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Key Points at a Glance
- Renaissance — European Rebirth Movement
- French word meaning "rebirth"; European cultural and intellectual movement (c. 1300–1600)
- Originated in Florence, Italy; marked transition from medieval to modern world
- Revived Greco-Roman classical learning
- Placed humans (not God) at the centre of inquiry
- Humanism — Core Philosophy of the Renaissance
- Held that classical texts (studia humanitatis) could improve individual virtue and society
- Subjects: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, moral philosophy
- Petrarch (1304–74) called "Father of Humanism" for recovering Latin manuscripts
- Gutenberg's Printing Press — Knowledge Revolution
- Johannes Gutenberg invented movable-type printing press around 1440 in Mainz, Germany
- By 1500 ("incunabula" era), over 20 million books printed across Europe
- Dramatically reduced the cost of books and enabled standardisation of texts
- Made literacy and the Reformation possible
- Leonardo da Vinci — The Ultimate Renaissance Man
- Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519): artist, scientist, engineer, anatomist
- The Last Supper (Milan, 1494–99, fresco) and Mona Lisa (1503–19, Louvre) — iconic works
- Scientific notebooks contain designs for flying machines, solar power, and military weapons
- Ideas were 500 years ahead of their time
- Martin Luther — Spark of the Protestant Reformation
- Martin Luther (1483–1546) posted 95 Theses on 31 October 1517 at Castle Church, Wittenberg, Germany
- Challenged the Catholic Church's sale of indulgences and papal authority
- Excommunicated in 1521 but protected by German princes
- Luther's Three Core Doctrines
- Sola Fide: Salvation by faith alone, not by works (including indulgences)
- Sola Scriptura: Scripture alone is authority — not the Pope or Church councils
- Universal Priesthood of All Believers: Every Christian can interpret scripture without priestly intermediary
- John Calvin — Calvinism and Geneva Theocracy
- John Calvin (1509–64) established a theocratic state in Geneva
- Key doctrines: God's absolute sovereignty, predestination (God pre-determines who is saved), strict moral code
- Calvinism spread to: France (Huguenots), Netherlands, Scotland (Presbyterianism)
- Influenced Puritanism in England and America
- Henry VIII and the Anglican Church
- Henry VIII broke from Rome in 1534 to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (not for theology)
- Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy (1534) declaring the King "Supreme Head of the Church of England"
- English Reformation created the Anglican Church (Church of England)
- Counter-Reformation — The Catholic Response
- Council of Trent (1545–63): reaffirmed Catholic doctrines against Protestant challenges
- Society of Jesus (Jesuits) founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1540: missionary and educational order
- Inquisition used to suppress heresy
- Index Librorum Prohibitorum: list of banned books published
- Peace of Augsburg (1555) — First Religious Settlement
- First settlement of religious conflict in Europe
- Established "cuius regio, eius religio" (whose realm, his religion)
- Each German prince could determine the religion of his own territory (Catholicism or Lutheranism)
- Ended decades of religious wars in the Holy Roman Empire
- Northern Renaissance — Christian Humanism
- Led by Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) of Rotterdam
- Combined classical scholarship with Christian reform — called Christian Humanism
- "In Praise of Folly" (1511): satirised Church corruption without breaking from it
- Erasmus's critical Greek New Testament edition influenced Luther directly
- Scientific Revolution — Renaissance's Crowning Legacy
- Overlapping with late Renaissance (16th–17th century)
- Copernicus (1543), Galileo, Kepler, Newton challenged medieval Ptolemaic (Earth-centred) cosmology
- Replaced it with the heliocentric (Sun-centred) model
- Empirical observation replaced scholastic authority — the "revolution in worldview" sparked by Renaissance