Question

Explain the economic impact of Italy's location and trade on Renaissance art and culture.

Answer 1

Answer:

Between 1300 and 1600 life in Europe underwent great changes. It was a new stage of thought and culture and is called Renaissance. In the Middle Ages there was a clear difference between the Knights and the Church on one side (clergy and nobility) and people without resources on the other (peasants). During the Renaissance, a new social group emerged: that of merchants or bourgeois. They became very rich and therefore powerful.

In Europe, there were those who made money with the wool and fabric trade. The wool was taken from England to Flanders, where it was converted into cloth and sold at fairs to Italian merchants. Transportation on difficult roads was very expensive and that greatly increased the price of products.

There were three compelling reasons for Italian cities to be the first to regain a position of importance in the late Middle Ages.

1-First, the Italian peninsula belonged to Rome from a very early date and, therefore, there were more roads, more cities and more schools than anywhere else in Europe.

2-The Pope lived in Rome and, as the head of a vast political entity, who owned land, servants, buildings, forests, rivers and a judicial system of his own, a large amount of money constantly arrived at his coffers.

3-The crusaders who went to the Holy Land embarked in Italian cities and they took advantage of such circumstance to unsuspected limits. When the crusades ended, those same Italian cities became the centers of distribution of oriental products that Europeans had begun to depend on during the time they had spent in Asia.

Answer 2

The increase of trade led to a new kind of economy. During the middle ages people traded goods for other goods. During the Renaissance people began using coins to buy goods which created a money economy. ... Crafts people produced goods that merchants traded all over Europe.