The Renaissance
The RenaissanceRenaissance Period
Within only a few decades, between the years 1450 and 1550, the history of the world was changed drastically. During that century, in which the modern world was born, Gutenberg perfected printing, Christopher Columbous discovered continents unknown to Europe, it was found that the Earth revolved around the sun, Luther founded a new religion, the cannon and harquebus ended the age of chivalry, and Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo created a new form of art. At the same time most of the great European countries were formed and national languages began to evolve. People started to call themselves French, Italian, Spanish, English, or German. Europeans planted their flags on the shores of every ocean. Artists, writers, philosophers, and humanists proclaimed that 'nothing is more admirable than man.' They rediscovered the heritage of Greece and Rome and proclaimed the Renaissance, the 'Rebirth' of the spirit, of intelligence, of creativity, and of beauty.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo was born March 6, 1475, in the small village of Caprese near Arezzo. Michelangelo's father a Florentine official named Ludovico Buonarroti with connections to the ruling Medici family, placed his 13-year-old son in the workshop of the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. After about two years, Michelangelo studied at the sculpture school in the Medici gardens and shortly thereafter was invited into the household of Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent. There he had an opportunity to converse with the younger Medici. Michelangelo produced at least two relief sculptures by the time he was 16 years old, the Battle of the Centaurs and the Madonna of the Stairs, which show that he had achieved a personal style at a very early age. His patron Lorenzo died in 1492; two years later Michelangelo fled Florence, when the Medici were temporarily expelled.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, in the small Tuscan town of Vinci, near Florence. He was the son of a wealthy Florentine notary and a peasant woman. In the mid-1460s the family settled in Florence, where Leonardo was given the best education that Florence, the intellectual and artistic center of Italy, could offer. About 1466 he was apprenticed as a garzone (studio boy) to Andrea del Verrocchio.
Leonardo da Vinci was one of the great masters of the High Renaissance, celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. His profound love of knowledge and research was the keynote of both his artistic and scientific endeavors. His innovations in the field of painting influenced the course of Italian art for more than a century after his death, and his scientific studies-particularly in the fields of anatomy, optics, and hydraulics-anticipated many of the developments of modern science.
D�rer
D�rer, Albrecht (1471-1528), the most famous artist of Reformation Germany, widely known for his paintings, drawings, prints, and theoretical writings on art, all of which had a profound influence on 16th-century artists in his own country and in the Lowlands....
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