5160–5260 AM · 1400 CE — 1500 CE · world history
The Renaissance
Florence and Italy rediscover antiquity, perspective and the dignity of the human being.
Wealthy trading cities, above all Medici Florence, begin investing in art and learning. Brunelleschi builds the cathedral dome and works out linear perspective; Leonardo and Michelangelo work at the border of art and science. Scholars hunt down forgotten Greek and Roman manuscripts. The human being becomes worth studying in itself.
Sources
Documents of the period
- documents and chronicles of the period — Vasari’s Lives and the works of the Florentine masters themselves
Scholarship
- general histories of the region — the patronage of the Medici and the hunt for classical manuscripts
Basis: documents and evidence.