How the Renaissance contributed to the scientific revolution

The re-birth of learning during the Renaissance had many unintended consequences. Historical fiction if well done can demonstrate this. Dorothy Dunnett while re-telling the story of Macbeth in King Hereafter describes what Phillip Bobbitt calls the transition from Princely states to Kingly states where the 'monarch' might actually hold little land, and whose power relied on holding together an amalgam of territories that had no natural borders (Eg, the widespread and disjointed Hapsburg Empire). Her Nicolo and Lymond series are excellent portrayals of politics and economics in these times. These states were supported by concepts from Greek Philosophy such as Plato & Aristotle's ideas of government, and especially Aristotle's ideas that nature could be deduced from first principles. No need for experiment. This reliance on revealed truth rather than observation and experiment gave way first with the Protestant Reformation, then with the experiments of artists and proto-scientists like Leonardio da Vinci and Vesalius Ultimately, the Renaissance started a series of revolutions - First , Copernicus and Bruno rejected the received idea that the earth was the center of the universe. Later scientific exploration showed that even the sun was only a tiny star amid vast galaxies. Finally, Darwin, standing on the shoulders of early scientists like Hooke, Galton, Newton, and Leibniz, knocked human beings from their pedestal as god's primary focus, by showing that we are but one species in the sprawling network resulting from evolution.

Teleology, if not theology was dead.

 Neal Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy  is a magnificent journey through 17th century Europe - politics, and especially economics are major foci, as the characters learn and adapt to the evolving capitalist system of venture and stock markets, in which Kings and Princes take a back seat to merchant traders and entrepreneurs.

Fernand Braudel's  epic 3 volume work is Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century.  These are heavy lifting, both physically and mentally, but well worth it, and you can see the influences he had on Dunnett and Stephenson when they prepared their fictional narratives. Braudel's scope is phenomenal, touching details across centuries of history and different civilizations.  Fantastic maps and charts illustrate the concepts, along with period pictures.  Starting with human life in the centuries before industrialization,  he examines the machinery of exchange as a whole, from barter to the most sophisticated capitalism.  After a survey of  the instruments of exchange, he then moves on to look at the effects of markets on the economy.  Eventually, traders cease to be mere movers of goods from one place to another and start to build production facilities in far off places.  Again echoed by Dunnett & Stephenson
• Vol. I - The Structures of Everyday
• Vol. II - The Wheels of
• Vol. III - The Perspective of the World

Another consequence of Renaissance ideas was the concept that man might make his own rules, not being ruled from above.  Venice had a constitution that was more republican or oligarchical than democratic.   Various smaller experiments in city-state communes of medieval Europe followed, including the long struggles against Medici domination in Florence described by Machiavelli in The Prince.  The 17th century saw further concepts democracy in philosophy and practice, especially in England and the new Dutch Republic.  But it was the enlightenment of the 18th century that gave violent birth to the major democratic revolutions in America and France.  What had started with Kings employing painters to glorify their reigns ended by replacing those dynasties with modern democracies.