From Etruscans and Romans to Modern Times - The Wise World Traveler: Becoming a Part of All that You Meet - page 62

Do I deem a matter of indifference to me.
— Terence
Suns may set and rise again. For us, when once our
brief day is set, there's the sleep thru' everlasting night.
— Catullus
ORIGINS OF THE RENAISSANCE
The nations of Europe so describe this unique force which overwhelmed, like a restless
tide, the thought and spirit of Medieval man. [66]
The Renaissance began in the early 1400s and slowly extinguished the mind-set of the
Middle Ages. The French word renaissance means rebirth. The Renaissance meant the re-
birth of many things that helped shape the modern mind: the challenge of travel and explor-
ation; learning for learning's sake; freedom of inquiry, especially the freedom of secular
inquiry; education using (and rediscovering) Greek and Roman texts; and above all, a re-
turn to the classical mind-set that proclaims many important ideas: Man is the measure of
all things. Happy is he who knows the cause of things. For every cause, there is an effect.
Every age has machines, architecture, and graphic art that represent its mind-set, its
technology, and its way of life. Think of the space shuttle of the late twentieth century and
what it embodies: a dazzling technology, a response to the Cold War, and confidence that
what humans can imagine, they can achieve. Great cathedrals embody the Middle Ages.
Their vast interiors, their soaring spires, their huge colored windows, and the patient way
they were built—many were under construction for a century or more—embody society's
preoccupation with life after death and lives dedicated to the idea that life on earth is no
more than a journey toward the afterlife. In other words, architecture in the Middle Ages
was dedicated to the transcendence.
In contrast to the Middle Ages, the art and architecture of the Renaissance reflect a
different technology and a different mind-set. At the end of the Middle Ages, man realized
that he needed to have a place in culture, and a movement called Humanism was born. Dur-
ing this period, artists went to rediscover Latin and Greek philosophy and out of this came
the Renaissance to wake up man. In statues and paintings, the human body is reproduced
in lifelike detail. The nude, especially the female nude, is no longer regarded as the repos-
itory of sin, but as the celebration of divine intent. Two noteworthy examples include Bot-
ticelli's Birth of Venus and Michelangelo's Dawn, in the tomb of the Medici in Florence.
Faces are drawn to reflect character—ambition, cruelty, and smug self-satisfaction. Clothes
indicate vocation and social status—churchman, businessman, or military leader. And the
body inside the clothes displays movement and pose that give insight into the character and