Renaissance: definitions and examples of renaissance

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noun A rebirth or revival.
noun The humanistic revival of classical art, architecture, literature, and learning that originated in Italy in the 14th century and later spread throughout Europe.
noun The period of this revival, roughly the 14th through the 16th century, marking the transition from medieval to modern times.

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A new birth; hence, the revival of anything which has long been in decay or desuetude. Specifically [capitalized], the movement of transition in Europe from the medieval to the modern world, and especially the time, spirit, and activity of the revival of classical arts and letters. The earliest traces and most characteristic development of this revival were in Italy, where Petrarch and the early humanists and artists of the fourteenth century may be regarded as its precursors. The movement was greatly stimulated by the influx of Byzantine scholars, who brought the literature of ancient Greece into Italy in the fifteenth century, especially after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. The Italian Renaissance was at its height at the end of the fifteenth and in the early sixteenth century, as seen in the lives and works of such men as Lorenzo dei Medici, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Machiavelli, Politian, Ariosto, Correggio, Titian, and Aldus Manutius. The Renaissance was aided everywhere by the spirit of discovery and exploration of the fifteenth century—the age which saw the invention of printing, the discovery of America, and the rounding of Africa. In Germany the Renaissance advanced about the same time with the Reformation (which commenced in 1517). In England the revival of learning was fostered by Erasmus, Colet, Grocyn, More, and their fellows, about 1500, and in France there was a brilliant artistic and literary development under Louis XII. (1498–1515) and Francis I. (1515–47). Also, in English form, renascence. I have ventured to give to the foreign word Renaissance—destined to become of more common use amongst us as the movement which it denotes comes, as it will come, increasingly to interest us—an English form [Renascence]. M. Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, iv., note. The Renaissance and the Reformation mark the return to experience. They showed that the doctrine of reconciliation was at last passing from the abstract to the concrete. E. Caird, Philos. of Kant, p. 28. [capitalized]
Of or pertaining to the Renaissance; in the style of the Renaissance.
Renaissance architecture the style of building and decoration which succeeded the medieval, and was based upon study and emulation of the outward forms and ornaments of Roman art, though with imperfect understanding of their principles. This style had its origin in Italy in the first half of the fifteenth century. and afterward spread over Europe. Its main characteristic is an attempted return to the classical forms which had been the forerunners of the Byzantine and the medieval. The Florentine Brunelleschi (died about 1446) was one of the first masters of the style, having prepared himself by earnest study of the remains of the monuments of ancient Rome. From Florence the style was introduced into Rome, where the works of Bramante (died 1514) are among its finest examples, the chief of those being the palace of the Chancellery, the foundations of St. Peter's, part of the Vatican, and the small church of San Pietro in Montorio. One of the greatest achievements of the Renaissance is the dome of St. Peter's, the work of Michelangelo; but this must yield in grandeur of conception to the earlier Florentine dome of Brunellteschi. After Michelangelo the style declined rapidly. Another chief Renaissance school arose in Venice, where in the majority of the buildings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries predominance is given to external decoration. From this school sprung Palladio (1518–1580), whose distinctive style of architecture received the name of Palladian. Renaissance architecture was introduced into France by Lombardic and Florentine architects at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and flourished there during that century, but especially in the first half, under Louis XII. and Francis I. During the seventeenth century the style degenerated in France, as it had in Italy, and gave rise to the inorganic and insipid productions of the so-called rococo or Louis XV. style of the first half of the eighteenth century. In England the Renaissance style was introduced later than in France, and it is represented there by the works of Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, and their contemporaries—St. Paul's, London, being a grand example by Wren. While all Renaissance architecture is far inferior to medieval building of the best time, it represents a distinct advance over the debased and over-elaborated forms of the medieval decadence. For an Italian example, see cut under Italian; see also cuts under loggia and Palladian.

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But critics say such a renaissance is a pipe dream, and all indications are that the state's political leaders lack the will to honestly and seriously address the problem. — thenewsstar.com - Local News
"Indeed, the renaissance is already under way, including major projects such as the Airdrie-Bathgate services and the Glasgow Airport Rail Link."
Understood this way, a renaissance is a moment of reframing. — Open Source Democracy
The art of the renaissance was the flower of a double root, and the artists used their complex stuff naïvely. — A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century
The greatest work of the renaissance was the elimination of physical force in the struggle of religious groups, in religious struggles generally; the greatest work of our generation will be elimination of physical force from the struggle of the political groups and from political struggles generally. — Peace Theories and the Balkan War

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renaissance

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