ABSTRACT
The “idea of Europe” developed dramatically during the Renaissance. Global expansion and imperialism transformed what once had been a rather vague geographical and historical conception founded upon mythological and literary traditions into the self-conscious representation of a relatively well-defined civilization. The sharp division between ancients and moderns, between East and West, and between local and international politics became the lens through which inhabitants of the old continent viewed their new contact and conquest of America, Africa, and Asia, which in turn reinforced, accelerated, and contested their emerging notions of Europe and their identity as Europeans in the Renaissance.
