Clarissa TannerAP European History

AP Euro Summer Reading: Renaissance and Discovery (Donald Kagan)

Notes:

I. The Renaissance in Italy: Italian city-states flourished under the new-rich classes, and the study of classic texts encouraged a renewed appreciation for art and education.

A. The Italian City-State: Cities, under the influence of the wealthy and merchant classes, became powerful enough to distance themselves and delegate despots, although conflicts sparked regularly between social classes.

Due to its location, Italy was a prime center for trade during the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, and savvy merchants largely contributed to the growth and affluence of their respective emerging city-states.

1. Growth of City-States: Because the Italian emperor was locked in a battle for power with the Catholic Church, local merchants were able to exert control in otherwise ungoverned cities and establish five major city-states: the duchy of Milan, the republics of Florence and Venice, the Papal States, and the kingdom of Naples.

2. Social Class and Conflict: The merchants’ rapidly acquired wealth and power threw them into a brand new social class, the “new rich,” which disturbed order among the original classes.

In Florence, for example, the poorest class (the popolo minuto) revolted against the richest classes (the grandi, or old rich) during the Ciompi Riot of 1376, and governed the city for 4 years.

3. Despotism and Diplomacy: Although the Italian city-states were, officially, oligarchies, the most powerful men in the city would often get together to delegate despots (known as “podesta’s”) to “maintain law and order” in the city-states.

Despots would control the executive, military, and judicial aspects of their cities, although they ran the risk of being dismissed or assassinated.

By the 15th Century, city-states also began to build embassies in other courts to represent them and to spy on the progress of rival cities.

B. Humanism: The Italian Renaissance was largely driven by scholars studying and reviving the ancient Latin and Greek texts. Humanists encountered personal conflicts, however, over the differing classic and ancient belief and ideals.

Humanism is widely known as the study of classical Greek and Roman (Latin) texts, although the secondary effects are heavily contested.

The first humanists were orators and poets, but some historians believe that humanism led to “the birth of humanity,” the belief in individualism, a duty toward the community, and a rebirth of secular values.

1. Petrarch, Dante, and Bocaccio: For many humanists, it was challenging balancing classical religious views, studied in the ancient texts, and modern Christian values.

Francesco Petrarch (1304-1375), known as the “father of humanism,” wrote personal letters, Latin epic poems, biographies, and love sonnets, yet was still “uneasy” about the co-existence of classical and Christian values in his work.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) wrote the The Divine Comedy and Vita Nuova, revealing his less religiously-focused views.

Giovanni Bocaccio (1313-1375) enjoyed studying human behavior, which he did in Decameron, exposing sexual and economic offenses in humanity.

2. Educational Reforms and Goals: Humanists believed in a well-rounded, diverse education based on classical, primary sources that would serve to “ennoble” people, and teach them how to achieve freedom through virtue.

When Quintillian’s “Education of the Orator” was unearthed in 1416, it quickly became the basis of the humanist education style.

Women were also included, and it became a humanist ideal for women to be educated (but not vain.) This is illustrated by Christine de Pisan (1363-1434), a well-educated woman who was able to use her education to support herself by writing lyric poetry, letters, and, finally, her most famous piece, The City of Ladies.

3. The Florentine “Academy” and the Revival of Platonism: Although the Renaissance saw a revival of many of the ancient cultures, Greece was one of the most popular, the study of ancient Greek texts having been popularized in Italy by the speaker Manuel Chrysoloras of Constantinople, who made the trip to Italy in 1397, as well as the 1453 fall of Constantinople to the Turks, forcing many Greek scholars to take refuge in Florence. As a result, humanists began to study Greek texts, as well as the Latin ones, and many humanists were particularly interested in the works of Plato, due mostly to his views on human nature, and thus formed the “Florentine Academy,” a group of scholars dedicated to the study of Platonic texts.

One Platonic scholar, Pico, published the Oration on the Dignity of Man, drawing from Plato’s writings to prove that humans were the only creatures on the planet with completely free will.

4. Critical Work of the Humanists (Lorenzo Valla): Humanists, in an effort to stay true to the historical sources, would sometimes inadvertently question the word of traditional powers, such as the Catholic Church, usually resulting in anger.

