Overview
The Italian Renaissance was a rebirth of art, learning, and humanism that began in Florence in the 14th century. It was funded by the wealth of banking families, above all the Medici, and spread across the Italian city-states.
Key developments
Humanists such as Petrarch revived classical texts and ideals. In art, a line from Giotto and Brunelleschi, who raised the dome of Florence’s cathedral, and Donatello led to the High Renaissance masters — Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Patronage spread to papal Rome, with the new St. Peter’s and the Sistine Chapel, and to Venice. In political thought Machiavelli wrote The Prince (1513). Power was divided among Florence, Milan, Venice, the Papal States, and Naples, whose balance was steadied for a time by the Peace of Lodi (1454).
End and transition
The Italian Wars (1494–1559), in which France and Spain fought over the peninsula and Rome was sacked in 1527, ended in Spanish dominance sealed by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559).