The Renaissance: New Forms of Thought and Expression

Some Europeans confronted the crises they faced by creating the culture of the Renaissance (French for “rebirth”). The period associated with the Renaissance, about 1350 to 1600, revived elements of the classical past—the Greek philosophers before Aristotle, Hellenistic artists, and Roman rhetoricians. (See “Terms of History: Renaissance.”) Disillusioned with present institutions, many people looked back to the ancient world; in Greece and Rome they found models of thought, language, power, prestige, and the arts that they could apply to their own circumstances. Humanists modeled their writing on the Latin of Cicero, architects embraced ancient notions of public space, artists adopted classical forms, and musicians used classical texts. In reality, Renaissance writers and artists built much of their work on medieval precedents, but they rarely acknowledged this fact. They found great satisfaction in believing that they were resuscitating the glories of the ancient world—and that everything between them and the classical past was a contemptible “Middle Age.”