Rennaisance Outline
The Evolution of Italian Renaissance:
* Economic growth laid the basis material * 1050-1300 * Renaissance is a term used to describe the cultural achievements of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries * Venice grew enormously rich through overseas trade. (profited from the diversion of the fourth Crusade to Constantinople) * Genoa and Venice made important strides in shipbuilding * Italians bought cheap wool from England and resold them to Africa for large profits (dangerous, but worth it) * Florence was the first artistic and literary manifestation of the Italian Renaissance (Beverly Hills of the Italian Renaissance) * Florentine mercantile families began to dominate European banking on both sides of the Alps. * The Florentine wool industry was the major factor in the city’s financial expansion and population increase. * Florence purchased the best-quality wool from England and Spain and made really badass techniques for its manufacture into cloth. (This created an influx in jobs and population) * Florence sold their high quality woolen cloth at the highest prices in the fairs, markets, and bazaars of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Communes and Republics:
* The northern Italian cities were communes (sworn associations of free men seeking complete political and economic independence from local nobles) * Merchant guilds that formed the communes built and maintained the city walls, regulated trade, raised taxes and kept civil order. * Marriage vows often sealed business contracts between the rural nobility and the mercantile aristocracy * ^^^^ this created a new social class; a group that was tied by blood, economic interests and and social connections formed tightly knit alliance to protect their rights * Only a tiny percent of males in the communes had the qualifications to be considered a citizen * A new force called the popolo were disenfranchised and heavily taxed to the point of
* Economic growth laid the basis material * 1050-1300 * Renaissance is a term used to describe the cultural achievements of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries * Venice grew enormously rich through overseas trade. (profited from the diversion of the fourth Crusade to Constantinople) * Genoa and Venice made important strides in shipbuilding * Italians bought cheap wool from England and resold them to Africa for large profits (dangerous, but worth it) * Florence was the first artistic and literary manifestation of the Italian Renaissance (Beverly Hills of the Italian Renaissance) * Florentine mercantile families began to dominate European banking on both sides of the Alps. * The Florentine wool industry was the major factor in the city’s financial expansion and population increase. * Florence purchased the best-quality wool from England and Spain and made really badass techniques for its manufacture into cloth. (This created an influx in jobs and population) * Florence sold their high quality woolen cloth at the highest prices in the fairs, markets, and bazaars of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Communes and Republics:
* The northern Italian cities were communes (sworn associations of free men seeking complete political and economic independence from local nobles) * Merchant guilds that formed the communes built and maintained the city walls, regulated trade, raised taxes and kept civil order. * Marriage vows often sealed business contracts between the rural nobility and the mercantile aristocracy * ^^^^ this created a new social class; a group that was tied by blood, economic interests and and social connections formed tightly knit alliance to protect their rights * Only a tiny percent of males in the communes had the qualifications to be considered a citizen * A new force called the popolo were disenfranchised and heavily taxed to the point of