1. Ss8 Unit 6: Innovation and Exploration
The Renaissance
Ss8 Unit 6: Innovation and Exploration

2. The Big Questions What was the Renaissance and why did it happen?
What were some of the new ways of thinking during the Renaissance?
Who were some of the key people and contributions of the Renaissance?
Was the Renaissance an actual thing?

3. How did we get from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance?
What do you remember about the Middle Ages? What do you know about the Renaissance?
Think
Pair
Share
10 minutes
Divide the class in half. Half will answer the first question. The other half with answer the second question.
During share time, have the first side of the class write answers on the board on one side, the other half will write their answers on the other half.
Pose the bottom question to the class and see what hypothesis they can come up with.
How did we get from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance?

4. Background – Where did it start?
Centrally located in the Mediterranean Sea region.
As trade with the Middle East increased, Italian cities became centers of banking, commerce, and industry.
Merchants and nobles acted as patrons
Supported artists, writers, and scholars
Powerful leaders (because no single ruler had united the Italian peninsula)

5. Impacts of the Renaissance
Artistic
Intellectual
Science and Technology
Economic
Political

6. Artists Can students guess painters? Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa
Botticelli’s Birth of Venus
Michelangelo’s David
Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper
Michelangelo’s Creation of David
Pietro Perugino’s Handing the Keys to David

7. Intellectual
Secularism (non-religious) – increased as people began to show greater interest in this world rather than the “here after”
Reason – used observation and experience to explain the world rather than Christian teachings
Humanism – emphasized dignity, worth, and uniqueness of individuals. (man is the focus of all things)
Christian Humanism – a movement in northern Europe that promoted reason through Christian teachings

8. Science and Technology
Copernicus
polish scientist, concluded that the Earth orbited the sun.
Galileo Galilei
Italian scientist, studied motion and laid the foundation for modern physics.
Johann Gutenberg
German blacksmith, developed a printing press with moveable type.
Andreas Vesalius
Belgian physician, one of the founders of human anatomy.

9. Economic
People affected by the Renaissance wanted to improve their material conditions
Wealthy accumulated luxury goods
Increased trade in a greater variety of products (clothes, foods, wines, and furnishings)
Continued growth of cities

10. Political Machiavelli – a courtier and politician in Florence
Wrote “The Prince” – a guidebook in how to secure and maintain political power
The Renaissance spread throughout Europe

11. Was the Renaissance a real thing?
As a cultural movement, the Italian Renaissance affected only a small part of the population.
Italy was the most urbanized region of Europe, but three quarters of the people were still rural peasants.
For those who did live in the cities, it was only the elite that were involved in the Renaissance.
The Renaissance was not a period of great social or economic change, only of cultural and ideological development.

12. The Big Questions What was the Renaissance and why did it happen?
What were some of the new ways of thinking during the Renaissance?
Who were some of the key people and contributions of the Renaissance?
Was the Renaissance an actual thing?
Call on students to answer the questions. Have an argument on the last one.