"The Sweet New Style"

The Humanists rebuild Rome, and in the process, create one of the most eternal, persevering cities in history. To look upon Rome today is to see a conglomeration of ancient Roman Architecture and modern buildings; a lovely hodge-podge (yeah, it's a word.) of styles from many different eras. It's all spelled out very rosily in this week's reading, but I'm glad to see that they mention the financial  aspect of this rebuilding and cultural growth. Can't rebuild a city without money, of course, and nobody would see any kind of significant cultural growth or rebuilding until the income of the city was constant and fairly secure.
Another big thing we see in this text is the contribution of many different political factions and schools of thought coming together to rebuild. We see Humanist writers, artists, members of the papacy, all contributing to the new, Renaissance Roma. But even so, the Humanists managed to come to be the predominant authority in both the written and spoken word. In a society that so revered it's written texts, this wasn't all that surprising. They really managed to create a sort of educational curriculum, where sometimes men (not, not really women. Don't act surprised by that.) of modest wealth could work and improve a somewhat modest social standing. Keep in mind I typed somewhat, as the Humanists were still a bit classist, and if you hadn't mastered the Latin, you were kinda screwed, fluidity of social standing it 15th and 16th century Rome notwithstanding.
Despite this, there was also an ambitious project by the Humanists to encapsulate this ancient style of writing and recording, and sort of morph it to suit Humanist writings at the time. To do this, they looked to ancient writings and architecture. Through this, we see the establishment of news schools and libraries; places where knowledge could be actively sought and drawn from. Pretty cool.