Individualism In The Italian Renaissance

The renaissance, a time period of intellectual rebirth from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century changed many aspect of European life. Politically, new ideas about how a ruler should run his country were taking effect, while how a person gained his political power and or class stayed the same. Socially, while new beliefs such as individualism and an expectation of higher education for the higher class increased, women's inferiority and the peasant life remained the same. Religiously, a person’s role in their own faith such as reading the Bible increased and belief in secularism grew, while the church’s role in a person’s life remained the same. Thus, new political ideas, increase in a person’s individuality, and a higher role that a person

During the Italian Renaissance a new idea of individualism emerged. Individualism was the idea that humans could achieve things themselves and that they don't always have to be reliant on the church, but can accomplish something on their own. This allows a person to focus on achieving something on their own and create things like sculptures and paintings which convey the idea of individualism. Italian Renaissance humanism also brought on the idea of how a person should behave in order to be respected. In Castiglione’s The Courtier, he writes about how someone in the noble class should dress and act in order to gain respect. Woman's role continue to be the same. They were inferior and were expected to stay at home and do all the household chores. The peasant life also stayed the same. Although new ideas spread and many of the high class were very educated the peasants still were not that educated and were still at the bottom of the social hierarchy. They were also heavily taxed which kept them from earning a lot of money and free

Humanist believed that a person should at least read the Bible and gain some understanding without out the church’s interpretation. This allowed a person to gain their own knowledge and strengthen their own faith.The creation of the printing press allowed the spread of the Bible throughout Europe and made vernacular bibles available for everyone. Secularism also changed the way people thought. Secularism allowed people to focus on ideas that are separate from religion. Before a person was supposed to only be thinking about religion and how to get into heaven, but after the Italian Renaissance people started being able to focus on other ideas separate from the church. The role that religion played in a person’s life remained the same. People's main focus was still their religion and they still had very strong beliefs and a strong bond with their