Four Reasons Why the Renaissance started in ItalyItaly stood across the route of the Crusades and Italian ships carried the Crusaders to the Holy Land-at a profit. Later, the merchants of Venice and Genoa transported a rich commerce to and from the Middle East (Moslem and Byzantine Civilizations) and nothern Europe. Thus great wealth was accumulated in Italian cities, and with wealth came leisure to enjoy literature, art, and science. The wealthy became patrons of literature, art, and science. The leading Renaissance patrons were the Popes in Rome, wealthy merchants in Venice, the Sforza family in Milan, and the Medici family in Florence. These patrons encouraged struggling writers and artists. Moreover, writers and artists found it easier to work amid the greater freedom of city life.

Both the Byzantine and Moslem civilizations had preserved much ancient Greek and Helleistic culture and used it as a starting point for their own contributions, including advances in mathematics and science (physics, chemistry, medicine). Italy had absorbed new ideas from the advanced Byzantine and Moslem worlds. The old Roman world had never been quite destroyed. The people had kept ancient memories of an earlier time. Italy contained sculpture, buildings, roads, and manuscripts that excited curiosity about Classical civilization.