. What made the Italian peninsula so suited to the growth of Renaissance ideas and ideals? How do we see this illustrated in the cities of Rome, Florence, and Venice?

I’m working on a history question and need support to help me understand better.

 

The purpose of discussion forum is to encourage you to debate and consider the questions of the week in depth – to provide the same opportunities that you might have in a class to teach and learn from each other.

For each module, you’ll receive fifteen to twenty questions, and you should write 100 to 150-word answers on TWO questions. I’ll be looking for clarity, specific information, and evidence that you are reading and learning from fellow students.

Please also be aware that you will not receive full credit for your post if you primarily summarize what others have already written.

It makes sense to try to limit your post to 150-words to give your fellow students the possibility of also responding to the question.

Your post should add some substantive point to the discussion. For example, you could make reference to an event, individual, quote, or movement from the textbook; you could interpret the evidence in a new and different way from the existing posts; you could ask a question about something that you found puzzling or confusing; you could link evidence in other posts to the larger questions for the week, or you could ask an insightful question that spurs students to think more deeply about the material.

Here are some tips if you feel that what you have written has already been discussed.

I hope that you also see these discussion questions as prompts that will allow you to write answers to the question but also to comment on what you found most interesting in the chapter.

*Please put the number of words at the bottom of your post. Please do not include your quote in your word count.

Please remember that these contributions must be in your own words. Even for these informal assignments, as well as quizzes, a student who uses another’s words without proper attribution is committing plagiarism.

Finally you might consider “liking” posts that are well-written or lead you to think about the material in new ways.

Please post under the discussion thread of the question that you are answering

1. What was new about the culture and art of the Italian Renaissance? Why has the nature and meaning of the Renaissance been a subject of intense debate ever since historians adopted the term in the nineteenth century?

2. What was the Italian Renaissance a ‘rebirth’ of? Does the label adequately cover the changes at work in fifteenth-century Italy? Explain.

3. What case can you make that the Italian and European Renaissances were still part of the Middle Ages?

4. Why did Renaissance art emerge and flourish? How big a departure was it from previous trends in art?

5. What made the Italian peninsula so suited to the growth of Renaissance ideas and ideals? How do we see this illustrated in the cities of Rome, Florence, and Venice?

6. Why do we see the sacking of Rome in 1527? Compare this to other points in history when we have seen Rome invaded and how the events of 1527 are similar or different?

7. What factors made Venice unique among the Italian Renaissance cities? Why was Venice the most exotic and cosmopolitan city in Europe?

8. Compare and contrast the experience of Jews in Renaissance Venice with Jews in other parts of medieval Europe?

9. What was renaissance humanism? Why did renaissance humanism and renaissance individualism supply the foundational cornerstones of Renaissance cultural and intellectual life? How is Aldus Manutius’s work an example of Renaissance humanism?

10. Discuss the new ideas and techniques that shaped Renaissance art. How were artists connected to the historical and economic worlds of the Italian Renaissance? Explain.

11. How did the ideals, interests, and techniques of the Italian Renaissance spread throughout Europe? In what ways did the European Renaissance differ from that of Italy? Why?

12. Why was the Renaissance, at its humanist core, a movement for intellectual improvement? Why did the spread of this essentially intellectual phenomenon ultimately make Europe more distinctly European?

13. What lasting effects did the Renaissance have on European history?

14. In what ways do the opening vignettes of Petrarch’s journey, Cassandra’s speech, or Bellini’s painting reveal key themes of the chapter?