Renaissance Dbq

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” - Leonardo da Vinci. This describes the change from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. During the Middle Ages people were more concerned with the afterlife than their current lives. Since most people were serfs they were waiting for an afterlife that would be better than their life on Earth. Eventually more people became employed, and with the invention of the printing press more people became literate. As a result this sparked a change in man. This change is referred to as humanism, importance in self accomplishment. So how did the Renaissance change man’s view of man? The Renaissance …show more content…
One example of this is Astronomy. Notably, in about 100 CE Claudius Ptolemy developed a theory that are solar system is geocentric, meaning that the Earth is at the center of the Universe (Doc C). Then in about 1500 a Polish astronomer named Nicolaus Copernicus discovered that at the center of the Universe there is the sun, this is called a heliocentric universe. His discovery was heavily based on mathematics. Also, if you look at the two diagrams for the geocentric and heliocentric universe the heliocentric diagram is more realistic. The size of the planets is far more accurate than those in the geocentric diagram. Another example of advances in science is anatomy. In the Middle Ages, it was widely believed that the twelve groups of constellations governed the parts of the body. This is seen in a woodcut call “Zodiac Man” from a book by German Astronomer Johann Regiomontanus (Doc D). In 1543 Belgian physician, Andreas Vesalius made an illustration of the human body. The illustration was based off his research and dissection of human corpses. The man from the Renaissance, Andreas Vesalius had actually seen the human body with his own eyes. Many scientific discoveries were made during the Renaissance due to a new way of