ABSTRACT
The Renaissance cannot be reduced merely to the philological, literary, artistic,and scientific innovations that took place over the geographical axis Italy-France-Germany-Flanders-the Low Countries-England from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. This traditional approach not only excludes much of the continent (Iberia, Scandinavia, central and eastern Europe, and the Ottoman Empire) but also the decisive role of overseas expansion towards other continents. Many authors, namely Jean Delumeau, Anthony Grafton, and Peter Burke, have pointed out the importance of the expansion for the European Renaissance. But the dominant approach has not changed: most historians (not to mention the cultivated public) continue to view the impact of the expansion as marginal, though at times it is seen as significant in the development of such disciplines as astronomy, geography, and cartography.