Lorenzo Valla, a Catholic humanist, published his Elegances of the Latin Language, which he intended to be an exposé of the ancient Roman Donation, (that Valla then proved to not actually be from the fourth Century), as well as the Latin Vulgate, the official Bible still used by the Church. Unfortunately, Valla, a devoted Catholic, accidentally ended up appealing to Protestants by defending predestination.

5. Civic Humanism: Because humanists believed that traditional education was useless and a good education should prepare an individual to be actively engaged

in the world around them by promoting “individual virtue and public service”, “civic humanism,” or humanist leadership in politics and culture, became very popular among humanists.

C. Renaissance Art: Artists in Italy painted a more realistic portrait of Renaissance life and human bodies in general, due to the introduction of shading and symmetry.

The Italian laity began to turn away from the medieval teachings of the Catholic clergy and toward “secular,” individual ideas and pursuits, a change which was reflected in the artistic styles of Renaissance artists who, with the new chiaroscuro (“light and dark” shading) and linear perspective (“adjusting the size of figures” to create a 3D feel) techniques, could make their paintings more lifelike and natural than the Byzantine/Gothic artists before them.

1. Leonardo da Vinci: Da Vinci was a perfect example of the Renaissance “universal person,” because he was both a painter, military engineer, botanist, and anatomist; yet he is perhaps most famous for his painting of the Mona Lisa and the depth of the facial expressions (and how they convey “inner moods”) he was able to capture in both the Mona Lisa and his other portraits.

2. Raphael: Raphael was known as a kindly artist, which is apparently reflected in the tender face of his paintings of the Madonna He is also famous for the School of Athens, a fresco of famous ancient philosophers with the features of his modern-day peers.

3. Michelangelo: During his time, Michelangelo was so admired for his devotion to the human body and its “harmony, symmetry, and proportion” that four different popes ordered paintings from him, the most famous of which were the frescos of the Sistine Chapel.

Later on in his life, Michelangelo began to paint under the style of mannerism, which, unlike the symmetry and perfection of the High Renaissance, allowed artists to explore unusual or strange subjects, depending on how they were feeling or what they were thinking.

D. Slavery in the Renaissance: Slavery had already been quite common before the Renaissance, but after many workers died during the Black Death (1348-1350), demand across Europe for slaves rose. Russians, Greeks, Tatars, Circassians, Georgians, Iranians, Africans, and Asians were among the many conquered countries from which slaves were brought to work on sugar cane plantations and in most Renaissance households.

II. Italy’s Political Decline: The French Invasions (1474-1527): During the early 1500s, a dispute between city-states swiftly escalated into a war against the French, which was fueled by poor Italian leadership and French determination.

A. The Treaty of Lodi: Although the Italian city-states fought amongst each other, when it came to the threat of foreign powers, they always fought as one, as illustrated by the Treaty of Lodi (from 1454 to 1455), which honored such an agreement by allying Milan and Naples with Florence against Milan.

When the Treaty of Lodi was broken by Florence and the Borgia Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503) with a plan to attack Milan, Milanese despot, Ludovico il Moro, requested that France return to Naples, a city they had once ruled.

B. Charles VIII’s March Through Italy: French King Charles VIII (1483-1498) immediately led an invasion through the Alps in 1945 and headed through Florence and the Papal States to reach Naples. At Florence, however, the Florentine ruler, Piero de Medici, was not able to distract the French with land offerings, and the city was only saved by a radical Dominican preacher, Girolamo Savonarola, who had heralded the arrival of the French as “vengeance” (although was later executed for his views.) The city of Florence paid out an expensive ransom to the French, and elsewhere in Italy, Venice, the Papal States, Emperor Maximillian, and Milan joined together to form the League of Venice to fight back France.

C. Pope Alexander VI and the Borgia family: The corrupt Borgia pope, Pope Alexander VI, pulled several strings to win the favor of the French, including withdrawing from the League of Venice, and aid the new French King, Louis XII (r. 1498-1515) in another French invasion, this time of Milan. Pope Alexander VI was thus able to successfully ensure that future generations within his family would have even more land to control (he conquered Romagna without opposition.)

