According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “Renaissance, literally “rebirth,” is the period in European civilization immediately following the Middle Ages and conventionally held to have been characterized by a surge of interest in Classical learning and values.” It began in Italy around 1330s and started to spread to the other parts of Europe around 1400s and 1500s. It started with the renewed interest in the classical world of Ancient Rome and Greece. The flowering of culture was mainly due to the growth of trade and commerce. For example Venice and Genoa, that were located on trade routes that connected the Eastern and Western part of Europe, became prosperous trading centers that attracted merchants and customers. By the end of the Renaissance people used coins instead of trading systems and therefore created a new money based economy that helped promote wealthy cities and new social classes that were able to support the arts and learning of their cities.
History Alive! States that from the 1300s to the 1600s the power in Europe was concentrated in three major areas: the Italian city states, the Papal states and the Holy Roman Empire. “During these years, Italy was not the unified country as it is today. Instead, it was a collection of city states, or large, self-governing cites and their surrounding communities and farms” (331) Italian city states conducted their own trade, collected their own taxes , some, like Florence, were republics that were governed by