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Unit 11: Renaissance, Reformation, and the Age of Exploration

How the rediscovery of classical learning, a printing press, and a religious revolt remade Europe just as its ships began reaching the rest of the world.

6 topics · 23 questions

Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.

The Italian Renaissance and Humanism

  1. How it worksShow me wealth from Italian trade and banking funding the artists and scholars of the Renaissance.
  2. Worked exampleFind how many decades separate Petrarch's rediscovery of classical Roman texts in the 1330s from the Renaissance's height under Michelangelo around 1500.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the Renaissance accurately described as a sudden rediscovery of classical texts nobody had read in a thousand years?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about painting once Renaissance artists start using mathematical perspective to build depth on a flat surface?
Your turn1 of 2
Petrarch rediscovered classical Roman texts in the 1334s. The Renaissance reached its height under Michelangelo around 1501. About how many decades separate these two points?

The Printing Press and the Spread of Ideas

  1. How it worksShow me the number of books printed in Europe exploding in the decades after Gutenberg's press.
  2. How it worksHow does movable metal type let a printer reuse the same letters for book after book instead of carving new blocks each time?
  3. Common mistakeWhy doesn't the printing press's invention mean literacy became widespread immediately across Europe?
  4. Ties togetherHow does the printing press's speed later let Martin Luther's ideas spread across Europe in months instead of decades?
Your turn1 of 2
Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith, built a printing press using movable metal type in the 1440s. Why did his invention end up doing more to spread new ideas across Europe than any army of the era?

The Protestant Reformation

  1. How it worksHow does Luther's idea of salvation by faith alone directly undercut the Church's authority to sell forgiveness?
  2. Worked exampleShow me Luther's 95 Theses challenging the sale of indulgences and the authority behind them.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the Reformation a single unified movement, when Lutherans, Calvinists, and Anglicans each broke away differently?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to the religious map of Europe as Protestant and Catholic states harden into rival camps?
Your turn1 of 2
In 1517, Martin Luther nailed a list of 95 complaints about Church practices to a church door in the small German town of Wittenberg. Within years, European Christianity had split in two. Why did nailing a list of complaints to one door produce a split that large?

The Catholic Counter-Reformation

  1. How it worksShow me the Council of Trent reforming Catholic doctrine and practice in direct response to Protestant criticism.
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't the Counter-Reformation accurately described as purely defensive, when it also reformed real Church abuses?
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to religious tolerance in Europe as Catholic and Protestant states each try to enforce one faith?
Your turn1 of 2
Luther posted his 95 Theses in 1517, but the Catholic Church's major organized response, the Council of Trent, didn't convene until 1545, decades later. Why the delay?

Why Europe Launched the Age of Exploration

  1. How it worksShow me the chain from expensive Asian spices reaching Europe overland to Portugal and Spain funding ocean routes around them.
  2. How it worksHow does competition between small rival Atlantic kingdoms push each one to fund increasingly risky voyages?
  3. Ties togetherHow does the search for a sea route around expensive Asian spice routes directly drive the navigation breakthroughs covered next?
Your turn1 of 2
In the 1400s and 1500s, Portugal and Spain, relatively poor and peripheral kingdoms on the edge of Europe, launched the voyages that opened direct sea routes to Asia and the Americas, ahead of wealthier powers like Venice. Why did the poorest corner of Eurasia end up sailing out to reach everywhere else first?

New Navigation Technology

  1. How it worksShow me how a caravel's triangular lateen sail lets it tack against the wind instead of only sailing with it.
  2. How it worksHow does a sailor use an astrolabe and the North Star together to calculate a ship's latitude at sea?
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a bigger ship automatically a better ship for crossing an unknown ocean?
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't it true that European sailors before Columbus believed the Earth was flat?
  5. Going furtherWhat changes for a captain once he can find his latitude but still has no reliable way to find his longitude?
Your turn1 of 2
European explorers favored the caravel, a relatively small, agile ship, over larger vessels for crossing unknown oceans. Why isn't a bigger ship automatically a better ship for crossing an unknown ocean?