The opening exhibition of the National Museum Zurich is devoted to the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a cultural era that gave birth to some of the most important advances in human history: the invention of the printing press using movable letters, the discovery of an unknown continent and the formulation of a new view of the earth and its place in the universe. It was a time when people sought to solve the riddles of nature, experimented with alchemy, set out to develop a new medical science, conceived a new vision of mankind and created abundant beauty in the form of pictures, architecture, sculpture and literature.
All these discoveries and creations would have been unimaginable without a broad and dynamic exchange at many levels. The Renaissance was an era of dialogue, new horizons in thinking, transformations and cultural interaction over great distances and time.
The exhibition invites visitors to trace the movements behind these momentous changes and interaction. It refers to artworks, instruments and objects of everyday life as historical sources. A committee of renowned specialists contributed to the exhibition’s commentary.