Italy's leading cultural center during Renaissance; important for trade and commerce;dominated by Medici's
Machiavelli 1469-1527 Niccolo, most important writer on POLITICS in the Renaissance. In The Prince rejected the Christian idea that state subject to divine law. Adopted SECULAR and AMORAL view of POLITICS. State existed for its own sake. Ruler should be concerned with preservation of power. Ends justified means. Yet most successful states of time were not in Italy but the New Monarchies. Politics in Italy was about virtu not involving loyalty as in New Monarchies.
Florence became the center of the Renaissance. Because of its extensive trading network also for inviting the painters and sculptures from all over Italy. Florence ruled by the Medici family. Medici family being wealthy merchants (bankers) in Florence, spend much of their wealth in making Florence into a center of art and culture. They became patrons who believed in individualism.
Niccolò Machiavelli, a philosopher, who wrote 'The Prince' gave the idea of how a ruler must stay in power. Also, what a ruler should do and not do to gain his ambitions.
The Southern Manifesto was a document written in the South in 1956, which attempted to push back against Brown V. Board of Ed., which stated that racial segregation in school was illegal. Their argument being that the US Constitution nowhere mentions education.
Some of the most valuable commodities that moved through the kingdom of Ghana between the 5th and 15th Century were Gold and Salt during the Trans-Haran trade. The beginning of Trans-Haran gold trade is linked to the Soninke Empire of Ghana in the 5th Century. While the consumption of Trans-Haran salt was promoted for trade purposes. Berbers from the North of Africa were able to cross the Sahara desert using camels with their caravans with gold sort from western and central Sudan. This linked the Mediterranean economies which demanded gold and in return they supplied salt.