The Renaissance was a formative period in the development of European civilization. Well known as an era of magnificent painting, sculpture, and architecture, it was also a time of exploration around the world, of colonization, the reintroduction of slavery, theorizing about politics and history, and also of map-making that gave Europeans new opportunities for self-conceptualization. New codes of "civility" redefined both the European sense of self and its judgements of other peoples.