Humanist historians argued that contemporary scholarship restored direct links to the classical period, thus bypassing the Medieval period, which they then named for the first time the "Middle Ages". The term first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas (middle times).Albrow, Martin, The Global Age: state and society beyond modernity (1997), Stanford University Press, p. 205 . The term rinascita (rebirth) first appeared, however, in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, 1550, revised 1568.Panofsky, Erwin. Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, New York: Harper and Row, 1960.The Open University Guide to the Renaissance, Defining the Renaissance (Retrieved 10 May 2007) Vasari divides the age into three phases: the first phase contains Cimabue, Giotto, and Arnolfo di Cambio; the second phase contains Masaccio, Brunelleschi, and Donatello; the third centers on Leonardo da Vinci and culminates with Michelangelo. It was not just the growing awareness of classical antiquity that drove this development, according to Vasari, but also the growing desire to study and imitate nature.Sohm, Philip. Style in the Art Theory of Early Modern Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) .
Humanist historians argued that contemporary scholarship restored direct links to the classical period, thus bypassing the Medieval period, which they then named for the first time the "Middle Ages". The term first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas (middle times).Albrow, Martin, The Global Age: state and society beyond modernity (1997), Stanford University Press, p 205 . The term rinascita (rebirth) first appeared, however, in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, 1550 revised 1568.Panofsky, Erwin. Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, New York: Harper and Row, 1960.The Open University Guide to the Renaissance, Defining the Renaissance (Retrieved 10 May 2007) Vasari divides the age into three phases: the first phase contains Cimabue, Giotto, and Arnolfo di Cambio; the second phase contains Masaccio, Brunelleschi, and Donatello; the third centers on Leonardo da Vinci and culminates with Michelangelo. It was not just the growing awareness of classical antiquity that drove this development, according to Vasari, but also the growing desire to study and imitate n,ature.Sohm, Philip. Style in the Art Theory of Early Modern Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pr.ess, 2001) .