Introduction The Renaissance as it is commonly talked about occurred in Italy originally, but as it expanded to other cultured centers of the world it continued to have profound effects. Regardless of location, the Renaissance was a time of tremendous change and growth. The long-dusty ideas of the past, grounded in tradition and defying attempts at progressive thought, were being shaken out, dusted off examined and, in many cases, thrown out with the rest of the garbage. The great societal shifts that were taking place during this period in history saw a tremendous shift in the economic base from one based upon agriculture and its products to one based on the town market and produced consumer goods. It was also a time when a shift was started in the long-held class systems from that of feudal organization made up of the traditionally wealthy and the barely recognized desperately poor to one consisting of a greater stratification of wealth and prestige, in which social mobility was possible with little more than a ready mind and a willingness to make the attempt. Started in Italy as early as the early 1300s, the ideas of the Renaissance didn’t reach England until the 1500s. However, these ideas, once released, would serve to change the fabric of society from the traditional medieval concepts to something more closely approximating modern organization. The Italian Renaissance The Renaissance, as it is discussed today, was not a simultaneous event that occurred throughout Europe all at once, but it is characterized by specific characteristics of thought. “The term ‘Renaissance’ might now be defined as a model of cultural history in which the culture of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe is represented as a repudiation of medieval values in favor of the revival of the culture of ancient Greece and Rome” (Campbell, 2004: v-vi). The word actually means “rebirth” and refers to the tremendous renewal of science and thought that occurred during this period as people rediscovered the skill and knowledge of the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome and adapted it to new discoveries and innovations. Through these advances, artists such as Giotto, Masaccio, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Raphael were able to communicate the various ideas of the Renaissance outside of Italy, affecting civilizations everywhere through their art. Artists in Florence were able to quickly link the mathematical knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans to the proportional focus of their world as a shared knowledge between artists and businessmen. “In an age of non-standard shipping units, one had to be able to calculate contents and quantities of shipments fairly rapidly” (Lemaitre & Lessing, 1993: 15). Painters used their foundational knowledge in geometry to create familiar elements in their paintings that would convey their intentions to the greatest possible audience. “In the same way that a painter could reduce the human form or settings to a play of geometrical figures, so could the merchant simplify all things to geometrical configurations” (Lemaitre & Lessing, 1993: 15). By melding mathematics and artistic expression, artists discovered how to provide their figures with a new impression of weight and volume that had not been previously achieved. This new ability to provide realism in a painting and other written expression led to even g