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141-527: During the Renaissance , great advances occurred in geography , astronomy , chemistry , physics , mathematics , manufacturing , anatomy and engineering . The collection of ancient scientific texts began in earnest at the start of the 15th century and continued up to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the invention of printing allowed a faster propagation of new ideas. Nevertheless, some have seen

282-409: A Scientific Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries, focused on the restoration of the natural knowledge of the ancients; and a Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, when scientists shifted from recovery to innovation. During and after the Renaissance of the 12th century , Europe experienced an intellectual revitalization, especially with regard to the investigation of the natural world. In

423-464: A German bishop visiting north Italy during the 12th century, noticed a widespread new form of political and social organization, observing that Italy appeared to have exited from feudalism so that its society was based on merchants and commerce. Linked to this was anti-monarchical thinking, represented in the famous early Renaissance fresco cycle The Allegory of Good and Bad Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (painted 1338–1340), whose strong message

564-465: A citizen and official, as well as a theorist and philosopher and also Quintilian . Perhaps the most succinct expression of his perspective on humanism is in a 1465 poetic work La città di vita , but an earlier work, Della vita civile , is more wide-ranging. Composed as a series of dialogues set in a country house in the Mugello countryside outside Florence during the plague of 1430, Palmieri expounds on

705-456: A cloud of hydrogen and helium containing heavier elements in dust grains formed previously by a large number of such stars. These grains contained the heavier elements formed by transmutation earlier in the history of the universe. All of these natural processes of transmutation in stars are continuing today, in our own galaxy and in others. Stars fuse hydrogen and helium into heavier and heavier elements (up to iron), producing energy. For example,

846-404: A combination of reasoning and empirical evidence . Humanist education was based on the programme of Studia Humanitatis , the study of five humanities: poetry , grammar , history , moral philosophy , and rhetoric . Although historians have sometimes struggled to define humanism precisely, most have settled on "a middle of the road definition... the movement to recover, interpret, and assimilate

987-603: A continuous learning from antiquity). Sociologist Rodney Stark , plays down the Renaissance in favor of the earlier innovations of the Italian city-states in the High Middle Ages , which married responsive government, Christianity and the birth of capitalism . This analysis argues that, whereas the great European states (France and Spain) were absolute monarchies , and others were under direct Church control,

1128-578: A cultural rebirth at the close of the Middle Ages and rise of the Modern world. One of the distinguishing features of Renaissance art was its development of highly realistic linear perspective. Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337) is credited with first treating a painting as a window into space, but it was not until the demonstrations of architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and the subsequent writings of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) that perspective

1269-553: A faster propagation of more widely distributed ideas. In the first period of the Italian Renaissance , humanists favored the study of humanities over natural philosophy or applied mathematics , and their reverence for classical sources further enshrined the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic views of the universe. Writing around 1450, Nicholas of Cusa anticipated the heliocentric worldview of Copernicus , but in

1410-444: A large amount of energy. The released neutrons then cause fission of other uranium atoms, until all of the available uranium is exhausted. This is called a chain reaction . Artificial nuclear transmutation has been considered as a possible mechanism for reducing the volume and hazard of radioactive waste . The term transmutation dates back to alchemy . Alchemists pursued the philosopher's stone , capable of chrysopoeia –

1551-406: A long and complex historiography , and in line with general skepticism of discrete periodizations, there has been much debate among historians reacting to the 19th-century glorification of the "Renaissance" and individual cultural heroes as "Renaissance men", questioning the usefulness of Renaissance as a term and as a historical delineation. Some observers have questioned whether the Renaissance

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1692-493: A love of books. In some cases, cultivated library builders were also committed to offering others the opportunity to use their collections. Prominent aristocrats and princes of the Church created great libraries for the use of their courts, called "court libraries", and were housed in lavishly designed monumental buildings decorated with ornate woodwork, and the walls adorned with frescoes (Murray, Stuart A.P.). Renaissance art marks

1833-465: A minuscule amount of gold from bismuth, at a net energy loss. The Big Bang is thought to be the origin of the hydrogen (including all deuterium ) and helium in the universe. Hydrogen and helium together account for 98% of the mass of ordinary matter in the universe, while the other 2% makes up everything else. The Big Bang also produced small amounts of lithium , beryllium and perhaps boron . More lithium, beryllium and boron were produced later, in

1974-532: A more natural reality in painting; and gradual but widespread educational reform . It saw myriad artistic developments and contributions from such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo , who inspired the term "Renaissance man". In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, and in science to an increased reliance on observation and inductive reasoning . The period also saw revolutions in other intellectual and social scientific pursuits, as well as

2115-489: A natural nuclear reaction, cosmic ray spallation . Stellar nucleosynthesis is responsible for all of the other elements occurring naturally in the universe as stable isotopes and primordial nuclide , from carbon to uranium . These occurred after the Big Bang, during star formation. Some lighter elements from carbon to iron were formed in stars and released into space by asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. These are

2256-432: A perfect mind and body, which could be attained with education. The purpose of humanism was to create a universal man whose person combined intellectual and physical excellence and who was capable of functioning honorably in virtually any situation. This ideology was referred to as the uomo universale , an ancient Greco-Roman ideal. Education during the Renaissance was mainly composed of ancient literature and history as it

2397-403: A philosophical fashion. Science and art were intermingled in the early Renaissance, with polymath artists such as Leonardo da Vinci making observational drawings of anatomy and nature. Leonardo set up controlled experiments in water flow, medical dissection, and systematic study of movement and aerodynamics, and he devised principles of research method that led Fritjof Capra to classify him as

2538-408: A relatively short half life to a stable isotope of ruthenium , a precious metal , there might also be some economic incentive to transmutation, if costs can be brought low enough. Of the remaining five long-lived fission products, selenium-79 , tin-126 and palladium-107 are produced only in small quantities (at least in today's thermal neutron , U -burning light water reactors ) and

2679-486: A research fellow working under Rutherford, with the transmutation of nitrogen into oxygen , using alpha particles directed at nitrogen N + α → O + p. Rutherford had shown in 1919 that a proton (he called it a hydrogen atom) was emitted from alpha bombardment experiments but he had no information about the residual nucleus. Blackett's 1921–1924 experiments provided the first experimental evidence of an artificial nuclear transmutation reaction. Blackett correctly identified

