The Renaissance

If I could visit any time in history what would it be?

There are so many important events that have occurred in the long history of our world that it is difficult to decide on a single event that I would like to be present at. The difficulty of this choice comes from the fact that only one event can be visited, where it possible I would visit hundreds of times and places to experience history first hand. Despite these possibilities there is one event that I would like to see most dearly and it is the Renaissance, a great period of awakening and art. The Renaissance was a time where the great musical composers and artist where creating their art: Michaelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel and Leonardo da Vinci was exploring the many facets of his genius, and many other talented people where developing their various talents and becoming Renaissance men and women.

People became aware of the individual and began to see its importance. In America we take this for granted, its part of our culture, we respect the individual, but before the Renaissance the individual was not as important as society as a whole, the individual could suffer as long as society as a whole prospered. Not only that it was not allowed for people to have new ideas, the doctrines of the Catholic Church went unchanged for thousands of years. Before the Renaissance people who had new ideas where called heretics, now they are considered enlightened or intelligent. Had it not been for the Renaissance we would not hold this view and the world as we know it would not exist.

The Renaissance was an extremely important era in our history, without it the world would be a sad, sad place filled only with church endorsed art with little creativity, essentially limited to what stained glass art would have evolved into.