Martin Parpirowski’s The Renaissance – the Age of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci examines how a group of artists and scholars from the mid-16^th century applied knowledge gained over millenniums to create colossal projects such as the Saint Peter’s Basilica. This period, which is known as the Renaissance, transformed Europe from an ideological backwater restrained by religion to the most advanced continent in the world.

One of the most notable aspects I learned about the Renaissance from the documentary was that a change in the way people perceived themselves was instrumental to the leap. Christoph Markschies, a Church historian, notes that during this period, the image of man transformed. Pope Innocent III, who had represented the old order, described man as a rotten and contemptible creature that was made of slime. He alleged that this appearance was proof of man’s sinful nature. However, this pessimistic medieval perception ended during the Renaissance. The trailblazers of the time adopted a positivist approach of man, viewing him as God’s creation endowed with reason and resources to innovate. This sudden transformation in the view of man coincided with an explosion of art that depicted him as God-like. Michelangelo Buonarroti, the most prominent artist of the time, typified this ideological shift with his five-meter masterpiece, David. In my view, the rejection of the deeply-entrenched negative view of man liberated artists from the old order and encouraged them to pursue God-like perfection.

The documentary also demonstrates that migration was crucial to the Renaissance. Earlier, the collapsed Roman Empire had been the custodian of ancient knowledge, which explains why they had built structures such as the Roman Temple. However, the empire was built on the subjugation of millions of people all over ancient Europe. Its strong army was able to crush rebellions and maintain people’s allegiance to the Roman Empire. However, when it fell, barbarians plundered Rome. A retreating Constantine established a new capital at Constantinople, effectively dividing the empire into two. The Byzantine Empire, which was located in the East, retained its ancient knowledge. In contrast, the one in the east was plundered and descended into the dark ages. When Constantinople fell during the Fourth Crusade, scholars and artists fled to the east, bringing with them ancient knowledge that had been lost for centuries. After centuries of oblivion, Science was discussed again, creating a knowledge revival that led to the Renaissance. One can draw parallels between Byzantine scholars’ migration to Rome with that of people’s emigration to the US. Like Rome, the US has benefited from the expertise of people who move there seeking a better life. In fact, symbols of American prosperity such as Wall Street and Silicon Valley owe their largesse to immigrants from Europe, Africa, and Asia.

The documentary also exposes the role that war played in advancing the Renaissance. Based on my observations of recent conflicts, I have always thought of war as a detriment to innovation. Indeed, countries such as Iraq, Libya, and Somalia, which have been in war for a long time, have experienced a fast decline. However, this was not the case in Italy. Even though Italian city-states declared war on each other, the demand for art and other innovations persisted because military contractors mobilized huge sums of money that they later allocated to artists. There were also massive innovations in weaponry. For example, Leonardo da Vinci, the most famous Renaissance man, designed weapons for the ruler of Milan.

Finally, I was enthralled by the documentary’s connection between time and Swiss banking. Previously, I had always perceived banking as a uniquely Jewish practice that was passed on to Christians. However, according to the narrator, this was not the case. Notably, the invention of the timepiece enabled merchants to connect the concepts of time and value of money. Anyone who could create time and money created value and charge a fee from the effort. While individuals such as Martin Luther opposed this idea, John Calvin, a Swiss reformer, supported it by stating that people’s economic success could determine whether they went to heaven or hell. This supposition spurred merchants in Switzerland who made loans and changed money, effectively creating the renowned Swiss banking system.

Martin Parpirowski’s The Renaissance – the Age of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinciis a highly informative documentary. It depicts the Renaissance as fascinating not only for the innovations it spurned but also the type of minds it brought forth. The talents of individuals such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci are so rare that no other revival of knowledge could produce them. In my view, as much as knowledge prompted Renaissance men to innovate, the philosophies of influential religious reformists were also central to their efforts. The Renaissance was a revival of old information and convergence of different viewpoints, sometimes from as far as modern Eat Asia. Innovations such as the Arabic numbers, which became central to mathematics, science, and architecture, were originally from India but had found their way to Byzantine. Crucially, the open discussion that characterized that era was as important as the knowledge that Byzantine scholars and artists brought to Italy when Constantinople fell.