Describe the various influences that led

to the
establishment of the Renaissance in Italy.

Exactly why, when, where the changes that

formed the Renaissance occurred, is unclear.
About 1400 medieval thinking began to give
way to ideas that brought about changes in art,
architecture, interior design and many other
aspects of human life. In Renaissance Europe
there was a succession of design styles that
came to dominate the settings of life for the
powerful and wealthy and the institution of
church and state that they controlled. For the
ones that weren’t powerful and wealthy,
stylistic changes were less important –
medieval ways survived with some small
changes that were more cosmetic then basic.
Unlike the medieval worldview, which didn’t
encourage the individual curiosity and
imagination, Renaissance humanism forced the
idea that obvious could be questioned, that the
mysterious could become less mysterious
through probing and discovery. In the medieval
thinking the human questioning suggested luck
of faith. The new ideas of humanism developed
against an unquestioned Christian backdrop
also. Much of the new art was in dedication of
the Church. Reforms in the Church, based on
humanist textual criticism of the New
Testament occurred. October 1517 Luther
published the “95 Theses”, challenging papal
authority and criticizing its perceived
corruption, particularly with regard to its sale of
indulgences. Also, it led to the Reformation, a
break with Roman Catholic Church that
previously claimed hegemony in Western
Europe. Therefore, humanism and Renaissance
played a direct role in sparking the
Reformation.
During the Renaissance was spread out the
idea of the importance of the individual. It
developed the idea that each human being has
the potentialities to learn, discover, and
achieve. The humanism faith in classical
scholarship led to the search for ancient texts
that would increase current scientific
knowledge. Botany, zoology, magic, alchemy,
and astrology were developed during the
Renaissance as a result of the study of ancient
texts. Among the works rediscovered were
Galen’s physiological and anatomical studies
and Ptolemy’s Geography , as well as Plato,
Archimedes, and Euclid. Leonardo da Vinci
discovered that thrown or shot projectiles
moves in one curved trajectory rather then
two; metallurgical techniques that allowed him
to make great sculptures; and anatomical
observation that increased the accuracy of his
drawings. It was an age of genius.
Along with scientific curiosity came a new
curiosity about history. This aspect justified the
name Renaissance itself- literally ”rebirth” a
new approach to a long-forgotten wisdom and
skills of ancient times. Aided by the invention
of the printing press that made ancient
literature available, the rediscovery of classical
techniques and texts consumed the best
minds. They aimed to move forward on the
basic of the best human achievements of the
past. In the arts, it’s easy to observe the ways
in which ancient elements came to be admired
and used, but it is a mistake to supposed that
Renaissance design imitated the Roman one.
However, Roman structural elements, the
arches, vaults, domes, and many of the
decorative forms served as an open treasury
from which the designers of the 15th century
unstintingly borrowed and adapted them to
new needs in original combinations.
Florentine humanist literature was undoubtedly
the main preliminary to the artistic movement,
which began between 1410 and 1420. The
faith in autonomous rational research into
human values and the reference to classic
antiquity became a reason for breaking the
recent tradition, against which a remote one,
critically reconstructed, to be set.
The artists’ work presupposed intellectual
deliberation typical for humanistic enquiry in
the moral field and so was part of a wider
movement, in which men of letter, politicians,
entrepreneurs, scholars, and jurists took part;
this movement couldn’t be fitted into the
traditional institutional patterns, but it certainly
produced a “rupture of balance and patterns”
from which a new distribution of human
activities emerged.

Culture was more advanced on the banks of

the Arno. While the rest of Europe shoveled in
food with their paws, refined Florentines ate
with froks.
The great development of European capitalism
was to came in second half of the 15th and the
first half of 16th centuries, and the merchants of
this period-some of most important of whom
were the Florentine families of the Albixi,
Strozzi, Medici and Pazzi –were certainly the
pioneers of later development, the propensities
and psychological mood of which they
anticipated. The volume of business of the
Medici in the early 14th century was already
three times that of the main bankers of the 14th
century. That became possible because of
progress in applied mathematics and
particularly by the practice of double-entry
book- keeping spread- it had already been used
by the Genoese in the previous century- and so
did long-distance economic transactions. The
new aristocracy of money obeyed an economic
logic different from the traditional one, and
made a decisive contribution to the crisis of the
city’s corporative institutions. The new class
was linked to the world of artists both by
similarity of their cultural backgrounds- which
put the emphasis on individual ability as
against the traditional rules of collective action-
and because the wealthier families began to
replace public bodies in commissioning
buildings and works of art.

The great dynasties like the Medici in Florence,

the Este in Ferrara, and the Gonzagas in
Mantua helped for establishing the
Renaissance idea. Patrons took the most
important role in this by personally dealing
with artists and designers, and iconographers
even.

Bibliography
The architecture of the Renaissance, Volume 2, by Leonardo Benevolo.
Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul 1978
A history of interior design Second edition, By John F. Pile. Published
in 2005 by Laurence King Publishing, London,UK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance#Religion