The American Dream of Space Exploration has recently compelled scientists to send a space probe to our neighbor planet, Mars. This desire to discover life and worlds beyond our own is nothing new.

Although our ability to collect data from another planet is a recent development, human curiosity about distant lands and different people and animals has inspired the human race to voyage into the unknown long before you or I were born. This passionate yearning to venture into the great unknown threads the human web of memory which began spinning so many generations ago that we have since lost count.

Yet, we must not forget that humans are not alone in our desire to explore the environment around us.

Indeed, it seems that all animals possess an innate drive to investigate their surroundings. Considering the tremendous diversity

populating the earth, one can only marvel and continue to roam in search of beauty as far as the eye can see.

The Europeans already grasped their own geographic boundaries by the mid-16th Century.

However, the vastness and vagueness of the mighty lands and great oceans wrapping the rest of the world daunted Europeans’ certainty and

intrigued their imaginations.

This awe-inspiring ambiguity ignited our human ambitions to reach for the seas and the stars.

Obviously, the people of the Renaissance (c.1300-1650) lived long before us, in a world that was in many ways very different from our own. Yet, the fundamental bonds between mother and child, land and sea, human and animal, plant and sunshine ceaselessly unite us.

Daily life was dramatically more difficult before and during the Renaissance than the inconveniences we complain of today. What we now see as hassles—like waiting forty minutes at the laundry mat for our clothes to dry—would have seemed like miracles to these brave people. Look how differently women used to dress. See, this woman spins her THREAD by hand on the SPINNING WHEEL.

Renaissance artists, like Botticelli, captured the intensity of human emotion. Clearly, a sense of longing marks the human experience today as it did centuries ago.

People of the Renaissance pondered our origins, much like we do today. In this famous work from the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo depicts God

creating Adam.

People worried about their lives, lovers, and fortunes back then, much as we do now. To entertain themselves and speculate about their futures, people played with Tarot cards during the Renaissance. Similarly, curious characters of today still lay out Tarot cards to divine the meaning of their future.

Europeans studied the cultures of bye gone civilizations, just like today we are studying the lives of passed ethnic groups, and their art, languages, and religions.

During the Renaissance, Europeans celebrated the wonderful world of nature and the great entertainment of the outdoors.

Individuals and entire societies were obsessed with immersing themselves in beauty indoors as well. In this picture, the talent and historically religious brilliance of Michelangelo captivates the observer’s eye. Remarkably, Michelangelo spent four years lying on his back to paint the ceiling of this holy sight.

The Renaissance

ideal of beauty and

fascination with

discovery led to the

creation of many

treasures of the

Renaissance, such as

unique inventions that

radically transformed

the world forever.

Early in the course of our evolution, humans developed the ability to fashion tools of great utility.

This characteristic of designing instruments to assist us in our tasks spurred the dreamers of hundreds of years ago to mastermind and craft inventions, like the compass (below).

Along with the compass (picture just seen on the lower right), the astrolabe (featured on the right and below) enabled the daring souls of the Age of Exploration to embark upon fantastic adventures.

The legacy of these voyages haunts us today.

Of course, the most famous explorer to set upon a wild quest around the world is Christopher Columbus.

Although Columbus did not land in India as he mistakenly believed, he did prove the world was NOT flat, but ROUND!

Explorers returned with tales that defied most people’s imaginations.

Conquest always followed curiosity.

Even the most courageous, dashing, witty and valiant men struggled for survival in the wilderness of wild lands beyond their most vivid premonitions.

Meanwhile, the women remaining in their European homelands patiently waited for their men to return…

…and probably counted their blessings for a precious breath of freedom, (a moment or month without every move being scrutinized and judged,) in the meantime.

Mona Lisa by Leonardo daVinci

When the explorers and conquerors did return, they came with maps of these distant lands—like the Great Lakes from the Canadian perspective and South America—in hand to share with the Europeans they loved and missed.