1. During the Renaissance, monarchs centralized their power through marriage, war and cultural policies. Assume marriage, war and cultural policies are your organizational categories. Look over your key terms on your unit calendar and choose a fact that would support one of the subtopics. Explain why.

2. Power in the Renaissance – Monarchs and Machiavelli
A MISCONCEPTION: With all this humanist “human beings are great” stuff, a person could easily fall under the misconception that the Renaissance was a peaceful time, where people hung out, painted, read books and lived peacefully, occasionally frolicking in fields in Ancient Greek style clothes. While this might have been the ideal of many artists and poets, DURING THE RENAISSANCE MONARCHS WERE GROWING MORE POWERFUL, AND THEIR METHODS WERE ANYTHING BUT PEACEFUL.
NOT REALLY ACCURATE

3. Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince: A handbook on how to maintain power
Examines the question: Is it better to be loved or feared? In the Renaissance we see the rise of monarchs for the first time in Europe – where instead of small kingdoms, monarchs start to rule larger states. Why might Machiavelli’s ideas become important during this time?

4. FROM The Prince: “It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved…Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children…when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. Hence, it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity. “ What is Machiavelli’s view on Human Nature? What does the last line mean?

5. Machiavelli would be proud….
Monarchs in large states used powerful and often ruthless methods. How did the following rulers use and maintain power in their countries?
France (the two Louis and Francis)
England – Henry VII
Spain – Ferdinand and Isabella