Although the Renaissance demonstrated some technical advance, the main advance was in the arts-which chiefly dealt with religion. The Renaissance was about the rediscovery of ancient literature and ideas.

The Great Instauration which occurred at the end of the Renaissance affected new learning far more. This was a time of European Exploration, the Spanish conquest of the Americas, the Portuguese voyages to the Far East. Spices became widely known, finance developed, trade burst out, and the first stock exchange was founded in the Netherlands. The new plants were vigorously studied, new animals and ideas from around the world argued over.

So the beginning of of European science was a renewed spurt of globalisation as the result of flora and fauna, ideas, etc flooding into Northern Europe, Spain and Portugal from other p

Thanks for Stanley Wilkin's comments!

To me the great advances were in military technology. The widespread adoption and improvement of gunpowder weapons was something that couldn't be ignored by the rest of the world. Yes other cultures had such things but the advances in European weaponry during the Renaissance were a sea change. The developments in both personal firearms technology and artillery produced changes in part to social structures. Although arguably these changes may have contributed more to oppressing than emancipating humanity.

The new military technology enabled the rapid training and equipping of large armies that central states also found easier to control than they had previously. The reason being that you only needed to arm the peasantry at need and could keep the arms under lock and key at other times. This is shown by the difference between the musket and the long bow. I can teach someone to use a bow in 10 minutes and 30 minutes for the musket, at least well enough to fight on the battlefield. The difference is that the musket can then be locked away until re-issued, the archer must take the bow home and practice with it in order to build up the strength to use a militarily useful bow, therefore the gunman can be disarmed the archer cannot. The result large numbers available for military service but not rebellion.

The other big advance is in naval technology, the galleons of the 16th century were more advanced both in terms of weaponry and sea faring ability than anything that had gone before.

I would contend that the religious reforms were more due to them appearing at the time of improved military efficiency rather than a feature of anything new, Christianity was splitting when the new tech appeared. If such tech had appeared in the 12th century I doubt we would see the same religious reforms.

As to what drives new tech since the Renaissance, probably the same as drove it at that time-the need to compete militarily or commercially with rivals, either by closing the gap our acquiring such a gap.

some of these articles might help you to find an answer:

Chapter The History of Science and the Globalization of Knowledge

نعم حققت طفرة نوعية وكمية في الدراسات الإنسانية والعلمية

I think the main issue and result of the Renaissence is the deep transfomation from an ancient to a new kind of complexity, physical and mental. According to this, everyone had to change, sometimes dramatically: new worlds, new words, new objectives, that Arts show us.

I quess there must be a changing by knowledges, such as in navigation, in science, and in handicraft production, just these changings introduced the first industrial-revolution, then requirments for industrial-revolution advanced conversely the developing of science and technology.

I think it is a part of anachronism in the fact of regarding Renaissance as emancipations from God, one culturaal trend most verifiable in posterior centuries. In another hand, protestant reform was a alternative way of religions, non one atheism. The humanists and artits were often religious men, working for religious monuments. "Prius hoc non est propter hoc". One fact of past is not always one cause of futur.

I think also that is exagerated to see a revolution scientific and technological between Low Middle Ages and Renaissance. For exemple, most of inventions of Da Vinci were chimerical, the medieval Copernic inspirated Galileo, etc. The experimental or empiric method is developated later, in the Britain of XVIII s. The medieval technology of navigation permitted Portuguese to arrive at India a the Spanish in America.

There is a lot of books about this problem, but I suggest an old classic: "Du monde de l'"à-peu-près" à l'univers de la precision", by Alexandre Koyré

Yale medievalist Robert Sabatino Lopez believed that the Renaissance was not a great advancer of technology; it was the earlier Middle ages that made more innovations.

ارتفعت القيم الإنسانية كردة فعل على عصر الظلام

In matter of technology, one change was the diffusion of powder in war, that favourishes the infantry with guns against the chivalry armored, reserved to the aristocracy, because its cost.However, it not was the end of aristocracy but perhaps a factor of weaknessing, In Hispanic crown, the aristocrats of middle or low condition becomed officers of infantry ("Tercios"). In the Navy, in opposite, the officers remained aristocratics of high degree.

Next step: Emancipation of Humanity from Humanity

Renaissance in Western Europe was a new knowledge brought mainly to Florence by refugees scholars who left Constantinople after its fall to the Turks (1453 AD). Greece was part of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire).

The Greco-Roman civilization peddled by Byzantine scholars found a virgin ground in Europe for the propagation of science in all its aspects and helped create humanism. The books were translated from Greek into Latin, and what really helped was the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg (1439). From the manuscript (rare and expensive), the book became a mass communication. Major events took place at the end of the 15th century. Christopher Columbus brings with him from America items unknown in Europe (potato, tomato, corn, cacao etc ...) that had to learn to grow and consume ( 1492). And the Reconquista in Spain (1492).

All these novelties found people thirsting for science and commerce.

Yes some medieval writers have pleaded for the Middle Ages in Europe. They think that this period was not, as many think, a dark age. Early in the Middle Ages technical innovations were invented. As mentioned by Mr. Serverat gunpowder, vertical windmills, building techniques etc… But this is too little for such a long period of time and for such a large European population. We must admit the lack of education in the large portion of this population.

Is education needed to create inventions? How quickly did new world plants proliferate in Europe? Which people, exactly, were "thirsting for science and commerce?"

Since te reform of universities at XIX, science and inventions were conceived a side the academic world, in academies, etc. One exception perhaps for Medicine studied in faculties specializated, oppositing to Middle Ages where Medicine was a branch of so named Artes, now Philosophy. I ignore the existence of technical schools for the inventions, excepted nautic schools.

For the technicals matters, the dominan system was the practice, more than lessons, inside a gremial system, with three degrees: aprenent, worker or official, master

The meaning of Commerce is not only buying and selling. Commerce has also another meaning: social intercourse, the dealings of one person or class in society with another.

Education is not only going to school or getting a diploma.

Education can be defined as “a process of acquiring knowledge through study or imparting the knowledge by way of instructions or some other practical procedure”.

A stonemason may have acquired his trade for years. He becomes a master stonemason.

I don’t think serfs of Middle ages invented the gothic architecture or the gun powder. However they may have invented the wheelbarrow or improved the agricultural techniques.

نعم انه عصر جديد تطورت فيه الصناعه والعلاقات الدوليه

Dear all,

The freedom of thinking and imagination.

Preprint INTELLECT MODELING KIT. ELECTRONIC KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM ON RENAI...

Konstantin M. Golubev