RENAISSANCETIMELINE

HumanitiesJohannes Andersson

8A

CHRISTINE DE PISAN'S "BOOK OF THE CITY OF LADIES" (1405)

The ChangeAs a woman writer, Pisan is an example of an exceptional woman who challenged patriarchal structures in defending women and defeating the authority of men.

ImpactAnd still in our times feministic writers are continuing to demand improvements in women's social and personal rights.

In most societies throughout most of the second millennium, women were deprived of property, education, and legal status. They were made to the responsibility of their husbands or fathers.

Johannes Gutenberg's Printing press (1450)

ImpactThe invention of the printing press represents the very beginning of the possibility to provide the available knowledge and the recent religious and scientific theories to the public.

In this way Gutenberg's Bible was the first mass product!

Johannes Gutenberg, a German printer and pioneer in the use of movable type, invented his printing press around 1450. ChangeInstead of writing the books by hand like in former days , the printing process consisting of making a lot of identical reproductions of an original was the big change.

Leonardo da Vinci's inventions (1452-1500) ChangeLeonardo designed many inventions that were so modern that it should last until our time before they could be realized. For example the helicopter and the war tank.   ImpactIn his paintings he used a “vanishing point”. This method gives the paintings a three-dimensional space.

Leonardo has been described as the typical “Renaissance Man”. He was a artist, scientist and inventor. He painted some of the most famous paintings in the history, like Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, and had ideas of many very modern inventions.

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

Christopher Columbus was a Italian-born Spanish navigator who sailed west across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a route to Asia. But he achieved fame by making landfall in the Americas instead in 1492.

Change

Columbus was a navigational genius and came to believe that he could reach East Asia—what he called “the Indies”—by sailing west from Europe. By his courage and skills he reshaped the humanity's view of the earth.

ImpactColumbus’s explorations had an large impact on our modern world. They led directly to the opening of the western hemisphere to European colonization to wide exchanges of plants, animals, cultures and ideas between the two worlds. And also today the Europeans are still orienting themselves on America.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s philosophical writing  “De Hominis Dignitate” (1486)

The Humanist and Theologian Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) writes in his book Oration of the dignity of man that unlike other creatures, mankind has not been assigned a fixed place in the universe.

ChangeOur destiny is not determined by anything outside us. God gave us the liberty to determine the form and value our lives shall acquire. In other words, man is the master of his own destiny.

ImpactHis ideas about the right of man to decide himself about his destiny have been carried on until the modern time. Many people tries to live their lives after this idea.

Isabella d'Este (1474-1539)

"First Lady of the Renaissance”

In the Renaissance times when Renaissance Woman was supposed to marry well and give birth to boys, Isabelle d’Este did not fit this mold.At the age of sixteen, Isabella d'Este was able to speak Greek and Latin, was very well-educated, understood arts and sciences and was able to debate with people much older than her.

ChangeAfter her husband’s, -Francesco Gonzagas’s death, - she took over his job and ruled as Marchioness of Mantua Mantua on her own (1509).

ImpactWhile she was governing Mantua, she showed great leadership skills and a huge political talent. By commenting on politics in more over two thousands letters she sat an example for women to break away from the traditional role.

Also in our times, Isabelle d’Este inspires young women to take actively part in politics.

Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses at the door of the castle church in Wittenberg in 1517

Martin Luther, a professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg, attacked the corruption of the papacy and the Catholic church selling indulgences by monetary payment .

ChangeOn October 31, 1517, Luther nailed his 95 Theses against the selling of indulgences at the door of the All Saints Castle Church in Wittenberg , marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

ImpactHistorians consider his revolutionary ideas the single most important contribution to the Reformation, a movement that ultimately broke Catholicism's 1,200-year dominance in Europe and gave rise to Protestantism.  Lutheranism is one of many Protestant denominations and has today about 316 millions adherents.

Catherine de Medici(1519-1589)

Apart from her political role, Catherine of Medici was a patron of the Arts. Her interest in architecture led to the construction of a new wing of the Louvre and of the landscaping of the gardens of the Tuileries.

ChangeShe founded a great library, containing lots of rare manuscripts, which was very famous in Renaissance France.

Impact The incredible amount of knowledge collected in her library is still useful and of interest for scientists in our times.Some of the architecture encouraged by her may have inspired lots of architects in the 20th century.

 Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli's "The Prince" 1532

The political philosopher, Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, wrote the The Prince, a short guide to political power in 1505, published in 1532.

ChangeHe turned away from morality, religion and the papacy believing that the state was a creation of men, not of God . The state and the prince were considered to be one and the same thing. The Essence of any state is power .

ImpactMachiavelli is regarded as the father of modern political theory.He introduced a secular concept of the state - a state divorced from its theological implications. In our days in most of the modern states the power of the state is separated from the power of the church, like in France, Sweden and Austria.

