ABSTRACT
The Renaissance is a far-reaching assimilation of the nobility to the new conditions and the reception of the nobles in the towns. In acquiring power and social standing through wealth, the financially powerful bourgeoisie had thus become superior to the nobility, even in politics. What was fundamentally new was the rational management of money and the investment of capital. The political structure proper to the bourgeoisie which had won its independence was the urban democracy, and hence the new art began by reflecting the new exalted position of the towns. The new mode of thought, evident in all the developments, naturally emanated from an upper class only. The new sciences and technical knowledge were the servants of the new will to economic power. Economic dependence forced the humanists, whose instinct was against the vulgus in any case, to move among the well-situated.
