關於Renaissance的問題……

[edit] Historiography
The term Renaissance (rebirth, Rinascimento in Italian), as used to indicate the flourishing of artistic and scientific activities beginning in Italy in the mid 1300s, first appears in the Vite, published in 1550 by Italian artist Giorgio Vasari. It is the French word for the Italian rinascita, used by French historian Jules Michelet, and expanded upon by Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (both in the 1860s). Rebirth refers to both a rediscovery of ancient classical texts and learning, and to the widespread revitalization of European culture resulting from the application of this classical knowledge in the arts and sciences. Thus Renaissance can refer to this rebirth of classical learning and knowledge or to the ensuing rebirth of European culture.


[edit] Multiple Renaissances

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, an example of the blend of art and science during the Renaissance.During the last quarter of the Twentieth century many scholars took the view that the Italian Renaissance was perhaps only one of many such movements. This is in large part due to the work of historians like Charles H. Haskins (1870–1937), who made a convincing case for a "Renaissance of the 12th century." Other historians have even argued for a "Carolingian Renaissance" in the eighth and ninth centuries, and still later for an "Ottonian Renaissance" in the tenth century. These concepts are now widely accepted by the scholarly community at large; as a result, the present trend among historians is to discuss each so-called renaissance in more particular terms, e.g., the Italian Renaissance, the English Renaissance, etc. This terminology is particularly useful because it eliminates the need for fitting "The Renaissance" into a chronology that previously held that it was preceded by the Middle Ages and followed by the Reformation, which many believe to be inaccurate. The entire period is now often replaced by the term "Early Modern". (See periodisation, lumpers and splitters)

Other periods of cultural rebirth have also been termed "renaissances", such as the Harlem Renaissance or the San Francisco Renaissance. These are not considered in this article, which will concentrate on the European Renaissance linking the Middle Ages to the Modern Age.



Many historians now point out that most of the negative social factors popularly associated with the "medieval" period - poverty, ignorance, warfare, religious and political persecution, and so forth - seem to have actually worsened in this era which saw the rise of Machiavelli, the Wars of Religion, the corrupt Borgia Popes, and the intensified witch-hunts of the 16th century. Many people who lived during the Renaissance did not view it as the "golden age" imagined by certain 19th century authors, but were concerned by these social maladies. Significantly, though, the artists, writers, and patrons involved in the cultural movements in question believed they were living in a new era that was a clean break from the Middle Ages.


Historians have begun to consider the word Renaissance as unnecessarily loaded, implying an unambiguously positive rebirth from the supposedly more primitive Middle Ages. Many historians now prefer to use the term "early modern" for this period, a more neutral term that highlights the period as a transitional one that led to the modern world.