Renaissance Secrets

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• Learn more about critical thinking, European history, Gutenberg, historical research, inventions, Renaissance, and technology.

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Four Renaissance mysteries are explored in the Renaissance Secrets website from the BBC.In Venice: A Second Hand City? historians debunk the claim that Venice was a city of wealth and opulence. Read about the second-hand trade in Venice, which was well established, with clothing and furniture regularly borrowed and rented; life in the Jewish ghetto, whose inhabitants were seen as a threat to Christianity but evidently protected; expensive fabrics that were reused and refashioned many times to keep up with new styles; and courtesans who were well educated but had to follow a dress code.Find similarities to today’s health care practices in The Italian Patient as well as differences. Learn about barbers that not only cut hair but extracted teeth and cobblers that mended shoes and removed cataracts; the free treatment the poor received at hospitals; medical beliefs in humours of the body; dissection and the Church’s belief that such practices were desecration; and treatment of the soul as well as the body.Also look at conflicting evidence in the case of Rodrigo Lopez and his conviction for attempting to poison Queen Elizabeth I as well as an investigation into the life of Gutenberg, the inventor who may be mistakenly attributed with creating movable type.Each of these features sets up an issue in history as a mystery and provides the learner with a premise, evidence, and questions that lead to historical thinking. In the end, the learner will use new found knowledge and critical thinking skills to solve, if possible, the mystery at hand.This website also incorporates critical views on history from four different perspectives including Feminism, Marxism, and race and identity.