Italian Renaissance Artist. The Italian Renaissance was a period of Italian history that began in the 14th century and lasted until the 17th century.
   It peaked during the 15th and 16th centuries, spreading across Europe and marking the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity. The French word renaissance means rebirth and defines the period as one of cultural revival and renewed interest in classical antiquity after the centuries labeled the Dark Ages by Renaissance humanists.
   The Renaissance author Giorgio Vasari used the term Rebirth in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects but the concept became widespread only in the 19th century, after the works of scholars such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt. The Renaissance began in Tuscany, and was centred in the city of Florence.
   Florence, one of the several city-states of the peninsula, rose to economic prominence by providing credit for European monarchs and laying down the groundwork for capitalism and banking. The Renaissance later spread to Venice, heart of a mediterranean empire and in control of the trade routes with the east since the participation in the crusades and the voyages of Marco Polo, where the remains of ancient Greek culture were brought together and provided humanist scholars with new texts.
   Finally the Renaissance had a significant effect on the Papal States and Rome, largely rebuilt by Humanist and
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