This section takes a resolutely multidisciplinary approach — history, literature, languages and civilisations, art history, musicology — to examine the profound transformations that took place in Europe during the Renaissance. It focuses on three main areas:

• Languages and cultures: analysis of the emergence and transmission of a common European culture, saturated with references to antiquity.
• States and societies: the aim is to understand the new forms of exaltation of sovereignty and the adaptation of European societies to the practices of control and domination, but also of negotiation, that were developed during the Renaissance.
• Religious and dynastic conflicts: the aim will be to analyse the transformation of Europe into a vast battlefield on which antagonistic dynastic powers clashed, but also to highlight the founding nature of religious conflicts in the construction of national identities.

The overall aim is to gain a better understanding of how the Renaissance laid the foundations for a modern, complex and pluralistic Europe.

Responsible: Julien Goeury and Nicola Le Roux