Renaissance and the Transition from the Middle Ages to Early Modern Europe (1350–1453)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, people, and concepts from the lecture notes on the Renaissance and the shift from the Middle Ages to early modern Europe.

Renaissance

French for 'rebirth'; a cultural and intellectual revival in Europe, beginning in Italy, roughly 14th–16th centuries, shifting thought from medieval scholasticism to humanism and a renewed interest in classical antiquity.

Humanism

A movement that emphasizes the study of classical texts and human potential, focusing on grammar, poetry, history, politics, moral philosophy, and rhetoric; not anti-religion, but broadens inquiry beyond church authority.

Studia humanitatis

The humanist program of study (grammar, history, poetry, moral philosophy, rhetoric) aimed at cultivating virtuous, educated citizens.

Civic humanism

A strand of humanism centered on public virtue, civic engagement, and education for public service.

Petrarch

Francesco Petrarch, often called the father of humanism; promoted classical learning, copied manuscripts, and wrote the sonnets to Laura, influencing the Renaissance.

Decameron

Giovanni Boccaccio’s collection of 100 tales critiquing society and exploring human behavior during the plague era.

Letter to Athens (Petrarch’s encounter with Cicero’s work)

Petrarch’s engagement with a classical text attributed to Cicero (stored in Verona Cathedral), illustrating the revival of antiquity in humanist thought.

Francesco Petrarch's Sonnets to Laura

Petrarch’s famous sonnet sequence celebrating love and personal introspection, emblematic of humanist literary renewal.

The Prince

Niccolò Machiavelli’s 1513 treatise on political realism and the acquisition and maintenance of power in Renaissance city-states.

Machiavelli

Italian political thinker whose work The Prince promoted pragmatic, sometimes ruthless, approaches to rule and statecraft.

Florence and the Medici

Florence’s powerful ruling family who patronized the arts and helped catalyze the Italian Renaissance through patronage.

Italian city-states

Independent polities (e.g., Venice, Milan, Papal States, Naples) that fostered Renaissance culture and competing political hubs.

Fall of Constantinople (1453)

Ottoman conquest that marked the end of the Byzantine Empire and shifted trade and cultural exchange, influencing European Renaissance dynamics.

Bubonic plague (14th–15th centuries)

Devastating disease that reshaped European demography, wealth, and urban life, contributing to social changes that aided the Renaissance.

Urban spaces in Renaissance Europe

Smaller-scale cities (roughly 8–10 with populations over 100,000; Paris and London among the largest) where urban disruption, wealth shifts, and new social strata reshaped society.

Medieval scholasticism

The dominant medieval intellectual framework rooted in church authority and theology; the Renaissance challenged it with humanist, classical inquiry.