Unfortunately, Machiavelli’s thoughts about the maintenance of power have often been misused by authoritarian regimes.

Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)

Bacon was an English philosopher, scientist and pioneer of the scientific method. He is called the father of Empiricism, a theory of knowledge, highlighting that knowledge comes primarily via sensory experience.

His works established inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian or scientific method.

ChangeBacon remained extremely influential through his works, especially as during the scientific practitioner of the scientific method evolution.

His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science.

ImpactIt is still an important part of the scientific methodology of today that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world by experiments.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)William Shakespeare was an English

playwright and poet who recognized in much of the world as the greatest of all dramatists. He remains our greatest entertainer and perhaps our most profound thinker.

ChangeShakespeare helped to create much of the modern English language. His plays are still played.

ImpactHis impact on the world were his skills of writing drama pieces like Juliet and Romeo.

He has inspired many modern writers and poets and other artists. He has an enormous impact on theater, movie and other kind of culture. Shakespeare has created figures in his plays, who are familiar until today.

Galileo Galilees telescope (1609)

Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer, but also a physicist, philosopher and mathematician. ChangeGalileo made many inventions. His most famous one was the telescope in 1609. With the telescope he could look to the moon and also discovered the satellites of Jupiter. When he discovered that the satellites moved around Jupiter, he later understood and proved that the earth moved around the sun (like another astronomer, Copernicus, had written before him).

ImpactGalileo played an important role in the so called “Scientific Revolution”. After the discoveries of Galileo, it was common knowledge that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe and that the Earth moved around the sun. This was contradicting the teachings of the Church and Galileo was sent to house arrest in his house. In year 1992, the church officially declared that Galileo was right.

 Johannes Kepler’s Astronomical Tables

1628

Calculating tables, the normal business for an astronomer, always involved heavy arithmetic.

ChangeKepler published a proof of how logarithms worked, based on Euclid’s “Elements” Book. These tables were published with the Rudolphine Tables. The astronomical tables used also Kepler's laws of planetary motion.

ImpactWhat is remarkable about the Rudolphine Tables that is that they proved to be accurate over decades. And also today the continued accuracy of the tables is naturally seen as an argument for the correctness of Kepler's laws, and thus for the correctness of the heliocentric astronomy.

René Descartes'"Discourse on Method" in "Philosophical

Essays" in 1637

Descartes tried to apply the rational methods of science, and particularly of mathematics, to philosophy.Before his time, philosophy was based on comparing and discussing the theses of other known philosophers.

Change Descartes pointed out the importance of scepticism of thought in holding nothing for true until having established grounds for believing that it is true.

ImpactAs scientist and mathematician Descartes was one of the most influential thinkers in Western philosophy in applying the method of deductive reasoning in the philosophy (Cogito, ergo sum...I think, therefore I am!) He had a big influence on other modern and rational thinkers like Henry More and Spinoza.

His "Cognito argument" rejects the authority of texts and teachers and encourage everyone of us to think independently.

LinksChristine de PisanSource: Encarta kids Image: newworldencyclopedia.org

GutenbergSource: http://h.whyville.net/smmk/whytimes/article?id=63Image: Encarta kids

Martin LutherSource: Encarta kidsImage: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2010/10/25/95-theses/

Leonardo da VinciSource: http://www.davincilife.com/Image: http://www.davincilife.com/

Christopher ColumbusSource: christopher-columbus.eu Image: christopher-columbus.eu

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola Source: http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/pico.htmlImage: http://www.elec-intro.com/oration-pico

Isabella d'EsteSource: http://www.yesnet.yk.ca/schools/projects/renaissance/renaissancewomen.htmlImage: artchive.com

LinksMartin LutherSource: Encarta kids Image: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2010/10/25/95-theses/

Catherine de MediciSource: Encarta kids Image: http://www.mystudios.com/artgallery/S/Santi-Di-Tito/Musical-angels-with-a-trompe-loeil-cloister,-detail-of-cherub-playing-a-flute,-from-the-interior-west-facade.html

Niccolo di Bernardo dei MachiavelliSource: http://www.historyguide.org/earlymod/lecture1c.htmlImage: http://www.entreprenant.us/2011/01/26/book-review-the-prince-by-niccolo-machiavelli/

Francis Bacon Source:  http://www.iep.utm.edu/bacon/Image:  http://www.iep.utm.edu/bacon/

LinksWilliam ShakespeareSource: http://www.shakespeare-online.comhttp://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/Image: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/945/shakespeare-good-brain

Galileo Galilei Source: http://galileo.rice.edu/http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/Galileo_Galilei

Image: http://coolwallpaper786.blogspot.com/2011/06/galileo-galilei-telescope.html

Johannes KeplerSource: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Kepler.htmlImage: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Kepler.html

Rene Descartes Source:  Encarta kidsImage:  http://www.quia.com/pages/epistemology.html