![]() ![]() ![]() Antiquity offered models of noble conduct, but they survived only in broken statues or in the mildewed pages of manuscripts hidden for centuries in remote monasteries. In this age of chaos and confusion, a small band of learned men, the Renaissance humanists, clung to a vision of the past that seemed to hold out some hope of tranquility. Reformers to the north began issuing denunciations of the church, denouncing a clergy and hierarchy that had grown ever more corrupt and licentious. Central religious authority so disintegrated that eventually no fewer than three popes would simultaneously claim the chair of St. This was the period of the "Babylonian Captivity" of the church, when the papacy was established in Avignon, where it became a satellite of the French king. ![]() In the 14th century, the city-states of Italy were in constant turmoil Milan warred against Venice, Florence against Rome. We think of the Renaissance as a time of unsurpassed artistic accomplishment, but it was also a time of unrelenting strife. ![]()
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