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[[File:Valla 2.jpg|thumbnail|310px|left|Martin Luther]]
Did the Renaissance lead the Protestant Reformation? Without the Renaissance, it is difficult to imagine that the Protestant Reformation could have succeeded in Europe. The Renaissance had placed human beings at the center of life and had shown that this world was not just a ‘vale of tears’ but was something that could be meaningful and it was possible for people to live without reference to the divine.<ref>Giustiniani, Vito. "Ho mo, Humanus, and the Meanings of Humanism", <i>Journal of the History of Ideas 46 </i> (vol. 2, April – June 1985), p 178</ref> The Renaissance or ‘rebirth’ was influenced by the ideas of the ancient past and it drew from Roman and Greek civilization in order to provide a solution to current problems.
The Renaissance was a Pan-European phenomenon and changed the mental worldview of the elites in Europe and indeed the emerging middle class across the continent. The cultural movement was to have a profound impression on people’s worldview. The Renaissance produced the Humanists who were a movement of educationalists and scholars; they sought truth and knowledge by re-examining classical texts and the bible. The Humanists ideas, the growth in textual analysis, and the Northern Renaissance changed the intellectual landscape and encouraged many Church reformers, such as Martin Luther, and they later broke with Rome and divided Europe into two confessional camps, Protestantism and Catholicism.
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Updated January 1228, 2019.
