Age of Discovery
One of the most important technological development of the Renaissance was the invention of the caravel. This combination of European and Niger ship building technologies for the first time made extensive trade and travel over the Atlantic feasible. While first introduced by the Italian states, and the early captains, such as Giovanni Caboto, who were Italian, the development would end Northern Italy’s role as the trade crossroads of Europe, shifting wealth and power westards to Spain, Portugal, England, and the Netherlands. These states all began to conduct extensive trade with Africa and Asia, and in the Americas began extensive colonisation activities. This period of exploration and expansion has become known as the Age of Discovery. Eventually European power spread around the globe.
Read more about this topic: Northern Renaissance
Famous quotes containing the words age of, age and/or discovery:
“If we ever feel discouraged by the apparent constraints on humanity, about its lack of elbowroom and freedom of action, we should think of the Jews and the Greeks, insignificant, powerless, and tiny in the age of the dinosaur empires, yet providing the growing points for the next stage in human destiny.”
—Barbara Ward (1914–1981)
“Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)