How The Renaissance Shaped European Culture

Renaissance Europe spanned between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries and spread out of Italy. Renaissance means the “rebirth”, so the “rebirth” of Europe. This time in Europe was a time of social and cultural change, and was singularized by innovation and creativity. Examples of this include art, literature and philosophy. The art was centralized around being more life-like and showing perspective. Artists like Michelangelo were able to show better human anatomy in paintings and statues with much more accuracy thanks to Leonardo Da Vinci (an artist as well as a scholar). The statue “David” from Michelangelo represents this perfectly. Not only was this a time of great artistic change, but literary change as well. Renaissance poetry and …show more content…
Around 1450 AD, a German man named Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. With that, books, especially the Bible, could be printed very fast and for little amounts of money. Books became available to more people, and the literacy rate increased. More people could read and write, and this was an intense change from only people of importance reading the Bible, to middle class citizens having their own connection with God through the Bible without a church. Because the literacy rate was much higher, this means ideas could travel through Europe faster, and the discoveries were more accurate than before. The religious cultures were also altered as well. Because more people could read the Bible, people starting believing in God differently. There was a schism in the Christendom, which means there was a split between the religion. The Protestants broke away from the Catholic church and Popes to make their own. Originally, they did not split because they did not believe, they split because the church was spending too much money on themselves and on the church instead of giving to the poor. Also, the Popes were seen as too secular, which means they wanted more worldly power than spiritual power. But, Martin Luther read the Bible and wrote the ninety-five thesis. Basically, ninety-five reasons why the indulgences were corrupt. Because of these events, the Protestants broke away from the Catholic church, and this is why so many people believe in God differently even today. Catholics, Lutherans, and Baptists are good examples. Although, not all who broke away continued to believe in God. According to worldhistory.net, Galileo Galilei, sometimes called “the father of modern science," spoke out against the Catholic Church's belief in an each-centered