Historical Background
Cavalcanti was born in Florence at a time when the comune was beginning its economic, political, intellectual and artistic ascendancy as one of the leading cities of Renaissance. The disunited Italian peninsula was dominated by a political particularism that pitted each city-state one against the other, often with this factionalism contributing the fractious and sometimes violent political environments of each comune. The domination of medieval religious interpretations of reality, morality and society were challenged by a rise of new urban culture across Europe that gradually supplanted rural, local, ecclesiastical and feudal ways of thinking. There was an accompanying return to study, interpret and emulate the classics, known as a revival of antiquity. New secular views laid the foundations for modern life in the Western Civilization. As Jacob Burckhardt, Swiss historian and author of the classic The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy described, “It was not the revival of antiquity alone, but its union with the genius of the Italian people which achieved the conquest of the western world.” In sum, Cavalcanti lived during and helped shape this time of great innovation that was spurred on by a desire to explore, create and experiment with new things.
Read more about this topic: Guido Cavalcanti
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or background:
“Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their thoughts, their models, the books they read and the speeches they hear, their table-talk, gossip, controversies, historical sense and scientific training, the values they appreciate, the quality of life they admire. All communities have a culture. It is the climate of their civilization.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)