This volume, while complete and independent in itself, forms Part V in a history of civilization written on the "integral method" of uniting in one narrative all phases of human activity. The series began in 1935 with Our Oriental Heritage - & history of Egypt and the Near and Middle East to 323 a.n., and of India, China, and Japan to 1930. Part II, The Life of Greece (1939), recorded Greek history and culture from the beginnings, and the history of the Near and Middle East from 323 a.n., to the Roman Conquest in 146 a.n. Part III, Caesar and Christ (1944), carried the story of white civilization to A.D. 325, centered around the rise and fall of Rome, and the first centuries of Christianity. Part IV, The Age of Faith (1950), continued the narrative to 1300, including Byzantine civilization, Islam, Judaism, and Latin Christendom.

The present work aims to give a rounded picture of all phases of human life in the Italy of the Renaissance - from the birth of Petrarch in 1304 to the death of Titian in 1576. The term "Renaissance" will in this book refer only to Italy. The word does not properly apply to such native maturations, rather than exotic rebirths, as took place in France, Spain, England, and the Lowlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and even in Italy the designation lays undue stress on that revival of classic letters which was of less importance to Italy than the ripening of its economy and culture into their own characteristic forms. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Story of Civilization: Part V: The Renaissance (Will Durant)