Italian Renaissance

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Major Characteristics of the Italian Renaissance

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The Italian Renaissance was a light that illuminated the European world , shining in on the dark recesses where a few men of letters maintained the old knowledge against the day when man would be ready to accept it again . There is as clear delineation between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as there is difference between day and night Roughly beginning with the last gasp of the moribund Roman Empire , the European Middle

Ages saw man turn inward , and saw society withdraw into itself . Learning slowed to a crawl , and it was the Catholic Church that kept literacy alive , for there was no other . Even though mankind naturally progresses , the construction of the printing press in 1440 hastened the clear break with the Middle Ages in a paradigm shift . The Renaissance , or Rebirth of Learning , changed the mind-set of Europeans and altered the face of literature and arts

Elizabeth Eisenstein described the changing mindset at the end of the medieval epoch thus . the reproduction of written materials began to move from the copyist 's desk to the printer 's work shop . This shift which revolutionized all forms of learning , was particularly important for historical scholarship ' The Dark Ages , nearly a thousand years of stagnation , began to recede in the minds the Europeans , particularly in Italy , where the arts and sciences began to flourish , ushering in the new era and the rebirth of culture after centuries without growth

Writing flourished from the dawn of the Renaissance , although at times it seems to take a back seat to the visual arts of that age . Such men as Boccaccio , Cervantes , Dante , Petrarch , and Machiavelli produced masterpieces which stand today as world treasures of literature and philosophy . During the long period of the Middle Ages there was certainly literature , yet most of its authors remain anonymous today . In that period in Europe the concept of the duties of an author were drastically different from what is currently accepted . Religious scholars , including Thomas Aquinas wrote extensively on the subject of the true faith and the role of the church . These treatises often deal with the ancient Greek and Roman pantheon and the details of the pagan religions , attempting to find reconciliation between their modern church and the ancient beliefs . Still philosophy did not take a humanist turn in all matters . St . Thomas Aquinas had said , For moral vice doesn 't seem to flow from deficiency of power , since weakness of power either Renaissance , then came The Prince , and Machiavelli states , The ways [to power] I speak of are , first when the ascent to power is made by wickedness and crime .without entering further in the merits

Yet Aquinas was not writing to the masses . The populace could not afford the cost of a book . In the Middle Ages each book had to be lettered by hand , word by word , sentence by sentence , and took months to produce Still...