The Renaissance was drastically different from the Middle Ages. During the Middle Ages the church held most of the power and it's economy was agriculturaly based. Exploration and learning was almost put to a stop. During the Renaissance society was transformed into a society increasingly dominated by central political institutions with an urban commercial attitude. Also, people's curiosity overcame thier fear and many people started to venture out and explore. New schools and colleges became more and more common.

The Renaissance was started by many rich Italian cities, such as Florence, Ferrara, Milan ,and Venice. Because these cities were very wealthy, many merchants started to spend money on different things, such as painting, learning, new banking techniques, and new systems of government. These things gave rise to a new type of scholar, the humanist. Humanism was subjects concerned with humankind and culture. They stutied various things such as Latin, Greek language, literatur

The Renaissance also had an effect on the general society. Many people became interested in politics. Also, people became interested in the world outside of thier towns. Many became explorers, merchants, and mapmakers. Religion especially changed during the Renaissance. In the Middle ages people were primarily concerned with serving the church and getting to heaven. But the increase in arts and education gave people something to look forward to, and a life worth living. So inturn, people based thier lives around various other things instead of the church. Because of the increase in literacy people learned that the Catholic Church only told the populus what they wanted them to hear. This caused many people to break away from the churh and form Protestant religions.

The printing press was probaly the most important advance in technology. Europeans first used movable metal type to print a book. On small pieces of metal they engraved single letters of the alphabet. These could then be arranged and rearranged to form words and sentences. Johan Gutenberg is usually given credit for the first book printed, a copy of the Bible. By the 1500's printing presses where fairly well spread. The printing press had many effects on the world. First of all,

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Approximate Word count = 855
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)