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HUMANISM AND KNOWLEDGE - Coggle Diagram
HUMANISM AND KNOWLEDGE
HUMANISM
Humanism was a cultural movement that began in the 14th century. It developed fully in the 15th and 16th centuries, in the rich city-states of the northern part of the Italian Peninsula. These city-states had a flourishing economy and a rich artistic heritage.
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Humanist artists and thinkers were supported by patrons. Patrons were typically governors and rich families. Their courts and palaces, in Naples, Rome and especially Florence, were the epicentres of Humanism.
In some of these cities, humanists created academies to teach their ideas and develop new ones. The most well-known academy was in Florence. It was sponsored by the Medici family, which governed the city at the time.
This academy brought together great 15th-century thinkers, such as Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. They had a good knowledge of the Christian, Greek and Latin traditions.
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THE SPREAD OF KNOWLEDGE
Humanist ideas and knowledge spread more rapidly in the Modern Age than in the Middle Ages, when knowledge was spread through books written by hand, mostly by clergymen in monasteries.
THE PRINTING PRESS
Around 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press. Books could be produced more easily and ideas spread more quickly. It improved literacy, and intellectual life was no longer restricted to monasteries and universities. Gutenberg’s printing press worked as follows:
SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
During the Renaissance, thinkers and academics became interested in understanding the world that surrounded them, and the natural processes that occurred in it. They revived the scientific method used in Ancient Greece and Rome, where the study of nature was based on observation and experimentation.
ASTRONOMY
In the 16th century, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus developed the heliocentric theory, which claimed that the Earth and all the other planets orbited the Sun. This theory contradicted the geocentric theory developed by Ptolemy in the 2nd century, which claimed that the Earth was the immobile centre of the Universe, and all other celestial bodies orbited around it.
MEDICINE
Although there was widespread opposition to clinical trials, the following advances were made:
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the treaty of anatomy by Vesalius, who was born in Flanders
GEOGRAPHY
Modern cartography also began. Maps were created based on the world map drawn by Gerardus Mercator, in 1569. Mercator’s map showed all the lands discovered up until that date. Straight lines called parallels and meridians were used to locate any point in the world.