Venice proved to be a more powerful adversary, and with the decline of Genoese power during the 15th century Venice became pre-eminent on the seas. The Italian Renaissance (Italian: Rinascimento [rinaʃʃiˈmento]), a period in Italian history that covered the 15th and 16th centuries, developed a culture that spread across Europe and marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity. [2] The Florentine Republic, one of the several city-states of the peninsula, rose to economic and political prominence by providing credit for European monarchs and by laying down the groundwork for developments in capitalism and in banking. Yet even beyond that, in the secular world of the city-states, where lay literates rather than clerics dominated intellectual life, the secular civilization of the Classical world had an irresistible appeal. Subsequently modified and developed by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94), whose best-known essay bears the significant title Oratio de hominis dignitate (1486; Oration on the Dignity of Man), this philosophy, which argued that human beings could independently determine their own salvation by following the natural impulses of love and beauty, presented an immensely optimistic view of humanity and its place in the universe. High Medieval Northern Italy was further divided by the long-running battle for supremacy between the forces of the Papacy and of the Holy Roman Empire: each city aligned itself with one faction or the other, yet was divided internally between the two warring parties, Guelfs and Ghibellines. In the course of the 15th century, the most powerful city-states annexed their smaller neighbors. The principal forms were the Trecento madrigal, the caccia, and the ballata. [46], During the Renaissance, algebra spread throughout Europe, especially Italy. 3, no. [16][17][18][19] One of the greatest achievements of Italian Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity. 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. Recent historians who take a more revisionist perspective, such as Charles Haskins (1860–1933), identify the hubris and nationalism of Italian politicians, thinkers, and writers as the cause for the distortion of the attitude towards the early modern period. [70], Cultural movement from the 14th to 17th century, Northern and Central Italy in the Late Middle Ages, "Renaissance Historians of different kinds will often make some choice between a long Renaissance (say, 1300-1600), a short one (1453- 1527) , or somewhere in between (the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as is commonly adopted ...", Jensen 1992, p. 97; see also Andrew B. Appleby's "Epidemics and Famine in the Little Ice Age. Discovering the past had become fashionable and it was a passionate affair pervading the upper reaches of society. The movement advanced in the middle of the 14th century through the work of two men, eminent both as humanists and for their roles in Italian and European literature: Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch; 1304–74) and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–75). Therefore, wealth did not simply equate with cultural vitality. By far the most famous composer of church music in 16th-century Italy was Palestrina, the most prominent member of the Roman School, whose style of smooth, emotionally cool polyphony was to become the defining sound of the late 16th century, at least for generations of 19th- and 20th-century musicologists. [41], Equally important was the end of stability with a series of foreign invasions of Italy known as the Italian Wars that would continue for several decades. As such, it represented not a philosophical system but rather an educational program that largely excluded those subjects taught in the universities: logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, astronomy, medicine, law, and theology. Trigonometry also achieved greater development during the Renaissance. Santa Maria Novella was the first great basilica in Florence and one … "Medievalisms Old and New: The Rediscovery of Alterity in North American Medieval Studies. During the Italian Renaissance, mathematics was developed and spread widely. Italy became the recognized European leader in all these areas by the late 15th century, during the era of the Peace of Lodi (1454–1494) agreed between Italian states. Cosimo was highly popular among the citizenry, mainly for bringing an era of stability and prosperity to the town. Most historians feel that early in the Renaissance social mobility was quite high, but that it faded over the course of the 15th century. In examining its social origins, it has been traditional to point to the economic wealth and early capitalist development of central and northern Italy. Like the peasants, the Renaissance had little effect on them. "Machiavelli is the only political thinker whose name has come into common use for designating a kind of politics, which exists and will continue to exist independently of his influence, a politics guided exclusively by considerations of expediency, which uses all means, fair or foul, iron or poison, for achieving its ends – its end being the aggrandizement of one's country or fatherland – but also using the fatherland in the service of the self-aggrandizement of the politician or statesman or one's party." [13] This change in climate saw agricultural output decline significantly, leading to repeated famines, exacerbated by the rapid population growth of the earlier era. [37], The Renaissance was not a period of great social or economic change, only of cultural and ideological development. Haskins was one of the leading scholars in this school of thought, and it was his (along with several others) belief that the building blocks for the Italian Renaissance were all laid during the Middle Ages, calling on the rise of towns and bureaucratic states in the late 11th century as proof of the significance of this "pre-renaissance." It was, in fact, strong states (unlike Genoa) and the peculiar state system of Italy that lay behind most of the intense secular patronage and intellectual life in this period. The history of the Italian peninsula during the medieval period can be roughly defined as the time between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance.. Late Antiquity in Italy lingered on into the 7th century under the Ostrogothic Kingdom and the Byzantine Empire under the Justinian dynasty, the Byzantine Papacy until the mid 8th century. Early Renaissance, 1400–1475. Young women and men tell the 100 tales of The Decameron by Boccaccio. The Crusades had built lasting trade links to the Levant, and the Fourth Crusade had done much to destroy the Byzantine Roman Empire as a commercial rival to the Venetians and Genoese. These were dominated by a commercial elite; as exclusive as the aristocracy of any Medieval kingdom. Political allegories and demands for identifiable portraits of lords or statesmen made new demands upon the artist and stimulated interest in the art of Classical Rome, whose heir the communes claimed to be. High Renaissance, 1475–1525. The trade routes of the Italian states linked with those of established Mediterranean ports and eventually the Hanseatic League of the Baltic and northern regions of Europe to create a network economy in Europe for the first time since the 4th century. Architectural Histories, vol. For many, the rise to power in Florence of the austere monk Girolamo Savonarola in 1494–1498 marks the end of the city's flourishing; for others, the triumphant return of the Medici family to power in 1512 marks the beginning of the late phase in the Renaissance arts called Mannerism. Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) translated all of Plato’s writings, together with important Neoplatonic texts and the Greek mystical Corpus Hermeticum. Smaller courts brought Renaissance patronage to lesser cities, which developed their characteristic arts: Ferrara, Mantua under the Gonzaga, and Urbino under Federico da Montefeltro. The main challengers of the Albizzi family were the Medicis, first under Giovanni de' Medici, later under his son Cosimo de' Medici. After the destruction of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD, the Roman Catholic Church rose to power in Europe. Italian Renaissance painting can be divided into four periods: Proto-Renaissance, 1300–1400. Historians of the period include Machiavelli himself, his friend and critic Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540) and Giovanni Botero (The Reason of State, 1589). Early Renaissance. 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 (1494–1559). Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. In the early Italian Renaissance, much of the focus was on translating and studying classic works from Latin and Greek. 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