Often nicknamed “the Dark Ages”, they were actually way less dark than the popular belief has it: smouldering under the ashes of a great empire fallen under the weight of its own corruption there were the embers of new sciences, cultures, discoveries and inventions that would eventually explode in the renaissance despite all the efforts the Church of Rome made to choke them. The printing techniques, the compass, the gunpowder and countless other inventions didn’t bloom overnight, as didn’t Martin Luther’s ideas or the arts that flourished short thereafter. Here you’ll find the pictures related to those wondrous embers.