The Renaissance
▶ Explore on the map
The Renaissance was a European period of history and cultural movement at the end of the Late Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern era, variously dated to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries or, more broadly, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth. It was marked by the rediscovery and revival of the literary, philosophical and artistic achievements of classical antiquity. Associated with far-reaching change in art, architecture, politics, literature, exploration and technology, it began in the Republic of Florence and spread through Italy and later across Europe. Its intellectual foundation lay in humanism, derived from Roman humanitas and the recovery of classical Greek thought; the invention of metal movable type accelerated the circulation of ideas from the later fifteenth century. Early traces appeared in Italy by the late thirteenth century, in the writings of Dante and the paintings of Giotto, while Petrarch was credited with the fourteenth-century revival of learning based on classical sources. The movement produced linear perspective and more naturalistic painting, wide educational reform, and towering figures such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term 'Renaissance man'. In politics it shaped the customs of diplomacy, and the period also saw revolutions in printing and navigation together with the rise of modern banking and accounting.