Macchiavelli

Historical Background on Italian Renaissance

For all practical purposes, the Renaissance / Early Modern Period is distinguished from other periods in European history almost entirely in intellectual or cultural terms. As far as larger historical patterns are concerned, the period is more or less considered as playing out what had been set up in the later middle ages. European historians overwhelmingly tend to place Europe's major break with its medieval and classical past with the discovery of America and the Reformation.

The historical background against which the intellectual and cultural ferment of the Renaissance / Early Modern period played itself out in its initial stages left its indelible mark on the character of the intellectual and cultural ferment. Set in the city-states of Italy in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the constant uncertainty, both economic and political, and extreme volatility of the historical situation provided the material for new intellectual, cultural, and social experiments that would at their conclusion provide the means of constructing a new European monocultural identity, one focused on humanistic studies, science, and the arts. This historical background is surprisingly volatile; while one might assume that political stability and economic security are prerequisites for intellectual and cultural experimentation, some of the most radical and far-reaching cultural work in the Renaissance was done in the periods of greatest insecurity.

Urbanization in Italy

The aftermath of Justinian's reconquest of Italy in 533 left the cities in Italy largely depopulated; from 500 to 1000 AD, Italy was largely a rural region with few and sparesely populated urban centers. In the twelfth century, Italy saw a resurgence of urban living which grew into a flood in the thirteenth century. The Italian cities, especially Venezia (Venice), had long served as intermediaries in the trade between central Europe and the Muslim and Byzantine states to the east. As they grew wealthy, many of these cities became centers of banking long before the rest of Europe had discovered this lucrative area of commerce. In large part, medieval church doctrine prevented the growth of banking and money markets because it considered lending money at interestÐ'--called usuryÐ'--to be a mortal sin, that is, a sin which guaranteed the damnation of one's soul.

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).

Social Class

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. Not only did these commercial activities produce wealth, they also seriously redistributed wealth. 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. Because the nobility tended to borrow money only to do non-productive things like gamble, party, and fight wars, they often defaulted on their loans. When they did, part of their property would transfer to the wealthy bankers and merchants. By the end of the fifteenth century, most of the wealth of Italy had been transferred away from the nobility, including the pope in Rome, to this new, commercial class.

In general, Renaissance Italian society consisted

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