As Europe stabilized in the 15th century, Italy became the center of the Renaissance. The volatility of Italian politics, based in the competing city-states of Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, and Milan, paradoxically seemed to foster some of the greatest Italian cultural achievements. The immense wealth of these city-states had been largely created by a new commercial class (exemplified by the Florentine Medici family in Tuscany), who became patrons of art and literature. Many important writers of the time, such as Dante, Boccaccio, and Machiavelli, were Tuscans.
The papal states, or Rome, were ruled by the pope, who considered that his job was to assert the Church's authority over all Christendom, to stamp out heresy, to retain enough power to remain politically neutral, and to protect Christianity from Islam by repulsing the Ottoman Turks and freeing Constantinople, at a time when it appeared that the Ottomans might conquer all Europe. The popes of this period were largely successful in increasing the power and reach of the Papal States. Since this aim necessarily included military actions, the character of popes Alexander VI and Julius II were called into question—were they Christian leaders or politicians? This question was a factor in the Protestant Reformation.
Additional resources for further exploration
Mongolians of this era had the reputation of being relentless warriors, but they also made important contributions to Eurasian culture, such as linked networks of roads, a postal system, and trade innovations such as merchant associations. This link provides information on Mongolia during the 13th and 14th centuries.
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols/main/transcript.pdf
One of the greatest achievements of Italian Renaissance art and architecture was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi: the emblematic Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence, known as Il Duomo. Read about Brunelleschi's feat, and other achievements of Renaissance architecture at the link below.
https://www.ducksters.com/history/renaissance_architecture.php
