Wars and sieges, epics and sonnets, priests and merchants, scholarship and magic: the Renaissance was an age of accelerating transformation, which saw the rise of vernacular literature, the birth of humanism, the advent of polyphonic music, the arrival of printing, new forms of weaponry and warfare, revolutions in trade and banking, the advent of political science, breathtaking artistic innovations, first applications of the scientific method, Europe’s first encounters with the New World, and a classical revival whose artistic and literary legacy transformed antiquity into a language of power recognized around the globe. Renaissance studies consider not only Europe and the Ottoman and Mediterranean worlds, but also the commercial, imperial, and missionary networks whose threads of cultural exchange stretched from Mexico to Japan.  Collectively our work examines society, art, literature, and the political, economic, and historical experiences of the centuries after the Black Death, through literary lights like Dante and Shakespeare, intellectual innovators like Luther and Descartes, powerful leaders like Lorenzo de Medici and Queen Elizabeth I, and infamous radicals like Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes.

The University of Chicago has more than thirty faculty who work on the Renaissance, spread across the Humanities, Social Sciences, Divinity School, and Law School. Together we offer a robust assortment of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as research opportunities, and mentoring for undergraduate and graduate students.