"an official mission to invite Petrarch to take a chair at the university in Florence. Although unsuccessful, the discussions between the two were instrumental in Boccaccio writing the ""Genealogia deorum gentilium""; the first edition was completed in 1360 and this remained one of the key reference works on classical mythology for over 400 years. It served as an extended defense for the studies of ancient literature and thought. Despite the Pagan beliefs at its core, Boccaccio believed that much could be learned from antiquity. Thus, he challenged the arguments of clerical intellectuals who wanted to limit access to classical sources"
"characterizing the Renaissance had their origin in late 13th-century Florence, in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and Petrarch (1304–1374), as well as the paintings of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337). Some writers date the Renaissance quite precisely; one proposed starting point is 1401, when the rival geniuses Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi competed for the contract to build the bronze doors for the Baptistery of the Florence Cathedral (Ghiberti won). Others see more general competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it"
"include Livorno, Pisa and Grosseto. Several famous writers and poets are from Tuscany, most notably Florentine author Dante Alighieri. Tuscany's literary scene particularly thrived in the 13th century and the Renaissance. In Tuscany, especially in the Middle Ages, popular love poetry existed. A school of imitators of the Sicilians was led by Dante da Maiano, but its literary originality took another line — that of humorous and satirical poetry. The democratic form of government created a style of poetry which stood strongly against the medieval mystic and chivalrous style. Devout invocation of God or of a lady came from the"
"and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term ""Renaissance man"". The Renaissance began in Florence, Italy, in the 14th century. Various theories have been proposed to account for its origins and characteristics, focusing on a variety of factors including the social and civic peculiarities of Florence at the time: its political structure; the patronage of its dominant family, the Medici; and the migration of Greek scholars and texts to Italy following the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna,"
"1400 by Niccolò Gerini, with figures inspired by Giotto. The scenes include a ruined ""Cricifixion"", the ""Stories of St. Matthew"" and ""Stories of St. Anthony"" (the latter also damaged) and, on the vault, the ""Evangelists"". San Francesco, Prato San Francesco is a church in Prato, Tuscany, central Italy. San Francesco’s church, in the homonym square (XII–XIV sec.), it is located in the nucleus of the Oldest City of Prato and an Important Place of Catholic worship and one of the first Franciscan Churches with his big convent built on the ground that was donated by the municipality to the friars"
"universities. Venice entered in control of the mediterranean trade routes and consolidated a maritime empire after the Sack of Constantinople of the Fourth Crusade and the Venetian-Genoese wars. Furthermore, Frederick of Sicily made Italy the cultural and strategic centre of a large reign that included Imperial Germany and, following the Sixth Crusade, the Kingdom of Jerusalem. These socio-economic factors paved the way for the beginning of the Renaissance in Florence, Tuscany, in the 14th century. Renaissance philosophy, art, science and exploration marked the transition to the modern era and notable figures such as Leonardo, Dante, Giotto, Marco Polo, Machiavelli, Michelangelo,"
"of the letters and numbers remained the province of the family or a village priest, but the secondary subjects of the trivium—grammar, rhetoric, logic—were studied in cathedral schools or in schools provided by cities. Commercial secondary schools spread, and some Italian towns had more than one such enterprise. Universities also spread throughout Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. Lay literacy rates rose, but were still low; one estimate gave a literacy rate of ten percent of males and one percent of females in 1500. The publication of vernacular literature increased, with Dante (d. 1321), Petrarch (d. 1374) and Giovanni"
"first in Italy: Petrarch, Boccacio, Salutati and others rediscovered, aggressively collected, and copied manuscripts from all-but-lost collections during the 14th century. Significantly, when this appetite turned into something of a “gold-rush”, it was almost invariably to places such as the Benedictine library of Monte Cassino where text-hunters turned. For economic and other reasons, Florence became the center of such activity. Across Europe the focus for library expansion and activity became the royal or princely libraries: aggressive activity in collecting, gathering and protecting texts from their scattered locations was characterized by individuals rather than churches or even universities. The greatest of"
