European culture, architecture and literature

From the 11th century stone came into wide use in building in western Europe, and the first stone churches and monasteries were put up. The Romanesque style held sway from the 10th to the 12th–13th centuries: the building looks like a fortress, windows and vaults are decorated with semicircular arches, and elements of ancient Roman architecture are used. Gothic was born in northern France in the mid-12th century and reached its peak in the first half of the 13th: buildings are tall with pointed vaults and towers; famous examples include Notre-Dame of Paris and the cathedrals of Rouen, Reims, Chartres and Milan. Sculpture was closely tied to architecture; church walls were decorated with statues of saints and kings, and themes were mostly religious. In Gothic churches stained glass, pictures made of coloured glass, replaced plain panes in windows, while manuscripts were decorated with miniatures. Leaders of the new culture considered the study of man and his creative gifts their main task, so they were called humanists; the word “Renaissance” (French for “rebirth”) points to this culture’s link with antiquity. Florence, enriched by trade, and Venice, where book printing flourished, became centres of the Renaissance. The first figure of early humanism was the poet Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374); the work of his friend Boccaccio and of Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406) closed the period of early humanism in Italy.