Chapter 10.1: The Renaissance – An Overview

In part, the Renaissance was a rebirth of interest in ancient Greek and Roman culture. It was also a period of economic prosperity in Europe—particularly in Italy and in Northern Europe. In art history, we study both the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance. We talk about a way of looking at the world called Humanism, which—at its most basic—placed renewed value on human knowledge and the experience of this world (as opposed to focusing mainly on the heavenly realm), using ancient Greek and Roman literature and art as a model.

There are only a handful of moments in history that we can point to that changed everything. The invention and adoption of the printing press was certainly one of these. As a result of the wider availability of books, literacy rates in Europe dramatically increased. Readers were empowered, and in many ways, we can trace the origin of our own information revolution to 15th-century Germany and Gutenberg’s first printing press.