"others used their own language, the Florentine vernacular descended from Latin, in composing their greatest works. The oldest literary pieces written in Florentine go as far back as the 13th century. Florence's literature fully blossomed in the 14th century, when not only Dante with his ""Divine Comedy"" (1306–1321) and Petrarch, but also poets such as Guido Cavalcanti and Lapo Gianni composed their most important works. Dante's masterpiece is the ""Divine Comedy"", which mainly deals with the poet himself taking an allegoric and moral tour of Hell, Purgatory and finally Heaven, during which he meets numerous mythological or real characters of"
"along the south front. Visconti Castle (Binasco) The Visconti Castle of Binasco is a Middle Age castle located in the center of Binasco, Metropolitan City of Milan, Lombardy, northern Italy. It is famed for having been the prison of Beatrice di Tenda (Duchess of Milan and wife of Filippo Maria Visconti), who was arrested and there sentenced to death for adultery in 1418. Today it is the seat of the municipality of Binasco. The castle originated from a stronghold built by the Visconti in the 14th century to take care of their land in the area. Probably between 1315 and"
"into turmoil. The Renaissance ideals first spread from Florence to the neighbouring states of Tuscany such as Siena and Lucca. Tuscan architecture and painting soon became a model for all the city-states of northern and central Italy, as the Tuscan variety of Italian language came to predominate throughout the region, especially in literature. Accounts of Renaissance literature usually begin with Petrarch (best known for the elegantly polished vernacular sonnet sequence of the ""Canzoniere"" and for the craze for book collecting that he initiated) and his friend and contemporary Boccaccio (author of the Decameron). Famous vernacular poets of the 15th century"
"and Paradise. The two great writers of the 14th century, Petrarch and Boccaccio, sought out and imitated the works of antiquity and cultivated their own artistic personalities. Petrarch achieved fame through his collection of poems, the ""Canzoniere"". Petrarch's love poetry served as a model for centuries. Equally influential was Boccaccio's ""Decameron"", one of the most popular collections of short stories ever written. Italian Renaissance authors produced a number of important works. Niccolò Machiavelli's ""The Prince"" is one of the world's most famous essays on political science. Another important work of the period, Ludovico Ariosto's ""Orlando Furioso"", is perhaps the greatest"
"Visconti Castle (Binasco) The Visconti Castle of Binasco is a Middle Age castle located in the center of Binasco, Metropolitan City of Milan, Lombardy, northern Italy. It is famed for having been the prison of Beatrice di Tenda (Duchess of Milan and wife of Filippo Maria Visconti), who was arrested and there sentenced to death for adultery in 1418. Today it is the seat of the municipality of Binasco. The castle originated from a stronghold built by the Visconti in the 14th century to take care of their land in the area. Probably between 1315 and 1319 the nearby church"
"a Florentine holding except for a brief period in the 14th century, when Castruccio Castracani captured it for Lucca, and was officially annexed to Florence in 1530. During the 14th century Ormanno Tedici was one of the Lords of the city. Dante mentioned in his ""Divina Commedia"" the free town of Pistoia as the home town of Vanni Fucci, who is encountered in ""Inferno"" tangled up in a knot of snakes while cursing God. One of the most famous families of the city was that of the Rospigliosi, owners of agricultural estates and wool merchants; the Rospigliosi provided a pope"
"Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; July 20, 1304 – July 18/19, 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of Renaissance Italy who was one of the earliest humanists. His rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. Petrarch is often considered the founder of Humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch would be later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca."
"place from roughly 12th century. Modern standard Italian derives from the written vernacular of Tuscan writers of the 12th century. The recognition of Italian vernaculars as literary languages in their own right begins with ""De vulgari eloquentia"", an essay written by Dante Alighieri at the beginning of the 14th century. During the 14th and 15th centuries, some Italian city-states ranked among the most important powers of Europe. Venice, in particular, had become a major maritime power, and the city-states as a group acted as a conduit for goods from the Byzantine and Islamic empires. In this capacity, they provided great"
"and Torricelli, playing a key role in the scientific revolution. Various events and dates of the 17th century, such as the conclusion of the European Wars of Religion in 1648, have been proposed for the end of the Renaissance. Accounts of Renaissance literature usually begin with the three great poets of the 14th century: Dante Alighieri (""Divine Comedy""), Petrarch (""Canzoniere"") and Boccaccio (""Decameron""). Famous vernacular poets of the Renaissance include the renaissance epic authors Luigi Pulci (author of ""Morgante""), Matteo Maria Boiardo (""Orlando Innamorato""), Ludovico Ariosto (""Orlando Furioso"") and Torquato Tasso (""Jerusalem Delivered""). 15th-century writers such as the poet Poliziano"
