Editing Renaissance (section)

==Romanboos==
The '''Renaissance''' is a period of time and history which had its origins in the 1300s in Italy and would gradually spread across Christendom and beyond. It started with scholars like Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Dante, who came across some old pre-church Latin writings and thought to themselves that it was really great stuff. They then started writing more things in homage to the ancients, sparking off an entire movement of hipsters who were really into ancient stuff. As more people took an interest in those ancients, they started to uncover lots more forgotten things and make art and other objects in emulation of them. It's also around the time that people began to think about history. This is where we get terms like "Dark Ages", "Middle Ages", and "Antiquity", applied to the nascent concept of periodizing history before what they would regard as the Renaissance.

The word roughly means "rebirth" in English. More specifically it refers to the revitalization of civilization after the medieval period. Various Italian city-states gradually grew in wealth and prominence through maritime trade as well as connections with the Middle East and banking. The merchant princes of Italy would invest that wealth to make more money, but also poured a lot of cash into grand architecture, the arts, literature, engineering and academics, ranging from studies of the [[Classical Period]] to natural philosophy. These things were seen as noble pursuits in their own right, but they were also signs of wealth and prestige and a good way of currying favor with other influential figures ("The Cardinal would be glad to back your bid after your generous assistance with his cathedral"). Eventually, the ideas from Italy would begin to spread out and take root elsewhere in Europe. Cities once again began to grow across Europe.