Medioevo Italiano: The Fascination Of Italian Culture In The Middle Ages

Italy has one of most fascinating and preserved cultures in the whole world with very many books that detail it. Generally, Italian culture revolved around art and architecture, especially during the late middle ages.

It’s said that if you happened to be born in medieval Italy, then you could either have stumbled to be a priest, musician, artist or architect.

The latter is true if you were gifted mathematically. Here are some of the items that Italians were fascinated on during the middle ages.

Music And Poetry

There was a period during the middle ages when the Catholic Church restricted secular songs from being widespread. With time the Catholic Church lifted their restraints and more artists started to engage in secular music. This probably had something to do with the fact that some of the composers happened to be priests themselves. This resulted in a period of great works from the likes of composers like Dante (whose work has been kept alive up to date). This fascination also led to inventions in music. People like Guido of Arezzo contributed immensely towards the development of music (he is the creator of the modern musical notation). Many artists appreciated the work that was done during this period because most of them borrowed from it.

Food And Cuisines

Italians are widely known because of their exquisite delicacies. Most of these delicacies trace their origins to the middle ages. This is the period when Italians started gaining interest in delicacies from other places. Within no time they had already started making their own cuisines which they then shared with the world. However, some of these cuisines have had their preparation well-guarded. This means that they’ve only been passed down through their generations. Some of their best delicacies include pasta, pizza, gelato and ravioli among others.

Art

Many Italians were fascinated by art during the medieval period. Just to show how fascinated they were, a large number of famous Italian artists today lived during the Middle Ages or the renaissance period. The wealthy Italians wanted to have the best art pieces show-cased in their homes whereas artists were interested in capturing nature’s inert beauty on a canvas. Some of the best artists who lived during this period included the likes of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio and Donatello. Some of their most prized paintings are being showcased in exhibitions around Italy.

Engineering

Italians started to gain prominence due to their magnificent buildings and machinery that they had. The renaissance period saw many engineers take on huge projects that were deemed impossible at the time (such as building Florence Cathedral’s monumental dome). Most of the states in Italy were in a rush to create inventions that would make them superior to their counterparts and the people who benefitted greatly were the engineers and people of Italy.

Are you interested in knowing more about Italy? Here are some interesting facts about Italy’s middle ages.