The Role Of Women in the Renaissance Essays -- European Renaissance Ess

When one talks about the spiritual rebirth, the most common topic is art and architecture. It is true that the Italian rebirth was marked by some of the enceinteest and most prolific masters of painting, sculpture and building. It is similarly true that the era marked the emergence of a great deal more. It was a time of awakening from the intellectual darkness of the medieval order and the emergence of many of the concepts that would form the basis for civilization as it is know today. The era saw the birth of new attitudes concerning the role of man in his relationship to the world and to God. Unfortunately, for the most part, the expansion of the role of man did not include the role of women. metempsychosis (from the French for rebirth) is a term coined in the nineteenth century originally to denote the revival of art and letters under the influence of antique Roman and Greek models. This revival began in Italy in the fourteenth century, flourished in the fifteenth, an d in the sixteenth reached apogee and then crisis in Italy, while it spread finished most of Europe. But humanisms classical learning alone cannot account for the immense changes that took place during these centuries moreover, movements originating in the North also contributed to these changes. Therefore the term Renaissance has also come to denote the era in general and its overriding spirit, in which desires intrinsic to human nature, generally repressed under medieval feudalism, burst onwards with new fervor and resulted in a new culture (Osmond 18). The most conspicuous of these changes were in the world of art and intellectual pursuits. The social structure of Italy and the culturally defined gender roles were not as affected as art and architecture. ... ...litical scientist (Rhu 326). The Renaissance is perceived as a time of intellectual and creative step-up, and, indeed, the humanities and architectural accomplishments of the era bear out this perception. The tw o centuries denoted as the Renaissance in Italy are also known as a period of growth in the sciences, with such known personages as Leonardo de Vinci making strides into mathematics, anatomy and other sciences that would open the door for the empirical investigations of later centuries. The greatest of the Italian Renaissance writers, Niccolo Machiavelli, mirrors one of the least known attributes of the time, the social relegation of females. Although it is a time where the role of women is enlarged to some degree, it continues to place strictures on the place and meaning of women that were spoiled in the writings of the ancient Greeks, such as Aristotle.