In The Italian Renaissance

Plumb first deals with the general subjects of politics and the arts. Our view of the Renaissance is often based on the tranquil beauty of much of its art, but Plumb quickly shows that this is, at least partially, an illusion. The opening section on the political situation in and among the cities of northern and central Italy is the most surprising and illuminating part of the book. Constant warfare ravaged Italy from 1350 to 1450 as proponents of the Popes and of the Holy Roman Empire fought for dominance. It was in this atm

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they had acquired from other sources. The huge advances made in the arts were possible because "art had become the expression of complex social forces" (48). Learning, power, the acquisition of wealth and the expression of religious ideas were all expressed by the arts of the Renaissance. These four themes running through the revolutionary art of the period are the basis of Plumb's accounts of the distinct contributions made by the major Italian cities. Plumb refers to Florence as the "cradle of humanism" and describes the extent to which the Florentines identified themselves with the classical past and how this influenced the thought, scholarship, and art of the Renaissance (53). The identification with the past developed first in the civic arena. In 1402, when the Florentines were the last holdouts against the conquering power of Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan, they had the good luck to have Visconti die. They attributed their success to "civic virtue," however, rather than to luck for they saw themselves as the heirs of the Roman ideal as expressed in Cicero and Cato (58). This identification with the past was given an enormous boost by the events of 1402; the Florentines believed that classical literature provided t
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Approximate Word count = 2784
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)