Renaissance Worlds

While the Renaissance is primarily associated with the development of linear perspective and the rediscovery of the antique within European contexts, it was also a period of global multi-sensory exchanges: perfumes and spices were traded over land and by sea, while chocolate, gold, silver, cochineal, ivory, and lapis lazuli were extracted from Africa, Asia, and the Americas for consumption and transformation into a multitude of objects – with both productive and destructive results. Renaissance Wonders: Art & The Senses, which focuses on the ‘long’ Renaissance (c.1450-c. 1650), highlights global connections within Europe and between Europe and other cultures in order to investigate how new navigational technologies and the ambitions of exploration led to an exponential growth in the exchange of works of art and other crafted artefacts, as well as of materials, technologies, skills, and ideas.