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Indulgences were slips of paper sold by the Catholic Church that simply absolved you of your sins in exchange for money. They were extremely successful but were rejected by many people, causing them to break away from the church.
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The inquisition was a church sponsored way to combat heretics. The inquisition played judge jury and executioner to the people they put on trial, people's trials often ended in wrongful torture and execution.
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Humanism is a theory that is obsessive over human form among other things. They appreciate how the human form has "perfect proportions" and look to improve humans as a whole. An example of this is the Vitruvian Man that Leonardo Da Vinci drew as an example of the human form.
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Perspective is a form of art practiced by many renaissance artists that included using lines to make a picture appear as if it had depth. It's used in the painting "The School of Athens" in order to make it appear as if you're looking into a room of scholars.
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The printing revolution was brought about by Gutenberg's invention of the printing press. It allowed the common man to have access to all sorts of books and scholarly papers, leading to an increased literacy rate among the population.
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Machiavelli was a well known diplomat and politician in his time. Nowadays however his is more widely regarded as being the writer of a famous political novel called The Prince.
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Lorenzo De' Medici was one of Italy's rulers during the renaissance. He encouraged the arts and invited many artists to his city of Florence. He sponsored many artists including Michelangelo and Botticelli.
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Leonardo Da Vinci was a true renaissance man. He had interests in everything from painting to architecture to anatomy. His most famous works include paintings such as "The Last Supper" and "The Mona Lisa." He also pioneered two painting techniques unique to him. He created both the Chiaroscuro and the sfumato, techniques that are still used today.
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Erasmus was an extremely intelligent scholar that is well know for many things. He wrote many books and was renowned for his work in theology. His most well known feat however, may be that he translated the entire new testament into vernacular and allowed many more people to read the bible.
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Johan Gutenberg was an inventor during the renaissance and he invented one of the most important machines ever, the printing press. This allowed people to become more literate and begin to educate themselves.
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Albrecht Durer is one of the most renowned and is widely considered as the best German painter of the renaissance. He was especially proficient at things such as portraits, self portraits, and engraving.
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Nicolaus Copernicus is the man credited with initially theorizing the heliocentric universe. However once the Catholic Church found about his ideas they outed him as a heretic and executed him.
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Michelangelo was one of the most revolutionary artists of his time. He excelled in all sorts of art including sculpting, painting, and engraving to name a few. Some his more famous works include the sistine chapel and the famous statue of david
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Martin Luther is one of the people who broke away from the catholic church and started the Protestant Reformation. His issues with the church were too much to bear so he made a list of 95 problems he had with the church. After the church tried to force him to recant these views Luther broke away and started his own religion, Lutheranism.
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Raphael was a Renaissance painter in Florence Italy until his death at the young age of 37. He was considered one of the three greatest painters of the Renaissance along with Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci.
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Thomas Cranmer was the Archbishop of The Church of England until his death at the hands of Queen Mary. Before his death he attempted to renounce his church in order to save his own life. However when he discovered renouncing his faith would not change his fate he took back his renunciation.
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Henry VIII was a ruler of England for quite some time. When he wanted to get a divorce and the Catholic church would not let him he started his own church where he could get a divorce. After doing this he executed the majority of Catholics in the country but this order was undone by his daughter Mary.
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Following in the footsteps of Martin Luther John Calvin also voices his discrepancies with the church and gets called a heretic. He breaks away from the church and starts his own church based on the idea that your ability to be salvaged is decided before you are born.
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Elizabeth I was the 2nd child of Henry VIII and one of England's longest ruling monarchs. She is known for creating peace between her father's church The Church of England and her sister's Catholic church. She was never married and died at the age of 70.
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The heliocentric theory was brought about by Nicolaus Copernicus who disagreed with the popular theory of the time that the sun rotated around the earth. As more and more scientists began to agree with him the public slowly began to agree with the heliocentric theory.
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The Council of Trent was a meeting called by Pope Paul III to address corruption in the Catholic Church. The Council addressed indulgences, false preaching, and other various acts of corruption. By the conclusion of the council the catholic church had been reworked and was now much better.
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Galileo is credited with being one of the creators of what is known as the scientific method. He also did extensive work in astronomy and other sciences. After being called a heretic by the catholic church he renounced his findings but continued to do work in private.
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Shakespeare is one of the best playwrights of all time. As a household name even now many of his works have stood the test of time. Some works contributed to him are Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth.
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The scientific method is used as a way to test theories that people may have. It was partially created by Galileo and it has continued to be improved ever since.
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Issac Newton is famous for creating many scientific theories. These include the theory of gravity which was famously thought of when Newton was hit with a falling apple.
