The
German Renaissance, part of the
Northern Renaissance, was a cultural and artistic movement that spread among
German thinkers in the 15th and 16th centuries, which developed from the
Italian Renaissance. Many areas of the arts and sciences were influenced, notably by the spread of
Renaissance humanism to the various German states and principalities. There were many advances made in the fields of architecture, the arts, and the sciences. Germany produced two developments that were to dominate the 16th century all over Europe: printing and the
Protestant Reformation.