Was the Renaissance over glorified
get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes" (Leonardo da Vinci), which meant he put knowledge before his life. These types of men might have been uncommon, but they did exist and were still eager to learn. They didn’t really look at the Church or play a role in the Reformation unlike the humanists did. However, they did agree on one thing, which was the importance of education. So when Johann Genfleisch zum Gutenberg invented the moveable metal type printing press during the 1440’s these people were able to gain knowledge much more easily than before. Previously books had been handwritten and it could take as long as a year to just to produce a single book. But with this invention two pressmen could manage to produce 250 sheets of literature within an hour (Clement, web site). When this came about education and literacy became more encouraged and important to the rest of Europe. Also now the humanists were able to translate, reproduce and pass on the ideas of other scholars through literature. It made the revival of classical thought easier and it made many more people become interested in reviving antiquity. The books were no longer just about religion and weren’t just controlled by the Church and literature solely available to the monks. Now ordinary people could contribute to the literature that they read. Topics such as romance were for the women, business for the merchants and bankers, science and mathematics for the scholar. Also it enabled the Humanists to translate other people’s works and spread their ideas across to other Humanists. With so many books available, more libraries were constructed for these purposes. Though it was rare for a library to hold more than 300 books, they still existed (Manchester, 95). The printing press allowed the sale of books to be relatively inexpensive so that the average workers were able to afford them. Previously books cost much more due to the high production cost and were fairly uncommon being only available to people with wealth to lavish on such luxuries. But by 1501 there was more than a 1,000 printing shops in Europe and over 100 of these belonged to Italy so virtually everybody had the access to books (Mee, 83).
The Renaissance set the standard for modern western civilization. It was a vast improvement from the Middle Ages. Education was left to the people of the Church then but the Renaissance brought it out to whoever wished to acquire it. This more literate population led to a stronger economy. These people helped to improve art, business, science and other subjects. Art along with literature became the biggest movements within Europe. The paintings still flourish among our society today and are seen as the pinnacle of art. Though every good thing was rare and only came in moderation, the Renaissance was only a start of thing of what was to come. Many other changes [next page]