Absolutely. The term "Renaissance" was coined by the first art historian, Giorgio Vasari. In his 1550 work Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori ("Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architectureists [sic]") Vasari affirms that starting with Giotto, through the works of Masaccio, Donatello, and Brunelleschi, Italian art liberated itself from greco-byzantine forms in favor of classical romano-latin ones culminating in the work of Michelangelo, which Vasari claims was the first to surpass classical art.

Later historiography applied to the term to the whole of the artistic and scientific progress that was happening in 15th century Italy, but among the art community of the 15th and 16th century there was definitely a fashion of "rediscovering" classical art.

Undoubtedly one of the distinctive features of the Renaissance was that it was self-conscious. Petrarch's tripartite compartmentalisation of history into antiquity, the 'dark ages' and the modern age embodies the way in which Renaissance humanists considered the progressive age they were living in as a decisive break with the past.

As u/AlviseFalier said, the Rennaissance was coined in the 16^th century.

However, the way we see a renaissance was not a new phenomenon at the time. The Carolingan renaissance happened in the 800's before the "medieval" era was coined as a term.

The real difference from the medieval period and the renaissance, was the reintroduction of the ancient ideals(both aesthetic and civil) where the medieval period was a "intermediate" period where the ancient(greek and roman) ideals were "gone".

Today, we know that this is not true, as the monasteries and the catholic and later orthodox churches carried on several of these ideas well into the 1500's before the reformation and the 30 years war

Edit: the username