The Italian Renaissance and its
Contributions to the World By: Jenna Kate Mchechnie and Samantha Joan Montes
The Italian Renaissance first began in Florence, Italy in the 14th century. Florence, Italy had been said to be the heart of the Renaissance. The Renaissance had changed almost all facets of European culture and society, the Medieval Cultures were now being changed and evolving.
During that time it was where the thoughts and focus on the afterlife were now being traded to the thoughts of living, and how human needs more were important and that is where humanism began to grow. The people who impacted the Renaissance helped create change through the
Government, Economy and the Arts. The Medici family ruled over Italy as one of the most richest families in Florence during the Renaissance. They helped create one of the biggest banks during the 1500 and develop many great banking strategies still used today. Leonardo helped impact the Renaissance by creating the art that educated people about humanism, he also created amazing plans for new machines that were far too advanced for that era, leading them to be actually created by others in a later time. But without him there was no chance of those ideas to actually have been created. Because of the wealth they had in Italy the Medici family helped sponsor much of the art and artists during this era. Through art, innovations created by Da Vinci, and techniques and support given by the Medici family, the Renaissance helped contribute to the world today.
A family that helped contribute to the Renaissance in many ways was the Medici family.
The Medici family came from the
Mugello Valley in Tuscany around the 12th century to
Florence. The Medici Banks founding is dated to 1397 because that was the year Giovanni di
Bicci de' Medici had separated from his nephew Averardo's bank (which had been acting like a branch in Rome). Giovanni had moved his bank to Florence and raised at least 10,000 gold florins, to found the bank in Florence. But the Medici bank had helped and gave a few successes during the Renaissance. The Medici family while in power had made a very important and successful contribution to the general ledger system with the development of the double entry system of tracking debits and credits also known as deposits and withdrawals. They were successful for many years, being the only major bank in Florence. The Medici family's wealth isn’t easily estimated, since they owned a lot of land, gold, and art created by the artists they founded to help share the new ideas of humanism. The Medici family had so much monetary wealth that it helped them gain most of the political power in the Florentine Republic, and later spreading through Italy and Europe. In italy during this time period, families were not subject to princely rules. The amount of money you had determined your status and amount of power you had over the city. There for the Medici family's power began to grow towards the end of the 14th century. During the Renaissance, Italy was separated into many citystates rather than it being one unified country as it is today, each citystate was run on their own form of Government.
Florence was a Republic, run by the people, but the Medici were appointed those in charge.
During the time they were in charge, the Medici family began to help Florence expand on the ideas of humanism. The Medici Family helped fund artists and innovators like Michelangelo and
Leonardo Da Vinci who were the most successful artists, scientists, sculptors, philosophers, and mathematicians of their time. During the 15 century Lorenzo de Medici began to gain a fascination involving humanism. Lorenzo’s court was made up of artists like Piero, Andrea del
Verrocchio,
Leonardo da Vinci
,
Sandro Botticelli
,
Domenico Ghirlandaio and
Michelangelo
Buonarroti
. All of these artists were greatly involved
