Renaissance Essay The age of faith is the period of time where culture and government were centered on Catholic Church. During this time the church not only had great religious but political influence as well. As the church began to fall to corruption and political challenges came up, the magnificent Age of Faith began decline. Because of this decline, a new age began to come to rise. This age was called the Renaissance. Many factors led to the rise of the Renaissance. One factor was economics. Trade began to flourishes. The large trading network steered the development of enormous, thriving cities. These cities enable the spread of new and creative ideas. The cities and vast new trade led to the larger middle class and or merchants. All of these factors caused a new culture to arise. Because of the many economic and political changes the culture of the time began to change as well. People of the renaissance time period focused mainly on art, education, and secular thinking. The people during the renaissance became interested in education and becoming educated. Because of this, the printing press was invented. Also, the people became extremely interested in art. Merchants and wealthy middle class families that financial supported the arts were called patrons. Patrons help the spread of the arts especially perspective art. Along with art the people became to focused on secular thing. “Secularity is the state of being separate from religion, or not being exclusively allied to any particular religion.” (Wikipedia.com) This led to the founding of humanism, which is the intellectual movement that focusses on human potential and achievements. Humanism and other religions also had a large impact on the culture of the renaissance. Religion was one of the main factors in the development of the Renaissance time period. However important religion was not as prevalent in this society as it had been in the Age of faith. This is particularly because of