The Renaissance began in Italy in the mid–fourteenth century as a revolution in artistic, philosophical, and scientific thought, and quickly spread throughout southern Europe. It took another hundred years and the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century to push it into more conservative northern Europe, where it took on a decidedly more religious interpretation, giving birth to Protestantism and changing forever the structure of world politics. Though the beginning and end of the Renaissance cannot be dated exactly, most scholars agree that the greatest achievements of the age fall between 1350 and 1600.

Although this era began in Italy, the term renaissance comes from a French word meaning "rebirth." What was reborn during this time was an appreciation for the ideals presented in the classical literature of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Much of their ancient wisdom and scholarship...