The intellectual and artistic flowering that began in Italy in the 14th century, culminated there in the 16th century, and greatly influenced other parts of Europe. The notion of a rebirth refers to a revival of the values of the classical world. The idea was brilliantly characterized by Alberti, himself an architect, painter, scientist, poet, and mathematician, and in Leonardo da Vinci. Brunelleschi is considered the first Renaissance architect; from his interest in Roman remains he created buildings that could be compared with the finest ancient examples. Other major architects included Bramante, regarded by his contemporaries as the most successful architect of the High Renaissance, and Palladio. In sculpture, it was Donatello in the early 15th century who assimilated the spirit of ancient sculpture. Ghiberti, Michelangelo, and others revealed new possibilities of expression that had been unknown to antiquity. In painting, fidelity to nature became a central concern to early Renaissance painters, such as Giotto and Masaccio, who brought scientific vigour to the problems of representation, while the invention of perspective assisted in the realistic portrayal of nature. Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian and others broke new ground by introducing the human figure, naturalistically depicted, into their paintings. Florence in the period around 1425 was the cradle of the Renaissance, but by the early 16th century—the ‘High Renaissance’—Venice and Rome were equally important. The ideals and imagery of the Italian Renaissance did not generally begin to spread to the rest of Europe until about 1500. Dürer was the outstanding artist of the ‘Northern Renaissance’, making it his mission to transplant the new Italian ideas on to German soil. Out of the art of the High Renaissance there developed a style characterized by a sense of extreme elegance and grace, which became known as Mannerism.

In literature the Renaissance was led by humanist scholars and poets, notably Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio in Italy. Poetry and prose began to be written in the vernacular instead of Latin, and the invention of printing contributed to the spread of ideas. Among the notable writers of the Renaissance beyond Italy are Erasmus in the Netherlands; Montaigne and Rabelais, and the poets of the Pléiade in France; Lope de Vega and Cervantes in Spain; and Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, and Sir Francis Bacon in Britain. The Renaissance profoundly affected the presentation and content of theatrical production. Dramatists introduced classical form and restraint into their works, which were to be codified, notably in France, with greater severity than in classical times. The Renaissance had far-reaching consequences in many other fields. The impulse to explore the world led to the voyages of discovery of Diaz de Novaes, da Gama, and Magellan. These in turn led to advances in geography and cartography and the colonization of new lands. The astronomers Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo proposed new theories about the movement of the planets, and advances were made in biology, chemistry, physics, and medicine. The Flemish anatomist Vesalius wrote De humani corporis fabrica (1543), an influential anatomical treatise. The new spirit of enquiry also affected perception of the Church and paved the way for reform.