The Renaissance: The Resurrection of Knowledge

Origins and Major Shifts

Para1The Renaissance is a term applied by historians to a period of development, advancement and rediscovery that occurred in Europe in the 14th through 16th centuries. It began as interest in classical antiquity, with knowledge of the past flourishing in the Italian cities like Florence, at Italian universities like Bologna and Siena, as well as later in Italian commercial centers like Venice.
Para2The city of Florence possessed tremendous wealth from international banking and trade. This wealth lent itself to political and social influence well beyond the city walls. Florence is often named as the birthplace of a philosophy called humanism. Italian Renaissance humanism stemmed from a desire to expand on the medieval understanding of the world, including growth in scientific, religious, and cultural ideas. Thinkers examined surviving Greek and Roman texts and expanded the use of literature, poetry in particular, as valid sources of learning. Authors such as Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), Francesco Petrarcha (1304–1374), and Giovanni Boccacio (1313–1375) were key in centering Classical literature, especially poetry, in this new mindset.
Para3This new approach was particularly noticeable in the religious sphere, as the humanists wished to undo or bypass medieval theology. Humanists were neither anti-religious nor nontheistic. Instead, they placed strong emphasis on the divinely-inspired ability of humankind to invent and achieve as manifestations of God-given abilities. Italian Renaissance humanism did encourage the investigation of pagan texts and values, as well as instruction in classical virtues as a way to enhance Christianity.
Para4The immediate impact of this rebirth of classical lore is that scholars and administrators were exposed to Roman writers like Vergil and Cicero, Greek philosophers like Aristotle, and Hindu-Arabic number systems. Exposure to new ideas encouraged exploration in fields such as natural philosophy and also allowed for political philosophy to flourish. This period also produced the well-known and dramatic changes in art and sculpture, with its focus on realism and perspective.
Para5Though Florence was its birthplace, this movement of minds spread to the whole of the Italian peninsula and, through the trade empires, to the whole of Europe, with England being the last to adopt distinctly Renaissance values in the early 16th century.

Experiments in Political Theory

Para6A number of Italian city states experimented with republics as governmental bodies. Though highly oligarchical, meaning led by a small ruling class, with ruling councils made up of aristocracy and rich merchants, republics like Florence or Venice did devise systems of checks and balances. They pioneered a number of concepts that were later integrated by more modern democracies starting in the late 18th century. The premier example of this neo-republic was the Great Council of Venice, otherwise known as the Major Council, which originated in the 13th century.
Para7Some Italian philosophers, such as the Florentine writer Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), sought to codify effective political strategies and tactics by examining underlying behaviors. Machiavelli wrote a number of political texts, the most famous of which is The Prince, a treatise written to provide prospective princes with instructions on how to maintain power and efficiently run a state. Its acceptance of immoral but politically expedient acts scandalized readers. Regardless of the morality of the work, it stands as one of the first Renaissance works of political philosophy, one which continues to influence leaders today.

Key Print Sources

Baker, Patrick. Italian Renaissance Humanism in the Mirror. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Celenza, Christopher S. The Intellectual World of the Italian Renaissance: Language, Philosophy, and the Search for Meaning. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Gamberini, Andrea, and Isabella Lazzarini, ed. The Italian Renaissance State. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Key Online Sources

Best, Michael. A Rebirth of Knowledge. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 4 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/ideas/new%20knowledge/renaissance.html. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.
Cartwright, Mark. Renaissance Humanism. World History Encyclopedia. 4 Nov. 2020. https://www.worldhistory.org/Renaissance_Humanism/.
Honeycutt, Kevin. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/machiave/. Accessed 13 Jul. 2024.

Prosopography

Aaron Cope

Aaron Cope was a student at Utah Valley University.

Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

University of Victoria (UVIC1)

https://www.uvic.ca/

Metadata

Authority title The Renaissance: The Resurrection of Knowledge
Type of text Critical
Publisher University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Early Modern England Encyclopedia
Source
By Aaron Cope, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
Editorial declaration This document uses Canadian English spelling
Edition Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a
Sponsor(s)

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
Encoding description Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status published, peer-reviewed
Funder(s) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mitacs Globablink Research Internship
License/availability
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