Grade 7 Standards Guide 29
Chapter 29 Standard Guide: Florence: The Cradle of the Renaissance
Key Terms
• Florence
• Michelangelo
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Donatello
• Medicis
• Botticelli
• secular
• Galileo Galilei
• The Prince
Essential Questions
1. What factors made Florence Italy’s leading cultural center during the Renaissance?
2. Describe the significant achievements that were made during the Renaissance in architecture and engineering, painting, and sculpture. In what ways did architects, builders, and artists draw from the ancient Greeks and the Romans?
3. How did Renaissance literature differ from medieval literature? How does The Divine Comedy reflect humanist thinking?
4. How did the study of science and mathematics change during the Renaissance? What scientific and mathematical achievements were made during the Renaissance?
5. In what ways was The Prince characteristic of humanist thinking, and in what ways was it different?
6. How did commerce and trade promote the growth of the Renaissance in Florence?
7.8 Students analyze the origins, accomplishments, and geographic diffusion of the Renaissance.
7.8.1. Describe the way in which the revival of classical learning and the arts fostered a new interest in humanism (i.e., a balance between intellect and religious faith).
7.8.2. Explain the importance of Florence in the early stages of the Renaissance and the growth of independent trading cities (e.g., Venice), with emphasis on the cities’ importance in the spread of Renaissance ideas.
7.8.5 Detail advances made in literature, the arts, science, mathematics, cartography, engineering, and the understanding of human anatomy and astronomy (e.g., by Dante Alighieri, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo di Buonarroti Simoni, Johann Gutenberg