D. Pope Julius II: The next pope, Pope Julius II (r. 1503-1513) was known as the “warrior pope” for his anti-Borgia sentiments: for example, he shocked his subjects when he placed the “newly conquered lands in Romagna under papal jurisdiction,” by driving the Venetians out of Romagna in 1509. This meant that Romagna was now no longer controlled within the Borgia family (as was accomplished by Pope Alexander VI before him.)

Pope Julius II was then able to focus on foreign affairs, which he did by creating a 2nd Holy League in October 1511, with Ferdinand of Aragon, Venice, Emperor Maximilian I, and the Swiss. They successfully beat back the French by 1512, but under the rule of French king Francis I (r. 1515-1547), the French invaded yet again, defeating the Swiss soldiers and settling on the Concordat of Bologna (August 1516), which “gave the French King control over the French clergy in exchange for French recognition of the Pope’s superiority over Church councils and his right to collect annates in France.”

E. Niccolo Machiavelli: As Italy was wrecked by French invasions, artists and humanists were busy studying and creating. One such humanist, Niccolo Machiavelli, believed in a romanticized version of Roman history, where Roman heroes possessed virtue and an unselfishness that allowed them to sacrifice themselves for the safety of their people and their land. Machiavelli became convinced that, for Italy to remain united against its many enemies, it needed a champion, or “strongman” to lead the country to victory, and in 1513, he wrote The Prince to satirize the behavior of modern rulers, seeming to recommend dictatorship to unify Italy.

Machiavelli had high hopes for a hero from the Medici family to help save Italy, but both Pope Leo X (r. 1513-1521) and Pope Clement VII (r. 1523-1534) were unable to do anything as Rome was sacked by French Emperor Charles V’s army in 1527.

III. Revival of Monarchy in Northern Europe: Throughout the rest of Europe (excluding Germany), monarchs experienced a rise to power (with the support of the people) that allowed them to strengthen and expand their individual nations.

In Northern Europe, countries that had once been split up into smaller, feudal territories or cities once again began to ally with the King (rather than the nobility or clergy), giving him much more power to collect taxes, wage war as a country (as opposed to region) and, most of all, unite their countries as a whole.

A. France: French King Charles VII (r. 1422-1461) and his ministers created a “permanent professional army” to drive the English out of France (ending English rule after the Hundred Years’ War) and, with the help of the emperor Maximilian I of Hapsburg, defeat Charles the Bold (of the duchy of Burgundy, who had had his eye on the French territory), subsequently dividing the lands between them.

Charles VII could then nurture a ‘strong economy, diplomatic corps, and national administration,” which, in turn, allowed him to focus on the industry within France, leaving his successors a powerful enough infrastructure to focus on expansion outside of France, leading unfortunately to the defeats by the Italians and wars with the Hapsburgs.

B. Spain started to become a strong nation after the marriage of Isabelle of Castille (r. 1474-1504) and Ferdinand of Aragon (r. 1479-1516) in 1469, bringing 2 different kingdoms (Castille and Aragon) together as one, although they allowed each kingdom to keep its separate laws, armies, currency, culture, etc.

Together, Isabelle and Ferdinand could conquer the Moors in Grenada (1482-1492), Naples, and the Kingdom of Navarre, setting new borders for their kingdom(s).

Although Spain used to be known for its toleration of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, Isabella and Ferdinand took over control of the Spanish church to make Spain a solely Catholic nation. They created the Inquisition in 1498 to keep a close watch on converted Jews (converses) and converted Muslims (moriscos). In 1492, they exiled the Jews.

Their first daughter, Joanna, had with Archduke Philip named Charles I of Spain, who would later be elected as the first ruler over a united Spain in 1519. Their second daughter, Catherine of Aragon, was one of 6 who married King Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547) in 1509.

C. England: After England’s defeat in the Hundred Years’ War, two branches of the royal family, the House of York, and the House of Lancaster fought the Wars of the Roses between 1458 to 1485 for a hold on the throne.

In 1461, Edward IV (r. 1461-1483), son of the duke of York, took hold for 20 years (interrupted only once by Henry VI in 1470-1471).

