The
conflict between Catholics and Protestants culminated in the Thirty Years' War,
devastating central Europe. King Louis XIV enforced absolute monarchy in France,
but in England Parliament's victory in the Civil War fostered a constitutional
regime. In North America, the founding of pioneer colonies ushered in a new
stage in world history. At the end of the seventeenth century the decline of
Turkey, the growth of Prussia and Russia's victories over Sweden had changed the
map of eastern Europe.
The seventeenth century witnessed a vast outpouring of literary masterpieces, such
as the drama of Shakespeare, Moliere and Racine, the poetry of Donne and Milton,
and the first novels, including Cervantes' Don
Quixote. In art and architecture the
exuberant self-confidence of the Baroque style was exemplified in the sculpture
of Bemini, the paintings of Caravaggio and Rubens, Louis XIV's chateau at
Versailles and Wren's St Paul's Cathedral in London. Holland, grown prosperous
on over-seas trade, produced painters of the statute of Rembrandt and Vermeer.
The invention of the telescope and the microscope revealed astounding new worlds. The achievements of Kepler and Galileo laid the foundations for Newton's great works on the laws of motion and gravitation. These discoveries and other great advances, in anatomy and physiology, encouraged the belief that man could win control over nature and paved the way for the rationalism of the following century.
During this period music was immeasurably enriched both
by new vocal forms - opera, the cantata and the oratorio - and by instrumental
forms such as the sonata and the concerto. Most new musical ideas originated in
Italy, where Scadatti and Vivaldi were prominent and where Monteverdi's genius
promoted opera. However, it was in Germany, with Bach and Handel, that Baroque
music reached its greatest heights.
Composers
