Changes

Because of the increasing urbanization of Italian society and the impact of the Black Death, the feudal economic system collapsed.<ref>Ruggiero, Guido. <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521719380/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0521719380&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=1b90561c922b87b9608d09e3afe7757f The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento]</i> (Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 648 </ref> Feudalism was a political-social and economic system that gave political and military power to the landed elite and which tied the majority of the population to this elite. Feudalism was a system that demanded obedience, deference and ordained that people should accept their position in society, without question. It endorsed a view of the world that it advanced the belief that the world governed by unchanging and fixed by the laws of God. Feudalism was never strong in Italy, even in the High Middle Ages, and after the 1350s it all but collapsed. The collapse of feudalism led to the release of social forces that led to the Renaissance.<ref>Lopez, Robert Sabatino, <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007ETTC22/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B007ETTC22&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=4960cf91c401faa3cb7c990af3e6761e The Three Ages of the Italian Renaissance]</i> Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1970, p. 89</ref> People were freer than ever before and they were prepared to question and doubt and develop new ideas about society and to create new means of expression and styles of art to represent them. The society of Italy in the period from 1350 to 1500 energized people and encouraged them to experiment with the arts, thought and modes of life.<ref> Gilbert, Felix. <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691031630/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0691031630&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=e4d96c0c5e014c0593f0205f31fee3d3 History: Politics or Culture? Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt]</i>. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990). p. 109</ref>

====The New Elite====

[[File: SC2.jpg|thumbnail|300px|thumbnail|Lorenzo De Medici ‘The Magnificent’]]