What are effects of Renaissance?

Effects of Renaissance

(a) BEGINNING OF MODERN AGE

i) Humanism: Humanism was one of the movements that started in Italy in fourteenth century. Italian universities were centres of legal studies. Francesco Petrarch is known as ‘Father of Humanism’. He suggested a shift from the study of law to the ancient Roman culture and texts. The term ‘humanism’ was first used by Roman lawyer and essayist Cicero. Humanists thought that they were restoring ‘true civilisation’ after centuries of darkness, for they believed that a ‘Dark Age’ had set in after the collapse of the Roman Empire. The period from the fifth to fourteenth centuries was the Middle Ages, and the Modern Age started from fifteenth century.

• Humanistic art: In the fifteenth century, Florence was recognised for its  wo prominent Renaissance men. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), an eminent poet and philosopher of Italy who wrote on religious themes (he is known for his classic ‘The DIvine Comedy‘), and Giotto (1267-1337), an artist who painted lifelike portraits, very different from the stiff figures done by earlier artists. From then it developed as the most exciting intellectual city in Italy and as a centre of artistic creativity.
• Humanistic literature, Humanities stream: By the early fifteenth century, the term ‘humanist’ was used for masters who taught grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and moral philosophy. The Latin word humanitas, from which ‘humanities’ was derived, had been used many centuries ago to mean culture. These subjects were not drawn from or connected with religion, and emphasised skills developed by individuals through discussion and debate. Giovanni Boccaccio was the greatest writer and humanist who wrote Decameron. The universities of Padua and Bologna had been centers of legal studies.
• Humanists reached out to people in a variety of ways. Though the curricula in universities continued to be dominated by law, medicine and theology, humanist subjects slowly began to be introduced in schools, not just in Italy but in other European countries as well.