Renaissance: The Birthplace of Modern Thought

I’ve always had a passion for the the arts, mathematics, and science. Each of these academic pathways are important in their own ways, and have helped us to progress to where we are now. These fields all had a major boost from the time of the renaissance, where geniuses seemingly came out of nowhere and questioned what humanity was capable of achieving. So I decided to do some research on the people that are significant to the renaissance period.

What I Know

The Renaissance was a period between 1300 and 1600 AD. During this time people made huge strides in the arts, and lead us into thinking how we do today. I recognise some famous artists like Leonardo Di Vinci, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo What I Want to Know

So what interests

It allowed for the first ever easily enabled mass production of written works because instead of words being handwritten they could be typed with less effort. Also written texts were more legible than in the past which allowed for easier translation. Robert Wilde writes “ the press removed scribal errors, allowing humanists and scholars to know they were comparing the nuances of the same text, and not someone’s mistake”(p1). This enabled them to criticize papers more easily to improve on them even more (kind of like what English teachers do to papers today).

Although it is gruesome, the Black Death was actually a big foundation for the Renaissance time frame. The Black Death was a plague that devastated Europe, and is estimated to have killed 1/3 of its population. This however gave the remaining people a larger wealth and an ability to rank higher socially. Because there was more wealth and a more open social structure, people wanted to show off what they had. They were willing to pay large sums of money to show the prestige that they had gained. This allowed for famous artists to be funded for larger

Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, and Raphael are the most well known of these “Renaissance Men”. Out of these 4 the most famous would probably be Leonardo Da Vinci. The Famous People Staff(2017) reported at the article entitled “Leonardo Da Vinci Biography” that he was born on april 15th 1452 AD in the city of Venice, Italy. In his younger years he lived with his uncle in vinci, and was educated in latin,mathematics, and geometry.Sometime around when he 14, Leonardo started to apprentice under a great painter named Andrea del Verrocchio. The Famous People Staff (2017) wrote about his time under the apprenticeship of Verrocchio reporting that “He learned to paint and sculpt under him and was also taught the basics of metallurgy, drafting, chemistry, botany, cartography and carpentry at his workshop”(p1). Out of these Da Vinci chose the art field to be his main profession, but still did a lot of exploring in the other