In March 2021 I started my YouTube Channel, ‘Renaissance Discoveries’. In this series we time-travel back some 500 years (and more) to take an in-depth look at some of the most exciting and inspiring people and events in history. We’ll base ourselves in Florence, the ‘cradle of the Renaissance’, but travel far and wide in both space and time.
The 1400s was a stimulating time in Western Europe—a period when artists and scholars made a series of important innovations and discoveries. Painters learned how to use oil paint and linear perspective. Scholars learned to read Greek, to explore other ancient cultures such as the Romans and Etruscans, and to give texts such as the Bible a very close reading. Architects built remarkable churches and palaces. The printing press arrived from across the Alps. The complete works of Plato arrived for the first time in the West.
All of these explorations and discoveries created the vibrant, searching and creative culture of what we call the Italian Renaissance.