Candide Imperialism

The Renaissance was a period in history that began in Italy dating back to around the 1300s. It followed The Middle Ages and was considered a time of “rebirth”. The people of Europe increased much interest in learning, in the arts and in literature. It also provided the world with a big advancement in science and technology. People questioned old beliefs and were able to turn their miseries into optimism. The Renaissance changed man’s view of man in at least four areas: art, literature, astronomy, and anatomy.

During the seventeenth century, the scientific revolution in Europe was at its peak, changing people’s lives through the new techniques of the scientific method. Citizens of western civilizations had previously used religion as the lens through which they perceived their beliefs and customs in their communities. Before the scientific revolution, science and religion were intertwined, and people were taught to accept religious laws and doctrines without questioning; the Church was the ultimate authority on how the world worked. However, during this revolution, scientists were inspired to learn and understand the laws of the universe had created, a noble and controversial move toward truth seeking. The famous scientists of the time, such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton, were known to be natural philosophers, intending to reveal God’s mystery and understand (through proof) the majesty of God. Throughout previous centuries, people had hypothesized how the world and natural phenomenon may work, and new Protestant ideals demanded constant interrogation and examination. Nevertheless, some of these revelations went against the Church’s teachings and authority. If people believed the Church could be wrong, then they could question everything around them, as well. As a result, the introduction of the scientific method, a process by which scientists discovered and proved new theories, was revolutionary because it distinguished what could be proved as real from what was simply

Lisa Jardine’s Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution provides a comprehensive breakdown of the discoveries that defined the Scientific Revolution and the history behind them. The story of the scientific revolution truly begins with a separation between the Catholic Church and the denizens of Europe brought on by the Protestant Reformation. This separation led directly to the questioning of the church and what they deemed to be true. The growing suspicion of the church applied not only to the politics and religious views but the scientific “facts” the church was built upon. The suspicion of these scientific facts quickly grew to an open challenging of these facts, The Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution is something we have all studied in our grade school years and the discoveries of people such as Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei are well documented and arguably common knowledge but Jardine’s book Ingenious Pursuits encapsulates the scientific revolution in a new light. Jardine accomplishes this by telling the stories of some of the greatest achievements of the Scientific Revolution. These stories reveal the collaborations of some of histories most brilliant minds as well as the secrecy amongst them and uncover the motives that fueled many of these accomplishments.

The Renaissance is a period in Europe, from the 14th to the 17th century, considered the bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a cultural movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe, marking the beginning of the Early Modern Age. The Renaissance changed the view of man on the world from how man viewed the world during the middle ages. The purpose of this essay is to show how the Renaissance changed the way man viewed the world. The world was changed in the views of Art, Literature, and Science.

Stokstad posits that these ideas have roots in the previous scientific revolution of the century before it, with philosophers such as Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes establishing what we now know as the scientific method based on logical reasoning, educated guesses and controlled experiments to prove them. The astronomer Galileo Galilei confirmed a previous theory by Nicolaus Copernicus that the sun did not revolve around the Earth and that it was the other way around-- the planets revolved around the sun. These theories and practices went against the Church's teachings, and Galileo in particular was forced to take back what he said on his observations. Other scientists made discoveries on smaller scales relating to the animal kingdom and plant life, and artists were used to convey the new-found information by painting or drawing those findings. (p. 756) With the different revolutions and events that took place before the eighteenth century, it could be said that the Enlightenment was just a logical progression and the next step.

The renaissance is defined as the “rebirth” of civilization in Europe from the 14th to 17th centuries (General Characteristics of the Renaissance). A renewed interest of classical world spread from its beginning in Italy, north to Germany and

The Renaissance is known as a period of change in Western European society and in the beliefs in the nature of man. Despite conflicting ideas of some of the most known men of the Renaissance, some ideals are universal though they may not be presented in the same fashion. While renaissance thinkers may not have shared all the same beliefs, there were some common views.

