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Renaissance Culture
AP® TOPICS 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.11, 2.7

The Renaissance, a word derived from the French word for “rebirth,” was character-

ized by a self-conscious conviction among educated Italians that they were living in
a new era. Somewhat ironically, this idea rested on a deep interest in ancient Latin
and Greek literature and philosophy. Through reflecting on the classics,

Renaissance thinkers developed new notions of human nature, new
plans for education, new models for individual behavior, and new
concepts of political rule. Students from northern Europe flocked

to Italy, absorbed the new learning, and carried it back to their
own countries, where they saw these new ideas as a way to bring
about reform of the church and deepen people’s spiritual lives.
this sample.

The advent of the printing press with movable type in the
Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.

middle of the fifteenth century greatly accelerated the spread of
Worth Publishers.
ideas throughout Europe and then beyond. Artists incorpo-
rated classical themes and motifs into their paintings, sculpture,
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and architecture. These were paid for by wealthy individuals,

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rulers, city-states, and church officials to glorify themselves, their
families, and their institutions. Italian artists pioneered perspective,
and across Europe artists and patrons favored more naturalistic and

realistic styles in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and then in the
by Bedford, Freeman &
later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the more emotional and dramatic styles of
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence,
Italy/Bridgeman Images
mannerism and the baroque. (Chapter 2: European Society in the Renaissance)
New Monarchies and European Rivalries
Copyright ©
AP® TOPICS 1.5, 2.8

Beginning in the fifteenth century, rulers used aggressive methods to build their
Distributed
governments. First in the regional states of Italy, then in the expanding monarchies
of France, England, and Spain, rulers began the work of reducing violence, curbing
unruly nobles, and establishing domestic order. They attempted to secure their

borders and enhanced their methods of raising revenue, often using merchants

or professionals such as lawyers to staff their bureaucracies and

conduct diplomacy. The monarchs of western Europe emphasized
royal majesty and royal sovereignty and insisted on the respect and
loyalty of all subjects, including the nobility. In central Europe the
Holy Roman emperors attempted to do the same, but they were not
able to overcome the power of local interests to create a unified state.

This decentralization was ratified in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648,

which allowed the hundreds of territories within the empire to choose
© Fitzwilliam Museum/Bridgeman Images
between Protestant and Catholic Christianity, maintain their own
legal systems, and in other ways operate largely independently. The driving

force of state-building in the seventeenth century was warfare, and across
Europe armies increased vastly in size and in the sophistication of their military technol-

ogy. This increase led to ever-higher taxation, larger bureaucracies, and greater central
control, although the balance of power between monarchs and various elite groups was

different in different parts of Europe. (Chapter 2: European Society in the Renaissance)
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