"still medieval city into a major centre of art and learning that drew Leone Battista Alberti. Venice, one of the wealthiest cities due to its control of the Adriatic Sea, also became a centre for Renaissance culture, especially architecture. Smaller courts brought Renaissance patronage to lesser cities, which developed their characteristic arts: Ferrara, Mantua under the Gonzaga, and Urbino under Federico da Montefeltro. In Naples, the Renaissance was ushered in under the patronage of Alfonso I who conquered Naples in 1443 and encouraged artists like Francesco Laurana and Antonello da Messina and writers like the poet Jacopo Sannazaro and the"
"History of Florence Florence (Italian: ""Firenze"") is a major historical city in Italy, distinguished as one of the most outstanding economic, cultural, political and artistic centres in the Italian peninsula from the Late Middle Ages to the Renaissance. For much of the Quaternary Age, the Florence-Prato-Pistoia plain was occupied by a great lake bounded by Monte Albano in the west, Monte Giovi in the north and the foothills of Chianti in the south. Even after most of the water had receded, the plain, above sea level, was strewn with ponds and marshes that remained until the 18th century, when the"
"to a different direction, or time. The free commune, the place that had made Dante an eminent politician and scholar, was being dismantled: the ""signoria"" was taking its place. Humanism and its spirit of empirical inquiry, however, were making progress – but the papacy (especially after Avignon) and the empire (Henry VII, the last hope of the white Guelphs, died near Siena in 1313) had lost much of their original prestige. Petrarch polished and perfected the sonnet form inherited from Giacomo da Lentini and which Dante widely used in his ""Vita nuova"" to popularise the new courtly love of the"
"great leaps forward among Protestant culture in the 17th century. In the 14th century, Northern Italy and upper Central Italy were divided into a number of warring city-states, the most powerful being Milan, Florence, Pisa, Siena, Genoa, Ferrara, Mantua, Verona and Venice. High Medieval Northern Italy was further divided by the long running battle for supremacy between the forces of the Papacy and of the Holy Roman Empire. Each city aligned itself with one faction or the other, yet was divided internally between the two warring parties, Guelfs and Ghibellines. Warfare between the states was common, invasion from outside Italy"
"Garegnano Charterhouse Garegnano Charterhouse, also known as Milan Charterhouse ( or ""Certosa di Milano"") is a former Carthusian monastery, or charterhouse, located on the outskirts of Milan, Italy, in the Garegnano district. It now houses a community of Capuchin Friars. The monastery, dedicated to Saint Ambrose but also known as Our Lady of the Lamb of God, was founded in 1349 by Giovanni Visconti, bishop and lord of Milan. It was then located some 4 kilometers from the walls of Milan. In the 14th century it housed, among others, the poet Petrarch. It was pillaged in 1449 when the Visconti"
"Genoa, Ghent, Nuremberg, Geneva, Zürich, Lisbon and Seville provided patrons of the arts and sciences and unleashed a flurry of activity. The Medici became the leading family of Florence and fostered and inspired the birth of the Italian Renaissance along with other families of Italy, such as the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, the Este of Ferrara, and the Gonzaga of Mantua. Greatest artists like Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Giotto, Donatello, Titian and Raphael produced inspired works – their paintwork was more realistic-looking than had been created by Medieval artists and their marble statues rivalled and sometimes surpassed those"
"important nonetheless. Leading artists born in the city, and who, unlike others, spent much of their careers there, include Cristofano Allori, Matteo Rosselli, Francesco Furini, and Carlo Dolci. Pietro da Cortona was born in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and did much work in the city. Florentine painting Florentine painting or the Florentine School refers to artists in, from, or influenced by the naturalistic style developed in Florence in the 14th century, largely through the efforts of Giotto di Bondone, and in the 15th century the leading school of Western painting. Some of the best known painters of the earlier"
"Petrarchism. The Petrarchists, or those who sang of love, imitating Petrarch's manner, were found already in the 14th century. But others treated the same subject with more originality, in a manner that might be called semi-popular. Such were the ""Ballate"" of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, of Franco Sacchetti, of Niccolo Soldanieri, and of Guido and Bindo Donati. ""Ballate"" were poems sung to dancing, and we have very many songs for music of the 14th century. We have already stated that Antonio Pucci versified Villani's ""Chronicle"". It is enough to notice a chronicle of Arezzo in ""terza rima"" by Gorello de Sinigardi,"
