Four reasons leading to the renaissance?

Answer 1

The rebirth of learning started in the northern Italian cities, especially in Florence. From here it began to spread outwards all over Western Europe, changing especially in art and architecture to suit the needs of different countries. For example, in Italy , which has a dry climate , people did not need sloping roofs as much as people in wetter northern Europe did. But more important were the religious differences which arose largely because of the Renaissance in Germany,Holland and England . Here the Church leaders broke away from the Catholic belief and began the protestant reformation.

Answer 2

A variety of social and economic factors. With most of Europe having been wiped out by the plague, there was now more food for people and a deepened sense of the value of humanity. With the rise of the Italian city-states into major economic powers and a want to reclaim the glory of the old Roman Empire, an explosion of science, art, music, and architecture occurred. There is also evidence that Europe was getting warmer, so people could spread to land once uninhabitable and make currently existing cities grow larger.

Answer 3

The Renaissance, a movement which stressed the ideas of the classical world, has been described as ending the medieval era and heralding the start of the modern age. Its causes were many, all deeply interconnected and now historians debate the relative importance of each, as well as when the Renaissance actually began. The mid fourteenth century is a common date for the start, although some commentators go back further. In addition Florence was once identified as the initial home of the Renaissance, but some histories widen this to Italy as a whole. The following are the main factors:

Increased Prosperity

However, more positive currents were also evident. In Italy, Venice and Genoa had grown rich on trade with the Orient, while Florence was a centre of wool, silk and jewellery production, and was home to the fabulous wealth of the art-conscious Medici dynasty.

Prosperity was also coming to Northern Europe, as evidenced by the establishment in Germany of the Hanseatic League of cities. This increasing wealth provided the financial support for a growing number of commissions of large public and private art projects, while the trade routes upon which it was based greatly assisted the spread of ideas and thus contributed to the growth of the movement across the Continent. Allied to this spread of ideas, which incidentally speeded up significantly with the invention of printing, there was an undoubted sense of impatience at the slow progress of change. After a thousand years of cultural and intellectual starvation, Europe (and especially Italy) was anxious for a re-birth.

Weakness of the Church

Paradoxically, the weak position of the Church gave added momentum to the Renaissance. First, it allowed the spread of Humanism - which in bygone eras would have been strongly resisted; second, it prompted later Popes (eg. Pope Julius II, 1503-13) to spend extravagantly on architecture, sculpture and painting in Rome and in the Vatican (eg. see Vatican Museums, notably the Sistine Chapel frescoes) - in order to recapture their lost influence. Their response to the Reformation (c.1520) - known as the Counter Reformation - continued this process to the end of the sixteenth century.

An Age of Exploration

The Renaissance era in art history parallels the onset of the great Western age of discovery, during which appeared a general desire to explore all aspects of nature and the world. European naval explorers discovered new sea routes, new continents and established new colonies. In the same way, European architects, sculptors and painters demonstrated their own desire for new methods and knowledge. According to the Italian painter, architect, and Renaissance commentator Giorgio Vasari (1511-74), it was not merely the growing respect for classical antiquity that drove the Renaissance, but also a growing desire to study and imitate nature.

Answer 4

Invention of printing press, new discoveries in science, the humanism, independence thoughts, new techniques in arts and the capture of Constantinople.

Answer 5

1. growth of trade and wealth

2. rise of the middle classes

3. decline of feudalism

4. the return to early Greek and moman ideas

Answer 6

New interests in art and literature in the mid-fourteeth century. Started in Florence, Italy.

Answer 7

a big P E N I S