2820-405: A scale of decades to ~305 years ( tin-121m is insignificant because of the low yield), and are not easily transmuted because they have low neutron absorption cross sections . Instead, they should simply be stored until they decay. Given that this length of storage is necessary, the fission products with shorter half-lives can also be stored until they decay. The next longer-lived fission product

2961-517: A series of theses on philosophy, natural thought, faith, and magic defended against any opponent on the grounds of reason. In addition to studying classical Latin and Greek, Renaissance authors also began increasingly to use vernacular languages; combined with the introduction of the printing press , this allowed many more people access to books, especially the Bible. In all, the Renaissance can be viewed as an attempt by intellectuals to study and improve

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3102-399: A smaller amount of this element at the end of cycle. During the cycle, plutonium can be burnt in a power reactor, generating electricity. This process is not only interesting from a power generation standpoint, but also due to its capability of consuming the surplus weapons grade plutonium from the weapons program and plutonium resulting of reprocessing used nuclear fuel. Mixed oxide fuel

3243-593: A spectrum of radioactive and nonradioactive fission products . Ceramic targets containing actinides can be bombarded with neutrons to induce transmutation reactions to remove the most difficult long-lived species. These can consist of actinide-containing solid solutions such as (Am,Zr)N , (Am,Y)N , (Zr,Cm)O 2 , (Zr,Cm,Am)O 2 , (Zr,Am,Y)O 2 or just actinide phases such as AmO 2 , NpO 2 , NpN , AmN mixed with some inert phases such as MgO , MgAl 2 O 4 , (Zr,Y)O 2 , TiN and ZrN . The role of non-radioactive inert phases

3384-414: A type of red giant that "puffs" off its outer atmosphere, containing some elements from carbon to nickel and iron. Nuclides with mass number greater than 64 are predominantly produced by neutron capture processes—the s -process and r -process –in supernova explosions and neutron star mergers . The Solar System is thought to have condensed approximately 4.6 billion years before the present, from

3525-531: A wall in the form of pilasters. One of the first buildings to use pilasters as an integrated system was in the Old Sacristy (1421–1440) by Brunelleschi. Arches, semi-circular or (in the Mannerist style) segmental, are often used in arcades, supported on piers or columns with capitals. There may be a section of entablature between the capital and the springing of the arch. Alberti was one of the first to use

3666-459: A wide range of writers. Classical texts could be found alongside humanist writings. These informal associations of intellectuals profoundly influenced Renaissance culture. An essential tool of Renaissance librarianship was the catalog that listed, described, and classified a library's books. Some of the richest "bibliophiles" built libraries as temples to books and knowledge. A number of libraries appeared as manifestations of immense wealth joined with

3807-565: Is samarium-151 , which has a half-life of 90 years, and is such a good neutron absorber that most of it is transmuted while the nuclear fuel is still being used; however, effectively transmuting the remaining Sm in nuclear waste would require separation from other isotopes of samarium . Given the smaller quantities and its low-energy radioactivity, Sm is less dangerous than Sr and Cs and can also be left to decay for ~970 years. Finally, there are seven long-lived fission products . They have much longer half-lives in

3948-554: Is 1401, when the rival geniuses Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi competed for the contract to build the bronze doors for the Baptistery of the Florence Cathedral (Ghiberti won). Others see more general competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello , and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why

4089-485: Is a period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and surpass the ideas and achievements of classical antiquity . Associated with great social change in most fields and disciplines, including art , architecture , politics, literature , exploration and science ,

4230-581: Is about the virtues of fairness, justice, republicanism and good administration. Holding both Church and Empire at bay, these city republics were devoted to notions of liberty. Skinner reports that there were many defences of liberty such as the Matteo Palmieri (1406–1475) celebration of Florentine genius not only in art, sculpture and architecture, but "the remarkable efflorescence of moral, social and political philosophy that occurred in Florence at

4371-456: Is mainly to provide stable mechanical behaviour to the target under neutron irradiation. There are issues with this P&T (partitioning and transmutation) strategy however: The new study led by Satoshi Chiba at Tokyo Tech (called "Method to Reduce Long-lived Fission Products by Nuclear Transmutations with Fast Spectrum Reactors" ) shows that effective transmutation of long-lived fission products can be achieved in fast spectrum reactors without

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4512-441: Is one of these. Its blend of oxides of plutonium and uranium constitutes an alternative to the low enriched uranium fuel predominantly used in light water reactors. Since uranium is present in mixed oxide, although plutonium will be burnt, second generation plutonium will be produced through the radiative capture of uranium-238 and the two subsequent beta minus decays. Fuels with plutonium and thorium are also an option. In these,

4653-546: Is that the devastation in Florence caused by the Black Death , which hit Europe between 1348 and 1350, resulted in a shift in the world view of people in 14th century Italy. Italy was particularly badly hit by the plague, and it has been speculated that the resulting familiarity with death caused thinkers to dwell more on their lives on Earth, rather than on spirituality and the afterlife . It has also been argued that

4794-678: The Carolingian Renaissance (8th and 9th centuries), Ottonian Renaissance (10th and 11th century), and the Renaissance of the 12th century . The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period . Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence was felt in art , architecture , philosophy , literature , music , science , technology , politics, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed

4935-845: The High Middle Ages in Western Europe and in the Islamic Golden Age (normally in translation), but Greek literary, oratorical and historical works (such as Homer , the Greek dramatists, Demosthenes and Thucydides ) were not studied in either the Latin or medieval Islamic worlds ; in the Middle Ages these sorts of texts were only studied by Byzantine scholars. Some argue that the Timurid Renaissance in Samarkand and Herat , whose magnificence toned with Florence as

5076-747: The Late Middle Ages have led some to theorize that its unusual social climate allowed the emergence of a rare cultural efflorescence. Italy did not exist as a political entity in the early modern period. Instead, it was divided into smaller city-states and territories: the Neapolitans controlled the south, the Florentines and the Romans at the center, the Milanese and the Genoese to

5217-765: The Levant . Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Iberia and Sicily , which became important centers for this transmission of ideas. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, many schools dedicated to the translation of philosophical and scientific works from Classical Arabic to Medieval Latin were established in Iberia, most notably the Toledo School of Translators . This work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of

