Renaissance: general characteristics, basic ideas, schools, philosophers.

The Early Renaissance period began in Florence towards the end of the 14th century, following the Middle Ages. During this period, a revolution in philosophy, science and mathematics dramatically changed composition and representation in the arts. While the subject matter remained primarily Christian, a variety of additional symbols and themes were introduced along with ideas from classical mythology and modern philosophical dilemmas.

Structure of philosophy

Particularly since the recovery of a great portion of Aristotelian writings in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it became clear that, in addition to Aristotle’s writings on logic, which had already been known, there were numerous others roughly having to do with natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysics. These areas provided the structure for the philosophy curriculum of the emerging universities. The general assumption was that the most ‘scientific’ branches of philosophy were those that were more theoretical and therefore more widely applicable. During the Renaissance too, many thinkers saw these as the main philosophical areas, with logic providing a training of the mind to approach the other three