Pre-Renaissance Period (Term Paper Sample)

Pre-Renaissance Period Student’s Name Teacher’s Name Course Title Date Pre-Renaissance Period The word Renaissance simply means ‘rebirth.’ It occurred after ‘the Middle Ages’ and it demonstrated classical tradition art that incorporated artistic and scholarly enthusiasts during this era. Renaissance art re-introduced philosophy importance, government, and forgotten concepts of art in classical Rome and Greece. The Renaissance period is responsible for development and enlightenment into modern art. It plays a significant part in the cultural life and can be acknowledged in the life and work of a classical scholar called Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374). Classical Renaissance art was based on the fundamentals of humanism. Before the Renaissance period, many Europeans practiced Catholicism because they were not exposed to such. The church taught people less and did not challenge life in broad. Science was not well understood and accepted by the church. Those who condemned the church teachings were subjected to torture, severe punishment, and burned in front of everyone. However, things begun to change through the 14th- 16th century period where people re-discovered art and questioned a lot. New concepts and ideas emerged; people begun to experiment and think independently as more development and growth were made in the sciences and arts. This led to the Catholic Church losing influence and power on people’s belief concerning the world (Elliott 4). People who lived in Italy from the 13th-century believed they experienced the Roman-Greek civilization and the rebirth of art. The end of the Roman period brought about the ‘middle age’ considered the dark period because of its lack in a classical culture. The Renaissance period was a period of recovery from the effects of political disorder, economic recession, and the Black Death witnessed prior to the 14th-century. The recovery was boosted further by the introduction of the classical antiquity culture. The revival affected activities such as art and politics thus led to new ways to reconcile the Roman-Greek world with the establishment of Christian thoughts and ways of perceiving human beings. After the social upheavals and economic depressions experienced prior to the 14th-century, Italian business people were flourishing and expanded their businesses across the Mediterranean and Atlantic seaboard. Trade recovered significantly from the economic depression (Elliott 22). In the middle ages, a period that came before the Renaissance time, studying science was done in universities, religious institutions or monasteries. The scientists included wealthy nobles or priests. In comparison to the Renaissance period, many ordinary people developed interest in science as there were many scholarly materials available such as books written by poets. By the beginning of the 14th-century, Italian towns begun to flourish from increased trade with the East, and this led to developments of monetary and banks. The gathering and assembling of information begun with classical scholars like Petrarch. He improved the knowledge of the ancient language to modern vocabulary. Petrarch improved classical antiquity, and his works ran down to the 14th-century. Artists portrayed people as flat and stiff in the middle ages as compared to people in a more realistic way in the Renaissance period. An artist like Giotto was first acknowledged with developing such techniques of painting that portrayed subjects with natural poses, facial expressions, and even used shadows on the images (Elliott 28). The beginning of the Renaissance period witnessed Christians belonging to one church called the Roman Catholic Church. People lived their lives in a simple manner by worshipping God through the leadership of the pope. The reformation period split Christians into Catholics and Protestants. The reformation period began with the indulgence of Martin Luther, who wrote a public challenge concerning good deeds in the church. Luther challenged pope’s leadership, and he believed believers could strengthen their religion by reading the bible. He translated the bible from Latin to Germany. His believers stripped catholic churches symbols such as artwork, statues depicting saints, and Mary the mother of Jesus, that were not significant to the beliefs of Luther. Lack of manuscripts and texts from the scholarly writer Petrarch can be viewed as one of the causes that led to ...