The European Renaissance
1. What is the Renaissance?
The time period between 1350 and 1650 in Europe that marked a renewed interest in learning and
arts.
2. What is humanism?
This was the result of Europeans beginning to value human efforts outside of religion.
3. What is Secularism?
The belief in the worth of the individual and his reason to a path of knowledge.
4. What is perspective?
A way of showing people and things as they appear at different distances in a work of art.
5. What is Classical knowledge?
The study of Ancient Greek and Roman writings and ideas.
6. Who was Michelangelo?
He painted the large mural on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
7. Who was Leonardo Da Vinci?
An artist from Florence who was also a Scientist, inventor, and Mathematician, who kept a
famous notebook of anatomy drawings
8. Who was Raphael?
A famous Renaissance artist known for his fresco paintings of the Madonna.
9. Who was Donatello?
A famous Renaissance artist who sculpt statues of David and St. Mark.
10. What are Classical and Religious themes?
The two themes that Renaissance art usually has.
11. What is Florence?
Most famous of the Italian city-states that produced many artists, and was home to the wealthy
Medici family.
12. What is Venice?
The wealthiest city-state in Italy that was known for its canals and shipbuilders.
13. Who are Italian merchants?
The rulers of Italian city-states.
14. What is Italian trade with the Middle East?
This situation with Muslim traders helped Italians kick start the Renaissance
15. Who is Marco Polo?
An Italian merchant from the 1200s that helped influence other merchants to travel eastward
for trade goods.
16. What is the Clergy?
People with priestly authority in a religion.
17. Who is Niccolò Machiavelli?
This Italian author wrote a book ruling a city-state called The Prince.
18. What is the Printing Press?
This invention made many more books available to people, thus helping spread humanist ideas
throughout Europe.
19. What is diplomacy?
Italian city-states developed this art of making agreements with each other to keep the balance
of power in Italy.
20. Who was the Medici family?
This Italian merchant family owned the largest bank in Europe during the 1400s (as well as all of
Florence)
21. What is the Northern Renaissance?
During the late 1400s, the Renaissance spread from Italy to northern Europe.
22. Who was William Shakespeare?
This playwright from London wrote the play Romeo and Juliet.
23. What is Oil-based paint?
Northern Renaissance artists began the popular trend to use this type of paint.
24. Who is Johann Gutenberg?
This German blacksmith invented the Printing Press in 1440.
25. Who was Geoffrey Chaucer?
This English writer wrote the famous work The Canterbury Tales
26. What are vernacular languages?
Common everyday European languages, such as Italian, French, and German, that Renaissance
writers wrote in
(more people can read it)
The Protestant Reformation
27. What is the Reformation?
A religious movement that produced a new form of Christianity known as Protestantism.
28. What are indulgences?
A pardon, or forgiveness, of a sin.
29. What is predestination?
A religious belief that God has already decided who will go to heaven and who will not.
30. What is annul?
To declare invalid, such as King Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine.
31. What is Excommunication?
Being cut off from the Church and its sacraments.
32. Who was Martin Luther?
The German monk who wrote a list of complaints to the Catholic Church that helped start off
the Protestant Reformation.
33. Who was John Calvin?
This Frenchman fled from Paris to Geneva, Switzerland to start his own religion.
34. Who was King Henry VIII?
This ruler challenged the Catholic Church in order to solve his own problems in England. He
eventually formed his own church and became head of it.
35. Who was Ignatius of Loyola?
A Spanish noble who founded the Jesuits.
36. Who is King Henry IV?
This French king issued the Edict of Nantes in order to end the fighting between Catholics and
Protestants in France.
37. What are the 95 Theses?
Luther prepared this list of arguments against indulgences and abuses of the Church.
38. What is the year 1517?
This is the year that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral.
39. What is Calvinism?
This Christian religion had followers that were hard working, well behaved, and obeyed the laws
of their towns.
40. What is the Church of the England?
This church was created in 1534 with the passing of the Act of Supremacy through English
Parliament.
41. What is the Anglican Church?
This is the name that the Church of England was changed to under Queen Elizabeth I.
42. What is a seminary?
A special school for training and educating priests.
43. Who were the Jesuits?
A Reforming Order that set out to win followers for the Catholic Church and wanted to
strengthen the spiritual lives of Catholics; also known as the Society of Jesus.
44. What was the Index?
A list of forbidden books that Catholics were not allowed to read.
45. What was the Council of Trent?
A group of Bishops and priests picked by the Pope to help figure out ways to reform the Catholic
Church.
46. What is the Spanish Inquisition?
A religious court held in Spain that found and punished those guilty of heresy.
47. What is the Thirty Years’ War?
A religious war fought in the Holy Roman Empire in the early 1600s between Protestant and
Catholic kingdoms.
48. Who is Catherine de’ Medici?
This Italian mother ruled in place of her young French son when he took the throne at the age of
10.
49. What is the Spanish Armada?
King Philip sent this fleet of ships to England in order to get revenge against Queen Elizabeth.
50. What is the Edict of Nantes?
An order issued by King Henry IV stating that the official religion of France was Catholicism, but
that Huguenots were free to worship in France.
51. What is the Peace of Westphalia?
This treaty ended the conflict of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648.