The ‘Renaissance’ period as a clear cleavage and dividing line from the medieval does not exist.  The ‘Renaissance’ is simply a continuation of the ‘Medieval’, the names themselves meaning little and entirely contrived.  Is 1453 and the end of the ‘100 years’ war’ a ‘Medieval’ or a ‘Renaissance’ event.  No one in 1453 called the era either of these concocted and specious names.  1453 was part of the same era, culture and history as 1353, 1253 or 853.  Henry VI who lost the English possessions in France would never have understood why his era was the beginning of a ‘Renaissance’ as it was embroiled in a quite medieval civil war. 

These arbitrarily divided categories are quite obviously part of the same process of development, cojoined in a millennium of history and culture.  If the ‘Middle Ages’, did not exist, there is no ‘Renaissance’ or rebirth, the new birthing of something which is never defined, except for the usual hoary myth of a return to ‘Roman splendour’, a military empire, founded upon white slavery, which was outside of public works, technologically primitive, a society where 1/3 were slaves and most of the rest poor and illiterate.  ‘Classical civilisation’ has much to condemn it.

The ’Renaissance’ usually starts at the time of the Musulman destruction of Constantinople in 1453.  Years before this cataclysmic debacle and the erasure of the Christian capital of the Christian Eastern empire, a migration of the educated, the elite, the merchant class and those with means and money from Constantinople to the West and especially Italy, the birthplace of the ‘Renaissance’, had occurred.  The ‘rebirth’ of the ill defined ‘classicism’ was the product of a Christian wave moving East to West, bringing with them the money, technology, treasures and libraries of Eastern Christendom.  If this migration of Christians and their knowledge and money had not occurred, the ‘Renaissance’ would not have existed. 

It was not a ‘rebirth’ from the immaterial, pace the Western ‘histories’, nor a recrudescence from darkness into light.  It was a showering of Christian Byzantine education and influence into Italy, itself richer and more prosperous from trade and eras of internal peace, protected from the Musulman Jihad by the fast-ebbing empire of Byzantium and the Christianised Balkans which fought against the Ottoman hordes, preventing a complete seizure of central Europe.  Petrarch the ignorant knew little about what prompted an increase in learning or sophisticated ‘intellectual’ pursuits, many of those then as now, as sterile and useless and any sophistry in the days of Plato.  It was ironically Christian civilisation which produced the ‘Renaissance’.

We see this in the art and architecture of the ‘Renaissance’ which carried on the same themes as that of the Medieval period, finding an apogee in the Catholic Baroque, itself the most quintessentially religious art ever produced.  Giotto, Cimbabue and countless others in the 14^th century anticipate Renaissance art and set the foundation for the development of techniques and paintings in the 15^th.  There was little that was new in the 15^th or 16^th centuries regarding art or architecture.

Secularism as a 16^th century trend was self-evident in every country and region long before 1450, with the ‘reformers’ of the 14^th century and many of their followers quite secular, material and often irreligious.  The Church itself and its hierarchy of dignitaries were criticised during many centuries for their materialism, pomp, corruption and secular attitudes, ruling as Barons in some cases, controlling armies and engaging in political and military disputes.  All of this led to ‘reforming’ tendencies and outbreaks.

In science there is a retrogression in the 16^th century.  Copernican theory has still not been mechanically proven (which shocks the bien pensant but is entirely true) and was a philosophical not a scientifically premised theory.  Many other theories explain natural and celestial phenomena.  Alchemy, astrology, a belief in witches all witnessed fantastic growth during this period.  Even during the ‘scientific revolution’ of the 17^th century, Galileo’s achievements were premised on centuries of work by others dating back to the 13^th century, as were Newton’s, structured on medieval Scholastic experimentation. 

Kenneth Clark the atheist art historian remarked in his ‘Civilisation’ about the 16^th century:

“Guercino spent much of his mornings in prayer, Bernini frequently went on retreats…Rubens went to Mass every day…Saint Ignatius Loyola the visionary soldier turned psychologist…(a Catholic culture) for a half century that could produce these great spirits.”

During the 16^th century Popes Julius II and Leo X invested enormous sums into art and architecture, often taxing Catholics into outrage and rebellion to fund the endeavours.  Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael and scores of others have left the world richer and more civilised for it.  Some of the greatest works of human conception emanated from the deeply religious of the 16^th century and their patrons.  The printing press was created in 1450, along with dozens of sundry other inventions.  Dissemination of writing, ideas, treatises and broadsheets is a decidedly medieval invention, taking generations to find expression in the technology and automation of Gutenberg. 

The myth that the ‘Renaissance’ was a rebirth of something is utter bunk.  This era was the continuation of the Medieval, impelled by the fleeing Christians of Byzantium and the capital of medieval Italy created through trade and commerce.