Urban Culture and the Economy During the Renaissance

This opened the world to a number of different types of authors - those writing travel books, almanacs, romance novels, poetry, drama, music, texts, etc. As this new concept caught on, the book trade began to flourish as did papermaking. All of this resulted in a more literate and better educated population and, in time, a stronger economy. Until this time, education came from the teachings of the church, and people had concerned themselves with actions only leading to "heavenly rewards." Ancient Greek and Roman writings had been almost completely ignored before the printing press was invented. Because of the printing press, documents that had been ignored for many years were again picked up, researched, translated, reprinted, and revised. This brought out a lot of information from the ancient times in many areas. Most of the writings emphasized man, his intellect, and his life on Earth. This became the humanist philosophy.…