A period of renewed classical learning, artistic innovation and civic humanism beginning in the city-states of Italy, conventionally traced from the fourteenth century (Petrarch's revival of classical Latin letters is the common starting reference) through the sixteenth century, spreading north of the Alps into a distinct Northern Renaissance by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its own historiography is genuinely unsettled: historians disagree on when it began, where its boundary with the Post-Classical and Medieval Period on one side and the Early Modern Period on the other should fall, whether it represents a real break from medieval thought or a continuation historians have overstated, and whether a single period label usefully covers developments as different as Florentine civic humanism, papal Rome's patronage, and the Northern Renaissance's religious print culture. This atlas brackets it conventionally from around 1350 to around 1600 without treating either boundary as a settled date.
Facts
Disputed
Start YearConventionally traced to Petrarch and fourteenth-century Italian humanism; other historians place the meaningful start later, in the fifteenth century. End YearConventionally closed around 1600 as the Northern Renaissance gives way to the Baroque and the Scientific Revolution; some historians extend it into the early seventeenth century. Geographic ScopeCentered in the Italian city-states, Florence, Venice, Rome and Milan among them, from the fourteenth century, spreading north and west across Western and Central Europe, including France, the Low Countries, the German lands and England, by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 1 The Renaissance
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FAQs
Do all historians accept the Renaissance as a separate period?
No. Some see a unique era, some fold it into the early modern period, and some reject the label.
No. One reference work describes the Renaissance as one of the most interesting and disputed periods of European history. Many scholars see it as a unique time with characteristics all its own, a second group treats it as the first two to three centuries of the larger early modern era, and some social historians reject the concept of the Renaissance altogether. Historians also argue over how much it differed from the Middle Ages.
Connections
In Era
Its conventional 1350 to 1600 bracket falls mostly within the Early Modern Period (1453 to 1789), though its own start, in fourteenth-century Italy, reaches back into the Post-Classical and Medieval Period; historians do not agree on a single start or end year for it at all.
Includes
Source Jakob Fugger (Wikipedia)
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Niccolo Machiavelli (Wikipedia)
Source Pope Julius II (Wikipedia)
Source Wikipedia
Additional Source Wikipedia: Society of JesusSociety of Jesus, era placement
In the Other Atlases
Same As
Also in Arts and Music Atlas: the same subject.
Source Gardner's Art Through the AgesFred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)
Found In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Sources
1. Renaissance (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.Periodization and geographic scopeView the Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Wikipedia
WikipediaIncludes: The Fugger Banking and Merchant House, Fugger, era placementQuote, Includes: The Fugger Banking and Merchant House, Fugger, era placement
Ulrich's youngest brother Jakob Fugger, born in 1459, was to become the most famous member of the dynasty.
Niccolo Machiavelli (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Niccolò Machiavelli, Lead sectionQuote, Includes: Niccolò Machiavelli, Lead section
was a Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance
Pope Julius II (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Pope Julius II, lead, third sentenceQuote, Includes: Pope Julius II, lead, third sentence
Julius II was a central figure of the High Renaissance and left a significant cultural and political legacy.
Jakob Fugger (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Jakob Fugger, lead, opening sentence (occupation)Quote, Includes: Jakob Fugger, lead, opening sentence (occupation)
was a major German merchant, mining entrepreneur, and banker.
Wikipedia: Society of Jesus
WikipediaIncludes: Society of Jesus, Society of Jesus, era placementQuote, Includes: Society of Jesus, Society of Jesus, era placement
it was founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola and six companions, with the approval of Pope Paul III.
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Start Year
Charles Homer Haskins's The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (1927) contests the uniqueness the period's own name claims. Haskins identifies an earlier revival of law, philosophy, natural science and Latin letters in the twelfth century, centuries before Petrarch, arguing that Western Europe had already undergone at least one genuine renaissance before the fourteenth. On this reading, the fourteenth to sixteenth century Renaissance is better understood as the most famous of several medieval revivals rather than as the singular rebirth its traditional name implies.
A dissenting reading, from Charles Homer Haskins and the twelfth century renaissance thesisCharles Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Haskins, 1927), Harvard University Press, 1927
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