Renaissance

The word Renaissance (French for 'rebirth', or Rinascimento in Italian), was first used to define the historical age in Italy — and in Europe in general - that followed the Middle Ages and preceded the Reformation, spanning roughly the 14th through the 16th century. more...

Home
Boys
Girls
Infants & Toddlers
Men's Accessories
Men's Clothing
Uniforms
Vintage
Children's
Men's & Women's Accessories
Men's Clothing
Men's Shoes
Reproductions & Costumes
1940s-1950s
Civil War
Flapper 1920s
Other
Renaissance
Victorian
Unisex & T-Shirts
Women's Clothing
Women's Shoes
Wedding Apparel
Women's Accessories,...
Women's Clothing

The principal features were the revival of learning based on classical sources, the rise of courtly and papal patronage, the development of perspective in painting, and the advancements of science. The word Renaissance is now often used to describe other historical and cultural moments (e.g. the Carolingian Renaissance, the Byzantine Renaissance). (See the disambiguation page).

Renaissance Self-awareness

By the fifteenth century, writers, artists and architects in Italy were well aware of the transformations that were taking place and were using phrases like modi antichi (in the antique manner) or alle romana et alla antica (in the manner of the Romans and the ancients) to describe their work. As to the term “rebirth,” it seems that Albrecht Dürer in 1523 was the first to use such a term when he used Wiedererwachung (German: rebirth) to describe Italian art. The term "la rinascita" first appeared, however, in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari's Vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani (The Lives of the Artists, 1550-68). Vasari divides the age into phases: the first phase contains Cimabue, Giotto and Arnolfo di Cambio; the second phase contains Masaccio, Brunelleschi and Donatello; the third centers on Leonardo da Vinci, culminating with Michelangelo. It was not just the growing awareness of classical antiquity that drove this development, according to Vasari, but also the growing desire to study and imitate nature.

The Renaissance as a Historical Age

The period did not become recognized as a historical age, however, until the early nineteenth century during which time the word renaissance in French came to be used to describe it. The Renaissance was first defined by French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874), in his Histoire de France (History of France, 1855). For Michelet, the Renaissance was less a development in art and culture as in science. For him, it spanned the period from Columbus to Copernicus to Galileo, in other words from the end of the fifteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth century. The Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) in his Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, 1860) (English translation, by SGC Middlemore, in 2 vols., London, 1878), by contrast, followed Vasari, defining the Renaissance as the period between the Italian painters Giotto and Michelangelo. His book was widely read and influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the Italian Renaissance. In architecture, the folio of measured drawings Édifices de Rome moderne; ou, Recueil des palais, maisons, églises, couvents et autres monuments, (The Buildings of Modern Rome) first published in 1840, by Paul Letarouilly (1795-1855) also played an important part in the revival of interest in this period.

Read more at Wikipedia.org