"The hallmark of the Renaissance was its holistic quality as all fields of art, engineering, science and culture shared the same exciting spirit and many of the same intellectual principles".
~ Joel Garreau
The Renaissance was not only recognized as a period of cultural and artistic revival but also as a period when Science and technology developed and new innovations came through the way. This is also seen as a less discussed topic of Renaissance, but one cannot ignore the developments and contributions of science and technology during this great era. This era is considered as the period during which modern science truly came to fruition as great advances occured in the fields of geography, astronomy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, manufacturing, anatomy and engineering.
BEGINNING
The development and growth of science and technology was gradual during the Renaissance period. The early Renaissance period is seen as a time of scientific backwardness. There were no new developments in physics and astronomy. Renaissance philosophy lost much of its rigour as the rules of logic and deduction were seen as secondary to intuition and emotion. Also at the time, medical care was very basic and largely depended on herbs and superstitions. It was only during the High and Late Renaissance period that actual developments took place and new theories and philosophies came to existence. The perspectives of people to look upon objects and human bodies changed and therefore new experiments and inventions began. In the health care field, scientists learned more about the human body works and new discoveries such as vaccination came into being. The invention of printing press, microscope, telescope, and the theories of Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei is considered to be crucial contributions to the Renaissance era as these became the base for further studies and developments during the time. The study of science changed during this period because the humanist spirit took hold and people started carefully observing the world around them. The humanist artists also encouraged the scientific growth as they performed their own dissections to promote the study of anatomy and invented mathematical perspective to make possible the accurate, realistic portrayal of physical space. This connection between the art and science may seem a little strange to the modern observers, but the Renaissance art and architecture incorporated mathematics and precision into every piece. Also it is worth notable to consider that by the end of the Renaissance period, Scientific Revolution was on the verge to began. It is so connected with each other that Marie Boas Hall, a historian of science, coined the term " Scientific Renaissance" to designate the early phases of Scientific Revolution.
MAJOR INVENTIONS OF THE PERIOD
The inventions and developments of the Renaissance period are innumerable as it was the time when the human society moved away from the ancient and medieval methods and encouraged new experiments and innovations that brought about huge changes in the history of science. Some of the inventions that took place during the Renaissance period are listed below:
> PRINTING PRESS
The printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440 in Germany. It was the first ever movable metal type printing press. Johannes Gutenberg famously printed an edition of Bible in 1456. The invention of Printing press became such a crucial development of history as it allowed easy access to large amounts of information. During the Renaissance, where already art and literature was flourishing, printing press became a great addition to this, as it allowed new ideas and worldviews to spread across the continent more easily. Literature reached to the masses in an efficient and durable way with the coming of the Printing press. The operation to retrieve classical texts was in action long before the printing press, but publishing the text had been arduously slow and prohibitively expensive for anyone other than the richest of the rich. But with the printing press, publishing the text became an easy and affordable task for many writers. Also with the growth of the printing press, literature that was early accessible to the elite class of the society, now became accessible to the common masses, which also brings in the fact that the printing press played a key role in the increasing literacy rates of the period.
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| Printing press |
> MICROSCOPE
Microscope was invented in 1590 by two Dutch spectacle- makers, Hans and Zacharias Janssen, which came up as a major help in other scientific discoveries. The microscope uses two different lenses to bend light and enlarge images. In 1660, the microscope was used to study the bacteria for the first time. The invention of the microscope allowed scientists to see cells, bacteria and many other structures that are too small to be seen with the unaided eye. It gave a direct view into the unseen world of the extremely tiny creatures. When the microscope was first invented, it was completely a new thing for the Renaissance people, but gradually they experimented with the microscope, discovering methods to clean the microscopic lenses, making it even more clear and easier to see. Later in 1609, Galileo, who heard of these early experiments, worked out the principles of lenses and made a much better instrument with a focusing device. With time, many scientist came up experimenting with the microscope and its working principles and developed a more reliable and accurate instrument that we see and use in the modern times.
