Leonardo da Vinci's drawing of a man inside a circle and a square, the 'Vitruvian Man'
Vitruvian Man, about 1490
Marked Florence

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

The Renaissance

Artists and scholars in Italy, and then across Europe, looked back to ancient Greece and Rome for new ways to paint, build and think. Patrons like the Medici paid for it, and printing spread it.

Place
Florence · Rome · Venice · NurembergEurope
Laid out as
A theme across timeOne idea followed through the eras it crosses.
Lessons
7 planned, none written yet
Image
Leonardo da Vinci, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IFlorence and the Medici
  2. IIBrunelleschi’s dome
  3. IIIPerspective
  4. IVLeonardo’s notebooks
  5. VMichelangelo and the Sistine Chapel
  6. VIWomen artists
  7. VIIRenaissance beyond Italy

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Lorenzo de’ Medici
  • Filippo Brunelleschi
  • Leonardo da Vinci
  • Michelangelo
  • Sofonisba Anguissola
  • Albrecht Dürer

Objects

  • Leonardo’s notebooks
  • The dome of Florence Cathedral
  • Dürer’s prints

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

1400 to 1600. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?