Impact of the Renaissance

The Renaissance was a period of great “realization”, or “rebirth.” Coming out of the middle ages, a time which had caused Europe and Italy to deviate from any form of intellectual or artistic progression; this was a reawakening of society in several areas. The social structure of the renaissance was inherited from that of the middle ages and was separated into three estates; the clergy, the nobility, and the third estate consisting of the peasants and the inhabitants of the towns and cities (p.341). The nobles, making up an average 2-3 percent of the population, experienced a great “reconstruction”; thus, causing only those solidly rooted in their wealth to maintain their place in the aristocracy. Those who remained were expected to adhere to a new set of expectations. Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of Courtier expressed the three fundamental attributes of the “perfect courtier” (p.341). “In Castiglione’s hands, the Renaissance ideal of the well developed personality became a social ideal (p.341).” The real progress was pushed by the formation of the middle class. Peasants made up an overwhelming majority of the third estate; however, serfdom was coming rapidly to an end as a “money economy” was introduced. The Bourgeoisie, or the towns’ people, was the true source of change. The craftsmen and the merchants were the most willing to move towards change, because they experienced a great deal more than the nobility and peasantry, and the realized that the world was an ever-changing place. The middle class grew dramatically in numbers, wealth, and prestige; and their ideas, became widely influential. One reason for this is the expansion of trade. People began to take longer voyages and develop better maps; thus enabling them to expand their knowledge of the world beyond what they had already known. As far as the status of the middle class, they were originally despised or looked down upon by the nobility. However, as the need for the exchange between the Bourgeoisie and...