Edward’s brother, Richard III (r. 1483-1485) stole the throne from Edward’s son, but the exiled Henry Tudor of Lancaster returned in August 1485 and ruled from 1485-1509. He married Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth of York, and “disciplined” the English nobility by passing the Court of Star Chamber, which forced the King’s councilors to act as judges, in the hopes of cutting back corruption. He also governed without the help or funding of Parliament.

D. The Holy Roman Empire: Germany was persistent in remaining non-united (all rulers insisted on doling out small fractions of their kingdoms to their sons until Germany had around 300 “autonomous political entities”), but it did join together to agree on terms of law.

Starting in 1356, Germany reached the Golden Bull agreement that would create a 7-member electoral college of the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg, the court of Palatine, and the King of Bohemia to elect a German emperor. Although this formed the only sense of unity in the country, all conditions of the election were renegotiated for each new emperor, causing many disputes. In response to this, the Reichstag diet was created, an assembly at which the 7 electors, the non-electoral princes, and 65 imperial free cities would gather to create and enforce rules.

At the assembly at Worms in 1495, Emperor Maximilian I (r. 1493-1519) passed a ban on private warfare, and created a Supreme Court Justice of the peace to enforce this.

IV. The Northern Renaissance: Northern humanists were mainly young scholars, who relied on their studies to help form arguments for reform within the Church and government.

Although humanism traveled from Italy to the North, Northern humanists were more diverse and able to reach larger audiences with the invention of the printing press, which fostered a widespread push for religious and social change.

A. The Printing Press: Because early northern Kings had promoted education (to staff their offices), by the fifteenth century, literacy rates were high, and Johann Gutenberg’s (?-1468) movable type printing press (which replaced vellum, sheep and calfskins) was highly successful.

By 1500, 200 cities in Europe used printing presses, making it easy for humanists to attract international attention, as well as religious and political leaders to distribute propaganda.

B. Erasmus: Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) was a famous northern humanist who “aspired to unite the classical ideals of humanity and civic virtue with the Christian ideals of love and piety.” Erasmus believed in reform, and subsequently edited the New Testament to translate it into Greek in 1516 (and Latin in 1519). One of many humanists to anger the Church (and make it to the Index of Forbidden Books.)

He was also known for his Colloquies (Latin dialogues for his students on how to live well) and Adages (collections of ancient and contemporary proverbs.)

C. Humanism and Reform: Throughout most of Europe, the education and humanism paved the way for religious reform (except in Spain, due to the Inquisition and religious reforms within the Church.)

1. Germany: German humanists were unified by the Reuchlin affair: when Pfefferkorn, a former Jew dedicated to the suppression of Jewish texts, accused Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), author of “the first (reliable) Hebrew grammar by a Christian,” other humanists rushed to Reuchlin’s aid, in support of academic freedom.

This solidarity between humanists was again witnessed by Martin Luther in 1517.

Some of the most famous humanists were Rudolf Agricola (1443-1485), who “introduced Italian learning to Germany,” Conrad Celtis (d. 1508), a German poet, and Ulrich van Hutten (1488-1523), a nationalist German knight.

2. England: Thomas More was the most well known English humanist, famous for his 1516 Utopia, about an ideal society where men worked equally for their keep.

3. France: Due to France’s involvement in Italy, Italian humanism was quickly snapped up by the French, whose own humanists (especially Guillaume Bude (1468-1540), a Greek scholar, and Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples (1454-1536), “a biblical authority”) influenced Martin Luther, John Calvin, and many others.

4. Spain: In Spain, the Grand Inquisitor, Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros (1437-1517), was adamant about keeping Spain strictly Catholic, and therefore published versions of the Bible translated into other languages, as well as promoted internal Church reforms.

I. Voyages of Discovery and the New Empire in the West: Europe began to trade for first gold, then spices, with Africa and Asia, the different European countries competing with each other for the fastest trip to get to the East. Spain sent ships across the Atlantic and eventually reached the Americas, where they conquered both the Incas and the Aztecs, and set up a slave trade with the Native American people.

