Notes: The Italian Renaissance, The Northern Renaissance

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Chapter 1 The Italian Renaissance, The Northern Renaissance (1450-1550) The Italian Renaissance Italian City states • Northern Italian towns expanded from trade centers of the Roman Empire to independent city-states. • These city-states ruled wide areas of surrounding countryside. • The unified people of Europe took advantage of their proximity to the sea. The applied the energy that springs from being always at the focus of crisis to establish a seagoing trade with the peoples in the eastern Mediterranean. • Major City States • Republic of Genoa • Duchy of Milan • Rome, the Papal states • Naples, Kingdom of two Sicilies • Venice, Venetian Republic • Venice, Genoa, and Pisa used their location on the Mediterranean to control the European trade with the middle…show more content…
Their newfound wealth encouraged the appreciation of earthly pleasures and diminishing dedication to the pious traditions of the Middle Ages. Accidents of history and geography presented them with this new wealth. Wealth is meant to be spent. The more the wealthy spent on beautiful artwork, the more that this artwork was made. People began believing that the statement “art not belonging to god is irrelevant” is false. The Medici Family • The most famous family of merchants and bankers. They used their wealth to govern city-states and to patronize the illustrious creators in the arts. • Giovanni de’ Medici- Merchant and banker of Florence, as well as the founder of the Medici dynasty. Considered the worlds first modern person. He was the ultimate adapter who ignored the church’s prohibitions of lending interest to provide funds for changing the world economy. • Cosimo de’ Medici- Used the fortune of his father Giovanni to fill the vacuum of power created by the lack of national monarchy. Allied with other powerful families and became the unofficial ruler of the

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