Merchants of the Renaissance

This following three page essay is about merchants. I will be describing of how merchants affected the Renaissance,what merchants did, what merchants sold. And so on. The merchants in the renaissance really helped out because there were a lot of them and they were all over the place. There were many items that merchants sold during the renaissance. A lot of the merchants sold different I items. A lot of merchants sold same items. And some merchants sold very different items.

The items that almost or all merchants sold were salt, sugar, glass, silk, gold, money, cinnamon, and weapons. Sometimes merchants sold cattle. There were merchants that were also very rich and actually had enough money to make the city they lived in more beautiful. To make the city they lived in they put paintings, bushes, flowers, statues, and much more items that made the city more beautiful. Those people that made the city more beautiful were well known and famous. Florence became a better city during the Renaissance because of its lines of communication to the world around it.

In the late Middle Ages, the city became important as a crossroads for wool traders. Giovanni and Cosimo de Medici used banking to make Florence a crossroads for finance. With these connections made, Florence became a crossroads for ideas. The city was opened up to the ideals and philosophies of distant lands, and absorbed these into the writing and art it produced. That art then flowed freely outward to the rest of Italy and the European continent. The Medici maintained the stability of these connections through financial and political means.

The connection they established with the Papacy was particularly beneficial to both Florence and Rome. The two cities, which might have otherwise been rivals, mutually developed under the spirit of cooperation during the Renaissance. The bankers like the Medici and other businessmen such as wool merchants of Florence provided the money to support artists such as Da Vinci and Michelangelo during the renaissance. Without rich people paying the artists, the Renaissance would not have been so beautiful and amazing paintings, sculptures, and architecture.