5358-712: The Medici , and the migration of Greek scholars and their texts to Italy following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire . Other major centers were Venice , Genoa , Milan , Rome during the Renaissance Papacy , and Naples . From Italy, the Renaissance spread throughout Europe and also to American, African and Asian territories ruled by the European colonial powers of the time or where Christian missionaries were active. The Renaissance has

5499-548: The Middle Ages through a long and indirect history. Much of the work of Euclid , Archimedes , and Apollonius , along with later authors such as Hero and Pappus , were copied and studied in both Byzantine culture and in Islamic centers of learning . Translations of these works began already in the 12th century , with the work of translators in Spain and Sicily , working mostly from Arabic and Greek sources into Latin. Two of

5640-791: The New World in 1492 helped set the tone for what would soon after become a wave of European expansion. Thomas More 's Utopia was inspired partly by the discovery of the New World. Most maps developed prior to this period grossly underestimated the extent of the lands separating Europe from India on a westward route through the New World; however, through contributions of explorers such as Ferdinand Magellan , efforts were made to create more accurate maps during this period. Renaissance The Renaissance ( UK : / r ɪ ˈ n eɪ s ən s / rin- AY -sənss , US : / ˈ r ɛ n ə s ɑː n s / REN -ə-sahnss )

5781-561: The Northern Renaissance , the Spanish Renaissance , etc. In addition to the standard periodization, proponents of a "long Renaissance" may put its beginning in the 14th century and its end in the 17th century. The traditional view focuses more on the Renaissance's early modern aspects and argues that it was a break from the past, but many historians today focus more on its medieval aspects and argue that it

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5922-499: The Pisa Baptistry , demonstrates that classical models influenced Italian art before the Renaissance took root as a literary movement. Applied innovation extended to commerce. At the end of the 15th century, Luca Pacioli published the first work on bookkeeping , making him the founder of accounting . The rediscovery of ancient texts and the invention of the printing press in about 1440 democratized learning and allowed

6063-478: The circulatory system . The most useful tomes in medicine, used both by students and expert physicians, were materiae medicae and pharmacopoeiae . In the history of geography , the key classical text was the Geographia of Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century). It was translated into Latin in the 15th century by Jacopo d'Angelo . It was widely read in manuscript and went through many print editions after it

6204-536: The "father of modern science". Other examples of Da Vinci's contribution during this period include machines designed to saw marbles and lift monoliths, and new discoveries in acoustics, botany, geology, anatomy, and mechanics. A suitable environment had developed to question classical scientific doctrine. The discovery in 1492 of the New World by Christopher Columbus challenged the classical worldview. The works of Ptolemy (in geography) and Galen (in medicine) were found to not always match everyday observations. As

6345-709: The 12th century. Instead they relied on introductions to the Ptolemaic system such as the De sphaera mundi of Johannes de Sacrobosco and the genre of textbooks known as Theorica planetarum . For the task of predicting planetary motions they turned to the Alfonsine tables , a set of astronomical tables based on the Almagest models but incorporating some later modifications, mainly the trepidation model attributed to Thabit ibn Qurra . Contrary to popular belief, astronomers of

6486-522: The 1470s. This "New Theorica " replaced the older theorica as the textbook of advanced astronomy. Purbach also began to prepare a summary and commentary on the Almagest . He died after completing only six books, however, and Regiomontanus continued the task, consulting a Greek manuscript brought from Constantinople by Cardinal Bessarion . When it was published in 1496, the Epitome of the Almagest made

6627-404: The 14th century with a Latin phase, when Renaissance scholars such as Petrarch , Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), Niccolò de' Niccoli (1364–1437), and Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) scoured the libraries of Europe in search of works by such Latin authors as Cicero , Lucretius , Livy , and Seneca . By the early 15th century, the bulk of the surviving such Latin literature had been recovered;

6768-615: The 14th century, however, a series of events that would come to be known as the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages was underway. When the Black Death came, it wiped out so many lives it affected the entire system. It brought a sudden end to the previous period of massive scientific change. The plague killed 25–50% of the people in Europe, especially in the crowded conditions of the towns, where the heart of innovations lay. Recurrences of

6909-428: The 16th century with Andreas Vesalius , who described the anatomy of the brain and other organs; he had little knowledge of the brain's function, thinking that it resided mainly in the ventricles . Understanding of medical sciences and diagnosis improved, but with little direct benefit to health care. Few effective drugs existed, beyond opium and quinine . William Harvey provided a refined and complete description of

7050-535: The 1st-century writer Vitruvius and the flourishing discipline of mathematics, Brunelleschi formulated the Renaissance style that emulated and improved on classical forms. His major feat of engineering was building the dome of Florence Cathedral . Another building demonstrating this style is the Basilica of Sant'Andrea, Mantua , built by Alberti. The outstanding architectural work of the High Renaissance

7191-468: The Black Death prompted a new wave of piety, manifested in the sponsorship of religious works of art. However, this does not fully explain why the Renaissance occurred specifically in Italy in the 14th century. The Black Death was a pandemic that affected all of Europe in the ways described, not only Italy. The Renaissance's emergence in Italy was most likely the result of the complex interaction of

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7332-730: The Convent of San Donato in Scopeto in Florence. The Renaissance was certainly underway before Lorenzo de' Medici came to power – indeed, before the Medici family itself achieved hegemony in Florentine society. In some ways, Renaissance humanism was not a philosophy but a method of learning. In contrast to the medieval scholastic mode, which focused on resolving contradictions between authors, Renaissance humanists would study ancient texts in their original languages and appraise them through

7473-440: The Greek phase of Renaissance humanism was under way, as Western European scholars turned to recovering ancient Greek literary, historical, oratorical and theological texts. Unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. Ancient Greek works on science, mathematics, and philosophy had been studied since

7614-760: The Islamic steps of Ibn Khaldun . Pico della Mirandola wrote the "manifesto" of the Renaissance, the Oration on the Dignity of Man , a vibrant defence of thinking. Matteo Palmieri (1406–1475), another humanist, is most known for his work Della vita civile ("On Civic Life"; printed 1528), which advocated civic humanism , and for his influence in refining the Tuscan vernacular to the same level as Latin. Palmieri drew on Roman philosophers and theorists, especially Cicero , who, like Palmieri, lived an active public life as

