Terms : Hide Images
| 69329902 | Grandi | The old rich, the nobles, and merchants who traditionally ruled the city of Florence | |
| 69329903 | Popolo grosso | The emergent new rich merchant class of capitalists and bankers in Florence. Also known as "fat people." | |
| 69329904 | Popolo minuto | The "little people" or the lower Florentine economic classes. | |
| 69329905 | Ciompi Revolt | A great successful revolt of the poor in 1378. Resulted in a 4 year reign of power by the lower Florentine classes. | |
| 69329906 | Cosimo de' Medici | The wealthiest Florentine. Manipulated Florence from behind the scenes by influencing the Constitution and election. | |
| 69329907 | Lorenzo the Magnificent | The grandson of Cosimo de' Medici. Ruled Florence in a nearly totalitarian fashion. As the podesta, he maintained law and order. | |
| 69329908 | Signoria | Initially made up of six members and later of eight members, this council governed Florence. | |
| 69329909 | Podesta | The title Lorenzo the Magnificent held. The purpose of the office was to maintain law and order. Executive, military, and judicial authority was possessed by the officeholder. | |
| 69329910 | Condottieri | These military brokers provided mercenary armies for despots in Florence. | |
| 69329911 | Machiavelli | Author of "The Prince," this man detailed how to obtain power, how to use it, and how to keep it. | |
| 69329912 | The Prince | Nicolo Machiavelli's masterpiece. Machiavelli explained how to obtain power, how to use it, and how to keep it. | |
| 69329913 | Leonardo Bruni | This Florentine first gave the name "humanitas" or "humanity," to the learning that resulted from the scholarly pursuits of the Renaissance. A pupil of Manuel Chrysoloras. | |
| 69329914 | Manuel Chrysoloras | A Byzantine scholar who opened the world of Greek scholarship to a generation of young Italian humanists when he taught at Florence. | |
| 69329915 | Petrarch | The "father of humanism." He celebrated ancient Rome in his "Letters to the Ancient Dead." Also wrote a Latin epic poem named "Africa" and a set of biographies of famous Roman men called "Lives of Illustrious Men." | |
| 69329916 | Letters to the Ancient Dead | Petrarch's masterpiece to celebrate ancient Rome. | |
| 69329917 | Africa | Petrarch's Latin epic poem. | |
| 69329918 | Lives of Illustrious Men | A set of biographies of famous Roman men by Petrarch. | |
| 69329919 | Dante Alighieri | Author of "Vita Nuova" and "Divine Comedy." | |
| 69329920 | Vita Nuova | An expression of medieval genre of courtly love by Dante Alighieri. | |
| 69329921 | Divine Comedy | An epic poem detailing the Christian afterlife by Dante Alighieri | |
| 69329922 | Giovanni Boccaccio | A student of Petrarch, he was also a pioneer of humanist studies. Authored "Decameron." | |
| 69329923 | Decameron | 100 often bawdy tales by three men and seven women in a country retreat from the plague that ravaged Florence. A stinging social commentary and a sympathetic look at human behavior. Written by Giovanni Boccaccio. | |
| 69329924 | Baldassare Castiglione | The author of "Book of the Courtier." | |
| 69329925 | Book of the Courtier | Written by Baldassare Castiglione, this was a practical guide for the nobility at the court of Urbino. It embodies the highest ideals of Italian humanism: knowledge of languages and history, athleticism, military skills, musical skills, and chivalry. | |
| 69329926 | Christine de Pisan | This famous noblewoman wrote "The City of Ladies." | |
| 69329927 | The City of Ladies | A chronicle of the accomplishments of the great women of history. Written by Christine de Pisan. | |
| 69329928 | Florentine Academy | Not a formal school, but an informal gathering of influential Florentine humanists who devoted themselves to the revival of the works of Plato and Neoplatonists. | |
| 69329929 | Lorenzo Valla | The author of the standard Renaissance text on Latin philology and the "Elegances of the Latin Language," and "Donation of Constantine." | |
| 69329930 | Elegances of the Latin Language | This work truly embodied the ideas of its author, Lorenzo Valla, by revealing the explosive character of the new learning. | |
| 69329931 | Erasmus | The "prince of the humanists." Easily the most famous of the northern humanists. Published dialogues under the title "Colloquies." | |
| 69329932 | Giotto | The father of Renaissance painting. Painted a more natural world than his Byzantine and Gothic predecessors. | |
| 69329933 | Leonardo da Vinci | The true Renaissance man. A painter, a military engineer, a physician, and a botanist. But you know him better for the Mona Lisa. | |
| 69329934 | Raphael | Revered by art historians for his masterpiece "The School of Athens," this talented painter's premature death cut short his promising artistic career. | |
| 69329935 | Michelangelo | This melancholy genius is known for masterpieces such as David and frescoes for the Sistine Chapel. | |
| 69329936 | Treaty of Lodi | This agreement brought Milan and Naples in an alliance with Florence against Venice. | |
| 69329937 | Ludovico il Moro | This Milanese despot joined the League of Venice in hopes of thwarting a French invasion. | |
| 69329938 | Charles VIII | He succeeded Louis XI. Marched through and conquered Naples and Florence. Unfortunately for this French monarch, the cities united to oust his attack. | |
