Renaissance was the era marked by a time when humanist ideologies dawned and religious authorities had to let go of their stronghold on European cultural and intellectual life. Prominent figures of the Renaissance included philosopher and statesman Niccolò Machiavelli, known for the political treatise The Prince; Francis Bacon, a statesman, and philosopher considered the master of the English tongue; the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who developed the theory that the solar system was centered on the Sun; the poets Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio, who laid the foundations for the humanism of the Renaissance; William Shakespeare, considered the greatest dramatist of all time; astronomer and mathematician Galileo, who helped disprove much of the medieval thinking in science; and the explorers Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and Hernán Cortés.
As one can tell, it was the age characterized by philosophical freedom, advancement in science, and other areas that overturned the ecclesiastical dogma. This Age of Reason – or Enlightenment of the 17-18th centuries produced great schools of thought in Europe and Britain which eventually led us to the modern era and the establishment of democratic systems of today’s time.
