Renaissance

“Renaissance" literally means "rebirth" and refers to the rebirth of learning and culture that developed in Italy in fourteenth century and spread in Europe until the seventeen century. During this period there was an interest in study classical (Greek and Latin) literature. People in the Middle Ages used to live in order to reach liberation and safeness but in the renaissance people were looking for new values in order to expand their horizons and they found them in the past system of values. Catholic values weren't enough to satisfy people's curiosity: they wanted to find something new. Such curiosity brought to new discoveries both geographical (exploration of the New World) and intellectual. Both kind of discoveries subverted the status quo and the balance of the Middle Ages: Copernicus (1473-1543) attempted to prove that the sun rather than the earth was at the center of the planetary system, radically altering the cosmic world view that had dominated antiquity and the Middle Ages; Martin Luther (1483-1546) challenged and ultimately caused the division of the Church.

There were five strong points in the culture of the Renaissance:

1. The Great Chain of Being, the concept of a world structured like a pyramid or a chain. At the bottom of this pyramid (or at the end of the chain) there were inanimate objects and the four elements, going up there were vegetables, animals, humans, angels and, at the very top, God.
   Human being is a microcosm that reflected the structure of the world, the macrocosm; just as the world was composed of four "elements" (earth, water, air, fire), so too was the human body composed of four substances called "humours," with characteristics corresponding to the four elements: illness occurred when there was an imbalance or "disorder" among the humours.

2. The Political Implications of the Chain of Being, and so the ruler's claim to rule by divine right and the end of most part of feudalism. As the theological pyramid had God as his top, the political pyramid had the rules at his top, making out an effective central government.

3. The Humanism, the movement from the "contemplative life" to the "active life" and the abandon of spiritual life: culture was involved in public life, in moral, political, and military action, and in service to the state. Of course people didn't abandon the traditional religious values which coexisted with the new secular values

4. The “imitation” of classic models: he goal was not to create something entirely new. Writers were to capture the spirit of the originals, mastering the best models, learning from them, then using them for their own purposes

5. The Protestant Reformation, the rejection of the Pope as spiritual leader: the Church cannot save the human being. In the Middle Ages people were incapable of contributing to their salvation, for instance through good deeds; it could only be achieved through faith in God's grace