Andrew Marr’s History of the World - Into The Light
Late summer, 1498 Milan. Leonardo da Vinci had just put the finishing touches to a defining image of the High Renaissance.
This wasn’t just a decisive time in the history of art, but also for the world’s competing civilisations. After centuries of relative dullness, Europe was now home to the most dynamic culture of all.
Why? The answers are a little unexpected. The story of Europe’s rise from what used to be called the Dark Ages is often presented as a purely European story. Somehow the glories of the Classical Age are rediscovered and then the sculptures and the paintings just get better, and the churches get flashier, and the Kings get mightier.
Go, those Europeans! Not quite. Europe had been outclassed and outshone by the Chinese and Muslim civilisations. And it was only by learning, and then profiting from the misfortune of others, that Europe rose and shone.
Europe’s emergence would involve explosive brutality far away… Other cultures Europeans barely knew… Oriental inventions… Titanic sieges.
Few cultures just keep going all by themselves. They steal rivals’ ideas. They flow into the gaps that others leave behind. Civilisations aren’t just shaped at the centre but also at the margins, on the edges, in the empty spaces where one day something unexpected arrives.
