Renaissance Metal Chess set with Blue & Bronze Chessmen & 36cm Chessboard in Antique Turquoise Patina After the dark Middle Ages, Europe was influenced by great nostalgia for classical antiquity. Literature, philosophy, art, science, architecture and politics were reformed by the revival of interest in the values of the Greeks. The word Renaissance literally means “rebirth”, as a deep desire of mankind to recover from the darkness. The value of the human life and the extraordinary genius of human brain were restored by rediscovering the spiritual legacy of ancient Greece. The Chessmen. The figures are gracefully thin and symbolically decorated, according to the slender aesthetics of the period.