What was the Renaissance?
The term Renaissance translates to "New Birth" and refers to the renewed enthusiasm for literature, learning, and art which sprang up in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries.
We may define the Renaissance as the reentrance into the world of that secular, inquiring, self-reliant spirit which characterized the life and culture of classical antiquity. This is simply to say that under the influence of the intellectual revival the people of Western Europe l ceased to think and feel as medieval men and began to think and feel as modern men.
The Renaissance began in Northern Italy at the beginning of the 15th century right after the Black Death had ravaged the country, killing from a third to half the population.
The two principal components of Renaissance style are the following: a revival of the classical forms originally developed by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and an intensified concern with secular lifeinterest in humanism and assertion of the importance of the individual.
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