The Modern Age in Europe (A) Renaissance
Class 9
New Trade Routes:
- Prince Henry- Discovered a sea route to Africa.
- Bartholomew Diaz- Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost point of Africa.
- Columbus- Discovered America
- Vasco da Gama- Reached India
- Ferdinand Magellan-Made a voyage around the world.
Invention of the Printing Press
- The First Printing Press was developed in Germany by Gutenberg.
- Caxton introduced Printing Press in England
- In the middle ages, books were written manually and the cost of the books was very high.
- Scholars preferred to read printed books than handwritten manuscripts.
- The Printing Press led to an increase in the number of books and brought a new awakening in Europe.
IMPACT OF RENAISSANCE ON ART
- The Renaissance artists adopted new artistic methods such as frescoes- for wall pictures, oil colours and woodcuts.
- They studied optics and geometry and used their knowledge to develop perspective in their paintings.
- They studied human anatomy to find the mechanism underlying gestures and expressions.
- Early Renaissance artists painted religious scenes on the walls of the churches, monasteries and palaces.
- Later artists painted- Christian theme and secular theme in Greco- Roman style.
NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
- He affirmed the Principle that the Earth is round and it moves round the Sun.
- The centre of the earth is not the centre of the universe, but only of gravity and of the Lunar sphere.
- The Sun is the centre of the Universe.
- The Earth has more than one motion, turning on its axis and moving in a spherical orbit around the Sun.