7755-516: The Middle Ages and Renaissance did not resort to "epicycles on epicycles" in order to correct the original Ptolemaic models—until one comes to Copernicus himself. Sometime around 1450, mathematician Georg Purbach (1423–1461) began a series of lectures on astronomy at the University of Vienna . Regiomontanus (1436–1476), who was then one of his students, collected his notes on the lecture and later published them as Theoricae novae planetarum in

7896-498: The Plutonium content of used MOX-fuel. The heavier elements could be transmuted in fast reactors , but probably more effectively in a subcritical reactor which is sometimes known as an energy amplifier and which was devised by Carlo Rubbia . Fusion neutron sources have also been proposed as well suited. There are several fuels that can incorporate plutonium in their initial composition at their beginning of cycle and have

8037-474: The Reformation and Counter-Reformation clashed, the Northern Renaissance showed a decisive shift in focus from Aristotelean natural philosophy to chemistry and the biological sciences (botany, anatomy, and medicine). The willingness to question previously held truths and search for new answers resulted in a period of major scientific advancements. Some view this as a " scientific revolution ", heralding

8178-618: The Renaissance began in Italy, and why it began when it did. Accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. Peter Rietbergen posits that various influential Proto-Renaissance movements started from roughly 1300 onwards across many regions of Europe . In stark contrast to the High Middle Ages , when Latin scholars focused almost entirely on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural science, philosophy and mathematics, Renaissance scholars were most interested in recovering and studying Latin and Greek literary, historical, and oratorical texts. Broadly speaking, this began in

8319-421: The Renaissance has close similarities to both, especially the late and early sub-periods of either. The Renaissance began in Florence , one of the many states of Italy . Various theories have been proposed to account for its origins and characteristics, focusing on a variety of factors, including Florence's social and civic peculiarities at the time: its political structure, the patronage of its dominant family,

8460-415: The Renaissance period, and together they are sometimes referred to as chymistry. Alchemy is the study of the transmutation of materials through obscure processes. Although it is often viewed as a pseudoscientific endeavor, many of its practitioners utilized widely accepted scientific theories of their times to formulate hypotheses about the constituents of matter and the ways matter could be changed. One of

8601-573: The Renaissance was first centered in the Republic of Florence , then spread to the rest of Italy and later throughout Europe. The term rinascita ("rebirth") first appeared in Lives of the Artists ( c.  1550 ) by Giorgio Vasari , while the corresponding French word renaissance was adopted into English as the term for this period during the 1830s. The Renaissance's intellectual basis

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8742-427: The Renaissance, at least in its initial period, as one of scientific backwardness. Historians like George Sarton and Lynn Thorndike criticized how the Renaissance affected science , arguing that progress was slowed for some amount of time. Humanists favored human-centered subjects like politics and history over study of natural philosophy or applied mathematics . More recently, however, scholars have acknowledged

8883-468: The Sun. He spent the rest of his life attempting a mathematical proof of heliocentrism . When De revolutionibus orbium coelestium was finally published in 1543, Copernicus was on his deathbed. A comparison of his work with the Almagest shows that Copernicus was in many ways a Renaissance scientist rather than a revolutionary, because he followed Ptolemy's methods and even his order of presentation. Not until

9024-469: The West. It was in their new focus on literary and historical texts that Renaissance scholars differed so markedly from the medieval scholars of the Renaissance of the 12th century , who had focused on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural sciences, philosophy, and mathematics, rather than on such cultural texts. In the revival of neoplatonism , Renaissance humanists did not reject Christianity ; on

9165-543: The Workings of the Human Body ) by Andreas Vesalius , gave a new confidence to the role of dissection , observation, and the mechanistic view of anatomy. Transmutation of elements A transmutation can be achieved either by nuclear reactions (in which an outside particle reacts with a nucleus) or by radioactive decay , where no outside cause is needed. Natural transmutation by stellar nucleosynthesis in

9306-458: The above factors. The plague was carried by fleas on sailing vessels returning from the ports of Asia, spreading quickly due to lack of proper sanitation: the population of England , then about 4.2 million, lost 1.4 million people to the bubonic plague . Florence's population was nearly halved in the year 1347. As a result of the decimation in the populace the value of the working class increased, and commoners came to enjoy more freedom. To answer

9447-403: The absence of uranium in the fuel, there is no second generation plutonium produced, and the amount of plutonium burnt will be higher than in mixed oxide fuels. However, uranium-233, which is fissile, will be present in the used nuclear fuel. Weapons-grade and reactor-grade plutonium can be used in plutonium–thorium fuels, with weapons-grade plutonium being the one that shows a bigger reduction in

9588-455: The amount of plutonium-239. Some radioactive fission products can be converted into shorter-lived radioisotopes by transmutation. Transmutation of all fission products with half-life greater than one year is studied in Grenoble, with varying results. Strontium-90 and caesium-137, with half-lives of about 30 years, are the largest radiation (including heat) emitters in used nuclear fuel on

9729-480: The arch on a monumental. Renaissance vaults do not have ribs; they are semi-circular or segmental and on a square plan, unlike the Gothic vault, which is frequently rectangular. Renaissance artists were not pagans, although they admired antiquity and kept some ideas and symbols of the medieval past. Nicola Pisano (c. 1220 – c. 1278) imitated classical forms by portraying scenes from the Bible. His Annunciation , from

9870-621: The beginning of the modern age, others as an acceleration of a continuous process stretching from the ancient world to the present day. Significant scientific advances were made during this time by Galileo Galilei , Tycho Brahe , and Johannes Kepler . Copernicus, in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium ( On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres ), posited that the Earth moved around the Sun. De humani corporis fabrica ( On

10011-469: The center of a cultural rebirth, were linked to the Ottoman Empire , whose conquests led to the migration of Greek scholars to Italian cities. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity. Muslim logicians, most notably Avicenna and Averroes , had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and

10152-504: The contrary, many of the Renaissance's greatest works were devoted to it, and the Church patronized many works of Renaissance art. But a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were brought back from Byzantium to Western Europe and engaged Western scholars for