Beginning in Italy in the 14th century, the Renaissance was a period of “rebirth” and immense social and cultural change in Europe. The influential historian, Jacob Burckhardt, discussed the idea that the Renaissance marked the origin of modern times, in which the focus of life shifted from solely religion to a higher emphasis on learning and rationality. In his book, “The Civilization of the Renaissance," Burckhardt recognizes “worldliness” as one of the most essential features of the Renaissance. He claims that with this new attitude, there is an “irresistible impulse [that] forces us to the investigation of men and things,” as “the proper end and work” of humanity (421). Considering Burckhardt’s sense of worldliness, as well as regional differences across Europe, it is evident that European society did become more “worldly” during the years between 1415 and 1600, as secular pursuits, materialism, the humanities, and the arts became important values of the time.

The expression "Renaissance" signifies "re-conception" and alludes to Europe's "social resurrection" in around 1350-1550. Craftsmen and educated people at the time themselves utilized the expression "renaissance" to show the distinction between their reality and the universe of the "dark ages". Renaissance learned people and specialists trusted that they had rediscovered the lost social legacy of Greece and Rome. As we have seen in past addresses, the social legacy of the established world truly had never been

Isaac Newton was a well-known scientist as well as a fantastic theologian. Through combining math and science he produced the Law of Gravity, the Nature of Light, the Laws of Motion, and suggested universal gravitation rather than crystalline spheres. Following Newton was Sir Francis Bacon and Renee Decart. Bacon believed that all science should be open. Everything should be questioned, examined, and tested until proven one-hundred percent true, and that we should never trust the theories of those before us without testing it ourselves. Decart is famously known for, “I think therefore I am.” But beyond that, he is known for pronouncing that “Mathematics plus Science plus Reason equals Order.” However, he never truly witnessed how right he was. Subsequent to that, not only were the walls of science and mathematics forced to crumble, but the walls of medicine were also demolished. With the help of Andreas Vesalius and William Harvey medicine was fully reinvented and the belief that everything could be explained by an imbalance of humors was eradicated. In the end, all medieval beliefs were destroyed and replace with new theories, mathematics, and

Throughout Europe, the Renaissance was an era that appreciated art, science, and technology, as well as established romantic love and humanism. It was the rebirth of cultural and intellectual recreation, and the end of a long immersion of poverty and decay. The Renaissance was influenced by the classical age and ideals of ancient Rome and Greece, and the great minds and leaders within those eras, but the renaissance wasn’t just influenced by the past, it was influences by those in its future. Artists and architects paved the way for the Renaissance, and like the Netherlandish painter, Hieronymus Bosch, sometimes in unusual ways, like resisting the movement altogether.

The Renaissance is referred to the ‘re birth’ of time. Many of the old conceptions of the middle ages were not enforced and people commenced to question the church's power. But one of the most crucial events in the duration was the factors that help spread the conceptions of the Renaissance from Italy to the rest of Europe!

Interestingly, “some Europeans confronted the crises they faced with the culture of the Renaissance, a word that means “rebirth”” (Hunt et al. 401). Moreover, this was around the mid fourteenth century towards the sixteenth century, during which the Renaissance “revived elements of the classical past—the Greek philosophers before Aristotle, Hellenistic artists, and Roman rhetoricians” (Hunt et al. 401). There were significant effects of this era, as there was now refocusing on the “human potential and their individuality” (Hunt et al. 402). This was not typically the norm of society, as there was no longer focus on religious contributions. Instead, it was more of the capabilities of the individual. During this period, there was also the

The Renaissance wasn’t only known for a growth in arts but also in the pursuit of knowledge. This was a rebirth of man questioning his identity and his place in the universe. During this period there was an explosion in science and discovering not only how the world works but how to make the world easier for us. This only drove some to question more though man and his place in society. Many people believed that if science went too far, if man tried to know too much or things he should not dabble in then it was going to be the fall of us from grace. While others thought that science had nothing to do with religion or God and that in fact it was our right as humans to try and learn more and grow as a race. Due to this and the resurgence of religion during this period there was much tension between people and their ideas. There was much call for reform from both sides, some

The Renaissance(or rebirth) that had started in Italy, was an explosion of art and literature that had lasted from 1300 to 1600. Before the Renaissance, well educated men and women in Italy sought to bring back Italy’s past of classical Greece and Rome traditions. Instead, they started a whole new period that led to the different values of humanity, and innovative styles of art, literature, and learning. This Renaissance spread from Northern Italy to the rest of Europe, and there were three contributing characteristics that made Italy the birthplace of the Renaissance: Thriving city-states, a wealthy merchant class, and the classical heritage of Greece and Rome.