I would love to explore the Renaissance period mainly because of the ideals involved. The Renaissance movement stretched from 1300-1600, in Europe. It was a period that was marked by creativity especially from the most famous artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Arguably, no other period has produced a large number of famous artists than the Renaissance did. The difference between the Renaissance and other periods is that key people of the Renaissance movement were guided by philosophy while other periods did not believe in any philosophy.
One of the people that inspired the movement and still inspires many people today was Lorenzo, a wealthy businessman and founder of the Medici Bank. Lorenzo was wealthy by the Renaissance standards, but instead of amassing and keeping the wealth to himself, he decided to support artists and intellectuals. Reportedly, his grandfather began to collect lost and antique books. It was an exceptional act because in the contemporary world, people are more interested in popularity than investing in social ideas. With the spread of capitalism, everyone in the present world is trying to acquire as much wealth as possible. There are so many great intellectuals whose ideas do not make so much sense to wealthy people. Besides, there seems to be competition among wealthy people in terms of wealth and not investment in social welfare. Lists have even been created to rank the wealthiest people in the world in the order of their wealth.
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One crucial thing I learnt about the Renaissance movement is that prosperity requires a plan. Prosperity is this context is dynamic. It refers to social development and not material wealth. The philosopher Ficino, the artist Michelangelo and the businessman Lorenzo believed in the philosophy of order. They wanted the cities to serve both the wealthy and ordinary people. They believed that if the cities were organized, there would be no need for the rich people to develop their own residential estates. Such a vision fostered cohesion among the poor and the rich. Consequently, there was no wide gap between the two economic classes. Perhaps that explains why there is some equality among people in Europe. Some of the early cities such as Saint Florence and Venice in Italy were built using the philosophy of order. Currently, most of the Italian cities are a manifestation of this philosophy.
By contrast, most modern cities and buildings are not built on any philosophy. The situation is even worse in developing countries. People who have money are allowed to influence the system to construct buildings anywhere. As a result, poor people live in substandard residential areas while the few rich experience all the opulence. People earning low wages often live in overcrowded areas, which usually have high crime rates, and chaos. Also by comparison, the present world has high inequality rates than during the Renaissance. Urban centers now have huge traffic congestions because the rich want to use private transport leaving public transport to the poor.
In conclusion, the philosophy used during the Renaissance period presents a lot of valuable lessons to the modern world. Inequality is too high because no one wants to invest in ideas that achieve the common good. People are too obsessed with making money and amassing wealth to themselves that they no longer care about restoring order in the society. The result is that urban centers are now very chaotic, with informal settlements, and congestion. Beauty and aesthetics is now not a big deal. However, if we want to restore order and human dignity, we need to believe in a philosophy and invest in it.
References
The School of Life. (2015). History of Ideas . The Renaissance . (2018). YouTube . Retrieved 9 December 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI1OeMmwYjU
