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    Impact Factor: 6.78 Journal Quality Score (JQS): 85.34
    Email Id: chiefeditor.ijeel@gmail.com

    The Renaissance and the Close of the Middle Ages

    Journal Article
    Author(s)
    Oumeima Mouelhi
    Keywords
    Renaissance-Antiquity-Humanism- -Hellinism-Modernity.
    Abstract
    Mention the “Renaissance”, and most of us will think automatically of the genius of Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Donatello, or Leonardo da Vinci. There is, however, more to the Renaissance than beautiful pictures and brilliant individuals. The more we look into the term “Renaissance”, literally “rebirth”, the more slippery we find its meaning. In European historiography, perhaps the most value-laden and contested historical category, is the Renaissance. First, coined by Jacob Burckhardt in his book The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, the term has come to dominate our consciousness of what the historical experience of this period was. The Renaissance, as far as this book is concerned, is conceived as a departure from the Middle Ages, a fracture point where European culture suddenly changed into a ‘new” different culture. There are two important aspects to this change according to Burckhardt: the revival of the classical learning, character, and life (hence the ‘rebirth’ or ‘renaissance’ of the classical world) and the beginning of the “Modern Age”. For in reviving classical learning, the Italians of the Renaissance created the prototype of modern culture. This article seeks to shed light on the distinction between the old medieval European world and the new modern one enhanced by monumental scientific inventions, humanistic movement, and the discovery of a new secular view of life.
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    Article Details
    Published 22 Jun 2026
    DOI 10.22161/ijeel.5.3.8
    Pages 57-65
    Views 14
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