The Church was the only institution powerful enough to be able to support the commissions of all of the artwork, and it was the only institution, in which people had enough faith and devotion to spend so much of their time and money creating pieces that—although beautiful—were not necessities.

The Roman Catholic Church also began to lose its power as church officials bickered. At one point there were even two popes at the same time, each one claiming to be the true Pope. During the Renaissance, men began to challenge some of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church….

It seems Christian art is never without a nod to classicism, but where early Christians utilized Roman religious symbols, Renaissance Christians embraced both the art and philosophy of the ancients. And thus, art and religion began to modernize together under the veil of Christian Humanism.

Italian Politics. Italian politics during the time of the Renaissance was dominated by the rising merchant class, especially one family, the House of Medici, whose power in Florence was nearly absolute.

The Renaissance style deliberately eschewed the complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of Gothic structures. Instead, Renaissance architects placed emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry, and regularity of parts as demonstrated in classical Roman architecture.

The Renaissance was heavily influenced by Christianity in its art and philosophy, but the political writings of the Renaissance were much more influenced by secularism.

The main religion of Renaissance Europe was Christianity and the main church was the Catholic Church. However, there were new ideas during this time including a new Christian church called Protestantism and a new philosophy called Humanism.

The new architectural philosophy of the Renaissance is best demonstrated in the churches of San Lorenzo, and Santo Spirito in Florence. Designed by Brunelleschi in about 1425 and 1428 respectively, both have the shape of the Latin cross.

During the Renaissance, people increasingly began to see the world from a human-centered perspective. This had a powerful impact upon religion. Increasingly, people were paying more attention to this life rather than the afterlife. Eventually, humanism brought about a spirit of skepticism.

Unlike Gothic ceilings, Renaissance ceilings are somewhat flat and painted with images. The Renaissance indeed made waves throughout the architectural world with the revival of styles from the classical antiquity period. But it was not without development. A few centuries later, a whole new movement would rise.

Churches from the 1 st through the 3 rd centuries took classical Greek and Roman architecture in its most flourished form as its main influence. Classical architecture had at this time reached its height after developing for thousands of years.

One way that the Renaissance impacted Christianity was that it increased curiosity about early church writings in Greek. In the medieval period, the emphasis was on Scholasticism. In the study of Scholastic theology, students studied commentaries on the Scriptures.

The most representative architect of Italian Renaissance Architecture is Bramante (1444–1514), who developed the applicability of classical architectural elements to contemporary buildings, a style that was to dominate Italian architecture in the 16th century.