The Renaissance

What you’ll learn

• The Renaissance began in Italian city-states like Florence, Venice, and Rome, fueled by trade wealth, rivalry, and Roman ruins close at hand
• Humanists such as Petrarch revived Greek and Roman learning and stressed human dignity, education, and this life
• Wealthy patrons like the Medici family, popes, and guilds paid for the art and decided what got made
• Renaissance art used linear perspective, anatomy, and light and shadow to look real and to stir emotion
• Gutenberg's printing press (about 1440) spread ideas faster and more cheaply than ever before
• The Northern Renaissance added fine detail in art and a Christian humanism that helped spark the Reformation