The Renaissance

Changes in Art

During the renaissance the focus of art was on the accurate recreation of the world in paintings and sculpture, and artists created new techniques to achieve this. For example, da Vinci used perspective to great effect in The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa.

Artists based their work on the close study of the body and nature. For example Michelangelo captured details of muscles and limbs accurately in his sculptures such as David.

Women faced huge barriers if they wanted to pursue a profession in the arts

Changes in Sience

Humanism is a shift in mindset from a focus on God to a focus on human knowledge. This change meant became very interested in the world seound them. Some of the biggest advancments took place in astronomy. People believed that Earth was the centre of the solar system and the sun and other planets rotated sround it. The Catholic Chruch supported this idea as it supported the belief that God created the Earth. Galileo Galilei improved on the telescope and made it sitnificantly better allowing him to study the planets and stars and make several important discovories.

The Church and Science

The Catholic Church remained a hugely poeerful organisation throughout the Renaissance. They opposed any form of scientific enauiry that went aginst its teachings. It banned doctors from examing corpses which limited medical advancments for centuries. Copernicus published a book about the earth and how it rotates sround the sun. Galileo reviewed his ideas and the Church ordered he be put on trial infront of the Inquisition and he was convicted of heresy. He agreed to say he was wrong as the usual punishment for heratics was burned at the stake. He was put under house arrest until his death.

New Discoveries

Renaissance people began to question accepted beliefs from the Middle Ages. They made many important discoveries in the fields of science and medicine. Their scientific method is the same basic approach used by today’s scientists. Galileo proved that the Earth rotated around the sun, but this brought him into conflict with the Catholic Church.

In medicine as more doctors performed autopsies and carried out detailed examinations of how the body worked, completely new understanding of how to treat injuries and disease was developed.

Technological Change

The single most important invention of the Renaissance was the printing press. More people wrote books. more people learned to read and ideas and new knowledge spread quickly throughout Europe.

Michelangelo

Sistine Chapel Ceiling

Pieta

Da Vinci

Mona Lisa

The Last Supper

Galileo

Johannes Gutenberg

A german goldsmith.

Around 1440 he is believed to have invented the movable type printing press.

He placed individual metal letters into a frame to form words, coated them with ink and pressed the frame onto paper.

The first book he printed was the Gutenberg Bible.

Printed books were much cheaper than hand written manuscripts which allowed more people to buy them.

More people learned to read and write.

People read more and were introduced to new ideas.

Fiction became more popular as people began to read for entertainment.