Month: April 2022

To renaissance or not to renaissance

NOT!

So basically we studied the renaissance but I wasn’t there for most of it as I went on holiday to England to visit my Dad. Whoop Whoop. In case you didn’t know my mum and I live in Canada and my dad lives in England. So I thought I’d write a blog combining the renaissance and my trip! So you can see all my great holiday snaps!

This is a picture I took of Shakespeare which was graffitied on a wall near the New Globe theatre on the South Bank in London. Shakespeare was swag during the renaissance and wrote a ton of plays which Queen Elizabeth the 1st liked. He also invented the word ‘Swag’.

Did you know he built the Old Globe Theatre which was actually not in the same place as the New Globe – the New Globe is a replica of the one Shakespeare built in Shoreditch (which is like 10 minutes away in the car).

This is Tower Bridge, it was built after the battle of Hastings in 1066 – it was built before the renaissance. There are a few buildings in London that were built in the renaissance that are still standing one in Greenwich, one in Westminster and St Paul’s church in Covent Garden.

This is Stonehenge it was built waaaaaayyyyyy before the renaissance.

This is me and my best friend Raph in the arcade – arcades didn’t exist in the renaissance – they had fun by going to plays, betting on bear and dog fights and reading things printed with the newly invented printing press and painting ceilings in chapels. I think arcades are way less cruel and safer.

This is my Grandma – she assures me she was not around during the renaissance – I have my doubts!

This is me riding the pirate ship at Chessington World of Adventure – pirate ships did exist in the renaissance – the Spanish Armada came in ships like this to attack the coast of the UK but failed.

This is me at the theatre watching Les Miserables – its set in the French Revolution which happened not long after the renaissance in the 1700s in France. It was sad and poggers. Most people cried but I bled ( giant nose bleed 5 minutes before the end!)

This is me having tea with the Queen – She is Elizabeth II, her name sake Elizabeth I was queen during the renaissance. This is me with Raph’s Grandad – he wants to cut my hair – he was definitely alive during the renaissance!! (Joke I love Raph’s grandad). If you ever figure out how to get onto the internet then HI!!

This is me and my friend Raph – we are stupid – a bit like the fools who entertained the royal court in the renaissance but way cooler.

Anyway thats the highlights of my holiday….

So I did do a bit of work too –

I learned that the renaissance was full of change but also cruelty. Religious figures were very powerful but often corrupt. I learnt there were some cool inventions like parachutes and the printing press and that’s when Shakespeare did his thing in London and Stratford upon Avon. I also learnt about medical progress and wrote this paragraph and made the tryptic.

Renaissance Medicine

In this paragraph I will discus how research into medicine during the renaissance shaped modern medicine as we know it. During the renaissance, several people made a significant impact with their work on medical studies and anatomy research but few brought about change in their own lifetimes. Between 1400-1600AD medical research was untaken in a way that had not been seen before. Through the recording of dissections of cadavers, people like Leonardo DaVinci, Vesalius, William Harvey and Ambrose Pare made many discoveries that would have significant impacts beyond their lifetimes.  

Without the research undertaken by these, scholars and physicians much of modern medicine would not have been possible, they paved the way to a greater understanding of human anatomy and offered insightful ideas that were later developed by other doctors to build the phenomenal medical knowledge we see today.

In the early renaissance several scholars including Linacre, Erasmus, Leonicello and Sylvia’s began scholarly discussions about human anatomy which opened the door to the creation of the London college of Physicians in 1518. However, it wasn’t until the mid renaissance that significant long term works were produced. In 1543 Vesalius used the newly invented printing press to publish a work called a “Human Factory,” which detailed human anatomy on a new level and described surgical procedures undertaken on dead bodies. Ambrose Pare, a French field surgeon, used first hand experiences during the war to introduce the concept of forensic pathology and William Harvey at the later end of the period discovered general circulation and made significant contributions to the understanding of cardiovascular anatomy. Leonardo DaVinci also documented over 200 pages of anatomy.  

As a result of this research many medical advances were possible, surgical techniques were developed, doctors had a greater understanding of elements within the body, the door to further medical research had been opened. Paracelsus discovered chemical and mineral balance within the blood and in the late 1600s bacteria was looked at under a microscope for the first time, leading to vaccination. The revolutionary thinking and discoveries of the renaissance began the snowball of discoveries that are the basis for modern medicine.