AP Euro: Italian Renniassance

Black Death

plague that spread across Asia, North Africa, and Europe in the mid-fourteenth century

Hundred Years' War

France vs. Britain, over ownership of French territories and Frances legitimate ruler, France won

Communes

Independent city states in northern Italy

Popolo

common people

Signori

lord who ruled a city state

Balance of Power in Italy City-states

intense competition between families seeking power

Medici

aristocratic Italian family of powerful merchants and bankers who ruled Florence in the 15th century

Borgia

Italian renaissance family with influence of Catholic Church, ruthless consolidation of power, had two family members as popes

Humanism

A Renaissance intellectual movement in which thinkers studied classical texts and focused on human potential and achievements

Petrarch

(1304-1374) Father of the Renaissance. He believed the first two centuries of the Roman Empire to represent the peak in the development of human civilization.

Boccaccio's Decameron (1353)

A tale collection a hundred stories which are ostensibly told by a group of men and women who are taking refuge from the plague.

Castiglione The Book of the Courtier (1528)

explores the ideal qualities and behaviors of courtiers in Italian nobility

Machiavelli's The Prince

A short political treatise about political power how the ruler should gain, maintain, and increase it. Machiavelli explores the problems of human nature and concludes that human beings are selfish and out to advance their own interests

Civic Humanism

humanism with the added belief that one must be an active and contributing member to one's society

Christian Humanism

the combination of humanist and religious ideas

Characteristic of Art in the Renaissance

shift towards naturalism and realism with a focus on individual expression

Brunelleschi's Dome

a dome for the unfinished cathedral of Florence, spanned a 140-foot opening, Brunelleschi was a friend of Donatello

Alberti

A Florentine writer who lived in the mid-Renaissance and wrote "De re aedificatoria", a very influential "how-to" architecture books that set standards and principles still in use today.

Thomas More Utopia

Civic humanist who rose to a high government position in England. utopian society where there is a balance of humanism, religion and property. He believed that for harmony in society, individuals must be willing to sacrifice rights for the common good.

Erasmus

Dutch humanist and theologian who was the leading Renaissance scholar of northern Europe

Lenardo da Vinci

Architect, engineer, painter, sculptor, and scientist. His science and math knowledge helped him to create his paintings. Most famous paintings - last summer and Mona Lisa

Patronage

Granting favors or giving contracts or making appointments to office in return for political support

Reconquista

The effort by Christian leaders to drive the Muslims out of Spain, lasting from the 1100s until 1492.

Gutenbergs Printing Press

this invention helped to promote the Reformation and increased European literacy