reniesnse+and+refremation

“My Story of the World: Renaissance & Reformation The French word “renaitre” means “to be rebirth” and that’s exactly what happened in the Renaissance. In the Renaissance, people had a rebirth of interest in the ancient roman and Greek civilizations. During the Renaissance there was a rebirth of interest in humanism, which is the name for concern with human interests and human values and with the human experience. The Renaissance, which began around 1350, changed the way Europe thought. The Renaissance began in the Italian city of Florence, because it was a city made rich because it was a center of shipping and banking. The people of Florence had excellent goods and a better chance of selling their goods. The de medici family was very wealthy banking family. The best known of the Medici family was lorenzo de’ Medici. Any gifted young artists would be taken into the Medici household and be educated. Lorenzo de’Medici gave his support and protection and art to many scholars and artists. The term for such a supporter of the arts is a patron. One very important artist whom Lorenzo supported was Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo created many great paintings, such as “The Last supper” and “The mona Lisa.” But his other areas of interest and expertise were engineering, music, and the natural world. Leonardo was the first artist to create perfect three-dimensional perspective. This was a new way of drawing and painting. It allowed the artist to make an object in the picture appear realistic to the viewer. Another major Renaissance artist was Michelangelo. He made many wonderful sculptures and paintings. Some of them were his famous painting of Bible scene on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and his sculpture, “David”, which shows the Old Testament biblical hero as a Roman or Greek warrior. To understand what the Protestant Reformation was, we need to understand what “protestant” means and what “reformation” means. The verb “reform” means to change something in order to improve it. So a “reformation” is something that has been reformed. To protest against something means to complain about something’s fairness. The Protestants were named well, because they protested against the church the rome, who is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Protestants did not like the way the priests and monks of the Roman Catholic Church were selling indulgence letters. This was a letter of forgivness for sins that a priest gave out in exchange for a payment of money. The German priest Martin Luther wrote the 95 Theses as a protest against indulgences. He nailed this document to the door of his church in Wittenberg, Germany. In this document, Luther protested that it was not true, or correct, Christian belief to sell the forgiveness of sins. The invention of the printing press with movable type, in 1455 by Johannes Gutenburg, helped speed up the spread of ideas, like Martin Luther’s ideas. It printed faster than a person could write, which was the old way of copying documents or books. The Protestant Reformation in England began when King Henry VIII broke away from the Pope, because Henry wanted a divorce and the Pope wouldn’t grant him one. Henry formed a new church called the Anglican Church, or Church of England. Henry VIII became richer and more powerful after the split with Rome, because he took over the church land and money that had been owned by the Roman Catholic Church. Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth I [the first] was the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth was known for her intelligence and courage and for helping England overcome religious differences and foreign enemies. She led her people through these times and against the spanish Armada in 1588. During Queen Elizabeth I’s reign lived the great William Shakespeare. He was an actor, poet, and a play writer. The plays of Shakespeare show a deep understanding of human thoughts and feelings. When he died in 1616, Shakespeare had written 37 plays and 154 poems. He is widely considered to be the greatest writer in the English language who ever lived.