For the history of the centuries that have passed since the birth of Christ nowhere reveals conditions like those of the present. There has never been such building and planting in the world. There has never been such gluttonous and varied eating and drinking as now. Wearing apparel has reached its limit in costliness. Who has ever heard of such commerce as now encircles the earth? There have arisen all kinds of art and sculpture, embroidery and engraving, the like of which has not been seen during the whole Christian era. In addition men are so delving into the mysteries of things that today a boy of twenty knows more than twenty doctors formerly knew.
Martin Luther
The Rennaissance was truly an exponential explosion in all aspects of Human Endeavour.
You’re right. But apparently not everyone perceived it as an unalloyed good. I’m reminded of the cuckoo clock speech in the “Third Man.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cydkTy6GmFA
Well, we got Michaelangelo and DaVinci, but we also got the Borgias and the Tudors.
That’s right. Martin Luther would have preferred doing without all four of those examples and keeping the cuckoo clock. Harry Lime would have voted to skip the clock and take all of the rest. I wonder what I would choose?