A. Gold and Spices: After Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) funded explorations to Africa, Portugal quickly rivaled the Arabian land routes as the port (at Lisbon and Antwerp) for gold trade between Europe and the South. Soon, Bartholomew Dias (d.1500) opened Portugal up for trade with Asia and its much sought after spices, and in 1498, Vasco de Gama (d.1524) reached India. Spain, in an effort to more quickly reach the Indian and African trade routes, sent ships across the Atlantic, but Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) reached the Americas instead.

Amerigo Vespucci and Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) then proved that the Americas were not part of the Far East but a brand new continent.

B. The Spanish Empire in the New World: Spain’s discovery proved very profitable for Europe, leading to vast amounts of new wealth for Spain from gold and silver acquisitions, and therefore inflation throughout Europe.

Although Columbus originally thought he had been in Asia, once he realized, by his third trip, that the Americas were an entirely new continent, he realized how submissive and perfect for slavery the natives were.

C. A Conquered World: At the time, Native Americans had been split into 2 groups: Mesoamerica, which covered from Central Mexico into the Yucatan and Guatemala, and was mainly inhabited by the Aztecs, and the Andean region, Peru and Bolivia, which was home to the Incas. Spain was determined to conquer both for their vast wealth and riches.

1. The Aztecs in Mexico: After a rebellion led by Chief Itzcoatl in the 12th Century, the Aztecs reached a peak in expansion. Their capital was called Tenochtitlan (today’s Mexico City), and the Aztec rulers demanded many sacrifices from their captured

surrounding lands . When Hernan Cortes arrived in 1519, he gained favor with their conquered lands, as well as their ruler, Montezuma, who believed him to be the priest Quetzlcoatl. Although Montezuma offered gold, Cortes, with the support of the captured tribes, invaded and conquered Tenochtitlan, and captured Montezuma (who died in imprisonment.) By 1521, the Aztecs were fully defeated and their region named the new Spain.

2. Spaniard Francisco Pizarro landed in Peru, home of the Incas, in 1531. The Incas ruled much like the Aztecs, with force, but when the chief of the Incas, Atahualpa, agreed to a conference with Pizarro, he was captured. He tried in vain to pay for his freedom in gold, but was executed in 1533. The Spanish fought amongst themselves for leadership, but took steady control by the 1560’s.

D. The Economy of Exploitation: Europeans quickly became accustomed to the idea of using Native Americans for slave labor in either the mining, agriculture, or shipping industries.

1. Mining: Although the Spanish had originally sought gold, silver also became a huge industry, especially for Spain (whose rulers received a fifth of all silver mining income.)

2. Agriculture: To support the mining industry, haciendas had to be set up, where a Spanish-born “peninsulares” or Spanish-American “Creole” forced several slaves to mind a farm, both to feed the Spanish colonies, and to provide the leather parts needed for the mining machinery.

3. Labor Servitude: To lure the Indians into labor, the Spanish rulers used encomiendas, or grants to the labor of a certain number of Indians, repartimiento, an extremely harsh labor tax for adult male Natives, and then, finally, free labor, or debt peonage, where a Native American worker was forced to purchase supplies from his landowner, and remain forever in his debt.

E. The Impact on Europe: The effects of the new source of capital in Europe had mixed results; although there was now lots of money for further research, inflation rose, and Europe witnessed a trend in capitalism, as well as the social issues brought with it.

Primary Sources:

I. A Letter to Bocaccio: Literary Humanism (Francesco Petrarch): In Francesco Petrarch’s Letter to Bocaccio, he uses both classic and religious references to tell his friend to never “desert” his studies, and instead ignore the criticism that they, as humanists were facing, because it was only through years of study that Cato, Varro, and Paul were able to achieve virtue.

He describes Cato as a man who “acquainted himself with Latin literature as he was growing old, and Greek when he had really become an old man,” and Varro as a man who “parted from life sooner than from his love of study,” to prove that these highly esteemed men achieved their fame from extreme dedication to their work.

“The path to virtue by the way of ignorance may be plain, [but] it fosters sloth,” he says, saying that even though it might be easier to be holy simply because you

are simple-minded or unlearned, it is all the more rewarding to be holy by virtue of your knowledge.

