What is the "problem" of the Renaissance from a "historical" perspective? Explain.

What is the "problem" of the Renaissance from a "historiographical" perspective? Explain.

What were the ramifications of the Black Death for Italian society and culture? What links, if any, can we draw between the plague and the development of the Renaissance in Italy?

What are some of the links the readings in Part II of Kohl explore between the culture of Renaissance Italy and the economy and society there in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? What kind of places in Italy seem to have offered the most fertile ground for Renaissance culture? Why?

Compare and contrast the lives of Buonaccorso Pitti and Gregorio Dati. What was the social background of each of these men, and how did they interact with Florentine social and political structures? What ties were most important in their lives? Would you call them men of the Renaissance? Why or why not?

Lisa Jardine calls her book a "new history of the Renaissance." What is "new" about it, in her view? Explain.

What are the "worldly goods" Jardine discusses? How does she believe that they are linked to the Renaissance as a cultural movement? What does her interpretation thus tell us about the links between economy and culture in Renaissance Europe?

What was the role of "vendetta" in Friulian culture? Why did vendettas endure as a central part of Friulian culture and society long after they had faded in importance elsewhere in Italy?

When did vendettas decline in Friuli, and why? What does that tell us about the pace at which Renaissance culture spread in Italy, which places were more conducive to Renaissance culture than others?