10293-543: The first time since late antiquity. This new engagement with Greek Christian works, and particularly the return to the original Greek of the New Testament promoted by humanists Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus , helped pave the way for the Reformation . Well after the first artistic return to classicism had been exemplified in the sculpture of Nicola Pisano , Florentine painters led by Masaccio strove to portray

10434-490: The gap between the two fields and question Aristotelian ideas. The revived invertigation of physics opened up many opportunities in subfields like mechanics, optics, navigation, and cartography. Mechanical theories had originated with the Greeks, especially Aristotle and Archimedes . Mechanics and philosophy had been related disciplines in ancient Greece, and only in the Renaissance did the two subjects begin to split. A lot of

10575-658: The greatest transmissions of ideas in history. The movement to reintegrate the regular study of Greek literary, historical, oratorical, and theological texts back into the Western European curriculum is usually dated to the 1396 invitation from Coluccio Salutati to the Byzantine diplomat and scholar Manuel Chrysoloras (c. 1355–1415) to teach Greek in Florence. This legacy was continued by a number of expatriate Greek scholars, from Basilios Bessarion to Leo Allatius . The unique political structures of Italy during

10716-438: The height of the epidemic due to the chaotic conditions in the city, but a small group of officials was appointed to conduct the affairs of the city, which ensured continuity of government. It has long been a matter of debate why the Renaissance began in Florence , and not elsewhere in Italy. Scholars have noted several features unique to Florentine cultural life that may have caused such a cultural movement. Many have emphasized

10857-462: The highest levels of Ptolemaic astronomy widely accessible to many European astronomers for the first time. The last major event in Renaissance astronomy is the work of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). He was among the first generation of astronomers to be trained with the Theoricae novae and the Epitome . Shortly before 1514 he began to revive Aristarchus 's idea that the Earth revolves around

10998-414: The human form realistically, developing techniques to render perspective and light more naturally. Political philosophers , most famously Niccolò Machiavelli , sought to describe political life as it really was, that is to understand it rationally. A critical contribution to Italian Renaissance humanism, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola wrote De hominis dignitate ( Oration on the Dignity of Man , 1486),

11139-428: The humanist method in study, and searched for realism and human emotion in art. Renaissance humanists such as Poggio Bracciolini sought out in Europe's monastic libraries the Latin literary, historical, and oratorical texts of antiquity , while the fall of Constantinople (1453) generated a wave of émigré Greek scholars bringing precious manuscripts in ancient Greek , many of which had fallen into obscurity in

11280-493: The immune system, leaving young children without a fighting chance. Children in city dwellings were more affected by the spread of disease than the children of the wealthy. The Black Death caused greater upheaval to Florence's social and political structure than later epidemics. Despite a significant number of deaths among members of the ruling classes, the government of Florence continued to function during this period. Formal meetings of elected representatives were suspended during

11421-413: The increased need for labor, workers traveled in search of the most favorable position economically. The demographic decline due to the plague had economic consequences: the prices of food dropped and land values declined by 30–40% in most parts of Europe between 1350 and 1400. Landholders faced a great loss, but for ordinary men and women it was a windfall. The survivors of the plague found not only that

11562-427: The independent city-republics of Italy took over the principles of capitalism invented on monastic estates and set off a vast unprecedented Commercial Revolution that preceded and financed the Renaissance. Historian Leon Poliakov offers a critical view in his seminal study of European racist thought: The Aryan Myth . According to Poliakov, the use of ethnic origin myths are first used by Renaissance humanists "in

11703-594: The initial formation of the Solar System (such as potassium-40 , uranium and thorium), plus the radioactive decay of products of these nuclides (radium, radon, polonium, etc.). See decay chain . Transmutation of transuranium elements (i.e. actinides minus actinium to uranium ) such as the isotopes of plutonium (about 1wt% in the light water reactors ' used nuclear fuel or the minor actinides (MAs, i.e. neptunium , americium , and curium ), about 0.1wt% each in light water reactors' used nuclear fuel) has

11844-532: The introduction of modern banking and the field of accounting. The Renaissance period started during the crisis of the Late Middle Ages and conventionally ends by the 1600s with the waning of humanism , and the advents of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation , and in art the Baroque period. It had a different period and characteristics in different regions, such as the Italian Renaissance,

11985-438: The invention of the printing press was to have great effect on European society: the facilitated dissemination of the printed word democratized learning and allowed a faster propagation of new ideas. Initially, there were no new developments in physics or astronomy, and the reverence for classical sources further enshrined the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic views of the universe. Renaissance philosophy lost much of its rigor as

12126-464: The language, literature, learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome". Above all, humanists asserted "the genius of man ... the unique and extraordinary ability of the human mind". Humanist scholars shaped the intellectual landscape throughout the early modern period. Political philosophers such as Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas More revived the ideas of Greek and Roman thinkers and applied them in critiques of contemporary government, following

12267-419: The last two should be relatively inert. The other two, zirconium-93 and caesium-135 , are produced in larger quantities, but also not highly mobile in the environment. They are also mixed with larger quantities of other isotopes of the same element. Zirconium is used as cladding in fuel rods due to being virtually "transparent" to neutrons, but a small amount of Zr is produced by neutron absorption from

12408-437: The late 13th century, in particular with the writings of Dante and the paintings of Giotto . As a cultural movement, the Renaissance encompassed innovative flowering of literary Latin and an explosion of vernacular literatures , beginning with the 14th-century resurgence of learning based on classical sources, which contemporaries credited to Petrarch ; the development of linear perspective and other techniques of rendering

12549-440: The lightest chemical elements could be explained by the process of nucleosynthesis in stars. The alchemical tradition sought to turn the "base metal", lead, into gold. As a nuclear transmutation, it requires far less energy to turn gold into lead; for example, this would occur via neutron capture and beta decay if gold were left in a nuclear reactor for a sufficiently long period of time. Glenn Seaborg succeeded in producing

12690-485: The main aims of alchemists was to find a method of creating gold and other precious metals from the transmutation of base materials. A common belief of alchemists was that there is an essential substance from which all other substances formed, and that if you could reduce a substance to this original material, you could then construct it into another substance, like lead to gold. Medieval alchemists worked with two main elements or "principles", sulphur and mercury. Paracelsus

