Performers, vendors and re-enactors will party like its 1499 during the annual Bloomington Renaissance Faire, which will take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at Dunn Meadow.\nThe free event celebrates the Renaissance era, which spanned the 14th through 17th centuries, and was a defining period for artistic, intellectual and social development in Europe. The following is a list of five of the most influential people of the period. Use them as inspiration for your own Renaissance-style costume.
Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps the most famous figure of the Renaissance. Da Vinci was a master painter, known best for his “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper.” His fascination with human anatomy and religious controversy still stimulates the minds of people today, most recently with Dan Brown’s novel “The Da Vinci Code” which was made into a feature film starring Tom Hanks.
Niccolo Machiavelli, a recognized political philosopher, penned the novel “The Prince,” which provided powerful commentary on power and authority within governments, in 1513.
Galileo Galilei was an Italian scientist responsible for the creation of a telescope which he used to study lunar activity.
Andreas Vesalius, like da Vinci, was fascinated with human anatomy and wrote the famous book “On the Fabric of the Human Body,” which countered beliefs about the human body that had long been upheld prior to his dissections and analyses.
Michelangelo was an artist best known for his frescoes in the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica, both in Rome. A fresco is created by painting directly onto wet plaster.
Information courtesy of Wikipedia.org
