By the end of the Middle Ages, the most important Italian cultural centers lay in areas around Rome: Florence, Venice, Mantua, and Urbino. Naples and Sicily were under French and then Aragonese rule. The Italian cities not under foreign powers were ruled by powerful families, who gave substantial support for the arts and commerce. Money ruled most aspects of the culture, and mercenary armies as well, that had no allegiance except to the highest bidder. Artistic patronage was political and self-serving. Italian humanists followed along with their northern counterparts in recognizing the importance of human thought and action. They, too, looked to the past for inspiration and guidance. Fortunately for the Italians, they only had to see the glory of Rome to rekindle their imaginations with new ways of expressing what they wanted to say, paint, sculpt and build. Like their Flemish counterparts, Italian artists moved towards a greater precision of rendering space and form, but even better than artists of the north, they developed linear perspective to help them.

With this in mind, the goals for this chapter are as follows:

• Understand the development of linear perspective in two-dimensional art forms.

• Follow the influences of antiquity and classical ideas and forms in all the arts.

• Be able to distinguish the new advances in rendering the human form in sculpture and painting.

• Become familiar with the impact that Greek philosophy and mythology had on the arts.

• Recognize the influences still felt from Christianity on the arts .