The Renaissance was a spectacular era of advancement in every field. For the first time, art and science walked hand in hand.
Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Perugino and Botticelli were expressions of human potential: in the span of four generations, works that had been unimaginable before were created.
For the first time, man is aware of his strength and abilities, and there is an overwhelming sense of optimism everywhere!

But what sparked such brilliance?

It wasn’t one secret ingredient—it was a recipe developed over centuries:
1340: Double-entry bookkeeping is invented, spurring banking and patronage.
Merchants and bankers became patrons and promoted not only art but also technology with a series of inventions.
People like Cosimo and Lorenzo de Medici put loads of money into making art and helping artists get ahead!
1347: The Black Death reshapes society. People embrace life with urgency.
1413: Perspective, long forgotten, is rediscovered.
1400/1492: Humanism had sketched out the portrait of a new man capable of embodying art and science and expressing himself as the architect of his own destiny! A man can be a painter and poet, sculptor and architect, as many artists of the time demonstrate!
1510: The first pocket watches are invented, changing the way people measure time.
1543: Anatomy is born
1450: New routes are discovered! The world has never looked so big.
1450: The invention of printing allows ideas to circulate and literacy to spread among the population.
The invention of the convex mirror by Venetian master glassmakers in the 14th century made it possible for people to see their own faces for the first time. This led to a sense of collective self-esteem: humility, which had been a value for centuries, was cast aside and people began to trust in man as the architect of his own destiny.

It was a man of that time, Giorgio Vasari, artist and historian, who coined the term Renaissance to celebrate the rebirth of those years in contrast to the Middle Ages.
However, as we have seen, the Renaissance has its roots precisely in the period it sought to reject, and it approaches and surpasses the classical art that inspired it.
What is certain is that progress and technological development had gained momentum, ushering in the Modern Age.

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