Renaissance
- the revival of European art and literature under the influence of classical models in the 14th-16th centuries.
- the culture and style of art and architecture developed during this era.
- (as noun a renaissance) a revival of or renewed interest in something: cinema-going is enjoying something of a renaissance
The Renaissance is generally regarded as beginning in Florence, where there was a revival of interest in classical antiquity. Important early figures are the writers Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio and the painter Giotto. Music flourished, from madrigals to the polyphonic masses of Palestrina, with a wide variety of instruments such as viols and lutes. The period from the end of the 15th century has become known as the High Renaissance, when Venice and Rome began to share Florence’s importance and Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo were active. Renaissance thinking spread to the rest of Europe from the early 16th century, and was influential for the next hundred years
Origin:
from French renaissance, from re- 'back, again' + naissance 'birth' (from Latin nascentia, from nasci 'be born')