Renaissance

The Renaissance, meaning rebirth, was a cultural movement that began in the city-states of Italy, above all Florence, in the fourteenth century and spread across Europe over the next three centuries. It was marked by a renewed interest in the art, literature and learning of ancient Greece and Rome, and by humanism, which stressed the value of human achievement and education. Writers such as Petrarch and Erasmus, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael, and architects such as Brunelleschi transformed European culture, with the use of perspective in painting being a notable innovation. The invention of the printing press around 1450 helped to spread new ideas. The Renaissance accompanied the voyages of exploration, the Reformation and the rise of modern science.

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