Renaissance

The Renaissance• “Rebirth”• 14th – 17th century (1300s – 1600s)• Began in Italy in the mid-1300s; spread throughout Europe• Reached its height in the 1500s

Why Italy?• Reawakened interest in the culture of Ancient Rome• Italian city-states survived the Black Death

(Florence, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Rome, and Naples)• Wealthy, powerful bankers and merchants• Florence gifted poets, artists, scholars, and

scientists• The Medici Family – became the richest bankers and merchants in Europe– gained control of Florentine government in 1434– money translated into cultural and political power

Lorenzo de Medici

• clever politician• held Florence together

during difficult times• generous patron

(financial supporter) of the arts

• Poets, artists and philosophers frequently visited the Medici palace

Leonardo da Vinci

Michelangelo

Galileo Galilei

Johannes Gutenberg

Raphael

Donatello

Jan Van Eyck

Albrecht Durer

Andreas Vesalius

Nicolaus Copernicus

Johannes Kepler

Tycho Brahe

Martin Luther

Pope Paul III

Thomas More

John Calvin

William Shakespeare

Dante Alighieri

Petrarch

Niccolo Machiavelli

Henry VIII(England)

Elizabeth I(England)

Louis XIV(France)

Peter the Great(Russia)

Hernan Cortes

Francisco Pizarro

Amerigo Vespucci

Francis Drake