Good afternoon, World Enrichment. How's everyone doing, guys? I hope everyone is doing well. Okay, today's lesson is going to be looking at the Italian Renaissance.
So let's get after it, ladies and gents. Okay, so this lesson is going to be focused on what the Italian Renaissance was, and more specifically, we're going to be looking at how it happened and how it's connected to the Black Death. Okay?
All right, guys. So first things first, what the heck is the Renaissance? The Renaissance was a time period. that followed really kind of the black death period right didn't happen immediately but it comes after so from around 1350s to the 1600s c e or a d okay now what is renaissance renaissance is a french word that just means rebirth so for some for my spanish speakers uh the word renascimento would sound a lot like renaissance right so renascimento means to be born again so that's exactly what renaissance means it's a rebirth And it's a rebirth of some pretty important ideas that had disappeared for a long time.
So this time period was really an explosion of arts and advancements that happened that really changed Europe forever. So what were these ideas that were reborn? Well, basically, they were the Greek and Roman ideas that were lost during the Middle Ages.
So philosophy, science, art, math. Reading, of course, comes back. We all know that during the Middle Ages, not too many people could read.
In fact, 99% of the population was illiterate. So writing and books start to kind of come back, right? For the first time, we get a printing press.
Our ideas about government start to change and kind of start to look back at those ideas that the Romans gave us once again. All right, so let's go ahead and fast forward a little bit. So we're going to be talking about... about what caused the Renaissance, okay?
So what were the reasons that kind of caused the Renaissance, this time period to happen, right? So here we go. So the first thing that happens of course, is the Black Death, we all learned about this. So the Black Death kills about, wipes out about 60% of the European population, which is horrible, right? But one of the side effects that happens, one of the positive side effects, is that it allows the workers that are left, behind to demand higher wages and better working conditions.
So you can imagine there's not that many people that can do the work anymore. So those that are there are like, no, you better pay me more money if you want me to work. And because of that, it eventually leads to a new middle class of people, people that had a lot more wealth, had a little bit more money to spend. And this is going to be a very important factor in this renaissance happening.
Okay. all right another really important thing that happens is that the economy of europe starts to really bounce back and get strong okay one of the reasons reasons is because the silk road um it reopens and it becomes even stronger than ever okay so uh this is thanks to uh the yuan dynasty in china so in china um the leaders of china during that time period the mongols they did a really good job protecting the silk road from bandits from people attacking the silk road and because of that trade really flourished trade increased between asia and europe and it led to a lot of wealth okay it also led to the growth of independent independence uh trading cities okay florence is going to be the perfect example that's where the center of the renaissance happens okay and with that comes becomes other other really important industries like banking so banking becomes like a major industry, you know, in Italy, right? Where the bank is able to lend money to businesses, businesses can open up and start and people can borrow money if they need it, right? And again, this is all happening around Florence, Italy, guys, okay?
So this Renaissance, it's really important for us to know that the center of it is Florence, okay? All right, we're looking at a picture of the Silk Road, for those of you guys who have forgotten what the Silk Road looks like. it was a large trading network remember it's not just one road although there were main routes it was made up of a bunch of smaller roads and trade routes right that connected all the way from china right all the way to venice italy over here right and it goods were traded back and forth which helped europe come out of the dark ages and become a wealthy a wealthier place okay all right so the center of uh of this renaissance guys was was italy okay it was a really important city and we mentioned again because of banking and they're also really into clothing production right it was a really important center for textile production for making clothes Another important factor in the Renaissance happening was a family known as the Medici.
The Medici family were a banking family that ruled Venice, sorry, Florence, in the 15th and 16th centuries. Okay, so they held power over Florence. And one of the things that the Medicis did that really helped the Renaissance to flourish or to kind of become even bigger was that they funded artwork they had a lot of money and they were they were able to commission artwork they were able to pay artists to to create art which causes big explosion of art to happen in in italy right okay so here is a map of this is where this is what italy would look like during the time of the renaissance okay it was um it was was not one like one united um power, right?
There was divided into smaller states or kingdoms, right? So we have like Naples down here, Sicily, Sardinia, and then Florence is going to be right here, okay? So Florence was where all of this magic, one of the major centers of where this Renaissance was happening, right? Okay, now another really important factor for the Renaissance happening, guys, was the church, the Catholic church.
More importantly, it's is in that it became wealthy so the church started to profit and started to make a money right and started to become like a focus of the church and because of that the church would actually hire artists to make artworks for them right they would also make money by selling something called indulgence and indulgence but an indulgence is it's like a it's it's a way of paying away a sin so if someone did something bad they could go to the church and pay this tax kind of right to kind of be forgiven right and of course this was not this was very controversial for its time and it actually led to eventually led to the reformation for it led to the church to to kind of like break apart almost right so uh kind of a controversial of course the church would also receive huge gifts um from from people and from uh political rulers right other rulers from different kingdoms would donate to the church right so the church was very very wealthy and they also like the medici would commission they would hire artists to make work for them artwork now this artwork was really important because what it did was um it would it would help um convert people or it would help the church stay kind of like important and for religion to become important too right so um so religion never really lost its significance it became um it wasn't as powerful as it was during the middle ages of course right it was because it was replaced by some different ways of thinking but it was still very important right religion was still very important during this time period okay and you guys might be familiar with this painting right here this is the last supper okay this is a this is a perfect example of a work that was commissioned by the church right this is a work by leonardo da vinci uh depicting the la the last supper that jesus had with his apostles right so again these works were were there to kind of um reinforce christianity and to keep the church relevant during this time period right and there it was they were very effective at it okay all right guys we're going to stop right there so those are the factors the major factors behind this renaissance happening okay in our next um lesson we're going to be looking at some of the artists behind the Renaissance and some of the thinking behind the Renaissance. All right. All right, you guys have a great afternoon. Talk to you soon.