Renaissance

Chronology (Renaissance)

The question of when to begin and when to end a chronological list of major events of the Renaissance is as open to debate as the scope and significance of the Renaissance itself. In addition, the development of the Protestant Reformation from 1517 creates a whole new set of problems in defining the age. The […]

Introduction to Renaissance

"The Renaissance" used to be refreshingly easy to understand. It could be plausibly described as a simple and obvious cultural "rebirth" (the literal meaning of renaissance) of advanced civilization after nearly a thousand years when cultural barbarism and political and social chaos had blighted the lives of European peoples. The Renaissance seemed to mark the […]

ACADEMIES To ALEXANDER OF VILLEDIEU (Renaissance)

ACADEMIES Associations, originally loosely organized and unofficial, formed from about the middle of the 15th century by local groups of Italian humanists to promote the growth of humanistic studies and in general the revival of ancient civilization. The use of the term "academy" was a reminiscence of the Platonic Academy of ancient Athens. From about […]

ALTDORFER, ALBRECHT To BANDELLO, MATTEO (Renaissance)

ALTDORFER, ALBRECHT (ca. 1480-1538). German painter, active at Regensburg in Bavaria, where he became town architect in 1526. He was a close student of nature and one of the earliest artists to paint landscapes containing no human figures and recounting no story. Influenced by Lucas Cranach and Albrecht Durer, he attracted the patronage of the […]

BAPTISTA MANTUANUS To BLACK DEATH (Renaissance)

BAPTISTA MANTUANUS (1448-1516). Spanish-born monk and poet active in Italy, originally named Baptista Spagnolo. He studied at Mantua and Padua and became tutor to the children of the Gonzaga dynasty of Mantua. His early poetry was secular, largely devoted to praising the Mantuan court, but he abandoned his courtly life and entered the Carmelite order […]

BOCCACCIO, GIOVANNI To BRUNELLESCHI, FILIPPO (Renaissance)

BOCCACCIO, GIOVANNI (1313-1375). One of the three great Italian authors of the 14th century (along with Dante and Petrarch) who established the Tuscan dialect as Italy’s literary language. Born near Florence to a merchant employed by the Bardi bank and a woman whose name is unrecorded, Giovanni was legitimized and educated by his father, who […]

BRUNI, LEONARDO To CALVIN, JOHN (Renaissance)

BRUNI, LEONARDO (1370-1444). Florentine humanist and chancellor. Born at Arezzo, in the early 1390s Bruni migrated to Florence. He intended to study law, but he had the good fortune to be drawn into the circle of the Florentine chancellor Coluccio Salutati, where he became imbued with humanistic literary ideals and took advantage of the opportunity […]

CAMDEN, WILLIAM To CHARRON, PIERRE (Renaissance)

CAMDEN, WILLIAM (1551-1623). English antiquary and educator. After study at St. Paul’s school and Oxford, he became a teacher and headmaster at Westminster School. In 1597 he became a herald. His employments provided leisure for the antiquarian researches into the English past which produced Britannia (1586), an influential topographical survey of the country, and Annales […]

CHAUCER, GEOFFREY To COMMUNE (Renaissance)

CHAUCER, GEOFFREY (ca. 1340-1400). The greatest poet of medieval English literature, and the first widely influential poet since Anglo-Saxon times to write mainly in English rather than French. He is enduringly famous as the author of the Canterbury Tales, a collection of verse narratives supposedly told by a band of pilgrims on their way to […]

COMPLUTENSIAN POLYGLOT BIBLE To CROMWELL, THOMAS (Renaissance)

COMPLUTENSIAN POLYGLOT BIBLE A six-volume, multilingual edition of both the Old and New Testaments, edited by a group of Spanish scholars working at the new University of Alcalá (in Latin, Complutum) under the patronage of the archbishop of Toledo, Cardinal Francisco Ximénes de Cisneros. His financial support and political connections made it possible for the […]

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