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| Microscope |
> TELESCOPE
Telescope was first invented by a Dutch eyeglass maker, Hans Lippershey in 1608. He was the first person to apply for a patent for a telescope and laid claim to a device that could magnify objects three times. The invention of the telescope played an important role in advancing the understanding of Earth's place in the cosmos. Early telescopes were primarily used for making Earth bound observations, such as surveying and military tactics. Later a small group of astronomers including Galileo, turned telescopes towards the heaven. Galileo was the first to use telescope systematically to observe celestial objects and record his discoveries. In the Renaissance, the invention of the telescope sparked major arguments, mostly between the Church and the Scientists of the time. It was only after the invention of the telescope that the argument aroused between groups of people who believed - the Earth as the centre of the Universe and that every cosmic body revolved around it and the other belief that emerged due to the scientific experiments that were happening during the period, that is the Earth revolves around the Sun. These arguments and discoveries of the Renaissance period proved to be beneficial for further study of science and this emerged as a reason for many new discoveries that happened later.
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Telescope
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> Besides these above mentioned few inventions of the Renaissance period, there are many instruments that were first invented in this particular era. Some of them include woodblock printing, pendulum, barometer, eyeglasses, Clocks, watches, Muskets, thermometer, submarine and many more objects that we use today on a daily basis was invented during the Renaissance period.
IMPORTANT SCIENTISTS OF THE ERA
As the Renaissance stood as a timeline, when people began to shift their focus from the religious and traditional notion of understanding things to a more liberal and humanist way of looking upon things. This led to a number of discoveries and innovations during the period. Many scientists experimented over things and formed theories and philosophies that were completely new to the contemporary times. Some of these scientists and inventors who during the Renaissance period have contributed a great deal to the history of science itself are listed below:
> GALILEO GALILEI
Galileo Galilei was an Italian natural philosopher astronomer, physicist and engineer who made fundamental contributions to the science of motion,astronomy and strength of materials and to the development of the scientific method.Galileo is known as the " Father of Modern Science" because of his contributions to the field. Galileo was the first person to use the telescope seriously for astronomy and in doing so he discovered the moons of Jupiter, the first clear examples of bodies in orbit around a centre other than the Earth and also discovered the phases of Venus. Galileo openly believed in Heliocentrism, giving the theory that the Earth and other planets revolved around the Sun and this was completely opposed to Geocentrism, which believed Earth as the centre of the Universe. This brought a lot of controversies for Galileo as the Church and the geocentric believers were opposed to his theory and explanations. The theories and explanations that Galileo developed during the Renaissance period were later taken on to by other scientists and more new theories and discoveries were made that we study today in the modern world.
> NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance-era mathematician, astronomer and a catholic canon who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the centre of the Universe. Relying on the Renaissance humanist predecessors and contemporaries, Copernicus expressed deep dissatisfaction with the confusion in astronomy and he intimated that the one who created the Universe for our sake also created humans with the capacity to discover and understand the structure of that Universe with certainty. One of the most important contributions of Copernicus was to the field of astronomy because of which he is known as the " Father of Modern Astronomy". It is believed that it was Copernicus' s heliocentric theory about the Earth and other planets revolving around the Sun which was further adopted and developed by Galileo Galilei. Therefore, it is said that Copernicus 's greatest contribution to the Renaissance was the transformative idea of heliocentrism, as the basic premise of the Renaissance was to construct theories and ideas that represented transformation and change. Copernicus actually represented how powerful human beings can be in changing people's minds and how individuals think, therefore his contribution to Science during the Renaissance period is worth mentioning.
> JOHANNES KEPLER
Johannes kepler was a German astronomer, mathematician and astrologer and was also a key figure in the 17th century " Scientific Revolution". He is best known for his discovery of the three principles of planetary motion, by which he clarified the spatial Organization of the Solar system. Kepler discovered that planets move in elliptical orbits and at different speeds at different time, according to their distance from the Sun. Moreover, he founded modern optics by presenting the earliest correct explanation of how human beings see. He also developed the idea of a celestial physics: that is, he maintained that the celestial bodies are physical, such as the Earth and is moved by physical forces. He also intuited the workings of retina and brain and was able to describe how lenses worked. He is considered as the first to determine that refraction drives vision in the eye and that using two eyes enables depth perception. His contributions to the field of Science during the Renaissance period is very crucial and his philosophies and theories allowed science to develop and produce new phenomenons that eventually became a crucial part in the field of Science.
> Besides these few scientists, there are many other philosophers and experimentalist who have contributed immensely to the field of Science and technology during the Renaissance period. Some of them include Rene Descartes( Father of Modern Philosophy),Francis Bacon ( creator of Empiricism) ,Sir Issac Newton ( inventor of gravitational force and laws of motion),etc, who in their own ways came up with theories and ideas that are praised and studied by the whole world till this date.
~ DEVIKA R NAIR
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