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Italy: Birthplace of the Renaissance
The Renaissance designates that period in European history between roughly 1300 and 1600, during which time the revival of Classical humanism spread from its birthplace in Florence, Italy, throughout Western Europe. Italy was the homeland of Roman antiquity, the splendid ruins of which stood as reminders of the greatness of Classical civilization. The least feudalized part of the medieval world and Europe’s foremost commercial and financial center, Italy had traded with Southwest Asian cities even in the darkest days of the Middle Ages. It had also maintained cultural contacts with Byzantium, the heir to Greek culture. The cities of Italy, especially Venice and Genoa, had profited financially from the Crusades and – despite the ravages of the plague – continued to enjoy a high level of commercial prosperity. In fourteenth-century Florence, shopkeepers devised a practical system (based on Arab models) of tracking debits and credits: double-entry bookkeeping helped merchants to maintain systematic records of transactions in what was the soundest currency in the West, the Florentine gold florin. Fifteenth-century handbooks on arithmetic, foreign currency, and even good penmanship encouraged the commercial activities of traders and bankers.
The pursuit of money and leisure (free time), rather than a preoccupation (being fixed upon) with feudal and chivalric (chivalry, expectations of knights’ behavior) obligations, marked the lifestyle of merchants and artisans who lived in the bustling city-states of Italy. …Throughout Italy, the Avignon Papacy and the Great Schism had produced a climate of anticlericalism and intellectual skepticism. Middle-class men and women challenged canonical sources of authority that frowned upon profit-making and the accumulation of wealth. In this materialistic and often only superficially religious society, the old medieval values no longer made sense, while those of pre-Christian antiquity seemed more compatible with the secular interests and ambitions of the rising merchant class. The ancient Greeks and Romans were indeed ideal historical models for the enterprising citizens of the Italian city-states.
Politically, Renaissance Italy had much in common with ancient Greece. Independent and disunited, the city-states of Italy, like those of ancient Greece, were fiercely competitive. As in Golden Age Freece, commercial rivalry among the Italian city-states led to frequent civil wars. In Italy, however, such wars were not always fought by citizens (who, as merchants, were generally ill prepared for combat), but by condottieri (professional soldiers) whose loyalties, along with their services, were bought for a price. The papacy, a potential source of political leadership, made little effort to unify the rival Italian communes. Rather, as temporal governors of the Papal States (the lands located in central Italy), Renaissance popes joined in the game of power politics, often allying with one group of city-states against another.
The Medicis
Italian Renaissance cities were ruled either by members of the petty nobility, by mercenary generals, or – as in the case of Florence and Venice – by wealthy middle class families. In Florence, a city of approximately 50,000, some 100 families dominated political life. The most notable of these was the Medici, a wealthy banking family that rose to power during the fourteenth century and gradually assumed the reins of state. Partly because the commercial ingenuity of the Medici enhanced the material status of the Florentine citizens, and partly because strong, uninterrupted leadership guaranteed local economic stability, the Medici ruled Florence for four generations. The Medici merchant-princes, Cosimo (1389-1464), Piero (1416-1468), and Lorenzo, known as the magnificent (1449-1492), supported scholarship and patronized the arts.
…Affluence coupled with intellectual discernment and refined taste inspired the Medici to commission works from some of the greatest artists of the Renaissance: Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Verrocchio, and Michelangelo. For almost two centuries, scholars, poets, painters, and civic leaders shared common interests, acknowledging one another as leaders of a vigorous cultural revival.
SOURCE:
Excerpted from: Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition Book 3: The European Renaissance, the Reformation, and Global Encounter. 2011 McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Article Summary
Note: Solid lines mean full sentences are required. Dotted lines mean you should NOT write in complete sentences.
What is the perspective of this source (i.e., is it primary or secondary, recent, historical, what is the authors purpose/audience, is it objective/subjective)? ______
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Outline the Renaissance
Directions: Now, use what you have learned in the Renaissance to outline what you know about the Renaissance so far. This will ONLY be an outline – not a full paragraph J
Topic Sentence (expanded sentence – combine the above information from the article summary): ______
Details:
1. What was “reborn” in the Renaissance? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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Concluding Sentence (Why it’s important): ____________
Summary: Choice Activities!
Choose one of the following activities to complete. Be as creative as you’d like!
Choice #1: Imagine that you are a person who lives in Italy during the Renaissance. In the space below, write a journal entry (or poem) that explains:
1. Who you are
2. What your daily life is like
3. How times/society is changing
4. What you enjoy about your life
5. What you wish would change about your life
6. Your overall satisfaction with your life/lifestyle
Some ideas for roles you could play: an artist, a merchant, a member of the Medici family, a newcomer to the town, a noblewoman, a peasant woman, a writer/philosopher, a soldier, a member of the church…Be creative!!! J
Choice #2: Create a skit with a partner that describes a scene between two people during the Renaissance. The setting for this skit is the town square, or piazza, of Florence. You could be an artist, a merchant, a member of the Medici family, a newcomer to the town, a noblewoman, a peasant woman, a writer/philosopher, a soldier, a member of the church…Be creative!!! J You do not have to play the same role – in fact, it would be more interesting if you showed how two different roles would interact! Your skit should include:
1. A mention of who each person is (can be narrated to the audience)
2. How the two members of society interact
3. How Renaissance society functions (what has changed, what each person’s role is, what is good, what is bad)
4. Each individual’s opinion on your society