What if "Renaissance" is not just a beautiful word from textbooks, but a living history of disputes, discoveries, and ambitions? What is the "beginning of the Renaissance" - a convenient formula or a real cultural boundary? The lecture of the "Optics of Vision" club offers to analyze myths and facts: who and why introduced the idea of the Renaissance, how its content changed, and why the debate about the start of new visuality still excites viewers and specialists. Art historian Olga Nazarova in her report "Who Invented the Renaissance?" will trace the path of the term: from the first formulations to university canons and museum exhibitions. It is about the boundaries of eras, criteria of "novelty," and how ideologies influenced the list of "main works." Irina Golubeva, a researcher of the Proto-Renaissance, will present the report "Rome or Florence?" Using the examples of Pietro Cavallini and Giotto, the frescoes of Assisi, Roman mosaics, and Tuscan wall paintings, she will show how optics change: from the hunt for the "first" author to attention to visual systems, materials, urban contexts, and ways of perception. Where to go in St. Petersburg today, look for on our website.