| 69329939 | Girolamo Savonarola | This radical Dominican preacher convinces most the fearful Florentines that the French king's arrival was a long-delayed and fully justified vengeance on their immortality. | |
| 69329940 | Pope Alexander VI | The corrupt Borgia pope and ally to the French under Louis XII against Italy. | |
| 69329941 | Cesare Borgia | The son of Pope Alexander VI. When his father agreed to abandon the League of Venice, Cesare Borgia received the sister of the king of Navarre in marriage, a union that greatly enhanced Borgia military strength. | |
| 69329942 | Pope Julius II | This strong opponent of the Borgia family succeeded Alexander VI as Pope. He suppressed the Borgias and placed their newly conquered lands in Romagna under papal jurisdiction. | |
| 69329943 | Ferdinand of Aragon | The husband of Isabella of Castile. The Spanish king. The duo conquered the Moors, Christianized Spain, and made their country into a perennial world power. Additionally they initiated the Age of Discovery/Exploration. | |
| 69329944 | Isabella of Castille | The wife of Ferdinand of Aragon. The Spanish queen. The duo conquered the Moors, Christianized Spain, and made their country into a perennial world power. Additionally they initiated the Age of Discovery/Exploration. | |
| 69329945 | Mesta | A government organization that ran the kingdom of Castile's sheep-farming industry. | |
| 69329946 | Hermandad | A powerful league of cities and towns, which served Ferdinand and Isabella against stubborn landowners. | |
| 69329947 | Conversos | Converted Jews who were monitored by the Inquisition. | |
| 69329948 | Moriscos | Muslims who were monitored by the Inquisition. | |
| 69329949 | War of the Roses | A conflict between the House of Lancaster and the House of York. The Tudors emerged as victors and rulers of England. | |
| 69329950 | Henry VI | The Lancastrian monarchy of this man was consistently challenged by the duke of York. | |
| 69329951 | Edward IV | Son of the duke of York, he successfully seized power and instituted a strong-army rule that lasted more than twenty years. Briefly interrupted by Henry VI's short-lived restoration. | |
| 69329952 | Richard III | The brother of Edward IV, he usurped the throne from Edward's son. The new Tudor dynasty portrayed him as a villain who had murdered Edward's sons. | |
| 69329953 | Henry VII | The first monarch of the new Tudor dynasty. | |
| 69329954 | Court of the Star Chamber | Henry VII's means of disciplining the nobility. A special instrument of the royal was known as this. | |
| 69329955 | Golden Bull | A agreement between the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and the major German territorial rulers. It established a seven-member electoral college which functioned as an administrative body. | |
| 69329956 | Reichstag | An imperial diet/national assembly of seven electors among the German states. | |
| 69329957 | Electors | Seven of these made up the Reichstag along with the non-electoral princes and the 65 imperial free cities in the Holy Roman Empire. | |
| 69329958 | Reuchlin Affair | A man who had converted from Judaism to Christianity attached Johann Reuchlin's writings. Many humanists marched to Reuchlin's defense. "Letters of Obscure Men" was born from it | |
| 69329959 | Letters of Obscure Men | Rising from the Reuchlin Affair, this piece was a merciless satire of monks and Scholastics to which von Hutten contributed. | |
| 69329960 | Thomas More | The English humanist who wrote "Utopia." | |
| 69329961 | Utopia | Written by Thomas More, it is a conservative criticism of contemporary society. | |
| 69329962 | Act of Supremacy | Declared that Henry VIII was the only head of the Church of England. | |
| 69329963 | Francisco de Cisneros | Spanish leader of the Protestant Reformation wrote the "Complutensian Polygot Bible." | |
| 69329964 | Bartholomew Dias | Opened the Portuguese Empire in the East when he rounded the Cape of Good Hope. | |
| 69329965 | Prince Henry "the Navigator" | The Portuguese prince who sponsored the Portuguese exploration of the African coast. | |
| 69329966 | Vasco de Gama | This Portuguese explorer reached the coast of India and returned with a cargo worth sixty times the cost of the voyage. | |
| 69329967 | Amerigo Vespucci | The namesake of North and South America for first exploring the areas. | |
| 69329968 | Mayans | A civilization which flourished in the Yucatan region. They built large cities with immense pyramids and were fascinated by math and astronomy. | |
| 69329969 | Aztecs | Settled in Mexico. A violent civilization that was ultimately conquered by Cortes. | |
| 69329970 | Incans | Another great Native American civilization. Settled in Peru. Conquered by Pizarro. | |
| 69329971 | Cortes | He landed on the coast of Mexico and beat the Aztecs. | |
| 69329972 | Pizarro | He landed on the western coast of South America and beat the Incas. | |
| 69329973 | Hacienda | The major rural and agricultural institution of the Spanish colonies. | |
| 69329974 | Peninsulares | Persons originally born in Spain. | |
| 69329975 | Creoles | Persons of Spanish descent born in America. | |
| 69329976 | Encomienda | A formal grant of the right to the labor of a specific number of Indians for a particular period of time. | |
| 69329977 | Conquistador | A Spanish explorer who "conquered" native peoples. |
