A report on Middle Ages, Periodization and Renaissance

The Cross of Mathilde, a crux gemmata made for Mathilde, Abbess of Essen (973–1011), who is shown kneeling before the Virgin and Child in the enamel plaque. The figure of Christ is slightly later. Probably made in Cologne or Essen, the cross demonstrates several medieval techniques: cast figurative sculpture, filigree, enamelling, gem polishing and setting, and the reuse of Classical cameos and engraved gems.

Petrarch conceived of the idea of a European "Dark Age" which later evolved into the tripartite periodization of Western history into Ancient, Post-classical and Modern.

Florence, the birthplace of the European Renaissance. The architectural perspective, and modern systems and fields of banking and accounting were introduced during the Renaissance.

A late Roman sculpture depicting the Tetrarchs, now in Venice, Italy

Portrait of a Young Woman (c. 1480–85) (Simonetta Vespucci) by Sandro Botticelli

Barbarian kingdoms and tribes after the end of the Western Roman Empire

View of Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance

A coin of the Ostrogothic leader Theoderic the Great, struck in Milan, Italy, c. AD 491–501

A mosaic showing Justinian with the bishop of Ravenna (Italy), bodyguards, and courtiers.

A political map of the Italian Peninsula circa 1494

Reconstruction of an early medieval peasant village in Bavaria

Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death (c. 1562) reflects the social upheaval and terror that followed the plague that devastated medieval Europe.

An 11th-century illustration of Gregory the Great dictating to a secretary

Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence and patron of arts (Portrait by Vasari)

Map showing growth of Frankish power from 481 to 814

Pico della Mirandola, writer of the famous Oration on the Dignity of Man, which has been called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance".

Charlemagne's palace chapel at Aachen, completed in 805

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) demonstrates the effect writers of Antiquity had on Renaissance thinkers. Based on the specifications in Vitruvius' De architectura (1st century BC), Leonardo tried to draw the perfectly proportioned man. (Museum Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice)

10th-century Ottonian ivory plaque depicting Christ receiving a church from Otto I

Anonymous portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus (c. 1580)

A page from the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript created in the British Isles in the late 8th or early 9th century

Portrait of Luca Pacioli, father of accounting, painted by Jacopo de' Barbari, 1495, (Museo di Capodimonte).

Medieval French manuscript illustration of the three classes of medieval society: those who prayed (the clergy) those who fought (the knights), and those who worked (the peasantry). The relationship between these classes was governed by feudalism and manorialism. (Li Livres dou Sante, 13th century)

The world map by Pietro Coppo, Venice, 1520

13th-century illustration of a Jew (in pointed Jewish hat) and the Christian Petrus Alphonsi debating

Alexander VI, a Borgia Pope infamous for his corruption

Europe and the Mediterranean Sea in 1190

Adoration of the Magi and Solomon adored by the Queen of Sheba from the Farnese Hours (1546) by Giulio Clovio marks the end of the Italian Renaissance of illuminated manuscript together with the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

The Bayeux Tapestry (detail) showing William the Conqueror (centre), his half-brothers Robert, Count of Mortain (right) and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux in the Duchy of Normandy (left)

Krak des Chevaliers was built during the Crusades for the Knights Hospitallers.

"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!" – from William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

A medieval scholar making precise measurements in a 14th-century manuscript illustration

Château de Chambord (1519–1547), one of the most famous examples of Renaissance architecture

Portrait of Cardinal Hugh of Saint-Cher by Tommaso da Modena, 1352, the first known depiction of spectacles

Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I, by Albrecht Dürer, 1519

The Romanesque Church of Maria Laach, Germany

Erasmus of Rotterdam in 1523, as depicted by Hans Holbein the Younger

The Gothic interior of Laon Cathedral, France

São Pedro Papa, 1530–1535, by Grão Vasco Fernandes. A pinnacle piece from when the Portuguese Renaissance had considerable external influence.

Francis of Assisi, depicted by Bonaventura Berlinghieri in 1235, founded the Franciscan Order.

The Palace of Facets on the Cathedral Square of the Moscow Kremlin

Theotokos and The Child, the late-17th-century Russian icon by Karp Zolotaryov, with notably realistic depiction of faces and clothing.

