RENAISSANCE SUMMARY

Renaissance" literally means "rebirth", it developed between XIV and XVII century in Italy and then spread in Northern Europe.  People wanted to know how life worked and values provided by the Middle Ages culture weren’t enough to find answers: Catholic values weren't enough to satisfy people's curiosity. This curiosity led to findings, not only in geographical but also in the intellectual field.

Thinkers of the Renaissance themselves strongly associated with the values ​​of classical antiquity, especially as delivered in the newly rediscovered classics of literature, history and moral philosophy. On the contrary, they tended to dissociate themselves from works written during the Middle Ages, a period of history that considered rather negatively. According to them, the Middle Ages have been set in the "middle" of two much more valuable historical periods, antiquity and their own. However extremely important continuity with the previous age still existed.

The study of the Renaissance might well center on five interrelated issues:
The Great Chain of Being:

the Renaissance also kept some concepts from the Middle Ages. The “Great Chain of Being” is one of them.  Its major premise was that every existing thing in the universe had its "place" in a divinely planned hierarchical order, which was pictured as a chain vertically extended. God was on the top, while humans were between animals and angels. Human being is a microcosm that reflected the structure of the world, the macrocosm.

Political Implications of the Chain of Being: Political implications of the Chain of Being, and therefore the assertion of the sovereign to rule by divine right and the end of most of feudalism. As the pyramid theological had God as his superior, the political pyramid had rules to his superior, the release of an effective central government.

Humanism:  The period between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is known as Humanism. Humanism represented a shift from the "contemplative life" to the "active life." In the Renaissance, the highest cultural values were usually associated with active involvement in public life, in moral, political, and military action, and in service to the state. Of course, the traditional religious values coexisted with the new secular values. 

"Imitation: the objective was not to create something totally new. The writers were to capture the spirit of the originals, the mastery of the best models, learn from them, then using them for their purposes.