12831-431: The margin of error in such calculations was unacceptably great (around 25.5 degrees). Until longitude could be accurately determined, navigators had to rely on dead reckoning , with its many uncertainties. With the Renaissance came an increase in experimental investigation, principally in the field of dissection and body examination, thus advancing our knowledge of human anatomy. The development of modern neurology began in

12972-467: The medieval traditions of both Islamic scholars and people like Jordanus and Fibonnacci . Giordano Bruno was also one to critique the works of people like Aristotle, whom he believed to have a flawed logic and developed a mathematical doctrine for the computation of partial physics, with Bruno attempting to transform theories of nature. The progress being made in math was complemented by advancements in physics, with people like Galileo attempting to bridge

13113-438: The modern nuclear fission reaction discovered in 1938 by Otto Hahn , Lise Meitner and their assistant Fritz Strassmann in heavy elements. In 1941, Rubby Sherr , Kenneth Bainbridge and Herbert Lawrence Anderson reported the nuclear transmutation of mercury into gold . Later in the twentieth century the transmutation of elements within stars was elaborated, accounting for the relative abundance of heavier elements in

13254-431: The moment of realization, Soddy later recalled, he shouted out: "Rutherford, this is transmutation!" Rutherford snapped back, "For Christ's sake, Soddy, don't call it transmutation . They'll have our heads off as alchemists." Rutherford and Soddy were observing natural transmutation as a part of radioactive decay of the alpha decay type. The first artificial transmutation was accomplished in 1925 by Patrick Blackett ,

13395-456: The most prolific were Gerard of Cremona and William of Moerbeke . The greatest of all translation efforts, however, took place in the 15th and 16th centuries in Italy, as attested by the numerous manuscripts dating from this period currently found in European libraries. Virtually all leading mathematicians of the era were obsessed with the need for restoring the mathematical works of the ancients. Not only did humanists assist mathematicians with

13536-614: The need for isotope separation. This can be achieved by adding a yttrium deuteride moderator. For instance, plutonium can be reprocessed into mixed oxide fuels and transmuted in standard reactors. However, this is limited by the accumulation of plutonium-240 in spent MOX fuel, which is neither particularly fertile (transmutation to fissile plutonium-241 does occur, but at lower rates than production of more plutonium-240 from neutron capture by plutonium-239 ) nor fissile with thermal neutrons. Even countries like France which practice nuclear reprocessing extensively, usually do not reuse

13677-425: The neutrons released in the fission of plutonium are captured by thorium-232 . After this radiative capture, thorium-232 becomes thorium-233, which undergoes two beta minus decays resulting in the production of the fissile isotope uranium-233 . The radiative capture cross section for thorium-232 is more than three times that of uranium-238, yielding a higher conversion to fissile fuel than that from uranium-238. Due to

13818-608: The north and west respectively, and the Venetians to the north east. 15th-century Italy was one of the most urbanized areas in Europe. Many of its cities stood among the ruins of ancient Roman buildings; it seems likely that the classical nature of the Renaissance was linked to its origin in the Roman Empire's heartland. Historian and political philosopher Quentin Skinner points out that Otto of Freising (c. 1114–1158),

13959-424: The notion of atoms (from the alchemical theory of corpuscles ) to explain various chemical processes. The disintegration of atoms is a distinct process involving much greater energies than could be achieved by alchemists. It was first consciously applied to modern physics by Frederick Soddy when he, along with Ernest Rutherford in 1901, discovered that radioactive thorium was converting itself into radium . At

14100-467: The nuclear structure of the elements. Such machines include particle accelerators and tokamak reactors. Conventional fission power reactors also cause artificial transmutation, not from the power of the machine, but by exposing elements to neutrons produced by fission from an artificially produced nuclear chain reaction . For instance, when a uranium atom is bombarded with slow neutrons, fission takes place. This releases, on average, three neutrons and

14241-415: The observed light curves of supernova stars such as SN 1987A show them blasting large amounts (comparable to the mass of Earth) of radioactive nickel and cobalt into space. However, little of this material reaches Earth. Most natural transmutation on the Earth today is mediated by cosmic rays (such as production of carbon-14 ) and by the radioactive decay of radioactive primordial nuclides left over from

14382-545: The overall field of cartography as a scientific pursuit rather than an artistic one. The information provided by Ptolemy, as well as Pliny the Elder and other classical sources, was soon seen to be in contradiction to the lands explored in the Age of Discovery . The new discoveries revealed shortcomings in classical knowledge; they also opened European imagination to new possibilities. In particular, Christopher Columbus ' voyage to

14523-605: The past created most of the heavier chemical elements in the known existing universe, and continues to take place to this day, creating the vast majority of the most common elements in the universe, including helium , oxygen and carbon . Most stars carry out transmutation through fusion reactions involving hydrogen and helium, while much larger stars are also capable of fusing heavier elements up to iron late in their evolution. Elements heavier than iron, such as gold or lead , are created through elemental transmutations that can naturally occur in supernovae . One goal of alchemy,

14664-426: The plague and other disasters caused a continuing decline of population for a century. The 14th century saw the beginning of the cultural movement of the Renaissance . By the early 15th century, an international search for ancient manuscripts was underway and would continue unabated until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when many Byzantine scholars had to seek refuge in the West, particularly Italy . Likewise,

14805-512: The positive influence of the Renaissance on mathematics and science, pointing to factors like the rediscovery of lost or obscure texts and the increased emphasis on the study of language and the correct reading of texts. Marie Boas Hall coined the term Scientific Renaissance to designate the early phase of the Scientific Revolution , 1450–1630. More recently, Peter Dear has argued for a two-phase model of early modern science:

14946-422: The potential to help solve some problems posed by the management of radioactive waste by reducing the proportion of long-lived isotopes it contains. (This does not rule out the need for a deep geological repository for high level radioactive waste .) When irradiated with fast neutrons in a nuclear reactor , these isotopes can undergo nuclear fission , destroying the original actinide isotope and producing

