Transformations in Europe Vocabulary

List7TH GRADE SOCIAL STUDIES

Renaissance

The great period of rebirth in art, literature, and learning in the 14th-16th centuries, which marked the transition into the modern periods of European history

Enlightenment

Intellectual movement centered in France during the 18th century; argued for scientific advance, the application of scientific methods to study human society; believed that rational laws could describe social behavior.

Rene Descartes

French thinker who stressed logic and reason to achieve scientific knowledge

Feudalism

a political and social system that developed during the Middle Ages; nobles offered protection and land in return for service

Raphael

Italian Renaissance painter; he painted frescos, his most famous being The School of Athens.

Michelangelo

Italian artist who painted the ceiling of the Sistine chapel and the sculpture of David

Humanism

a renaissance intellectual movement in which thinkers studied classical texts and focused on human potential and achievements

Isaac Newton

Scientist who discovered laws of motion and gravity

Galileo Galilei

Italian astronomer, mathematician, and physicist. His telescopes proved the sun is the center of the solar system.

Johannes Gutenberg

German printer who was the first in Europe to print using movable type and the first to use a press (1400-1468)

Middle Ages

the period between the fall of the Roman Empire in the west (470) and the beginning of the European Renaissance in the 1400s. This period is also known as "Medieval."

Dante Alighieri

Italian poet and humanist; he was the author of the Divine Comedy, one of the greatest literary classics

Niccolo Machiavelli

Italian Renaissance writer, described government in the way it actually worked. He wrote The Prince.

Leonardo da Vinci

Italian Renaissance artist that painted The Last Supper and Mona Lisa, he was also an engineer, architect, sculptor, and scientist.

William Shakespeare

an English poet and playwright; HAMLET , HENRY V

Scientific Revolution

an era between 16th and 18th centuries when scientists began doing research in a new way using the scientific method