Define the Renaissance

"Renaissance" literally means "rebirth." It refers especially to the rebirth of learning that began in Italy in the fourteenth century, spread to the north, including England, by the sixteenth century, and ended in the north in the mid-seventeenth century (earlier in Italy). Yet the Renaissance was more than a "rebirth." It was also an age of new discoveries, both geographical (exploration of the New World) and intellectual. Both kinds of discovery resulted in changes of tremendous imports for Western civilizations. The Renaissance period is the period that happened after the dark ages, humans wanted to bring back things from  before this gloomy, bad middle age/dark age.