A Short History of the Renaissance in Italy

"The word Renaissance has received a more extended significance than that which is implied in our English equivalent – the Revival of Learning. We use it to denote the whole transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern World; and though it is possible to assign certain limits to the period during which this transition took place, we cannot fix on any dates so positively as to say – between this year and that the movement was accomplished. In like manner we cannot refer the whole phenomena of the Renaissance to any one cause or circumstance, or limit them within the field of any one department of human knowledge.

If we ask the students of art what they mean by the Renaissance, they will reply that it was the revolution effected in architecture, painting, and sculpture by the recovery of antique monuments. Students of literature, philosophy, and theology see in the Renaissance that discovery of manuscripts, that passion for antiquity, that progress in philology and criticism which led to a correct knowledge of the classics, to a fresh taste in poetry, to new systems of thought, to more accurate analysis... The political historian has his own answer to the question. The extinction of feudalism, the development of the great nationalities of Europe, the growth of monarchy, the limitation of ecclesiastical authority... Men whose attention has been turned to the history of discoveries and inventions will relate the exploration of America and the East, or will point to the benefits conferred upon the world by the arts of printing and engraving, by the compass and the telescope, by paper and by gunpowder..." - J.A. Symonds

Contents: The Spirit of the Renaissance. - The Rise of the Communes. - The Rule of the Despots. - The Popes of the Renaissance. - Savonarola: Scourge and Seer. - The Raid of Charles VIII. - The Revival of Learning. - The Florentine Historians. - Literary Society at Florence. - Men of Letters at Rome and Naples. - Milan, Mantua, and Ferrara. - The Fine Arts. - The Revival of Vernacular Literature. - The Catholic Reaction.