| A | B |
|---|
| 1453 | Year of the conquest of Constantinople by Turkish armies |
| Constantinople | Greatest City of the Medieval World, conquered in 1453 by Turks |
| Turks | central Asian groups that settled in Anatolia and founded powerful states that threatened Europe for centuries |
| Jacob Burckhardt | scholar credited with the idea of a "Renaissance" |
| Renaissance | literally means "rebirth" |
| Petrarch | the "father of humanism" |
| humanism | intellectual movement that valued individualism and a rational approach to the world |
| Boccaccio | author of the Decameron |
| Decameron | Boccaccio's stories of a group of refugees from the Plague in 14th century Italy |
| Florence | Italian city-state dominated by the Medici and held vast wealth due to the wool trades and banking |
| civic humanism | also known as Florentine humanism, the convergence of humanism and civic reform |
| Francis I | French king of the Valois line who fought Charles V's Hapsburg family over control of Italy |
| Charles V | Holy Roman Emperor from 1500 to 1558, also a Hapsburg |
| Guelfs | propapal faction in the struggle for Italy |
| Ghibellines | proimperial faction in the struggle for Italy |
| Milan | Duchy of Northern Italy ruled by the Visconti with wealth based on textiles and iron working |
| Venice | the greatest of all Italian trading cities, had a powerful navy which dominated the Western Mediterranean |
| Papal States | central Italy under the direct rule of the pope |
| Naples | Southern Italy, part of Charles V's Hapsburg domains |
| Dodge | the title of the ruling executive of Venice |
| the Council of Ten | the ruthless judicial body that dominated the Venetian Republic |
| oligarchy | rule by the wealthy, as in the wealthy merchant class of Venice |
| grandi | the old rich of Florence, old money |
| popolo grosso | the newly wealthy of Florence, literally the "fat people" |
| popolo minuto | the lower classes of Florence, literally the "little people" |
| Ciompi Revolt | 1378 uprising of the poor in Florence, which eventually paved the way for the rise of the Medici |
| Cosimo de' Medici | the first Medici to rule Florence (from behind the scenes) |
| Signoria | the ruling council of Florence, representing guilds and professions in the city |
| guilds | organizations of craftsmen; controlled the quality and workforce of trades |
| Lorenzo the Magnificent | Lorenzo de' Medici, ruled Florence in an almost totalitarian fashion in the latter 15th century |
| despotism | type fo government in which power is exercised in a totalitarian fashion |
| condottierri | brokers for mercenary armies |
| Visconti | family that ruled Milan after 1278 |
| Sforza | family that ruled Milan after 1450 |
| Renaissance Humanism | the scholarly study of Latin and Greek classics and the Church Fathers |
| studia humanitatis | liberal arts program embracing rhetoric, poetry, history, politics, moral philosophy |
| Leonardo Bruni | coined the phrase "humanitatis" |
| Manuel Chrysoloras | Byzantine scholar who taught humanism at Florence from 1397-1403 |
| Scholastics | Medieval scholars who focused on summarizing and comparing views of accepted authorities and were bound to tradition |
| Thomas Aquinas | The greatest of the Scholastics |
| Dante Alghieri | credited with development of Italian vernacular; author of the Divine Comedy |
| La Divina Comedia | Dante's vernacular Italian work; Paradio and Inferno |
| Letters to the Ancient Dead | Petrarch's letters to the ancients |
| liberal studies | the Renaissance ideal; those worthy of a free man |
| Baldassare Castiglione | author of the Courtier; proper behavior |
| Christine de Pisan | most famous Renaissance female author |
| The Treasure of the City of Ladies | Christine de Pisan's chronicle of the accomplishments of great women |
| Florentine Academy | Platonic Academy that produced scholars like Pico della Mirandola |
| Platonism | system of thought attributed to Plato, revived during the Renaissance |
| Neoplatonism | mystical development of Platonism also revived during the Renaissance |
| Pico della Mirandola | scholar of the Platonic Academy of Florence; wrote Oration on the Dignity of Man |
| Oration on the Dignity of Man | Pico della Mirandola's "Manifesto of the Renaissance" |
| Lorenzo Valla | Italian Renaissance Latinist and critic who wrote discovered the fraudulent nature of Donation of Constantine |
| Donation of Constantine | fraudulent imperial Roman decree that gave temporal authority in the Western Empire to the pope |
| Leonardo Bruni | wrote History of the Florentine People; known as the first modern historian |
| Leon Battista Alberti | best known as an architect but really the model of the universal man |
| Niccolo Machiavelli | author of the "Prince", advisor to the Medici in Florence |
