part of people’s lives. For example, religions
have affected the way governments
are set up, how families are formed, and
the way people teach their children.
#More to explore
Baha#i Faith • Buddhism • Christianity
• Daoism • Hinduism • Islam • Jainism
• Judaism • Shinto • Sikhism
• Zoroastrianism
Rembrandt
The Dutch painter Rembrandt is one of
the most famous of all European artists.
He created many historical and biblical
paintings known for their rich color and
masterful use of light and shadow. He is
also known for his drawings and etchings
(a type of print).
Rembrandt was born on July 15, 1606,
in Leiden, the Netherlands. His full
Major World Religions
Religion Number of Followers in
the World, Mid-2005
Christianity 2,133,806,000
Islam 1,308,941,000
Hinduism 860,133,000
Buddhism 378,808,000
Sikhism 25,377,700
Judaism 15,073,000
Source: Britannica Book of the Year, 2006
Nearly three quarters of the people on
Earth follow one of six major world religions.
Religions that
focus on the
belief in one
god are called
monotheistic.
BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA Rembrandt 43
name was Rembrandt Harmenszoon van
Rijn, but he is usually known simply by
his first name. He attended the University
of Leiden but left to study painting.
By the time he moved to Amsterdam in
1631, he was already a successful
painter. Many wealthy people hired him
to paint their portraits. An early masterpiece
of his was The Anatomy Lesson of
Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, a group portrait
painted in 1632. He completed another
famous group portrait, The NightWatch,
in 1642.
Around that time Rembrandt’s work
began to go somewhat out of fashion.
With fewer orders for portraits, he
began to have money problems. In the
late 1650s he sold his house and many
of his belongings to pay his debts. But
he continued his work, producing portraits
of biblical figures, local people,
and himself. Rembrandt died on October
4, 1669, in Amsterdam.
#More to explore
Painting
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a period in European
history. It began in the 1300s, during
the late Middle Ages. It ended
during the 1500s, when the modern era
began. Renaissance means “rebirth” in
French. During the Renaissance there
was a rebirth of interest in ancient
Greece and Rome. The Europeans of the
Renaissance took ideas from the ancient
people and developed their own. They
also made scientific discoveries and created
great art.
Background
During the Middle Ages there were two
institutions that controlled much of
Europe. The Holy Roman Empire influenced
the political life of the people.
The popes of the Roman Catholic
church controlled the religious life. Both
of these institutions began to lose power
by the 1300s. Individual European
nations also grew stronger. People
started writing in their own languages
instead of Latin (the language of the
Catholic church). People felt freer to
think in new ways.
Humanism
Before the Renaissance, most people in
Europe placed great importance on God
and religion. During the Renaissance,
some people began to think about the
Rembrandt painted his own portrait at
age 63.
44 Renaissance BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA
importance of humans as well. For this
reason these thinkers were called
humanists. Humanists wanted to make
the most of their lives on Earth. They
also wanted to understand the world
around them.
One of the first humanists was
Francesco Petrarch, an Italian poet who
died in 1374. Petrarch was interested in
what ancient writers had to say about
humanity. He got many other people,
including the great storyteller Giovanni
Boccaccio, to share his interests.
The Printing Press
In about 1450 a German named
Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing
press. This allowed people to make
many copies of written works. Printed
books soon spread the ideas of the
Renaissance all over Europe. One of the first thinkers to have his
writings printed was Desiderius Erasmus
of Rotterdam (now in The Netherlands).
Erasmus was a humanist scholar.
Science
The spirit of inquiry and discovery also
led to a Renaissance in science. In the
Middle Ages, scholars usually took their
scientific knowledge from books. During
the Renaissance, however, people began
to experiment and observe for
themselves.
Nicolaus Copernicus, who was born in
Poland, was one of the greatest astronomers
of the Renaissance. He showed that
Earth revolves around the sun. For more
than 1,000 years before that people had
An illustration shows Andreas Vesalius, a
doctor during the Renaissance. Vesalius cut
open dead bodies to learn how the human
body works.
A map of the Western Hemisphere from the
1500s shows that people during the Renaissance
were still discovering how the world
looked.
BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA Renaissance 45
believed that everything in the universe
revolved around Earth.
Andreas Vesalius was a medical doctor
from Brussels (now in Belgium). Vesalius
found out about the human body by
carefully dissecting, or cutting apart,
dead bodies.
Art
Some of the greatest Renaissance artists
worked in Florence and in other cities in
Italy. The rulers of Florence, the Medici
family, spent great amounts of money to
