The Renaissance

The Rebirth
As early as about 1350 in Italy, representations of a new cultural movement, usually called the Renaissance, began to challenge certain basic medieval assumptions and offer alternatives to medieval modes of literary and artistic expression. By around 1500 Renaissance ideals not only had triumphed fully in Italy, but also were spreading to northern Europe where they were reconceived to produce the highly influential movement of Christian humanism.
The widespread modern idea that a “Renaissance period” followed Europe’s medieval age was first expressed by numerous Italian writers who lived between 1350 and 1550. According to them, one thousand years of constant darkness had intervened between the Roman era and their own times. During these “dark ages” the Muses of art and literature had fled Europe before the onslaught of barbarism and ignorance. Almost miraculously, however, in the fourteenth century the Muses suddenly returned, and Italians happily ...