Renaissance

A history of the Renaissance including The word Renaissance, Petrarch the Laureate, Petrarch, Boccaccio and humanism, Roman and italic.

During the two hundred years between 1400 and 1600, Europe witnessed an astonishing revival of drawing, fine art painting, sculpture and architecture centred on Italy, which we now refer to as the Renaissance (rinascimento).

This page explains the key elements of the most famous renaissance, c. 1400 - 1600, and links to greater detail.

In the fifteenth century A.D. people of Europe developed interest for the literature, art, architecture, painting and culture of Greece and Rome.

The Renaissance was a time of great intellectual growth and rebirth - in fact, the word Renaissance literally means "rebirth" in French. This new era of enlightenment for Europeans began in Florence towards the end of the 14th century, following the Middle Ages, and after the Black Death wiped out nearly half of Europe's population.

At what point did it begin to matter what you wore? Ulinka Rublack looks at why the Renaissance was a turning point in people's attitudes to clothes and their appearance.

The Renaissance is one of the most interesting and disputed periods of European history. Many scholars see it as a unique time with characteristics all its own. A second group views the Renaissance as the first two to three centuries of a larger era in European history usually called early modern Europe, which began in the late fifteenth century and ended on the eve of the French Revolution (1789) or with the close of the Napoleonic era (1815).

In which John Green teaches you about the European Renaissance. European learning changed the world in the 15th and 16th century, but was it a cultural revolution, or an evolution?

A detailed history of the European Renaissance including its art, architecture, sculptures and writers.

Find out more about the history of Renaissance Art, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on History.

The Renaissance is a period in Europe, from the 14th to the 17th century, considered the bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a cultural movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe, marking the beginning of the Early Modern Age.