Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance is a period in Italian history during the 15th and 16th centuries. The period and place are known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread from Italy to the rest of Europe. The period was one of transition: it sits between the Middle Ages and the modern era. Proponents of a "long Renaissance" argue that it started around the year 1300 and lasted until about 1600. In some fields, a Proto-Renaissance, beginning around 1250, is typically accepted. The French word renaissance means 'rebirth', and defines the period as one of cultural revival and renewed interest in classical antiquity after the centuries during what Renaissance humanists labelled as the "Dark Ages". The Italian Renaissance historian Giorgio Vasari used the term rinascita in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects in 1550, but the concept became widespread only in the 19th century, after the work of scholars such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt.
The Renaissance began in Tuscany in Central Italy and centered in the city of Florence. The Florentine Republic, one of the several city-states of the peninsula, rose to economic and political prominence by providing credit to European monarchs and by laying the groundwork for developments in capitalism and banking. Renaissance culture later spread to Venice, the heart of a Mediterranean empire controlling trade routes with the east since its participation in the Crusades and following the journeys of Marco Polo between 1271 and 1295. Thus Italy renewed contact with the remains of ancient Greek culture, which provided humanist scholars with new texts. Finally the Renaissance had a significant effect on the Papal States and on Rome, largely rebuilt by humanist and Renaissance popes, such as Julius II and Leo X, who frequently became involved in Italian politics, in arbitrating disputes between competing colonial powers and in opposing the Protestant Reformation, which started.
The Italian Renaissance has a reputation for its achievements in painting, architecture, sculpture, literature, music, philosophy, science, technology, and exploration. Italy became the recognized European leader in all these areas by the late 15th century, during the era of the Peace of Lodi agreed between Italian states. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the mid-16th century as domestic disputes and foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. However, the ideas and ideals of the Italian Renaissance spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance from the late 15th century. Italian explorers from the maritime republics served under the auspices of European monarchs, ushering in the Age of Discovery. The most famous voyage was that of Christopher Columbus and laid the foundation for European dominance of the Americas. Other explorers include Giovanni da Verrazzano, Amerigo Vespucci, and John Cabot. Italian scientists such as Falloppio, Tartaglia, Galileo and Torricelli played key roles in the Scientific Revolution, and foreigners such as Copernicus and Vesalius worked in Italian universities. Historiographers have proposed various events and dates of the 17th century, such as the conclusion of the European wars of religion in 1648, as marking the end of the Renaissance.
Accounts of Proto-Renaissance literature usually begin with the three great Italian writers of the 14th century: Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Famous vernacular poets of the Renaissance include the epic authors Luigi Pulci, Matteo Maria Boiardo, Ludovico Ariosto, and Torquato Tasso. 15th-century writers such as the poet Poliziano and the Platonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino made extensive translations from both Latin and Greek. In the early 16th century, Baldassare Castiglione laid out his vision of the ideal gentleman and lady in The Book of the Courtier, while Niccolò Machiavelli rejected the ideal with an eye on la verità effettuale della cosa in The Prince, composed, in humanistic style, chiefly of parallel ancient and modern examples of virtù. Historians of the period include Machiavelli himself, his friend and critic Francesco Guicciardini and Giovanni Botero. The Aldine Press, founded in 1494 by the printer Aldo Manuzio, active in Venice, developed Italic type and pocket editions that one could carry in one's pocket; it became the first to publish printed editions of books in Ancient Greek. Venice also became the birthplace of the commedia dell'arte.
Italian Renaissance art exercised a dominant influence on subsequent European painting and sculpture for centuries afterwards, with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, Giotto, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Titian. Italian Renaissance architecture had a similar Europe-wide impact, as practised by Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Palladio, and Bramante. Their works include the Florence Cathedral, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, as well as several private residences. The musical era of the Italian Renaissance featured composers such as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the Roman School and later the Venetian School, and the birth of opera through figures like Claudio Monteverdi in Florence. In philosophy, thinkers such as Galileo, Machiavelli, Giordano Bruno and Pico della Mirandola emphasized naturalism and humanism, thus rejecting dogma and scholasticism.

Origins and background

Northern and Central Italy in the Late Middle Ages

By the Late Middle Ages, Latium, the former heartland of the Roman Empire, and southern Italy were generally poorer than the North. Rome was a city of ancient ruins, and the Papal States were loosely administered and vulnerable to external interference, particularly by France, and later Spain. The Papacy was affronted when the Avignon Papacy was created in southern France as a consequence of pressure from King Philip the Fair of France. In the south, Sicily had for some time been under foreign domination, by the Arabs and then the Normans. Sicily had prospered for 150 years during the Emirate of Sicily and later for two centuries during the Norman Kingdom and the Hohenstaufen Kingdom, but had declined by the Late Middle Ages.
In contrast, Northern and Central Italy had become far more prosperous, and it has been calculated that the region was among the richest in Europe. The Crusades had built trade links to the Levant, and the Fourth Crusade had done much to destroy the Byzantine Empire as a commercial rival to the Venetians and the Genoese. The main trade routes from the east passed through the Byzantine Empire or the Arab lands and onward to the ports of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. Luxury goods bought in the Levant, such as spices, dyes, and silks were imported to Italy and then resold throughout Europe. Moreover, the inland city-states profited from the rich agricultural land of the Po Valley. From France, Germany, and the Low Countries, through the medium of the Champagne fairs, land and river trade routes brought goods such as wool, wheat, and precious metals into the region. The extensive trade, which stretched from Egypt to the Baltic, generated substantial surpluses that allowed significant investment in mining and agriculture. By the 14th century, the city of Venice had become an emporium for lands as far as Cyprus; it boasted a naval fleet of over 5000 ships thanks to its arsenal, a vast complex of shipyards that was the first European facility to mass-produce commercial and military vessels. Genoa also had become a maritime power. Thus, while northern Italy was not richer in resources than many other parts of Europe, the level of development, stimulated by trade, allowed it to prosper. Florence became one of the wealthiest of the cities of Northern Italy, mainly due to its woolen textile production, developed under the supervision of its dominant trade guild, the Arte della Lana. Wool was imported from Northern Europe and together with dyes from the east were used to make high-quality textiles.
The Italian trade routes that covered the Mediterranean and beyond were also major conduits of culture and knowledge. The recovery of lost Greek classics brought to Italy by refugee Byzantine scholars, who migrated during and following the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century, were important in sparking the new linguistic studies of the Renaissance, in newly created academies in Florence and Venice. Humanist scholars searched monastic libraries for ancient manuscripts and recovered Tacitus and other Latin authors. The rediscovery of Vitruvius meant that the architectural principles of Antiquity could be observed once more, and Renaissance artists were encouraged, in the atmosphere of humanist optimism, to excel in the achievements of the Ancients, like Apelles, of whom they read.

Religious background

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century AD, the Catholic Church filled the subsequent vacuum. In the Middle Ages, the Church was considered to be the will of God, and it regulated the standard of behaviour in life. A lack of literacy and prohibitions against translations of the Bible required most people to rely on the priestly explanation of Biblical ethics and laws.
In the eleventh century, the Church persecuted many groups including pagans, Jews, and lepers in order to eliminate irregularities in society and strengthen Church power. In response to the laity's challenge to Church authority, bishops played an important role as they gradually lost control of secular authority. To regain the power of discourse, they adopted extreme control methods, such as persecuting infidels.
The Church also collected wealth from believers in the Middle Ages, such as through the sale of indulgences, although this mainly occurred in northern Europe. It also did not pay taxes, making the Church's wealth greater than some kings.