Execution of some of the ringleaders of the jacquerie, from a 14th-century manuscript of the Chroniques de France ou de St Denis

The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, by Juan de Herrera and Juan Bautista de Toledo

A cover of the Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari

Painting of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, an event in the French Wars of Religion, by François Dubois

Guy of Boulogne crowning Pope Gregory XI in a 15th-century miniature from Froissart's Chroniques

Clerics studying astronomy and geometry, French, early 15th century

Agricultural calendar, c. 1470, from a manuscript of Pietro de Crescenzi

February scene from the 15th-century illuminated manuscript Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

Medieval illustration of the spherical Earth in a 14th-century copy of L'Image du monde

The early Muslim conquests
Expansion under Muhammad, 622–632
Expansion during the Rashidun Caliphate, 632–661
Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661–750

The Renaissance is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas and achievements of classical antiquity.

- Renaissance

It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.

- Middle Ages

Tripartite periodisation became standard after the 17th-century German historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods: ancient, medieval, and modern.

- Middle Ages

Other labels such as Renaissance have strongly positive characteristics.

- Periodization

The term Middle Ages also derives from Petrarch.

- Periodization

2 related topics with Alpha

From the Apocalypse in a Biblia Pauperum illuminated at Erfurt around the time of the Great Famine. Death sits astride a lion whose long tail ends in a ball of flame (Hell). Famine points to her hungry mouth.

Late Middle Ages

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France in the late 15th century: a mosaic of feudal territories

Silver mining and processing in Kutná Hora, Bohemia, 15th century

Ottoman miniature of the siege of Belgrade in 1456

Battle of Aljubarrota between Portugal and Castile, 1385

Peasants preparing the fields for the winter with a harrow and sowing for the winter grain. The background shows the Louvre castle in Paris, c. 1410; October as depicted in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

European output of manuscripts 500–1500. The rising trend in medieval book production saw its continuation in the period.

Urban dwelling house, late 15th century, Halberstadt, Germany.

Dante by Domenico di Michelino, from a fresco painted in 1465

A musician plays the vielle in a fourteenth-century Medieval manuscript.

The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1250 to 1500.

The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renaissance).

The changes brought about by these developments have led many scholars to view this period as the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern history and of early modern Europe.

World population, 10,000 BCE – 2,000 CE (vertical population scale is logarithmic)

Human history

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Narrative of humanity's past.

Cave painting, Lascaux, France, c. 15,000 BCE

Monumental Cuneiform inscription, Sumer, Mesopotamia, 26th century BCE

Persepolis, Achaemenid Empire, 6th century BCE

Pillar erected by India's Maurya Emperor Ashoka

The Pantheon in Rome, Italy, originally a Roman temple, now a Catholic church

Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul, is among the most recognizable symbols of the Byzantine civilization.

Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, founded 670 CE

Notre-Dame de Paris in Paris, France: is among the most recognizable symbols of the civilization of Christendom.

Battle during 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan

Angkor Wat temple, Cambodia, early 12th century

Gutenberg Bible, ca. 1450, produced using movable type

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (c. 1490), Renaissance Italy

1570 world map, showing Europeans' discoveries

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), Turkey

Ming dynasty section, Great Wall of China

Watt's steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution.

The first airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew, 1903.

Atomic bombings: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 1945

Civilians (here, Mỹ Lai, Vietnam, 1968) suffered greatly in 20th-century wars.

China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century (Shanghai pictured).

World population, from 10000 BCE to 2000 CE, with projection to 2100 CE

Reconstruction of Lucy, the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found

Overview map of the peopling of the world by early humans during the Upper Paleolithic, following to the Southern Dispersal paradigm.

Post-classical history (the "Middle Ages" from about 500 to 1500 CE) witnessed the rise of Christianity, the Islamic Golden Age, and the Renaissance (from around 1300 CE).

This scheme of historical periodization (dividing history into antiquity, post-classical, early modern, and late modern periods) was developed for, and applies best to, the history of the Old World, particularly Europe and the Mediterranean.