The Renaissance isn't like the Battle of Hastings or the French Revolution, where people were aware that they were living amid history. Like when I was 11, and most of you didn't exist yet, my dad made my brother and me turn off the Cosby Show and watch people climbing on the Berlin Wall so we could see history. But no one like woke their kids up in a Tuscan village in 1512 like, Mario, Luigi, come outside, the Renaissance is here! Hurry, we're living in a glorious new era where man's relationship to learning is changing! I somehow feel a new sense of individualism based on my capacity for reason. No, in fact most people in Europe were totally unaware of the Renaissance because its art and learning affected a tiny sliver of the European population. Like, life expectancy in many areas of Europe actually went down during the Renaissance.