The Renaissance History Class Bilingual Project by: Hortencia Tijerina Treviño

Introduction: The Renaissance Main ideas:  Between 1350 and 1550, Italian intellectuals believed they had entered a new age of human achievement.  City-States were the centers of political, economic, and social life in Renaissance Italy.

The Renaissance A number of people in Italy believed that they had seen the rebirth of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Historians call this period the Renaissance, or Italian Renaissance.

The Renaissance What are the most important characteristics of the Italian Renaissance?

The Renaissance  Powerful city-states became centers of Italian political, economic, and social life.  The Renaissance was an age of recovery from the disasters like the plague, political instability, and a decline of Church power.  Renaissance began to emphasize individual ability. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, was a painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, and mathematician.

The Renaissance The city-states expanded and played important roles.

The Renaissance The Italian states had problems and made alliances with France and Spain. Finally, France and Spain wanted to control Italy. The Italian Wars lasted 65 years from 1494 to 1559.

The Renaissance Niccolò Machiavelli wrote the book The Prince. This book describes how to acquire and keep political power. Machiavelli abandoned morality to analyze the political activity.

The Renaissance Society was divided into social classes: nobility, peasants, townspeople, clergy, and merchants.

The Renaissance Parents arranged marriages. The father was the center of the Italian family and he controlled all finances. Children became adults when the father died or went before a judge and freed them.