Well, Feudalism doesn’t exist anymore. But why not?

There are a variety of reasons for that. But most of them can be summed up in two words- The Renaissance.

Now, that may sound a little anticlimactic, but the phrase ‘The Renaissance’ covers such a big part of history that it’s true. In fact, the driving question of this unit was ‘How did the Renaissance impact the Western worldview?’

There were four components to this project.

First, was how ideas changed during the Renaissance. To study this, we each researched a great artist, a great scientist or mathematician, and a great thinker, all from the Renaissance. The artist I picked was Fra Angelico, who painted frescoes in churches at the beginning of the Renaissance. He was very pious, and worked in the church. The thinker I picked was Niccolo Perotti, who created the most widely used Latin grammar textbook. He was active in the middle of the Renaissance. However, unlike Angelico, he was not as pious, even though he worked in the church. The mathematician I got was Gerolamo Cardano, who figured out the equations of probability. He was active later during the Renaissance, and was very different from Fra Angelico. He was described as an agressive and violent gambler and was sent to jail for heresy.

This is the diagram I made comparing them to show that change.

The second component to the project was how ideas spread during and before the Renaissance. One of the biggest reasons for how much ideas spread during the Renaissance was the invention of the printing press in 144o. The printing press sparked an age where everyone could learn about the world. This led to several things. One of those was revolts by peasants, who didn’t want to work the fields anymore, and rose up to kill the nobles. Another thing affected by the spread of information was the creation of Humanism, which basically told people to focus on humanity instead of outside forces. This led to the Reformation, where Christianity was split into different parts, including Catholicism, Protestantism, and Anglicanism. All of these effects changed Europe and the world completely.

The third component was about exactly how the Renaissance impacted our Western worldview. During the Renaissance, there was a network of information like there never had been before. People became more open to learning, and more open to letting others be whatever they wanted to be. This was really important for the fourth component of the project- the triptych.

A triptych is a three panel artwork that originated from the Renaissance.

Every panel should tell its 0wn story as well as work alongside the other panels. In the left panel of our triptychs, we had to represent the change of ideas during the Renaissance. In the right panel, we had to represent the spread of ideas during the Renaissance. And in the middle panel, we had to represent the impact of ideas during the Renaissance on our worldview.

This is the first draft of my triptych. The problem with it is that none of the panels really flowed together, and they didn’t have a background, which made them look more like a collage.

This is the final draft of my triptych. I added a central image to each panel, to make it seem less like a collage. I also added a background to make it flow better.

I think this unit was really interesting because I really didn’t know a whole lot about the Renaissance before it. I’m really proud of how my triptych turned out. Thanks for reading my blog post!