The Renaissance

The rebirth of antiquity: perspective, anatomy and a new faith in human ability.

In 15th-century Florence, artists and scholars began to study the ruins and texts of antiquity. Brunelleschi demonstrated how linear perspective works, Masaccio painted spaces one could step into, and Donatello made the first free-standing nude statue since antiquity. Wealthy families such as the Medici acted as patrons.

The High Renaissance around 1500 brought the great names together in Rome: Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael. The artist was no longer a craftsman but a genius. Meanwhile Venice, with Bellini and Titian, developed a kind of painting built on colour and light rather than line.

North of the Alps, Flemish masters such as Jan van Eyck refined oil painting to a degree of detail that astonished the Italians. Albrecht Dürer brought the ideals of the Renaissance to Germany, and printing spread graphic images throughout Europe. The Sack of Rome by the troops of Emperor Charles V in 1527 is usually seen as its end.