Brief Look At The Renaissance Essay, Research Paper

Brief Look at the Renaissance

The Renaissance, which began in Italy in 1300s, was one of the largest

periods of growth and development in Western Europe. The increase in trade

caused a abundance in wealth that resulted in the focusing of the arts. Such

things as literature, paintings, sculptures and many more works are known to

have blossomed from the period known as the Renaissance. Many other

important occurrences , such as the Reformation and split of the Roman

Catholic Church caused by the opposing views of Martin Luther and more of

a focus on humankind called humanism, also the eight crusades to retake

Jerusalem from the Muslims, played key rolls in the period of the

Renaissance. The Crusades which took place before the period of the

Renaissance are a major factor in the coming about or “birth” of the

Renaissance. The eight Crusades were the efforts to take back Jerusalem

from the Muslims. These Crusades introduced to Western Europe the new

tastes of art, fine quisines and new types of cloth, including silk.. With this

the need for trade with the Far East increased drastically. This increase in

trade caused an abundance of wealth in Western Europe which intern

brought new products and goods to Western Europe. In the year 1305 the

Roman Catholic Church was relocated from Rome to France. With this the

power of the papal states was divided among the region’s leading families.

Starting near the year 1300 the demand for reform began to grow at a

rapid pace. By the 1600’s close to half of the practicing Catholics in western

Europe had left the Church to join one of the new reformer religious groups.

This reform brought about new ways of thought and new attitudes towards

religion and the human race. The young German scholar realized that the way

to salvation was “justification by faith.” Martin Luther’s beliefs were

deemed to be heretic in nature and he was hidden away by a German prince.

The word Renaissance means a “rebirth”. This is exactly what happened

after the Crusades and split of the Roman Catholic church. A rebirth of

ideas was their outcome. The most drastic change took place in art. New

perspectives were created by such people as Giotto, Tommaso Masaccio, and

Filippo Brunelleschi. With these new perspectives came a new age of art

within the Renaissance. Many new painters learned about using shades of

light and dark to create the illusion of depth, along with new techniques to

make paintings more realistic. The Renaissance was truly the “rebirth” of

lost ideas along with the birth of new ideas. The Split of the Church and the

eight Crusades to recapture Jerusalem are two of the many reasons for the

“birth” of the Renaissance, yet both are important to the birth of the

Renaissance. Without the Crusades, which brought back lost works from the

Roman Empire and opened trade with the far east, and the split of the

Roman Catholic Church, which brought about the reformation of the church,

there wouldnt have been enough of a basis for the Renaissance to occur.