<P> One of the most important technological development of the Renaissance was the invention of the caravel . This combination of European and African ship building technologies for the first time made extensive trade and travel over the Atlantic feasible . While first introduced by the Italian states and the early captains, such as Giovanni Caboto, Giovanni da Verrazzano and Columbus, who were Italian explorers, the development would end Northern Italy's role as the trade crossroads of Europe, shifting wealth and power westwards to Spain, Portugal, France, England, and the Netherlands . These states all began to conduct extensive trade with Africa and Asia, and in the Americas began extensive colonisation activities . This period of exploration and expansion has become known as the Age of Discovery . Eventually European power spread around the globe . </P> <P> The detailed realism of Early Netherlandish painting was greatly respected in Italy, but there was little reciprocal influence on the North until nearly the end of the 15th century . Despite frequent cultural and artistic exchange, the Antwerp Mannerists (1500--1530)--chronologically overlapping with but unrelated to Italian Mannerism--were among the first artists in the Low Countries to clearly reflect Italian formal developments . </P> <P> Around the same time, Albrecht Dürer made his two trips to Italy, where he was greatly admired for his prints . Dürer, in turn, was influenced by the art he saw there . Other notable painters, such as Hans Holbein the Elder and Jean Fouquet, retained a Gothic influence that was still popular in the north, while highly individualistic artists such as Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder developed styles that were imitated by many subsequent generations . Northern painters in the 16th century increasingly looked and travelled to Rome, becoming known as the Romanists . The High Renaissance art of Michelangelo and Raphael and the late Renaissance stylistic tendencies of Mannerism that were in vogue had a great impact on their work . </P> <P> Renaissance humanism and the large number of surviving classical artworks and monuments encouraged many Italian painters to explore Greco - Roman themes more prominently than northern artists, and likewise the famous 15th - century German and Dutch paintings tend to be religious . In the 16th century, mythological and other themes from history became more uniform amongst northern and Italian artists . Northern Renaissance painters, however, had new subject matter, such as landscape and genre painting . </P>

What factors led to the beginning of the renaissance in northen europe