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Thinking about the Renaissance, most of people associate it just to some kind of artistic movement of 14th-16th centuries. This approach is conceptually incorrect. In fact, the Renaissance is a kind of phenomenon that created modern society, continues to benefit it and not fixed in time. In this regard, we should remind the words of R. A. Guisepi who once wrote: “Renaissance is a kind of a moment in the history of the human race which we find it convenient to separate from other periods, while history itself is one and continuous, so that our utmost endeavors to regard some portion of it, independently of the rest, will be defeated” (Guisepi). In this paper we’ll try to outline the core origins of the Renaissance era, to get the meaning of its nature, and to address both intellectual and artistic issues of the Renaissance.
Actually, the term Renaissance, means “rebirth” and widely known as period in humans’ history that lasted from 14th to 16th centuries approximately. In general, it was featured by a surge of interest in classical learning and values. The Renaissance movement was headed through the recovery of Greek and Roman classical cultural heritage, what was largely carried out by Italian scholars. With the beginning of the Renaissance, the achievements of Ancient civilizations reached absolutely new level of relevance. With the times when the barbarous life style reached its historical collapse, the people began to feel a coming back validity of their ancient culture, and a desire to give the second life to it. Today, scholars take serious disputes why the Renaissance took its birth in Italy. Most of scientists and historians agree that it can be determined by tolerant environment, featured by prosperous commerce, developed political system with a great value of freedoms, while other states remained a semi barbarous. In addition, we have to understand that Middle Age Italy was the primary owner of Roman Empire cultural and scientific heritage.
The Ancient Greek and Roman cultures stand in the center of the Renaissance values, and this fact generated cultural revolution for humanity. It’s all about the contrasts. Ancient Greek and Roman cultures are featured with the deep sympathy to knowledge, science, diversity of thoughts, freedoms etc. In other words, it can be compared to liberality in some way. On the other hand, the Middle Ages that preceded the Renaissance can be described as the era of ignorance and collapse. That’s what R. A. Guisepi wrote at this part: “The mental condition of the Middle Ages can be compared before the idols of the Church – dogma, authority and scholasticism. Without the power over the other world which the physical sciences and useful arts communicate, without the ease of life which wealth and plenty secure, without the traditions of a civilized past, emerging slowly from a state of utter rawness, each nation could barely do more than gain and keep a difficult hold upon existence”( Guisepi). In this way, an average Middle Ages’ state can be compared to some kind of autocracy, with strong system of prohibition. The main achievement of the Renaissance period is the rejection of scholastic system. The ignorance of Middle Ages was largely determined by Church’s intention to take total control over the society. Appropriate goal was handled through imposed scholastic fear to folks. In this way, the Renaissance became some kind of an awake, that help people to release themselves. The time of barbarous were gone. New era began and it introduced humans’ possibilities in before unknown, absolutely different way.
So, what do people know about achievements of Renaissance era? Actually, it gave humanity the discovery and exploration of new lands which are treated as one of the most significant discoveries today. It allows us to enjoy the Copernican for the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. The refusal of the feudal system, the rapid development of commercial relations, the invention of incredibly beneficial innovations such as paper, compass, gunpowder and printing became several more points from the list of Renaissance achievements. However, at the first hand, this age was a time of the classical learning rebirth, accompanied by wisdom rethinking, after a long period of cultural collapse and stagnation. Appropriate redirection became the basis for all next progress. In general, it is almost impossible to name at least one field or sphere of knowledge that was not contributed during the Renaissance period. For example scientist can make references to the solar system of Copernic and Galileo, Vesalius’s autonomy, theory about blood circulation of Harvey etc. Lawyers may remind acquisition to the true text of a Roman Code, development of international law study, implementation of national method into the theory of modern jurisprudence. Discoverers were benefited by the exploration of America and Asia. The list can be added by dozens of other points. However, we are not enabled to address all particular issues. It would be more relevant to analyze the basis, which gave the background to appropriate scientific boom. Seemingly, it is all about the freedom of thought. After the long years of scholastic tyranny, people at last became free to rethink things and phenomena around themselves. The curiosity released from the prison of dogmatic inquisition encouraged people to take challenges and to master new domains. It is hard to say that such unprecedented intellectual boom can be explained from the point of some historical coincidence. Seemingly, it is more pertinently to talk about some kind of a consistent pattern. So, it is important to take a shot in intellectual boom origins’ examination. Philip Van Ness Myers made important stresses in his work. According to this author (appropriate position hardly can be argued) the dominant intellectual movement at the time of Renaissance was the humanism. It was not similar to the contemporary association of humanism to atheism as most, of the humanists of the Renaissance era were Christians. The main intention was dedicated to the reformation of the corrupt Church in the aspect of history, language and classical literature study. However, theirs was a system of intellectual inquiry that deviated from the traditional scholastic approach in education intended to prepare students in the disciplines of law, theology, philosophy and others. The scholastic knowledge system, that was argued by the humanists, was largely abstract in orientation. The Renaissance activists aimed to accommodate the social context of that time, thus, they allowed more practical system of education. In this order, the humanity rejected way of thinking that relied too much on Roman Catholic traditions, as it was during the Middle Ages (Philip Van Ness Myers). Speaking about the humanism, we also may refer to Austine Cline who mentioned that the central focus of Renaissance Humanism was all about the human beings. Humans were praised for their achievements. Humans were regarded optimistically in terms of what they could do, not just in the arts and sciences but even in moral domain. Human issues were given greater attention, leading people to spend more time on work that would benefit people in their everyday lives rather than abstract and in some way strange to human’s body and mentality interests of Church (Austin).
The roots of appropriate transformation can be found in humans’ back to forgotten Ancient cultures. R. A. Guisepi allowed us to enjoy next idea in this aspect: “This was the connection of the contemporary with the ancient mentality, which followed upon the Rebirth of Learning. The fall of the Greek empire in 15th century, while it started the extinction of the old order, gave an impulse to the accumulated forces of the new. A belief in the identity of the human spirit under all manifestations was generated. Men found that ideal of human life existed both in classical as well as biblical antiquity existed. It involved both intellectual and moral issues, which may benefit them in the present. The modern genius felt confident in its own aspiration to learn what the ancients had achieved. The assumptions of the ancients accumulated the efforts of the moderns” (Guisepi). In fact, previous quote is suitable to get the meaning of spiritual inspiration of Renaissance intellectuality. The great achievements of that time, can be conditionally classified to – the discovery of the world and the discovery of man. Under these two categories, all the achievements can be listed. Within these classification boundaries, we are enabled to trace all outstanding contributions to the field of humanities knowledge and science.
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