15087-664: The present occurs when certain radioactive elements present in nature spontaneously decay by a process that causes transmutation, such as alpha or beta decay . An example is the natural decay of potassium-40 to argon-40 , which forms most of the argon in the air. Also on Earth, natural transmutations from the different mechanisms of natural nuclear reactions occur, due to cosmic ray bombardment of elements (for example, to form carbon-14 ), and also occasionally from natural neutron bombardment (for example, see natural nuclear fission reactor ). Artificial transmutation may occur in machinery that has enough energy to cause changes in

15228-419: The prevailing cultural conditions at the time. Lorenzo de' Medici (1449–1492) was the catalyst for an enormous amount of arts patronage, encouraging his countrymen to commission works from the leading artists of Florence, including Leonardo da Vinci , Sandro Botticelli , and Michelangelo Buonarroti . Works by Neri di Bicci , Botticelli, Leonardo, and Filippino Lippi had been commissioned additionally by

15369-459: The prices of food were cheaper but also that lands were more abundant, and many of them inherited property from their dead relatives. The spread of disease was significantly more rampant in areas of poverty. Epidemics ravaged cities, particularly children. Plagues were easily spread by lice, unsanitary drinking water, armies, or by poor sanitation. Children were hit the hardest because many diseases, such as typhus and congenital syphilis , target

15510-412: The qualities of the ideal citizen. The dialogues include ideas about how children develop mentally and physically, how citizens can conduct themselves morally, how citizens and states can ensure probity in public life, and an important debate on the difference between that which is pragmatically useful and that which is honest. The humanists believed that it is important to transcend to the afterlife with

15651-613: The range 211,000 years to 15.7 million years. Two of them, technetium-99 and iodine-129 , are mobile enough in the environment to be potential dangers, are free ( Technetium has no known stable isotopes) or mostly free of mixture with stable isotopes of the same element, and have neutron cross sections that are small but adequate to support transmutation. Additionally, Tc can substitute for uranium-238 in supplying Doppler broadening for negative feedback for reactor stability. Most studies of proposed transmutation schemes have assumed Tc , I , and transuranium elements as

15792-603: The retrieval of Greek manuscripts, they also took an active role in translating these work into Latin, often commissioned by religious leaders such as Nicholas V and Cardinal Bessarion . Some of the leading figures in this effort include Regiomontanus , who made a copy of the Latin Archimedes and had a program for printing mathematical works; Commandino (1509–1575), who likewise produced an edition of Archimedes, as well as editions of works by Euclid, Hero, and Pappus; and Maurolyco (1494–1575), who not only translated

15933-549: The role played by the Medici , a banking family and later ducal ruling house , in patronizing and stimulating the arts. Some historians have postulated that Florence was the birthplace of the Renaissance as a result of luck, i.e., because " Great Men " were born there by chance: Leonardo, Botticelli and Michelangelo were all born in Tuscany . Arguing that such chance seems improbable, other historians have contended that these "Great Men" were only able to rise to prominence because of

16074-560: The rules of logic and deduction were seen as secondary to intuition and emotion. At the same time, Renaissance humanism stressed that nature came to be viewed as an animate spiritual creation that was not governed by laws or mathematics. Only later, when no more manuscripts could be found, did humanists turn from collecting to editing and translating them, and new scientific work began with the work of such figures as Copernicus , Cardano , and Vesalius . While differing in some respects, alchemy and chemistry often had similar goals during

16215-527: The same time". Even cities and states beyond central Italy, such as the Republic of Florence at this time, were also notable for their merchant republics , especially the Republic of Venice. Although in practice these were oligarchical , and bore little resemblance to a modern democracy , they did have democratic features and were responsive states, with forms of participation in governance and belief in liberty. The relative political freedom they afforded

16356-454: The secular and worldly, both through the revival of ideas from antiquity and through novel approaches to thought. Political philosopher Hans Kohn describes it as an age where "Men looked for new foundations"; some like Erasmus and Thomas More envisioned new reformed spiritual foundations, others. in the words of Machiavelli , una lunga sperienza delle cose moderne ed una continua lezione delle antiche (a long experience with modern life and

16497-407: The service of a new born chauvinism". Many argue that the ideas characterizing the Renaissance had their origin in Florence at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and Petrarch (1304–1374), as well as the paintings of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337). Some writers date the Renaissance quite precisely; one proposed starting point

16638-412: The targets for transmutation, with other fission products, activation products , and possibly reprocessed uranium remaining as waste. Technetium-99 is also produced as a waste product in nuclear medicine from Technetium-99m , a nuclear isomer that decays to its ground state which has no further use. Due to the decay product of Tc (the result of Tc capturing a neutron) decaying with

16779-466: The technology of the time unable to accuately predict weather or determine one's geographic position. Determining one's longitude proved especially challenging, since one's local time need to be calculated on the basis of an astonomical observation. One theory that was tested was to record the time of an eclipse and use Regiomontanus ' Ephemerides to compare it with Nuremberg time or Zacuto 's Almanach perpetuum to compare it with Salamanca time, though

16920-489: The time, along with the lack of classical basis for the practice, were some of the contributing factors which led to the general view of the discipline as a craft rather than a respectable academic discipline. The astronomy of the late Middle Ages was based on the geocentric model described by Claudius Ptolemy in antiquity. Probably very few practicing astronomers or astrologers actually read Ptolemy's Almagest , which had been translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in

17061-427: The time. In June 1609, Galileo's interests shifted to his telescopic investigations after having been close to revolutionizing the science of mechanics. Navigation was an important topic of the time, and many innovations were made that, with the introduction of better ships and applications of the compass , would later lead to geographical discoveries. The calculations involved in navigation proved to be difficult, with

17202-421: The transformation of base metals into gold. While alchemists often understood chrysopoeia as a metaphor for a mystical or religious process, some practitioners adopted a literal interpretation and tried to make gold through physical experimentation. The impossibility of the metallic transmutation had been debated amongst alchemists, philosophers and scientists since the Middle Ages. Pseudo-alchemical transmutation

17343-440: The transmutation of base substances into gold, is now known to be impossible by chemical means but possible by physical means. As stars begin to fuse heavier elements, substantially less energy is released from each fusion reaction. This continues until it reaches iron which is produced by an endothermic reaction consuming energy. No heavier element can be produced in such conditions. One type of natural transmutation observable in

