The Dark Ages, which covers the Middle Ages (from the 5th to the 15th centuries), is a term that marks a steep decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural activity across Europe. The great civilization of Rome had fallen, and along with it the light of classical antiquity. The Renaissance, which started in Florence in the early 1400s, under the patronage of the Medici, marked the world’s return to the fields of art, architecture, politics, and literature. While Italy’s contribution to the period is much better documented, culture also flourished in England and Northern Europe; one thinks of Jan van Eyck, Hans Holbein the Elder, and Albrecht Dürer. The focus of this exhibition in Adelaide is humanism—a worldview centered on civilization and nature—and its manifestations in Renaissance sculpture, paintings, and decorative arts. —Elena Clavarino