Disruptive technologies decimating big chunks of the economy. Social-media unrest. Fake news. Shady international dealings, and religious wars. And that's before we get to Da Vinci and Raphael. Yes, we're talking about the Renaissance, a time not only of great art and thought, but of technological innovation that rivals today.

Quentin Hardy is the Head of Editorial at Google Cloud. He has lectured on the History of Information Technology at the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University, and has written monographs on modern and late Medieval painting. For 30 years he worked for The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and The New York Times, writing about technology, wine, and society.