As a result of the decimation in the populace the value of the working class increased, and commoners came to enjoy more freedom.
In the course of striving to recover it, however, the humanists assisted in the consolidation of a new spiritual and intellectual outlook and in the development of a new body of knowledge. Some writers date the Renaissance quite precisely; one proposed starting point iswhen the rival geniuses Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi competed for the contract to build the bronze doors for the Baptistery of the Florence Cathedral Ghiberti won.
The development of conventions of diplomacy and an increased reliance on observation in science were also markers of the Renaissance. In addition to studying classical Latin and Greek, Renaissance authors also began increasingly to use vernacular languages; combined with the introduction of printingthis would allow many more people access to books, especially the Bible.
Children in city dwellings were more affected by the spread of disease than the children of the wealthy. Artists strived to depict people and objects in a true-to-life way.
The literary form used was the entirely didactic one of simple question and answer; concise, clear, easily memorized, this was the form used by both masters and pupils, and the one through which these particular doctrines were diffused throughout the length and breadth of Europe, as time went on.
Accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins.
Skinner reports that there were many defences of liberty such as the Matteo Palmieri — celebration of Florentine genius not only in art, sculpture and architecture, but "the remarkable efflorescence of moral, social and political philosophy that occurred in Florence at the same time".
Instead, it was divided into smaller city states and territories: the Kingdom of Naples controlled the south, the Republic of Florence and the Papal States at the center, the Milanese and the Genoese to the north and west respectively, and the Venetians to the east.