HIST 120 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Santa Barbara City College, Sandro Botticelli, History Of Europe
Document Summary
The renaissance changed the world in almost every way that one could think about. It had some kind of snowball effect: every new intellectual advance was paving the way for further advances. Italy had been a fertile ground for a cultural revolution in the 14th century. The black death had wiped out millions of people in europe by some estimates between 1346 and 1353 killing as many as one in three. This meant that those who remained were left with proportionally greater wealth by the simplest economic laws: Either from less people who inherited more, or simply through supply and demand with fewer workers available, wages rose naturally. A new breed of rulers was at the top of italian culture, keen to show off their wealth in a way that set them apart. Families like the florentine medici searched for inspiration for the ancient roman and greek cultures and so did many artists who relied on their patronage.
