<em>Until the mid 15th century the engine of the renaissance was mostly confined to the Mediterranean. What little permeated into Northern Europe was mostly around the prosperous Hanse ports of Antwerp and Bruge. The Dutch painter Van Eyck is perhaps the most notable Northern figure of this earlier period.</em>
<em>Until the mid 15th century the engine of the renaissance was mostly confined to the Mediterranean. What little permeated into Northern Europe was mostly around the prosperous Hanse ports of Antwerp and Bruge. The Dutch painter Van Eyck is perhaps the most notable Northern figure of this earlier period.As you get into the 16th century, Northern Europe plays an ever more central role - The invention of the printing press in Germany, development of heliocentrism in Poland and Austria, the rise of the scientific method in France and England, the social upheaval of the protestant reformation beginning in Germany.</em>
<em>Until the mid 15th century the engine of the renaissance was mostly confined to the Mediterranean. What little permeated into Northern Europe was mostly around the prosperous Hanse ports of Antwerp and Bruge. The Dutch painter Van Eyck is perhaps the most notable Northern figure of this earlier period.As you get into the 16th century, Northern Europe plays an ever more central role - The invention of the printing press in Germany, development of heliocentrism in Poland and Austria, the rise of the scientific method in France and England, the social upheaval of the protestant reformation beginning in Germany.All these new ideas lead to an explosion of intellectualism and the power of universities, felt mostly in Germany but moving across the low countries and eventually into France and England. </em>
<em>Until the mid 15th century the engine of the renaissance was mostly confined to the Mediterranean. What little permeated into Northern Europe was mostly around the prosperous Hanse ports of Antwerp and Bruge. The Dutch painter Van Eyck is perhaps the most notable Northern figure of this earlier period.As you get into the 16th century, Northern Europe plays an ever more central role - The invention of the printing press in Germany, development of heliocentrism in Poland and Austria, the rise of the scientific method in France and England, the social upheaval of the protestant reformation beginning in Germany.All these new ideas lead to an explosion of intellectualism and the power of universities, felt mostly in Germany but moving across the low countries and eventually into France and England. Late in the Renaissance is something of a schism between an ever more turbulent but creative North and an increasingly stifled Catholic south. Galileo Galilei, a man of incredible genius is in some ways a last hurrah for the Italian states. From the 17th century onwards the centres of art and science move above the Alps and the world transitions into the Enlightenment. </em>
<em>Until the mid 15th century the engine of the renaissance was mostly confined to the Mediterranean. What little permeated into Northern Europe was mostly around the prosperous Hanse ports of Antwerp and Bruge. The Dutch painter Van Eyck is perhaps the most notable Northern figure of this earlier period.As you get into the 16th century, Northern Europe plays an ever more central role - The invention of the printing press in Germany, development of heliocentrism in Poland and Austria, the rise of the scientific method in France and England, the social upheaval of the protestant reformation beginning in Germany.All these new ideas lead to an explosion of intellectualism and the power of universities, felt mostly in Germany but moving across the low countries and eventually into France and England. Late in the Renaissance is something of a schism between an ever more turbulent but creative North and an increasingly stifled Catholic south. Galileo Galilei, a man of incredible genius is in some ways a last hurrah for the Italian states. From the 17th century onwards the centres of art and science move above the Alps and the world transitions into the Enlightenment. Although the British Isles are something of a sideline for much of the Renaissance period it is perhaps the 16th century English playwrights Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare who have come to define the voice of the era.</em>