The Renaissance was a time all over the world for rebirth. At the end of the Middle Ages, new things were beginning to take place. William Shakespeare began to write new plays that would forever change the world of theater. Leonardo Da Vinci, hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the time, painted the Mona Lisa, still one of the most famous paintings of all time. Changes in education began to take place, and upper class men were expected to be well rounded in subjects of art, writing, and mathematics. The most important invention of the Renaissance, however, was the printing press, which allowed many copies of one document to be printed. Despite all of these revolutions in culture, some people argue that the Renaissance did little for society. After all, governments remained undemocratic, there were still shortages of vital supplies for a lot of people, and the Church remained dominant over people's lives. Because of the social climate being disciplined, there were no major wars or social unrest during the Renaissance, which left people free to focus on other important things, such as humanity, individual thinking, and art. I think that the Renaissance was the most important time of change in the history of the modern world; the influence of many different artists and thinkers had an extremely important lasting impression on the world, and the world today would not be the same if the Renaissance had never happened. .
Individuality and humanism were many of the new philosophical ways of thinking during the Renaissance. A large amount of literature emerged from people who recognized their uniqueness. Italians who were smarter than their neighbors suddenly did not try to hide that fact. They had a great sense of confidence in what they believed in, and were unafraid to stand out. A desire for success drove many people to become individual thinkers, because they no longer felt restrained by the confines of the Middle Ages.