II. On the Liberal Arts (Peter Paul Vergerio): Peter Paul Vergerio argues that liberal arts should be taught to young children to provide a foundation for their actions and beliefs in the future, especially if their families our rich, as rich children will grow up to be influential looked-to for guidance.

Vergerio says that parents owe three duties to their children: that they name their child a name that they can be proud of, instead of embarrassed, that they raise their children in interesting and famous cities, and that their children receive a proper, liberal arts education.

1. History: According to Vergerio, all proper liberal arts educations must include the study of history, which is important for teaching what “men have said and done in the past.”

2. Moral Philosophy: Moral philosophy, which teaches “what practical lessons we may draw” from history “therefrom for the present day,” therefore teaching the students “the secret of true freedom.”

3. Eloquence: Eloquence should be taught to help the students convince others the “essential truth of things” that was learned from the moral philosophy (based on history), and spread their message to others.

III. The City of Ladies (Christine de Pizan): The two points this excerpt of Christine de Pizan’s makes, are that women are intelligent enough to learn the law, but that it is “not…right for them to abandon their customary modesty and go about bringing cases before a court [when] … there are already enough men to do so.” Secondly, that even though some men think it is wrong for women to be educated, it is usually the “not very clever [who] come out with this opinion because they don’t want women to know more than they do.”

IV. The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli): Dismayed by the attacks and invasions Italy was facing, Machiavelli felt that Italy needed a strong leader to bring Italy back together. In The Prince, he describes how a prince should govern: because “how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live,” a prince must therefore be cruel and cold to his people, as well as virtuous and dedicated to “mercy, faith, integrity, humanity, and religion”. If the prince acts as Machiavelli has laid out, he shall “always be judged honorable and praised by everyone, for… the few who are not vulgar are isolated.”

V. The Book of the Courtier (Baldesar Castiglione): In this excerpt, Castiglione describes the perfect Renaissance man and woman, both of whom bear no resemblance to each other, other than that they must be learned, but not vain.

Castiglione includes that the perfect Renaissance man must be noble-born, making it easier for him to bounce back from failure, he must have a “pleasing and lovable… air,” he must be “bold , energetic, and faithful to whomever he serves,” “harsh” on the battlefield, but “humane” and “modest” off, and he should be learned, but never vain. Women, on the other hand, should be “soft and delicate,” tender, and sweet, and learned, but also never vain.

VI. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Jacob Burckhardt): 1860’s historian, Jacob Burckhardt, the Renaissance in Italy meant a switch from man being “conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation” to man becoming “a spiritual individual, and recognizing himself as such,” a switch which occurred in Italy far before the rest of Europe began thinking in the same terms.

VII. The Myth of the Renaissance (Peter Burke): Peter Burke’s criticism of Burckhardt was founded on his belief that the idea of the Renaissance as a rebirth was a myth.

He thought that Burckhardt’s biggest mistake was that he accepted the writings of the Italian Renaissance humanists “at face value,” especially when they stated that Italy was the first country to fully experience the rebirth to individualism.

He also stated what he and other historians believed, which was that Renaissance men shared more qualities with the “dark” centuries, and were actually more traditional than they cared to acknowledge.

VIII. Machiavelli and the Renaissance (Federico Chabod): Chabod wrote that because Machiavelli believed that “the activities of rulers were limited only by their capacity and energy,” he naturally came to the conclusion of an absolute ruler who could save the nation. According to Chabod, all eyes were on Machiavelli because “only he… had proclaimed… the nature of the arms which the sovereign authority must employ in order to achieve victory.”

IX. Northern Sources of the Renaissance (Charles G. Nauert): According to Charles Nauert, Northern European rulers only accepted the Renaissance and humanism because it brought with it an emphasis on public service and learning, which would inevitably produce refined and polished servants for the Kings and rulers of Europe. Although Northern humanists were probably not as passionate about the ancient Latin (Italian) texts, rulers could not have predicted, the “reformist activity toward reform of the Church and deepening of personal religious experience” that swept the continent.

