The term "Renaissance" is from the same French word, meaning "rebirth." It comes from the Italian Rinascimento,  "Re" meaning "again" and "nascere"  meaning "be born." The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. Its influence affected literature, philosophy, art, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual enquiry.

German Stained glass, from the cloister of Mariawald Abbey, Saint Cornelius, about 1520 - 1521

As a cultural movement, the Renaissance period encompassed a rebellion of classical-based learning, the development of linear perspective in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform. Traditionally, this intellectual transformation has resulted in the Renaissance being viewed as a bridge between the Middle Ages and the Modern era. Although the Renaissance saw revolutions in many intellectual pursuits, as well as social and political upheaval, it is perhaps best known for its artistic developments and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance man".

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni                                                                                                   Leonardo da Vinci

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel ceiling                 

There is a general, but not unchallenged, consensus that the Renaissance began in Tuscany in the 14th century. Various theories have been proposed to account for its origins and characteristics, focusing on a variety of factors including the social and civic peculiarities of Florence at the time; its political structure; the patronage of its dominant family, the Medici; and the migration of Greek scholars and texts to Italy following the Fall of Constantinople at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.

Dome of Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, Italy

Humansim

Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism and human emotion in art. Humanism was not a philosophy per se, but rather a method of learning. In contrast to the medieval scholastic method, which focused on resolving contradictions between authors, humanists would study ancient texts in the original, typically written in Latin or ancient Greek, and appraise them through a combination of reasoning and empirical evidence. Scholars scoured Europe's monastic libraries, searching for works of classical antiquity which had fallen into obscurity. One such hunt by Poggio Bracciolini, who was credited with the discovery of the complete works of fifteen different authors, turned up Vitruvius' work on art and architecture, allowing for the completion of the Duomo of Florence by Filippo Brunelleschi. In such texts they found a desire to improve and perfect their worldly knowledge; an entirely different sentiment to the spirituality stressed by medieval Christianity. Humanist education was based on the study of poetry, grammar, ethics and rhetoric. Above all, humanists asserted "the genius of man; the unique and extraordinary ability of the human mind."   They did not reject Christianity; quite the contrary, many of the Renaissance's greatest works were devoted to it, and the Church patronized many works of Renaissance art. However, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life.

Title page of "Petrarch's Virgil" (c. 1336) Illuminated manuscript by Simone Martini

Raphael originally sketched this painting without the figure leaning on the block at the foot of the stairs towards the left.  As a tribute to his rival, Raphael added him to his final work. He is Michelangelo.

One of the distinguishing features of Renaissance art was its development of highly realistic linear perspective. Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337) is credited with first treating a painting as a window into space, but it was not until the demonstrations of architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and the later writings of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) that perspective was formalized as an artistic technique. The development of perspective was part of a wider trend towards realism in the arts. To that end, painters also developed other techniques, studying light, shadow, and, famously in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, human anatomy. Underlying these changes in artistic method was a renewed desire to depict the beauty of nature, and to unravel the axioms of aesthetics, with the works of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael representing artistic pinnacles that were to be much imitated by other artists. Other notable artists include Sandro Botticelli, working for the Medici in Florence, Donatello another Florentine and Titian in Venice.

Five Masters of the Florentine Renaissance, Louvre Museum, Paris, France
This 210cm x 42cm Wooden panel, much repainted, was originally thought to be by Paolo Uccello (1397 - 1475), but now the consensus is that it was painted a bit later. The consensus is also that the faces do not all match the names inscribed underneath them by some helpful soul some time after the painting was done. The true identities are thought to be (left to right) Antonio Manetti - Brunelleschi's biographer and mathematician friend of Uccello (artist and perspective freak), Donatello, Paolo Uccello himself, Tommaso Masaccio, and Filippo Brunelleschi.