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Renaissance & Reformation
In the cities of Italy artists and scholars turned back to ancient Greece and Rome and put the human being at the centre: perspective, anatomy, portraits and humanist learning. The printing press spread the new ideas across Europe. In 1517 Martin Luther challenged the Church, and Western Christianity split into Catholic and Protestant - a division that was settled only after the Thirty Years' War, in 1648.
Florence and the rebirth of art
THEME ONE
In Florence, rich from banking and cloth, Filippo Brunelleschi raised the great dome of the cathedral, completed in 1436, and worked out the rules of linear perspective. Painters such as Masaccio and Botticelli, paid by the Medici family and the guilds, gave their figures weight and space. Around 1500 Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael carried the new art to its height, much of it in papal Rome.
Humanism and printing
THEME TWO
Humanists studied the language and literature of antiquity to learn how to live and speak well. They searched monastery libraries for lost Latin texts, learned Greek from Byzantine scholars and edited the Bible from the oldest manuscripts. Printing, invented around 1450, made all this cheap and fast to spread. Erasmus of Rotterdam, the most famous humanist of the north, became one of the first best-selling authors.
Luther and the Reformation
THEME THREE
In 1517 Martin Luther, a monk and professor in Wittenberg, published 95 theses against the sale of indulgences. He taught that salvation comes through faith alone and that the Bible, not the pope, is the highest authority, and he translated it into German. Huldrych Zwingli in Zurich and John Calvin in Geneva went further. In England Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1534 for reasons of his own.
Counter-Reformation and wars of religion
THEME FOUR
The Catholic Church answered with the Council of Trent (1545 – 1563), which reformed abuses and restated its doctrine, and with new orders such as the Jesuits. Religion and power became entangled: France was torn by civil war until the Edict of Nantes in 1598, and the Thirty Years' War (1618 – 1648) devastated Germany. The Peace of Westphalia let each ruler choose the faith of his land.
Periods
Early Renaissance
1400 – 1490
Florence leads: Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio, the Medici, humanist schools and the arrival of printing in Italy.
High Renaissance and Reformation
1490 – 1555
Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, the Renaissance spreads north, Luther breaks with Rome, and the Peace of Augsburg (1555) recognises the Lutheran princes.
The age of confessions
1555 – 1648
Catholic reform after Trent, the French Wars of Religion, the Dutch revolt against Spain and the Thirty Years' War.
Key dates
- 1436Brunelleschi's dome over Florence Cathedral is completed.
- c. 1455Gutenberg prints his Bible in Mainz.
- 1508Michelangelo begins painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
- 1517Luther publishes his 95 theses.
- 1545The Council of Trent opens.
- 1648The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War.
Questions and answers
What does Renaissance mean?
It is French for "rebirth". Italian writers of the time, such as Giorgio Vasari, believed that art and learning had been reborn after the Middle Ages through the rediscovery of antiquity. The French word for the whole period was made popular by 19th-century historians such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt.
Why did the Reformation spread so fast?
Above all because of printing: Luther's pamphlets were reprinted again and again, and within a few years he was the most printed author in Europe. Princes and city councils also had political and financial reasons to break with Rome and take over church property.