| A | B |
|---|
| Lorenzo de Medici | art patron and Renaissance ideal, clever politician who held Florence together in the 1400s |
| Francesco Petrarct | Florentine and early Renaissance humanist who wrote Sonnets to Laura |
| Leonardo da Vinci | Renaissance artist and inventor, known for Mona Lisa and The Last Supper |
| Michelangelo | Renaissance sculptor, engineer, painter, architect, and poet, known for sculptures of Pieta and David |
| Raphael | master Renaissance painter known for The School of Athens |
| Baldassare Castiglione | author of The Book of the Courtier, defined the Renaissance Man |
| Niccolo Machiavelli | diplomat and author of The Prince, a guidebook for rulers on how to gain and maintain power |
| Albrecht Durer | the "German Leonardo" known for his engravings of religious subjects |
| Jan van Eyck | Flemish painter known for realistic portrayals of townspeople and religious scenes |
| Francois Rabelais | French humanist, monk, physician, Greek scholar and author of Gargantua and Pantagruel |
| William Shakespeare | English poet and playwright, known for Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Richard III |
| Miguel de Cervantes | Spanish author of Don Quixote, an adventure tale that mocked traditional ideas of chivalry |
| Johann Gutenberg | developed the printing press and printed a complete edition of the Bible using movable type |
| Protestant Reformation | religious movement calling for reform in the Catholic Church that led to a division in the Christian church |
| Martin Luther | German monk whose protests against the abuses of the Catholic Church began the Protestant Reformation |
| Peace of Augsburg | signed in 1555, this agreement ended religious wars between the Holy Roman Empire and the Lutheran princes, allowed each prince to decide the religion of his land |
| John Calvin | French priest and lawyer who published his religious beliefs in the Institutes of Christian Religion which included the belief in predestination |
| Huguenot | French protestants |
| John Knox | Calvinist preacher who led a rebellion in Scotland |
| Henry VIII | British king who separated from the Catholic Church in order to annul his marriage and take a new wife |
| Elizabeth I | English queen who ruled from 1554-1603, adopted The Book of Common Prayer for the English church, and established a series of reforms |
| Council of Trent | called by the Pope in 1545 to help reform the Catholic Church, which reaffirmed traditional Catholic views |
| Inquisition | a Church court set up during the Middle Ages which used secret testimony, torture and execution to root out heresy |
| Jesuits | religious order founded by Ignatius of Loyola to spread the Catholic faith |
| Teresa of Avila | Spanish nun who worked to reorganize and reform convents and monasteries throughout Spain |
| Nicolas Copernicus | scientist who proposed the heliocentric theory |
| Johannes Kepler | German astronomer and mathematician who calculated the orbits of the planets revolving around the sun |
| Galileo Galilei | Italian astronomer who assembled a telescope and proved that the Earth moved around the sun, causing major division in the Catholic Church |
| Francis Bacon | Englishman who stressed experimentation and observation to gain knowledge |
| Rene Descartes | Frenchman who emphasized human reasoning as the best road to understanding, published Discourse on Method |
| Isaac Newton | English scientist who explained the theory of gravity and developed laws of motions and mechanics |
| Robert Boyle | Chemist who distinguished between individual elements and chemical compounds; he also explained the effect of temperature and pressure on gases |
