Medieval and Renaissance Italy
- See also: European history
Italy was not unified as a nation-state until the 19th century. From the fall of the Roman Empire, the nation was mostly been divided between city-states and regional kingdoms. Still, from the 14th to 16th centuries, Italy experienced a Golden Age, known as the Renaissance, with wondrous feats of art and science, as well as intrigue and conflict.
Understand
Map of Medieval and Renaissance Italy
In the Middle Ages, Europe was dominated by feudal monarchies. Italy was an exception, as city-states held power. Many of them had a prosperous merchant class.
Italy hardly had any national spirit. The city-states were usually rivals, though the Holy Roman Empire, as well as the Catholic Church, were unifying forces.
Destinations
Northeast Italy
- 1 Venice. Capital of the Venetian Republic and absolutely chock-full of splendid Gothic and Renaissance buildings. While La Serenissima only lost its status as an independent republic in 1797, its heyday (and most of its architecture) date to the Renaissance.
- 2 Verona. Famous as the location of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the city's real-life history is also exciting.
- 3 Mantua. The city of the Gonzaga family. UNESCO World Heritage site.
- 4 Ravenna. This ancient Roman city is famous for its 6th-century churches and Byzantine mosaics.
Northwest Italy
- 7 Genoa. Controlled the western half of the Mediterranean, and was the hometown of Christopher Columbus.
- 8 Milan. The Duomo, Milan's most famous building, is a huge Gothic edifice that was begun in 1386 and took almost 600 years to complete.
- 9 Turin.
Central Italy
- 10 Pisa. A Medieval rival of Florence, it was defeated before Siena but produced the world-famous Campo dei Miracoli, featuring the Leaning Tower, Duomo, Baptistery and Camposanto Monumentale, and also Santa Maria della Spina in a separate location near the Arno.
- 11 Florence. The city of the Medici merchant-rulers, who helped trigger the early Renaissance; it is the city of Dante, Petrarch, Landini, Giotto, Donatello, Ghiberti, the Della Robbia brothers, Botticelli and Michelangelo, among many other brilliant artists in different media (literature, music, painting, sculpture). Anyone with the vaguest interest in the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Italy should make sure to visit Florence.
- 12 San Gimignano. San Gimignano is an extremely well-preserved small Medieval walled city, with great art in its municipal museum and churches and impressive towers that are several hundred years old
- 13 Siena. Once fiercely warlike, Siena was Florence's chief rival in Gothic times, as reflected in its architecture, and had its own unique but more conservative school of art in its heyday (13th-15th centuries); Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (founded in 1472 with headquarters in the Gothic Palazzo Salimbeni) is the oldest continuously-operating bank in the world. Another Medieval aspect of Siena is the twice-yearly Palio, a horse race preceded by time-honored pageantry and processions that has been run almost every year since the 12th century and has since 1590 been restricted to the Piazza del Campo, the city's famous Medieval central piazza.
- Chiusure. The tiny town of Chiusure is notable as the location of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, a 14th-century Benedictine monastery that is still active today; it contains frescoes by the Renaissance master, Luca Signorelli on one side of the Cloister and some impressive 15th-century intarsial woodwork in the Choir.
- 14 Arezzo. Arezzo's central Piazza Grande is Medieval, and this ancient city features the Gothic Basilica di San Domenico, which has a painted Crucifix by the late Romanesque master, Cimabue; the Medieval church of San Francesco contains the frescoes of Legend of the True Cross, by the Renaissance master, Piero della Francesca; and the Duomo, where Guido d'Arezzo invented the musical system of solfeggio in the early 11th century.
- 15 Pienza. Redesigned according to a central plan in Gothic style in honor of Pope Pius II, who ruled from 1458 till his death in 1464, its Centro storico remains a living Gothic space and is a UNESCO World Heritage site
- 16 Gubbio. This small Umbrian city, like the larger Tuscan city of Siena, is a walled Medieval hill town, and while it has no single building as spectacular as Siena's Palazzo Pubblico or Duomo, its collection of buildings and physical location are very beautiful
- 17 Perugia. Perugia is a walled, cobblestoned city that makes a rewarding visit for fans of the Gothic and early Renaissance in Italy. The central Piazza IV Novembre is graced with the Fontana Maggiore, sculpted by the great early Gothic sculptor, Giovanni Pisano, and bounded by the Gothic Duomo (San Lorenzo) and Palazzo dei Priori — and those are just the highest highlights.
- 18 Assisi. Assisi is the city of the Medieval Saint Francis, after whom the current pope took his papal name; accordingly, the Basilica di San Francesco (Basilica of St. Francis), containing work by Cimabue, Giotto, Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti, although damaged in the 1997 earthquake and painstakingly restored, is the highlight among quite a few other Medieval buildings.
- 19 Spoleto. This ancient Roman garrison town also features a beautiful Romanesque Duomo, among other Medieval buildings.
- 20 Orvieto. Orvieto is a walled Medieval hill town with a splendid Gothic Duomo in black and white striped style like Siena's Duomo, with frescoes by Luca Signorelli inside
- 21 Urbino. The Palazzo Ducale, a Renaissance building, today houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, with a major Renaissance collection
- 22 Rome. Capital of the Papal States, where the Pope reigned supreme with both religious and political authority. Rome has many famous buildings from the Renaissance, including the Campidoglio and its palaces, which were designed by Michelangelo, but probably the most famous Renaissance works in Rome are frescoes — those in the Sistine Chapel, particularly the ceiling frescoes by Michelangelo, and those by Raphael and Fra Angelico in the Vatican Apartments. The Basilica of St. Peters itself was designed as a Renaissance building by Michelangelo, but its nave and narthex were lengthened by Carlo Maderno in the early 17th century, so the result is quite distinct from a Renaissance aesthetic.
- 23 Priverno. Famous mainly for the Abbey of Fossanova, a historically important building in Burgundian Early Gothic style that functions to this day as a Cistercian monastery.
Southern Italy
- 24 Naples. Naples is famous for being an ancient Hellenistic and Roman city and for its 18th- and 19th-century institutions such as the Teatro di San Carlo. However, it also has a number of Medieval buildings including the 13th-century Castel Nuovo, and the National Museum of Capodimonte is a great art museum whose collection includes quite a few Renaissance paintings.