原书及其作者：Jerry Brotton 的 "The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction"，大主题，小开本。文艺复兴对于欧洲，是从不假思索的中世纪世界中出离的年代，它就和现代性本身一样复杂。
系列上一篇：Introduction | 绪论
Chp1 A global Renaissance
West meets east
>p23-24 While Europe predominantly exported bulk goods such as textiles, timber, glassware, soap, paper, copper, salt, silver, and gold, it tended to import luxury and high-value goods. These ranged from spices (black pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon), cotton, silk, satin, velvet, and carpets to opium, tulips, sandalwood, porcelain, horses, rhubarb, and precious stones, as well as vivid dyes used in textile manufacture and painting. …… Venice was a quintessential Renaissance city, not just for its combination of commerce and aesthetic luxury, but also for its admiration and emulation of eastern cultures.
东西方的贸易一直都在（指欧洲和中东），但十字军东征结束后（1291），贸易量上升，造成了几大贸易中心城市的极大繁荣。除了物质，更多花样的织物，更鲜艳的染料，建筑与城市规划的不同理念，还带来了文化交融的盛况。这是一种包括物质和理念的复杂交互。
Credits and debits
文艺复兴是个很复杂的时期，一方面大家都公认这段时间的精神文艺产出极其丰沛，科技与经贸也长足发展，但是这段时间也是宗教冲突与战争不断、黑死病横行、通胀和通缩反复出现的时期。
>p25 One consequence of all this death, disease, and warfare was a concentration on urban life, and an accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small but rich elite.
这段时间里，因为贸易往来的范围、复杂程度和贸易量大幅攀升，阿拉伯和伊斯兰世界的数学系统和先进经贸手段迅速传播。波斯商斐波那契（Leonardo Bonacci）将阿拉伯数字极其系统引介给欧洲商界，包括加减乘除法、小数点、利息计算和货币换汇等；现代代数和算法学的基础也在那时由另一位波斯天文学家花剌子米（Abu Ja’far Mohammed ibn Mûsâ al-Khowârizmî）奠定。
汇票（bill of exchange，现代支票的前身）和早期银行家也在那时开始出现。当时的伊斯兰世界和基督教世界都禁止一切用钱生钱的行为（usury），导致它们的商人和银行家要么钻漏洞，要么雇佣犹太人来处理信贷和转账事宜。但是到了后期，金融和贸易带来的财富积累与社会贡献越来越得到正面评价。
>p27 From this historical accident emerged the anti-Semitic stereotype of Jews and their supposed predisposition towards international finance, a direct product of Christian and Muslim hypocrisy.
East meets west
>p29 Like many other Renaissance leaders with aspirations to imperial power, Mehmed used learning, art, and architecture to magnify his claims to absolute political authority. …… Like so many Renaissance buildings and artefacts, the Topkapi was both an original creative act and a highly political object. The two impulses were inseparable – a defining feature of the Renaissance.
Such international competition between eastern and western states and empires stimulated a whole new generation of Renaissance thinkers, writers, and artists.
>p33 What such exchanges and rivalries suggest is that there were no clear geographical or political barriers between east and west in the Renaissance. It is a much later, 19th-century belief in the absolute cultural and political separation of the Islamic east and Christian west that has obscured the easy exchange of trade and ideas between these two cultures. The two sides were often in religious and military conflict with each other. However, the point is that material and commercial exchanges between them carried on in spite of these conflicts, and produced a fertile environment for cultural achievements on both sides. Their shared cultural heritage of a contested classical past led to new achievements that we now recognize as typically Renaissance.
文艺复兴不仅发生在西方（欧洲），也包括了和东方（中东）的很多互动。当时的统治者大多看重艺术和文教，东西方（欧洲和中东）的艺术技法和流派在不断的交流借鉴中大为兴盛。
The winds of change
英法百年战争（Hundred Years' War）的结束和奥斯曼帝国攻下君士坦丁堡带来了社会稳定，社会稳定带来的贸易繁荣使得对各类商品的需求大幅上涨。控制陆上商路的奥斯曼帝国对往来客商收取高额税费，这就使得欧洲各国的商人开始积极探索其他商路。探索与发现一时成风。
>p35-37 Behaim recorded his own commercial experiences in West Africa between 1482 and 1484, and they give some indication of what motivated his voyages. He sailed ‘with various goods and merchandise for sale and barter’, including horses ‘to be presented to Moorish kings’, as well as ‘various examples of spices to be shown to the Moors in order that they might understand what we sought in their country’. Spices, gold, and slaves: these commodities underpinned the creation of the first truly global image of the Renaissance world.
原书信息：Brotton, Jerry, The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions (Oxford, 2006; online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 Sept. 2013), https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780192801630.001.0001
很棒的總結，我一口氣看完了，現在對威尼斯這個最近去過的地方，體會更深了，謝謝。
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話説，你提到君士坦丁堡易手，促發了歐洲各國的航海探索；我以前寫過關於這段歷史的文章，聚焦回顧尋找「西北航道」的過程。
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參與其中的人和物，【同時】跟英、美、加、香港近代歷史，有緊密關係。你有空歡迎看看~
https://thegentlemantechbro.substack.com/p/c78