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 Renaissance Timeline
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

● The key events that occurred during the Renaissance period.

● The influential people from the Renaissance period.
● The historical significance of the Renaissance period.

FACT FILE

Let’s find out more about the Renaissance!

The term ‘Renaissance’ literally

A fresco by Raphael entitled 'The School of Athens'
created between 1509 until 1511.
means ‘rebirth’. It is used to refer
to the time period when there
was a flourishing of the arts and
a renewed interest in the
Classical cultures of Ancient
Greece and Rome. The
Renaissance lasted just over one
hundred years, beginning around
the early fifteenth century, and
was almost entirely centred on
Italy before spreading out into the
rest of Europe.
Although the Renaissance was
traditionally supposed to mark the
end of the medieval period and the
beginning of the modern age,
historians now think that this is too
simplistic a way of looking at the
era.
The city of Florence in Italy, the birthplace of European
Renaissance.

Rather, the period known as the Renaissance has clear origins in the
earlier medieval period, particularly in the time known as the
Proto-Renaissance in the fourteenth century, when writers like Dante and
Petrarch, and artists such as Giotto, were active. However, a series of
catastrophes, including the Black Death, delayed the development of the
Proto-Renaissance for several decades.
Another fallacy about the Renaissance is that all its
innovative thinking came from revisiting the works of
Ancient Greece and Rome. In fact, much of the knowledge
in fields like astronomy and mathematics came from the
Arab world but was made more accessible to a wider
audience in Europe at this time by being translated into
Latin.
The rise of the concept of humanism during this period led to a
reassessment of the way a human life should be lived. For
humanists, it was important to spend one’s life in wisdom,
giving a greater emphasis to the individual’s spirit and nature,
rather than the more medieval attitude of an existence spent in
penance, preparing for the next world after death.

The great artists of the Renaissance, like Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael,

Michelangelo and Botticelli, used new techniques such as perspective to
render their work in painting and sculpture more naturalistic. Rather than
focusing on symbolism in their work, they used the science of anatomy
to render their figures more realistic. Whereas most earlier medieval
artists in Europe used only Christian religious imagery, the Renaissance
artists also used Greek and Roman myths as subjects, finding ways to
blend Christianity with the earlier ideas of these great pagan cultures.
The masterpieces of the Renaissance are still revered today as being
among the greatest art in history.
 THINK ABOUT THIS! ACTIVITIES FOR AGES 11-14

1 HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDING. The term ‘Renaissance’ literally

means ‘rebirth’. Discuss your understanding of this concept in
terms of the historical changes it brought. (X marks)
 THINK ABOUT THIS! ACTIVITIES FOR AGES 14-16

1 HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDING. The Renaissance period covered

the period of the 15th and 16th centuries. Serving as the mark of
the transition between the Middle Ages and the Modern Period,
discuss the changes noticed during this period as differentiated
from the Middle Ages. (X marks)
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