Beginning with Renaissance and Reformation the outlook and institutions of the Middle Ages disintegrated => new modern forms emerged

Renaissance = refers to the attempt by artists and writers to recover the cultural standards of ancient Greece and Rome and apply them to their work
BUT: the Renaissance was not a complete break with the Middle Ages => elements of early modernity in the Middle Ages

Reformation = refers to a religious movement that emphasized the importance of the individual by calling for a direct and personal relationship between each person and God
Reformation => divided Europeans (West) between Catholic and Protestant faiths

Renaissance => birthplace: the urban centers of Italy (people had wealth, freedom, and inclination to cultivate the arts); many reminders of ancient Rome => stimulated the interest in antiquity

14 - 15 C: republican institutions in one city after another => toppled in favor of rule by despots => development facilitated by class war (between nobles and rich merchants, by economic difficulties, by the plague) => people lost confidence in republicanism and turned to one man rule
=> the condottieri => who owned no loyalty to republican traditions => seized power during times of crisis

patrons of the art => member of the upper class:
    - provided funds to support promising artist and writers; the demand for art => brought artists public recognition

Renaissance society: a growing secularism and individualism

the most important movement (educational) => Humanism: based on the study of ancient Greek and Roman literature
Humanists: to speak well, write well, and live well => it was necessary to know the classics
Humanism => the growing secularism of the Renaissance
Humanism looked back with admiration on the ancients and viewed the epoch preceding their own as a period of decline from classical heights

a different view about the state:
    Medieval view => the state was the creation of God => the ruler should base his policies on Christian principles
    Renaissance => Machiavelli's view => tried to understand the state without recourse to the Christian teachings (The Prince)

Renaissance art => a break with the medieval cultural forms
    - artists gave value to this world => representing things as they actually appear*** (still a conventions => not as they are) to the human eye => Renaissance artist revolted against the Gothic style
*Michellangelo, Rafael, Leonardo da Vinci (Renaissance man), Boticelli
* perspective => aerial perspective
                            one point perspective
medium: fresco, oil

Growing prosperity + the printing press => the spread of Renaissance ideas and art to other parts of Europe => Humanism outside Italy less concerned with the revival of antiquity's values than with the reform of Christianity and society through a program of Christian humanism (*Erasmus)

* a different trend in the northern part of Europe => based on the urban centers

Renaissance => set the cultural standards for the modern age