Terms and Concepts to Remember about the
Renaissance and Reformation (15th and 16th Centuries CE)
See Sophie's World, pages 188-215


  • Separation of Science and Philosophy from the Church
  • Renaissance (What does the term mean?)
  • Incunabulum
  • Three discoveries/inventions that were preconditions for the Renaissance
  • The Renaissance's new view of mankind
  • Renaissance humanism (distinguish from classical humanism)
  • The new Renaissance view of nature
  • Pantheism
  • Giordano Bruno
  • Antihumanism
  • The Empirical Method
  • Galileo Galilei
  • Francis Bacon
  • The Geocentric World View
  • The Heliocentric World View
  • Johannes Kepler
  • Galileo's Law of Inertia
  • Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
  • Law of Universal Gravitation
  • The Reformation
  • Martin Luther
  • Erasmus of Rotterdam