Italian Renaissance (1330-1550) Italy in the Mid-Fourteenth
Century: The Rise of Humanism (mid 14th century) The cities of
Italy prospered during the late Middle Ages, serving as trading
posts connecting Europe to the Byzantine Empire and the Moslem
world via the Mediterranean Sea. Commerce enriched and empowered
regions in which the feudal system had not taken a strong hold,
especially in northern Italy. The most prosperous of these
cities—Florence, Venice, and Milan—became powerful city-states,
ruling the regions surrounding them. Further south, the Papal
States, centered in Rome, gradually grew to rival the wealth of
the northern cities, and as the seat of the papacy, exerted a
tremendous influence over Italian life and politics. Along with
a few other minor centers of wealth and power, including Urbino,
Mantua, and Ferrara, these four regions became the cradle of the
Renaissance, beginning in the fourteenth century to undergo
political, economic, and artistic changes. The beginning of the
Renaissance in t