Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Italian Renaissance (Italian: Rinascimento [rinaʃʃiˈmento]) was a period in Italian history between the 14th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Western Europe and marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity.
Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, and why it began when it did. Accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. Peter Rietbergen posits that various influential Proto-Renaissance movements started from roughly 1300 onwards across many regions of Europe. [32]
The world map by the Italian Amerigo Vespucci (from whose name the word America is derived) and Belgian Gerardus Mercator shows (besides the classical continents Europe, Africa, and Asia) the Americas as America sive India Nova', New Guinea, and other islands of Southeast Asia, as well as a hypothetical Arctic continent and a yet undetermined Terra Australis.
The Trecento is considered to be the beginning of the Italian Renaissance or at least the Proto-Renaissance in art history. Painters of the Trecento included Giotto di Bondone, as well as painters of the Sienese School, which became the most important in Italy during the century, including Duccio di Buoninsegna, Simone Martini, Lippo Memmi, Ambrogio Lorenzetti and his brother Pietro.
The Quattrocento is viewed as the transition from the Medieval period to the age of the Italian Renaissance, principally in the cities of Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice, Naples. The period saw the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire , and it has been compared with the Timurid Renaissance which unfolded at the same time in Central Asia.
[6] [7] The Italian Renaissance spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, and art with the start of the modern era. [8] By the mid-19th century, Italian unification, led by the House of Savoy, led to the establishment of an Italian nation-state.
Renaissance – cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era , but since the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the term.
The rising Italian maritime powers such as Genoa and Venice began to monopolize trade between Europe, Muslims, and Byzantium via the Mediterranean Sea, having developed advanced commercial and financial techniques; cities such as Florence became major centers of this financial industry. [11]