17484-406: The underlying integration process and the identity of the residual nucleus. In 1932, a fully artificial nuclear reaction and nuclear transmutation was achieved by Rutherford's colleagues John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton , who used artificially accelerated protons against lithium-7 to split the nucleus into two alpha particles. The feat was popularly known as "splitting the atom", although it was not

17625-512: The universe. Save for the first five elements, which were produced in the Big Bang and other cosmic ray processes, stellar nucleosynthesis accounted for the abundance of all elements heavier than boron . In their 1957 paper Synthesis of the Elements in Stars , William Alfred Fowler , Margaret Burbidge , Geoffrey Burbidge , and Fred Hoyle explained how the abundances of essentially all but

17766-496: The work of ancient mathematicians but added much of his own work to these. Their translations ensured that the next generation of mathematicians would be in possession of techniques far in advance of what it was generally available during the Middle Ages. It must be borne in mind that the mathematical output of the 15th and 16th centuries was not exclusively limited to the works of the ancient Greeks. Some mathematicians, such as Tartaglia and Luca Paccioli , welcomed and expanded on

17907-501: The work of developing new mechanical ideas and theories was carried out by Italians such as Rafael Bombelli , though the Fleming Simon Stevin also provided many ideas. Galileo also contributed to the advancement of this field with a treatise on mechanics in 1593, helping to develop ideas on relativity, freely falling bodies, and accelerated linear motion, though he lacked the means to properly communicate his findings at

18048-577: The works of Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) and Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was Ptolemy's manner of doing astronomy superseded. The use of more advanced tables and mathematics would provide the impetus for the establishment of the Gregorian calendar in 1582 (primarily to reform the calculation of the date of Easter ), replacing the Julian calendar , which had several errors. The accomplishments of Greek mathematicians survived throughout Late Antiquity and

18189-526: The works of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael representing artistic pinnacles that were much imitated by other artists. Other notable artists include Sandro Botticelli , working for the Medici in Florence, Donatello , another Florentine, and Titian in Venice, among others. In the Low Countries , a particularly vibrant artistic culture developed. The work of Hugo van der Goes and Jan van Eyck

18330-549: Was a chymist and physician of the Renaissance period who believed that, in addition to sulphur and mercury, salt served as one of the primary alchemical principles from which everything else was made. Paracelsus was also instrumental in helping to put chemical practices to practical medicinal use through a recognition that the body operates through processes which may be seen as chemical in nature. These lines of thinking directly conflicted with many long-held traditional beliefs, such as those popularized by Aristotle ; however, Paracelsus

18471-423: Was a cultural "advance" from the Middle Ages, instead seeing it as a period of pessimism and nostalgia for classical antiquity , while social and economic historians, especially of the longue durée , have instead focused on the continuity between the two eras, which are linked, as Panofsky observed, "by a thousand ties". The word has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as

18612-488: Was an extension of the Middle Ages. The beginnings of the period—the early Renaissance of the 15th century and the Italian Proto-Renaissance from around 1250 or 1300—overlap considerably with the Late Middle Ages , conventionally dated to c.  1350–1500 , and the Middle Ages themselves were a long period filled with gradual changes, like the modern age; as a transitional period between both,

18753-638: Was conducive to academic and artistic advancement. Likewise, the position of Italian cities such as Venice as great trading centres made them intellectual crossroads. Merchants brought with them ideas from far corners of the globe, particularly the Levant . Venice was Europe's gateway to trade with the East, and a producer of fine glass , while Florence was a capital of textiles. The wealth such business brought to Italy meant large public and private artistic projects could be commissioned and individuals had more leisure time for study. One theory that has been advanced

18894-503: Was first printed in 1475. Regiomontanus worked on preparing an edition for print prior to his death; his manuscripts were consulted by later mathematicians in Nuremberg . Ptolemy's Geographia became the basis for most maps made in Europe throughout the 15th century. Even as new knowledge began to replace the content of old maps, the rediscovery of Ptolemy's mapping system, including the use of coordinates and projection, helped to redefine

19035-405: Was formalized as an artistic technique. The development of perspective was part of a wider trend toward realism in the arts. Painters developed other techniques, studying light, shadow, and, famously in the case of Leonardo da Vinci , human anatomy . Underlying these changes in artistic method was a renewed desire to depict the beauty of nature and to unravel the axioms of aesthetics , with

19176-441: Was founded in its version of humanism , derived from the concept of Roman humanitas and the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy , such as that of Protagoras , who said that "man is the measure of all things". Although the invention of metal movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century, the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe: the first traces appear in Italy as early as

19317-450: Was insistent that questioning principles of nature was essential to continue the general growth of knowledge. Despite its frequent basis in what may be considered scientific practices by modern standards, numerous factors caused chymistry as a discipline to remain separate from general academia until near the end of the Renaissance, when it finally began appearing as a portion of some university education. The commercial nature of chymistry at

19458-471: Was outlawed and publicly mocked beginning in the fourteenth century. Alchemists like Michael Maier and Heinrich Khunrath wrote tracts exposing fraudulent claims of gold making. By the 1720s, there were no longer any respectable figures pursuing the physical transmutation of substances into gold. Antoine Lavoisier , in the 18th century, replaced the alchemical theory of elements with the modern theory of chemical elements, and John Dalton further developed

19599-442: Was particularly influential on the development of painting in Italy, both technically with the introduction of oil paint and canvas, and stylistically in terms of naturalism in representation. Later, the work of Pieter Brueghel the Elder would inspire artists to depict themes of everyday life. In architecture, Filippo Brunelleschi was foremost in studying the remains of ancient classical buildings. With rediscovered knowledge from

19740-418: Was the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica , combining the skills of Bramante , Michelangelo, Raphael, Sangallo and Maderno . During the Renaissance, architects aimed to use columns, pilasters , and entablatures as an integrated system. The Roman orders types of columns are used: Tuscan and Composite . These can either be structural, supporting an arcade or architrave, or purely decorative, set against

19881-427: Was thought that the classics provided moral instruction and an intensive understanding of human behavior. A unique characteristic of some Renaissance libraries is that they were open to the public. These libraries were places where ideas were exchanged and where scholarship and reading were considered both pleasurable and beneficial to the mind and soul. As freethinking was a hallmark of the age, many libraries contained

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