Renaissance v the Middle Ages

By Mal Chenu

Our journey begins in the Florence of the Medicis. About 600 years ago, a few smart Florentine cookies decided that a millennium of being enduringly stupid and wallowing in their own filth was long enough. They discarded destructive doctrinal dictates, channelled the learned philosophies of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and started thinking and creating for themselves.

The idea caught on and pretty soon artists, writers, musicians, architects and scientists all over Europe were also thinking and creating. And thus the Renaissance was - literally - born. Michelangelo, da Vinci and Titian painted and sculpted with detail, depth, proportion and emotion. Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo worked out the universe. Gutenberg invented the printing press. Universities, galleries and museums rose from the ashes of ignorance.

A few younger readers may be surprised to learn there was more to this era than colonialism and white supremacy, but anyone interested in humanity should explore the genius of this age of enlightenment. Which is where we return to Florence. Wander the piazzas and you'll gain a reverence for creativity and design excellence. And that's even before you explore the galleries. At the top of the Renaissance-era stairs in the Uffizi Gallery, frescoed ceilings are just the curtain raiser to the works of the big names - Michelangelo, Raphael, da Vinci, and a room full of Botticellis, including his immortal Birth of Venus.

Stroll down the road to the Accademia Galleries and find the world's most famous sculpture, Michelangelo's David and the Grand Ducal collection of 40 nascent musical instruments from the Medicean Court. For more Mike and Raph, see the Vatican Museums in Rome. Staring up at The Creation of Adam is an affecting experience. In Paris, there's the Louvre (the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and 35,000 other bits 'n pieces) and the Musée des Beaux Arts with its collection of Renaissance-era objets d'art. Then there's Plaza Mayor and the Prado Museum in Madrid, Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, and The National Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum in London, both of which house several works that were not stolen.

On the other side of this page, Amy may think she's going medieval on my ass by promoting the Dark Ages as a tourism theme. And if you want to celebrate the achievements of this era, such as the bubonic plague, leprosy, illiteracy, famine, repression, general misery, economic decline, living in mud and never leaving your village unless you were sent off to war by your feudal lord armed only with your potato trowel, doffing your sackcloth for an annual bath and getting married by 12 because no one lived past 30, you go for it.

Actually, it does sound a bit like a backpackers.

By Amy Cooper

I'll accept that Renaissance man Mal does have a point: the Middle Ages were hardcore. They were defined by war, pestilence, power struggles and religious craziness; much like today, except without the smiley emojis. Annoying the wrong priest could earn you an agonising death in a Judas Cradle, Scavenger's Daughter or other grisly machines so inventive you could easily conclude that the sum total of medieval ingenuity was its torture toolbox.

So yes, in a time machine I'd skip the part between 500 and 1500 and leave its aggro inhabitants - literally - to their own devices. But today, I'd eagerly roam Europe to admire the wonders they left behind. Medieval maximalist mentality bequeathed us some of the world's most magnificent architecture: cathedrals soaring heavenwards, impregnable castles, entire fortified cities teetering high on rocks (exhibit A: Normandy's gorgeous Mont-Saint-Michel). They built big, and they built to last. Buildings often took generations to complete, and they were meant to stand forever. And so we still have Gothic treasures like Cologne Cathedral, dating to 1248 and intact after 14 World War II bombings; and Reims Cathedral, unbowed by a World War I pummelling. The Leaning Tower of Pisa still defies gravity after more than 800 years of earthquakes, storms and wars. And Notre Dame, the most beautiful of them all, is rising from the ashes of its devastating 2019 fire to reopen next year in time for the Paris Olympics. In the presence of such majesty I couldn't give a flying buttress about visiting dowdy old Mona Lisa.

Above all, medieval means castles. Not your later, namby-pamby, Disney princess confections but the OG, siege-proof, moated, foe-frightening fortresses that make all others look like suburban bungalows. Medieval castles were so indestructible there are still more than 10,000 across Europe and about 800 in the British Isles alone, including Windsor, Edinburgh, Stirling, Caernarfon and Conwy castles. That's quite a turret trail.