There are moments in history that are marked with a name, usually beginning with THE in front of it.

These would be moments like The Hellenistic Age The Fall of the Roman Empire The Rise of Islam. The one that concerns us here in this essay is that of The Renaissance. In these examples you have a specific person whom one can say is responsible for the aforementioned epochs. Alexander the Great was responsible for the bringing in of the The Hellenistic Age, Atilla the Hun for the Fall of the Roman Empire and Mohammed for the Rise of Islam. The Renaissance does not have such one person, as credit may be given to Petrarch, Dante, Mehmet II, but there is a family whose contributions certainly helped bring the so called rebirth out of the nursery and into full maturity, at least that is what most historic writers whom write about the preceding person and epochs would have you believe. They always are willing to present their subject of expertise with romantic views. This is not the case for Tim Parks, who does it a bit better projecting the Renaissance in a more realistic light and not like that of total indulgence in the arts, beauty, learning and all things pretty and nice, that they were some not so entirely, enlightening, that not all the people in the Renaissance were taken over by the humanistic ideas that were originated by writers such Dante, Bocaccio and Petrarch. In Tim Parks book titled Medici Money, Parks talks about La Famiglia de Medici and how they were the financial backbones to the Renaissance. Their monetary contributions are the fuel that helped burn the little flame of the Renaissance into an inferno. Beginning with Giovanni laying the foundations for the rapid rise of the Medici and his advice to stay out of the public eye, then on to Cosimo whose political maneuvering are what really brought the family name to be synonymous with the Renaissance, then on to Lorenzos famous dealings with the intelligentsia and patronization of the arts, ending most famously with Piero being pushed out of Florence for dealing with the French army who was amassing to invade their colonies. Parks paints a relatively neutral picture of the Renaissance with the Medici family serving as the catalysts for which the Renaissance by way of which they introduce an ingenious way of making themselves a profit via the use of setting up branches of the Medici run bank if different locations and then when loaning out the several users, using the difference in the exchange of the currencies to make a profit as well as the method of using different currencies at home such as the florins for use high in value exchanges and the use of il piccolo for usage by the everyday common folks of the city of Florence. These are not ideals and values that are usually associated with the values and ideals of the Renaissance. Figuring out ways to make a profit off the people without as much receiving the wrath of the papacy or determining the exchange rate between two different coins is something that when most people, as did myself for sure, think in the same breath of Renaissance, but a time when people stop believing in religious superstition and dogma. Parks puts all that into a different perspective, he points out that the idea of humanism is not a great idea that has come as a progression of thought and reintroduction to the philosophies of Plato, Livy, Aristotle and Cicero, but he states that it is the rejection of the so called middle ages is that makes the humanist movement not so humanistic. He mentions how Marsilio Ficino was able to superimpose all the ideals and philossphies of all the various sects of religion, faith and creed were really all believing in the same thing. Parks remarks how Ficino by thorough reading and translations of the many works of the aforementioned beliefs states that Dantes mountain that he ascends in the Divina Commedia is the same mountain, being Mount Olympus that is worshipped by the Greeks in their polytheistic belief system, the Pradesha of the Sankskrit people and the Arab mountain of Qaf. Parks also mentions how Ficino makes the connection of the Orphics Hymn to the Sun being akin to The Republic by Plato who was also the same association to Saint Augustines notion of God as the sun of the soul. Ficino seems to to make the point that all the ancient priests were

really just pushing forth the same messages or believing in the same thing. Why does Parks point this out at all? He is trying to show that the Renaissance was not this sudden burning of the bright torch of knowledge as a result of the rediscovery of the ancients wise and educated writings and prose, thus bringing the world out of the dark ages as the time period is commonly called after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 A.D. Parks seems to bring forth the notion that the so called re birth of Europe is and was a continuation of what was continual learning and culture but just held within the confines of the doctrine and dogma of the Catholic Church and Christianity in general. Now it is just the fact of not being so afraid to be more open to the ancients works, willingness to talk and create works of art that can be interpretations of classical images and even having the gaul to at times even to openly criticize the corruption of the Catholic Church, a move that would most certainly bring about an excommunication. This can be avoided by having the person whom you would like to be Pope in the Papacy as did the Medici family, it was as if they really were the original mafia family, using their political and economic clout really to just advance the causes of the Medici family and not necessarily that of the ideals of the Renaissance. Now this does not mean that they did not have a genuine interest in the works of Plato and Cicero, but the interest in the arts to which they bestowed lots of their money was secondary and more of a means to show the people the power and wealth they have amassed. Parks point of view again is neutral and not the sugar coated romantic view that is common, and that is similar to yet albeit a bit more awkward presentation of that of Alison Brown presents in her book The Renaissance. Brown makes the point that the Renaissance was also not the merry rebirth that many of us are taught in elementary school social studies textbooks, that it contained many dark elements. She makes the point of the lack of humanistic treatment of the people of the recently discovered New World that were persecuted and the rapine and decimation of their culture is a direct contradiction of that so called humanist philosophy. She also mentions about the decivilising of the Renaissance that the publication of the first regularized grammatic version of Castillan vernacular was the end of the rich polyglot of Spanish culture, that now the diversity of the languages in the medieval era in the Iberian peninsula has been erased in the advancement of so called civilized peoples or Christians, as mentioned by Amerigo Vespucci pointing out the fact that the natives of South America had the most barbarous customs just because they did not eat they did with fixed eating time laying on the ground without napkins or cloths. She points out that the people of the Renaissances highbrow view of themselves contributed to the texts showing it as such a great and completely free minded and open society of great learning and art interests, not to discount the fact that there is an renewed interest in the education and a general forward thinking, but this was mostly confined to the Italian states of Europe, and the Renaissance did not start reaching other parts of Europe until the later part of the middle ages or late Renaissance. As has been shown, the Renaissance was a great time in the history of the world with many old ideas being brought back out of the dusty shelves in monasteries and abbeys, new ideas were also thought of as well, new concepts of art and engineering were made possible due to the patronage of men like the Medicis Cosimo and Lorenzo, but the Renaissance was not all positive and people from the new world suffered the loss of their way of life, woman and poor were still not given many rights as well as the constant changing of political alliances and factions forming cause many casualties in the small and large wars that occurred because of it. The Renaissance was great, but it was far from perfect, yet without it we would not have the modern world as it is today.