Analysis:

Political

In most of Europe, the Renaissance marked an end to the feudal society of the Middle Ages. The Italian Pope and emperor were engaged in a quarrel that left Italy largely ungoverned, and allowed each individual city-states to mainly govern their own cities. Many of them elected despots to act as rulers, although the most influential figures behind the despots were merchants. Meanwhile, in Northern Europe, kings and princes were receiving support directly from their people, who were tired of the leadership of the nobility or clergy. Kings and rulers throughout Northern Europe were able to finally begin expanding and strengthening their countries, with the exception of Germany, which remained mostly split into small territories.

Economy

Italy, due to its geographic location, had been a center for trade during the Middle Ages, and as a result, clever merchants had been able to turn large profits. However, after Portugal opened trade routes with Africa for gold, and Asia for spices, Portugal became one of the main ports in Europe for trade with the East, especially at Antwerp and Lisbon, and was envied for its quickly increasing wealth. Spain, in an effort to chart a quicker course to the spices in India, sent ships across the Atlantic, eventually reaching the “West Indies” or America. Spain was able to swiftly capitalize on their discovery, owing to their conquer of the two main Native American tribes, the Incas and the Aztecs, and subsequent seizure of their gold. Spain also took advantage of the Natives, enslaving them for work in mines and on farms in America, as well as sending them to Europe for purchase. In addition, the Spanish monarchy supported the silver industry, as they were allowed to take a fifth of all silver mining income. As a result of this rapidly increasing wealth across the continent, inflation was sparked in Europe.

Religion

Catholicism was, at this point, mostly dominant across Europe, but with the rise of humanism, the teachings and behavior of the clergy were being questioned. In Italy, many of the Popes were corrupt and too powerful. Pope Alexander VI, for example, deliberately arranged marriages to get in the good graces of Italy’s enemy, the French, in order to conquer Romagna and place them under the rule of his Borgia family. In Italy, humanists felt conflicted as they studied and wrote about classic texts that disagreed with the word of the Catholic Church. In Northern Europe, humanists spread the idea of reform using the printing press, so that large audiences were able to read of the injustices committed by the Church. Although every country had a different way of dealing with the humanist thoughts of reform, Spain remained predominantly Catholic, with the help of the Inquisition, which kept watch over all Catholic converts. The Spanish Inquisitor made reforms within the Catholic Church to help keep the religion appealing to the people, and dispel thoughts of converting to a new religion.

Social Structure

In Italy, the traditional rich, middle, and poor social classes abruptly received a new social class: that of the new-rich, or merchants who had rapidly and recently acquired their wealth through trade. This upset the balance or suppression among the original classes, sparking conflicts such as the Ciompi Riot of 1376, where the poorest classes revolted against the old rich classes. In Germany, Kings and princes divided up their individual shares of land for each son, until there were about 300 pieces of property in the country. Because the feudal system was only just beginning to vanish, social classes in much of Europe consisted of the nobility and Kings or rulers, the clergy, and the poor, or common classes.

Intellectual

Humanism, or the study of ancient Greek and Latin texts, was the basis for the Renaissance “rebirth.” Humanists who devoted themselves to the study of classic texts helped inspire the switch to individualism and the belief in human free will. Humanists were huge supporters of education and the liberal arts, and even education for women was supported. Kings across Europe encouraged education as well, in order to produce polished and educated servants for their households.

Art

Two new techniques of painting allowed Renaissance painters to paint more realistically and to give the effect of a 3D painting. First, the discovery of shading, or using light and dark to make objects stand out, and secondly, of symmetry, or painting figures that were closer to the viewer larger, so that the painting appeared 3D. Some of the most famous artists were Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo, who were known for the details in their facial expressions or human bodies.

Geography

Italy’s location between Europe and Africa made it an excellent hub for trade, but Portugal was also a choice hub for trade between Asia, as well as Africa. Spanish explorers made the journey to the Americas, expanding the horizon vastly for Europe and trade.

Technology

The biggest technological advancement during the Renaissance was Johann Gutenberg’s printing press, which allowed humanists and clergy alike to distribute propaganda and texts across Europe. Books could now be easily printed, and the Bible was translated into many languages.