Late Antiquity & Medieval
400 – 1400 ADA millennium of synthesis: the Church Fathers reconciled Athens and Jerusalem, monks preserved classical learning, and the great cathedrals rose as theology in stone. Dante crowned the era by weaving Virgil, Aristotle, and Christian revelation into a single poem.
Literature & Philosophy
Visual Arts & Architecture
Music & Performing Arts
400–800
1200–1400
LiteratureThomas Aquinas1225 – 1274Summa TheologiaeLiteratureDante Alighieri1265 – 1321Divine ComedyLiteraturePetrarch1304 – 1374Canzoniere — father of humanismVisualGiotto1267 – 1337Arena Chapel frescoesMusicGuillaume de Machaut1300 – 1377Messe de Nostre DameLiteratureBoccaccio1313 – 1375DecameronVisualCimabue~1240 – ~1302Maestà — dawn of Italian paintingVisualArnolfo di Cambio~1240 – ~1310Florence Cathedral, Santa CroceVisualDuccio~1255 – ~1319Maesta — Sienese painting's founderVisualSimone Martini~1284 – 1344Annunciation — Gothic eleganceVisualOrcagna~1308 – ~1368Tabernacle of OrsanmicheleLiteratureGeoffrey Chaucer~1343 – 1400The Canterbury Tales — father of English poetry