Book 3: Chapter 2, The Italian Renaissance Summary and Analysis

The modern approach was initiated in Italy with the Renaissance. The outlook that was held by Petrarch spread to other Italians who had little appreciation for science. Most preferred established views and few endeavored to examine anything except for antiquity or the Church.

The political situation of Italy in 1250 involved independence until the invasion of the French King Charles VIII in 1494. Italy had five States, such as Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain, and Naples as well as small competing principalities.

Milan resisted feudalism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and fell during the attack of the Hohenstaufen. It was ruled by Visconti for 170 years, and then by Sforza until it was annexed in 1535 by the Emperor Charles V.

The Republic of Venice was subjected to the East, and never conquered by the...