"an independent town for several centuries in the early Middle Ages, no less powerful than Florence in the valley below, and many wars arose between them; in 1010 and 1025 Fiesole was sacked by the Florentines, before it was conquered by Florence in 1125, and its leading families obliged to take up their residence in Florence. Dante reflects this rivalry in his ""Divine Comedy"" by referring to ""the beasts of Fiesole."" (Inferno XV.73). By the 14th century, rich Florentines had countryside villas in Fiesole, and one of them is the setting of the frame narrative of the Decameron. Boccaccio's poem"
"Cattani Castle and Palazzo Pretorio. The Certosa del Galluzzo houses artworks by Pontormo. Giovanni Boccaccio's hometown Certaldo is home to the Palazzo Pretorio and Boccaccio’s House, while Vinci, birthplace of Leonardo da Vinci, houses a museum dedicated to the Italian polymath. Sesto Fiorentino is known for the Etruscan tomb “La Montagnola”. Wholesale and retail is the largest sector in the Metropolitan City: , almost 29% of the firms in the former Province of Florence were involved in it. Manufacturing, construction, real estate and agriculture are the next important ones with a percentage share of about 19.5%, 14%, 13.6% and 8%"
"da Bologna, Giovanni da Cascia, Paolo ""Tenorista"" da Firenze, Niccolò da Perugia, Bartolino da Padova, Antonio Zachara da Teramo, Matteo da Perugia, and Johannes Ciconia. Trecento The Trecento (; Italian for 300, short for ""mille trecento,"" 1300) refers to the 14th century in Italian cultural history. Commonly the Trecento is considered to be the beginning of the Renaissance in art history. Painters of the Trecento included Giotto di Bondone, as well as painters of the Sienese School, which became the most important in Italy during the century, including Duccio di Buoninsegna, Simone Martini, Lippo Memmi, Ambrogio Lorenzetti and his brother"
"in the town of Siena. Siena rivaled Florence in the arts throughout the 13th and 14th centuries: the important late medieval painter Duccio (1253–1319) was a Sienese, but worked across the peninsula. The mural titled ""Allegory of Good Government"" () painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in 1338–39 at the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena's town hall, is considered a magnificent example of late-Medieval/early Renaissance art as well as a representation of the utopia of urban society as conceived during that period. During the early 13th century that the majority of the construction of the Siena Cathedral (Duomo) was completed. During the same period"
"remainder of the 15th century and the beginning of the Italian Wars at the turn of the 16th century. They were Venice, Milan, Florence, the Papal States and Naples. Important cultural centers of Tuscany and Northern Italy—Siena, Pisa, Urbino, Mantua, Ferrara—became politically marginalized. The wars, which were both a result and cause of Venetian involvement in the power politics of mainland Italy, found Venetian territory extended to the banks of the Adda and involved the rest of Italy in shifting alliances but only minor skirmishing. The shifting counterweight in the balance was the allegiance of Florence, at first allied with"
"who bears the greatest blame” for the downfall of Florence and foresees him being dragged by a beast into hell. In the Divine Comedy, Corso's sister Piccarda is the first person Dante meets in Paradise. Corso Donati is also the subject of a play by nineteenth-century writer Carlo Marenco, who was inspired by Dante's works. Two buildings owned by and named after Corso, the ""torri Corso Donati"" or ""towers of Corso Donati"", still stand in Piazza San Pier Maggiore in Florence. Corso Donati Corso Donati was a leader of the Black Guelph faction in 13th- and early 14th- century Florence."
"a few, the Florence Cathedral, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, as well as several private residences. The musical era of the Italian Renaissance was defined by the Roman School and later by the Venetian School and the birth of Opera in Florence. In philosophy, thinkers such as Galileo, Machiavelli, Giordano Bruno and Pico della Mirandola, emphasized naturalism and humanism, thus rejecting dogma and scholasticism. By the Late Middle Ages (circa 1300 onward), Latium, the former heartland of the Roman Empire, and southern Italy were generally poorer than the North. Rome was a city of"
"moved from Maiano to Florence in the fourteenth century. Maiano Maiano is small hilltop locality, now part of Fiesole, in Tuscany. The Chiesa di San Martino was founded there in the eleventh century and subsequently restored in the fifteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. A ""palagio"" existed at Maiano in the Middle Ages, but in 1467 it was destroyed in a storm. It was rebuilt as the Villa di Maiano which today still dominates the Fattoria di Maiano estate. In the thirteenth century the poet Dante da Maiano was born there, though he was active in Florence. The family of Renaissance"