The 15th century is commonly thought of as a time of rebirth and rediscovery. The Renaissance was a time of drastic changes of faith in the Church and religion, to the faith in human thinking and ideas, along the lines of science, logic, and reason. It allowed for a new faith in human nature and of what the human mind was capable, both in terms of intelligence and creativity. Two historical icons that had a great affect during the 15th century were Michelangelo and the cynical Machiavelli. .
Michelangelo lived in Florence, which at the time, was the flowering city of the Renaissance. This meant there was a strong influence of humanism in the city, which influenced Michelangelo and captured his thoughts. His artwork consisted of paintings and sculptures that showed humanity in its natural state: nakedness. Michelangelo portrayed life as it is. The most puzzling thing about Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling design is the great number of nude figures that he included in his gigantic fresco. His ideas and thoughts for this fresco were images depicted from the Bible. I think the fresco represents Michelangelo's concept of the human potential for perfection. .
Michelangelo worked on the Last Judgment for the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. The largest fresco of the Renaissance, it depicts Judgment Day. Christ, with a clap of thunder, puts into motion the inevitable separation, with the saved ascending on the left side of the painting, and the damned descending on the right into hell. As was his custom, Michelangelo portrayed all the figures nude.
Not only did the Renaissance produce artistic talent, but also produced a new breed of thinkers into society. These new thinkers were called humanists, and they .
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revived the old works of Greek and Roman philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. Among these humanists was Machiavelli. Machiavelli was a controversial humanist writer whose realistic views of politics and leadership have set him apart from other Renaissance humanists.
