Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7)

CHAPTER I.

THE SPIRIT OF THE RENAISSANCE.

Difficulty of fixing Date--Meaning of Word Renaissance--The Emancipation of the Reason--Relation of Feudalism to the Renaissance--Mediaeval Warnings of the Renaissance--Abelard, Bacon, Joachim of Flora, the Provencals, the Heretics, Frederick II.--Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio--Physical Energy of the Italians--The Revival of Learning--The...