The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

This work offers a wide-ranging analysis of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian society, portraying how fragmented city-states, tyrannies, and ruling families shaped political life and fostered a new public culture. It treats the state as a crafted institution, examines condottieri, dynasties, and republican and despotic forms of rule, and traces religious, intellectual, and artistic developments, including humanism and the revival of antiquity. Chapters discuss art, architecture, the moral and social habits of elites, and the rise of modern individuality, arguing that political structures and cultural innovations were mutually constitutive in producing a distinctive civilisational pattern.