RENAISSANCE

 The Renaissance was a cultural movement roughly

from 14th to the 17th century and a time of renewal
(Europe was recovering from the Dark Ages and the
Black Death/Bubonic Plague)
 There is a consensus that the Renaissance began in
Florence, Italy, in the 14th century.
 Renaissance means “rebirth” of classical knowledge
and “birth” of the modern world (new intellectual and
artistic ideas that developed during the Renaissance
marked the beginning of the modern world)
 Knowledge spread with the invention of the Printing
Press. When the Turks captured Constantinople,
scholars in that city fled from the Turks to Italy with
their precious books. The Press helped to multiply the
existing books.
 The birth of the Modern Age in the history of Europe
resulted in a number of scientific inventions,
geographical findings and revolutionary ideas also.
These affected not only the lives of the common
Europeans, but it brought far-reaching changes in the
whole of Europe.
 Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method
in study, and searched for realism and human emotion
in art.
Factors that Contributed to the
Beginning of the Renaissance
• Trade and commerce increased
• Cities grew larger and wealthier
• Newly wealthy merchants and bankers supported the
growth of the arts and learning
• The Renaissance was an age of recovery from the disasters
of the 14th century, such as the plague, political instability,
and a decline of Church power
• Recovery went hand-in-hand with a rebirth of interest in
ancient culture (e.g., ancient Greece and Rome)
• A new view of human beings emerged as people in the
Italian Renaissance began to emphasize individual ability
Italy failed to become united during the
Ages.
Cities developed
Many independent city-states emerged
in northern and central Italy that played
an important role in Italian politics and
art. Venice
Milan
Milan One of the richest cities, it
controls trade through the Alps.
Genoa
Venice Sitting on the Adriatic, it attracts
trade from all over the world. Florence

Florence controlled by the De Medici

Family, who became great patrons of the
arts.

All of these cities:

Had access to trade routes connecting
Europe with Middle Eastern markets
• Served as trading centers for the
distribution of goods to northern Europe
• Were initially independent city-states
governed as republics
 Trade brought many new ideas
and goods to Europe.
 An economy created prosperous
cities and new classes of people
who had enough money to support
art and learning.
 Italian city-states like Venice and
Genoa were located on the trade
routes that linked the rest of
western Europe with the East.
 Both these city-states became
trading centres.
 Trading ships brought goods to
England, Scandinavia, and
present-day Russia.
 Towns along trading routes
provided inns and other services
for traveling merchants.
 The increase of trade led to a new kind of economy.
 During the middle ages people traded goods for other goods.
 During the Renaissance people began using coins to buy goods which created a
money economy.
 Moneychangers were needed to covert one type of currency into
another. Therefore, many craftspeople, merchants, and bankers became more
important in society.
 Crafts people produced goods that merchants traded all over Europe.
 Bankers exchanged currency, loaned money, and financed their own business.
Renaissance trade route
Political Situations in Italy
 The forms of government that the various city-states assumed was
as varied as the number of states. The Kingdom of Naples,
consisting of the entire southern half of the Italian peninsula, was a
standard monarchy. Few were autonomous duchies; the area
around Rome and the northeastern Italian peninsula were a series
of semi-autonomous states under the control of the pope—
the Papal States.
 The popes of the later middle ages and the Italian Renaissance
could scarcely be considered churchmen; drawn from the nobility,
they were ruthless politicians whose central goal was the expansion
of their political power.
 Finally, Venice and Florence were republics, nominally ruled by
senates but in reality ruled by a small group of nobility and wealthy
capitalists.
 This concentration of wealth and power in the cities led to new configurations
of social class which would have wide-ranging effects across the face of
Europe.
 Most of the new wealth had been created by individuals not in the noble
class; the bankers, in particular, came from the productive classes.
 At the beginning of the high middle ages, wealth in Italy consisted almost
entirely of land and was concentrated in the hands of the nobility. Through
the development of commercial interests, wealth began to concentrate in the
hands of the non-aristocratic peoples
 In general, Renaissance Italian society consisted of five classes which varied
in nature and number depending on which area of Italy you were in. At the
top of the class hierarchy were the old nobility and the merchant class that
had traditionally ruled the cities.
 Below them were the emergent capitalist and banker class that identified
with the lower classes and wished to become as powerful as the top class.
 Below them were the less wealthy merchants and trades people and below
them, the poor and destitute. This final group probably made up one
fourth to one third of the urban population in Italy during the Renaissance.
 Finally, there were the domestic slaves; though few in number, they
represent the first attempts by post-classical European society to institute
slavery as an economic practice.
Political scenario
• Changes in Political Areas: Slowly the feudalism of the middle ages
began to give way to absolute monarchies in Europe. The invention of
gunpowder deprived the nobles of their privileged position. Previously they
were called upon to lend political or military support to the king in time of
crises. With the modern discoveries and inventions in the area of sciences
even the political stage underwent a remarkable change. Kings gradually
began to absorb the political power so far exercised by the nobles. They
could now establish a centralized government in most provinces to wield to
authority. The spirit of Nationalism also started to grow along with the rise of
monarchies. The ‘voice’ of the common man was now more clear and
effective. A sense of unity among people started to develop. But the roots of
class formation also took place in which common people began opposing
class interests.
• Socio-Economic Changes: Trade and commerce revived and improved in
an orderly political atmosphere. As new routes were made modern, cities
were established with urban communities. Besides this, classes were
formed in society, where the middle class, comprising business class
people, was more prominent.
 New cities and urban centres
• The phenomenal growth of wealth in the Italian cities eventually led to the
growth of a series of city-states, that is, individual regions ruled centrally
from a single city. In contrast to cities in central and northern Europe which
were ruled by monarchs, the Italian cities were allowed a high degree of
autonomy and expanded their political influence over the areas surrounding
them. Some of these states, such as Firenze (Florence), were named after
the city from which they were ruled. This growth in power of the city-states
was fueled by the money pouring into the cities from trade and from
banking. Little was done to stop the growth of these autonomous states;
Italy had through most of the late middle ages been fought over by the Pope
and the Holy Roman Emperor; each of these was so intent on the other that
both permitted the growth of powerful autonomous regions to further their
own aims. By the beginning of the Renaissance, there were five major
players in city-state politics: the Papal States (or Romagna) ruled by the
Pope, the republics of Firenze (Florence) and Venezia (Venice), the
kingdom of Napoli (Naples), and the duchy of Milano (Milan).
Scientific Growth and Development
 Science took long strides in the new age,
as people now accepted as true only that
which seemed was logical. As they came
in contact with Arabs, they learnt modern
mathematics and chemistry.
 Besides, traditional beliefs upheld by the
Church about various natural phenomena
were also shattered. The belief that the
Earth is the Center of the Solar System
was demolished. Copernicus scientifically
proved that the Earth, instead of being the Copernicus
center, is a planet revolving round the Sun.

 Galileo popularized this theory

of Kepler. The study of Astronomy was
also made more precise.

Galileo
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