The Renaissance Period

By: Carlie McNiff

 

What was the Renaissance? | When and where did the Renaissance begin?

 

Influences of the Renaissance  | Art and Architecture | Music | Literature | Math and Science

 

How the Renaissance affects us. | Works Cited


What was the Renaissance?

    The word renaissance means the rebirth of the interest in Greek and Latin again.  Renaissance comes from the French language.  It was when the Europeans went through many great economic and changes. Before, all of the people lost all of their interest in Roman and Greek teachings.  Luckily, the Monks preserved their ancient writings and fled to Europe with their writings, for the fear of the Turks.

    This period is characterized by artists, scholars, and scientists that learned and taught about the Greek and Latin ways.  All of the ideas changed for the better.  It was a good thing that they became interested again because more people became active in learning and education.  Also, many people made advancements in all of the subjects.

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When and where did the Renaissance begin?

    The Renaissance occurred later during the Middle Ages.  It went on through the years of the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries.  It happened when many scholars fled to Italy and Europe because they were under attack of the Turks. It lasted for about two hundred to three hundred years.

    The Renaissance occurred mostly in Italy and spread throughout Europe.  The four main big cities were Florence, Venice, Milan, and Genoa.  These were major trading cities.  They included ports and craftcenters.  These are still important today.

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Influential People

    The most influential people in the Renaissance time were artists, because they thought of a new way to draw called perspective.  This meant that the drawings were no longer flat, now they looked more real.  Also all people could enjoy looking at an artist's work, yet not everybody could read or write.  This meant that all you had to do was look not think too much.  Also, the artists drew the aspects of daily life.  This means that many people could relate to the paintings.

 

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Art and Architecture

            A famous artist was Michelangelo di Buonarroti Simoni.  He was born in Florence, yet lived in Rome and Bologna.  He lived from 1475 to 1564.  He decorated churches with marvelous paintings and statues.  His most famous work was decorating the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.  He used perspective, which made the people in the back smaller and the people in the front larger.  He also used different colors to make the picture more realistic.  They also shaded and used dimension.

            A famous architecture was Filippo Brunelleschi.  He designed a huge dome for a cathedral in Florence.  He made it, yet it was too heavy.  He created the light- weight double layer dome.  He was smart because he used math formulas to fix the dome.  He was very smart.

 

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Music

            The type of music changed a lot between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance Period.  The music went from sacred church music to more secular music.  The secular music was classical genre.  A famous composer was Josquin des Prez.  He lived from 1450-1521.  He was the most European composer.  Most music scholars consider him the first music master of the Renaissance time period.  Josquin wrote both secular and sacred music. He wrote motets, chansons, frottoles, and many masses.  Many people praised him.

           

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Literature

Dante Alighieri was a famous politician that wrote poems.  Dante was different, instead of writing in Latin like the church, he wrote in Italian.  Italian was the language of most of the people.  This showed that he thought that they were both as good as each other.  On of his finest works was The Divine Comedy.  It is a story of the afterlife journey, and he uses real historic people that he meets along the way.

 

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Math and Science

            There were many very smart scholars that created symbols.  One of those symbols is the square root, the positive symbol, and the negative symbol.

            The Renaissance Scientists learned that the Earth revolved around the sun and that the sun was the center of the universe.  Other scientists were interested in how big the earth was.  They produced very accurate maps for sailor, merchants, and other travelers.

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How the Renaissance affects us.

            The Renaissance affects us today because many still read the literature, admire their paintings, use the math symbols, listen to the music, and go to the plays. Also, the printing press was invented to print books, so that everybody could read and that there were enough books to go around.  We still use this press today; it is way faster that movable type.  The ports and craft centers are still important today.

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Works Cited

 

Burstein, Stanley M. Burstein. World History Medieval to Early Modern Times . Student. Orlando: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2006.

 

"Renaissance." Wikipedia. April 2007. 27 Apr 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance>.

 

"Michelangelo." Wikipedia. April 2007. 27 Apr 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo>.

 

"Dante Alighieri." Wikipedia. April 2007. 27 Apr 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri>.

 

"Filippo Brunelleschi." Wikipedia. April 2007. 27 Apr 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Brunelleschi>.

 

"Josquin des Prez." Wikipedia. April 2007. 30 Apr 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josquin_des_Prez>.

 

"Florence." Wikipedia. 1 May 2007. May 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence

 

 

 

 

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