page_title: History of Italy
section_title: Renaissance
hierarchical_section_title: History of Italy / Renaissance
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Der vitruvianische Mensch. Proportionsschema der menschlichen Gestalt nach Vitruv. (Leonardo da Vinci 1485/90, Venedig, Galleria dell' Accademia) العربية: رجل فيتروفيوس وفقا لرسم ليوناردو دافنشي (1485-1490 ، البندقية, متحف الاكاديمية English: Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci, Galleria dell' Accademia, Venice (1485-90) Català: Home Vitruvià, Leonardo da Vinci (1485-1490, Venècia, Galeria de l'Acadèmia) Español: Hombre de Vitruvio (Homo cuadratus), Leonardo da Vinci. (1485-1490). Venecia: Galería de la Academia Français&#160;: L'Homme de Vitruve, Léonard de Vinci (1485-1490, Venise, Galleria dell' Accademia) Plume, encre et lavis sur papier Magyar: Vitruvius-tanulmány Leonardo da Vinci vázlata, az emberi test méretarányait elemzi (1485-90, Velence, Galleria dell' Accademia) Italiano: L'uomo vitruviano di Leonardo da Vinci (1485/90, Venezia, Galleria dell' Accademia) Português: Homem de Vitrúvio por Leonardo da Vinci (1485-90, Veneza, Galleria dell' Accademia) Template:Pt(br) 中文: 达芬奇的素描《维特鲁威人》（1485年-1490年间作品，现藏于威尼斯的学院美术馆(Galleria dell' Accademia)） Русский: «Витрувианский человек» Леонардо да Винчи (1490, Галерея Академии, Венеция) Slovenščina: Razmerja človeškega telesa po Vitruviju, avtor Leonardo da Vinci (1485/90, Venedig, Galleria dell' Accademia) Українська: «Вітрувіанська людина» Леонардо да Вінчі (1490, Галерея Академії, Венеція)
context_page_description: The history of Italy covers the Ancient Period, the Middle Ages and the modern era. In antiquity, Italy was the homeland of the Romans and the metropole of the Roman Empire. Rome was founded as a Kingdom in 753 BC and became a Republic in 509 BC, when the monarchy was overthrown in favor of a government of the Senate and the People. The Roman Republic then unified Italy at the expense of the Etruscans, Celts, and Greeks of the peninsula. Rome led the federation of the Italic peoples of which it had come from to the domination of Western Europe, Northern Africa, and the Near East.
  The Republic saw its fall after the assassination of Dictator Julius Caesar. The Roman Empire later dominated Western Europe and the Mediterranean for many centuries, making immeasurable contributions to humanity. Some of these led to the development of Western philosophy, science and art, that remained central during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. After the fall of Rome in AD 476, Italy remained fragmented in numerous city-states and regional polities until the Italian unification led to the establishment of an Italian nation-state.
context_section_description: Italy was the main center of the Renaissance, whose flourishing of the arts, architecture, literature, science, historiography, and political theory influenced all of Europe.
  By the late Middle Ages, central and southern Italy, once the heartland of the Roman Empire and Magna Graecia respectively, was far poorer than the north. Rome was a city largely in ruins, and the Papal States were a loosely administered region with little law and order. Partly because of this, the Papacy had relocated to Avignon in France. Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia had for some time been under foreign domination. The Italian trade routes that covered the Mediterranean and beyond were major conduits of culture and knowledge. The city-states of Italy expanded greatly during this period and grew in power to become de facto fully independent of the Holy Roman Empire.
  The Black Death in 1348 inflicted a terrible blow to Italy, killing perhaps one third of the population. The recovery from the demographic and economic disaster led to a resurgence of cities, trade and economy which greatly stimulated the successive phase of the Humanism and Renaissance (15th–16th centuries) when Italy again returned to be the center of Western civilization, strongly influencing the other European countries with Courts like Este in Ferrara and De Medici in Florence.
  The Renaissance was so called because it was a "rebirth" not only of economy and urbanization, but also of arts and science. It has been argued that this cultural rebirth was fuelled by massive rediscoveries of ancient texts that had been forgotten for centuries by Western civilization, hidden in monastic libraries or in the Islamic world, as well as the translations of Greek and Arabic texts into Latin. The migration west into Italy of intellectuals fleeing the crumbling Eastern Roman Empire at this time also played a significant part.
  The Italian Renaissance began in Tuscany, centered in the city of Florence. It then spread south, having an especially significant impact on Rome, which was largely rebuilt by the Renaissance popes. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the late 15th century as foreign invasions plunged the region into turmoil. The Renaissance ideals first spread from Florence to the neighbouring states of Tuscany such as Siena and Lucca. Tuscan architecture and painting soon became a model for all the city-states of northern and central Italy, as the Tuscan variety of Italian language came to predominate throughout the region, especially in literature.
caption: The Vitruvian man by Leonardo da Vinci, representing the ideal human proportions as described by Roman architect Vitruvius, is a quintessential masterpiece of the Renaissance.
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