The Renaissance began in the 14th century and lasted through the 16th century. The Renaissance is associated with rebirth in Europe. During this time of rebirth, art developed and flourished and many great artists game about. Two such artists were Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. These two artists painted and sculpted several famous pieces of artwork. They developed new ideas and concepts in the world of art. They strongly contributed to the Renaissance's evolution of art.

Michelangelo Buonarroti lived from March 6, 1473 until 1546. He was born in a village called Caprese. He entered a respectable Florence family, lead by his father, a government agent. Michelangelo entered the world of art at age twelve, as an apprentice to a very popular Florence painter by the name of Domenico Ghirlandajo. This was preceded by only a short period of education. Michelangelo not only painted as a child but also studied sculpting with a student of the sculptor Donatello. Michelangelo is very well known for both his painting and his sculpting.

"Michelangelo is best known for his treatment of the human body in painting and sculpture. His figures convey a sense of grande

In painting and sculpture, the late Gothic style, characterized by religious devotion and love of fine detail, lingered on. Great effort was expended on stained-glass windows and altarpieces by such masters as the painters Matthias Grunewald and Stefan Lochner and the sculptors Veit Stoss, Peter Vischer the Elder, Adam Kraft, and Tilman Riemenschneider. Albrecht Durer, who brought German painting to heights previously unknown, introduced the Renaissance style, marked by classical motifs and interest in the natural world, from Italy. Lucas Cranach and Hans Holbein the Younger expressed the humanist emphasis on the individual in portraits. Durer and Martin Schongauer combined Gothic and Renaissance elements in the new arts of woodcut and copper engraving, used for printed book illustration. Architecture was late Gothic until the Reformation, when church building virtually stopped. Protestants frowned on church art, but they spent lavishly on the steep-roofed, half-timbered, decoratively painted houses of the burghers and on imposing palaces and guildhalls in the Renaissance style. Medieval tradition continued in popular German literature in the form of folk songs, anecdotes about folk heroes, and religious and secular folk play. Folk and classical themes provided source material for the Meistersinger, lyric poets who wrote according to the strict forms of the earlier Minnesingers. Foremost among them was Hans Sachs, a cobbler of Nurnberg. The most important development in literature was Luther's translation of the Bible into a vigorous vernacular that helped give the German people a unified literary language. It became the basis for standardized High German. Luther and others wrote German hymns for Protestant congregations, a liturgical innovation that laid the foundation for German church music and influenced worship throughout the Protestant world. Melanchthon, a professor at the University of Wittenberg, lucidly presented Protestant doctrines in Latin to the non-German world. He and other humanists introduced classical scholarship to universities in Cologne, Leipzig, Vienna, and other cities, and he helped found new universities in Konigsberg, Jena, and Marburg an der Lahn. Medieval German education had been limited chiefly to schools and universities run by religious orders to train churchmen and a few government officials. Even the new humanist learning was at first intended for a small, scholarly elite. However, Luther, consistent with his belief in the priesthood of all believers and individual study of the Bible, thought that state schools should be open to children of every class. In the Protestant states, primary schools were set up to teach German and religion. Latin was the principal subject in the secondary schools founded by Melanchthon, which presented for the first time a graded course of study. Saxony and other Protestant states gradually opened Gymnasien, which influenced German education into the 20th century. In the Catholic states similar but highly centralized schools were established. Chiefly boys whose families could afford the fees attended all these schools.

ur and power, and arouse strong emotions in many spectators. In size, strength, emotional intensity, there figures go beyond real people. Michelangelo's figures are both animated and restrained, and seem to possess great spiritual energy. The force, movement, and beauty of his figures broaden our experience of humanity. His work pressed toward the extremes of heroism and tragedy, but was never false or artificial." (The Volume Library: Volume I)

5. "France," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. c 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Michelangelo's works was liked so much by Lorenzo de Medici, the ruler of Florence, he was invited to stay with him at his palace. Michelangelo completed his first surviving sculpture at the age of sixteen. It is a small-unfinished relief of a battle, the influen

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