1450 To 1750 Research Paper
From 1450 to 1750, Europe underwent significant cultural changes in religion and science. However, the air of skepticism and the utilization of literature remained constant throughout the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution. During the time period of 1550-1700, The Scientific Revolution brought about many changes in religion as compared to the preceding Renaissance movement. For example, religious realizations of the Italian Renaissance revolved around the idea of Humanism. Although the Catholic Church and strong a belief in the afterlife still dominated religious thought, focus began to shift to life on Earth and celebrating human achievement in the scholarly, artistic and political realms. Thus, there was a movement away from the constant goal of the fulfillment of the afterlife and towards the fulfillment of everyday individualistic needs. In contrast, with the Scientific Revolution came Deism - the belief in a powerful god who
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created and presides over an orderly realm but does not interfere with its workings. This theory had little place in the organized religion of Catholicism that dominated the Renaissance and was a direct result of the influx of scientific discoveries that contradicted centuries of rigid Christian pronouncements. The Scientific Revolution of 1550-1700 resulted in a multitude of scientific discoveries and the rise of the Scientific Method, contrasting with the prior art and music focused Renaissance era. The Scientific Revolution marked a shift in thought from the qualitative to the quantitative. No more was reason enough, one had to back up his assertions with experiments conducted with mathematical precision. Religious, naturalist paintings gave way to discoveries concerning the very nature of the universe. For example, perhaps the most influential revelation of the period was Copernicus’s that the Sun does not revolve are the earth; quite the opposite. His radical point of view was fueled by subsequent scientific discoveries, such as those of Galileo Galilei who proved Earth’s planetary position. These breakthroughs and countless more were made possible by the increase in European universities seen as a result of the Renaissance.
Throughout the changing periods of the Renaissance and The Scientific Revolution, from 1450 to 1750, the utilization of literature as a means to project one’s revolutionary ideas remained constant.
Until Guttenberg's invention of the printing press in the early the Renaissance, books were time-consuming to create, expensive and almost exclusively written in Latin. However, its creation allowed for books to become mass-produced, inexpensive and written in regional vernaculars. More books led to more literate and educated people. The newly literate people desired more books which continued to make them more educated, which again increased their desire for books and so on, paving the way for the Scientific Revolution. Renaissance intellectual Machiavelli utilized the printing press to distribute his novel The Prince, which laid the basis for modern political science. This trend continued throughout the following centuries and into the Scientific Revolution with the works of Sir Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler and Sir Francis
Bacon.
The human air of skepticism never wavered during the period of 1450 to 1750, transcending the cultural shifts of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution. The rediscovery of classical works during the Renaissance period resulted in the popular questioning of societal ideals. Many were fascinated with the ancient Greek and Roman concepts of beauty and citizenship and modeled their lives to more closely resemble their ancestor’s free individuality. The humanity found at the core of much of the literature and philosophy of ancient writers inspired the people to challenge age-old religious norms with the ideas of Humanism. Similarly, the Scientific Revolution questioned religion in its own way, deism. Also, radical thinkers of the revolution often disputed venerated scientific theories of the past, inducing a paradigm shift from Ptolemaic cosmology to Copernican and from Aristotelian to classical mechanics.
The continuous threads linking together the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution are the skepticism that characterized both eras and the utilization of literature to convey revolutionary ideas. However, from 1450 to 1750 cultural shifts in religion and science differentiated the two periods from one another.
created and presides over an orderly realm but does not interfere with its workings. This theory had little place in the organized religion of Catholicism that dominated the Renaissance and was a direct result of the influx of scientific discoveries that contradicted centuries of rigid Christian pronouncements. The Scientific Revolution of 1550-1700 resulted in a multitude of scientific discoveries and the rise of the Scientific Method, contrasting with the prior art and music focused Renaissance era. The Scientific Revolution marked a shift in thought from the qualitative to the quantitative. No more was reason enough, one had to back up his assertions with experiments conducted with mathematical precision. Religious, naturalist paintings gave way to discoveries concerning the very nature of the universe. For example, perhaps the most influential revelation of the period was Copernicus’s that the Sun does not revolve are the earth; quite the opposite. His radical point of view was fueled by subsequent scientific discoveries, such as those of Galileo Galilei who proved Earth’s planetary position. These breakthroughs and countless more were made possible by the increase in European universities seen as a result of the Renaissance.
Throughout the changing periods of the Renaissance and The Scientific Revolution, from 1450 to 1750, the utilization of literature as a means to project one’s revolutionary ideas remained constant.
Until Guttenberg's invention of the printing press in the early the Renaissance, books were time-consuming to create, expensive and almost exclusively written in Latin. However, its creation allowed for books to become mass-produced, inexpensive and written in regional vernaculars. More books led to more literate and educated people. The newly literate people desired more books which continued to make them more educated, which again increased their desire for books and so on, paving the way for the Scientific Revolution. Renaissance intellectual Machiavelli utilized the printing press to distribute his novel The Prince, which laid the basis for modern political science. This trend continued throughout the following centuries and into the Scientific Revolution with the works of Sir Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler and Sir Francis
Bacon.
The human air of skepticism never wavered during the period of 1450 to 1750, transcending the cultural shifts of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution. The rediscovery of classical works during the Renaissance period resulted in the popular questioning of societal ideals. Many were fascinated with the ancient Greek and Roman concepts of beauty and citizenship and modeled their lives to more closely resemble their ancestor’s free individuality. The humanity found at the core of much of the literature and philosophy of ancient writers inspired the people to challenge age-old religious norms with the ideas of Humanism. Similarly, the Scientific Revolution questioned religion in its own way, deism. Also, radical thinkers of the revolution often disputed venerated scientific theories of the past, inducing a paradigm shift from Ptolemaic cosmology to Copernican and from Aristotelian to classical mechanics.
The continuous threads linking together the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution are the skepticism that characterized both eras and the utilization of literature to convey revolutionary ideas. However, from 1450 to 1750 cultural shifts in religion and science differentiated the two periods from one another.