Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/642

 586 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE The history of the Papacy during this period has been considered in the previous chapter, so we pass on south to, K. the Kingdom of Naples. It deteriorated under dom of the rule of the House of Anjou, which itself de- Naples teriorated too and had a family history full of violence. Especially notorious were two queens, both named Joanna, of whom the former died in 1382 and Joanna II in 1435. The throne then passed to Alfonso, King of Aragon and already ruler of Sicily, although Ren6 of Provence claimed both Naples and Sicily. When Alfonso died, John II succeeded him in Aragon, but Naples went to his illegitimate son, Ferrante I (1458-1494). We have seen that France, not Italy, took the lead in the great outpouring of medieval vernacular literature in the Transition twelfth and thirteenth centuries and in the inven- from medi- tj on an( j development of Gothic architecture. eval to Ren- . aissance Only with Dante at the beginning of the four- culture teenth century did Italian literature get well started, while Italian buildings continued to a large extent to employ the Romanesque style. Italy's greatest medieval university at Bologna had been connected especially with the revival of Roman law. Dante already displays something of that closer personal interest in the Roman past which is one of the chief features of the Italian Renaissance, and even in his Divine Comedy there are many allusions to ancient history and pagan mythology. This shows us that in Italy the transition from the previous culture to the Renaissance was not so abrupt as one might think. The Italian Renais- sance was in a sense simply the last stage in medieval civilization. The word "Renaissance," signifying re-birth, was orig- inally applied to this movement and period by men who in- The false correctly regarded the preceding medieval period concep ion ag a ^^ a ^ e w h en there was no civilization. Renaissance They believed that with the revival of the clas- sics civilization again began to appear in Italy for the first time since the passing of ancient culture. They disregarded or were unaware of the fact that many features of modern