stagnation for centuries, and the birth of modern social structures. The arrival of gunpowder led to knights, castles, and chivalry being gradually replaced with early modern armies. Meanwhile, the Black Death killed such an enormous percentage of Europeans that the nobility no longer had a stranglehold on serfs – if they wanted work done, they’d have to pay the survivors. This meant more socioeconomic opportunity than had been seen in centuries. Couple that with the international trade networks that connected Venetian traders to the Ottoman and East Asian worlds, and the foundations for modernity were set.
Artists, Authors, Architects
All of this set the stage for the people whom we most associate with the Renaissance – the legendary artists, authors, and architects who defined the era and still shape our world today.
Leonardo and Raphael painted figures with perspective, a technique that allowed for more vividly realistic and lifelike depictions, as compared with the flat images of the Middle Ages.
Michelangelo’s depiction of God touching Adam with the Spark of Life as the centerpiece of his incredible Sistine Chapel is said to possibly mirror the shape of the human brain – showing the marriage of the divine and humanity.
Michelangelo’s “David” as a Greco-Roman-influenced statue and Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” revel in the triumph and beauty of the male and female form – something that would have been impossible with strict Medieval Christian religious standards of modesty.
New architectural innovations made old Gothic Medievalism obsolete. Brunelleschi invented new ways of constructing domes that made Santa Maria del Fiore’s famous dome possible – still Florence’s most famous building and one of the most iconic in Europe.
Literature likewise embraced humanism. While the Renaissance was late coming to England due to the Wars of the Roses, when it came it hit the stage with Elizabethan Theatre – meaning Kyd, Marlowe, and, of course, Shakespeare. From Hamlet’s proto-existentialist lament in his “To be or not to be?” speech to the mountain of classical texts he references throughout the play, Shakespeare’s plays brought Renaissance humanism to the English stage and beyond.
It also delved into the hints of modernity that were already emerging in Shakespeare’s time. This is evident in everything from the gender-bending assertive heroines of Twelfth Night and As You Like It to Shylock’s “Hath not a Jew eyes?” speech challenging Antisemitism in The Merchant of Venice. The Tempest, written a few short years after the British first landed in North America in one of the earliest explorations of questions of European Civilization versus “Nature” and Colonialism.
All of this and more explain how and why the Renaissance both defined its own age and continues to define our own.