http://www.artstyles.org/15th-century-renaissance/
How exactly did the first 50 years of the Quattrocento differentiate from the last fifty?
This question deals with Italy and the Renaissance during the 15th century. This is actually a very broad topic. But what I am looking for is artistic styles, the economy and politics. Name people if you wish.
15th Century in Italy Culture
In the Renaissance appeared many examples of the so-called universal man, who achieved greatness in more than one field. Among the most famous figures of this type were the architect, painter, organist, and writer Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo. This universality of mind and talent was true also of the princes who ruled the Italian towns, the most brilliant of whom was Lorenzo de’ Medici, a member of the Medici family that ruled Florence. Lorenzo was a brilliant statesman and administrator, a patron of the arts, a poet, and a critic of distinction.
Angelo Poliziano, called Politian, is generally considered the outstanding poet of the period. His verse play Orfeo (1480?; trans. 1880) ranks as the first important work in the Italian drama, and his collections of lyrics are of a high order. Politian is famous also for his scholarly editions and translations of Greek texts.
In this period the Carolingian geste and the pastoral continued to provide literary themes. Among the outstanding gestes was the Orlando innamorato (Roland in Love, 1487) of Matteo Maria Boiardo. The finest work in the pastoral genre was Arcadia (1504), by Jacopo Sannazzaro, which attained recognition across Europe. In their preoccupation with worldly rather than religious values Renaissance writers departed widely from the Christian concepts of the Middle Ages. The popes themselves patronized atheist and so-called pagan authors. Some of these writers, especially the humanist Lorenzo Valla, whose bold exposure of dubious papal documents almost cost him his life, mentioned Christian authors only to find fault with them. The sermons and polemical writings of the reformer Girolamo Savonarola, who attempted to reverse this trend, provide graphic descriptions of revived pagan tastes and practices. He instituted a theocratic republic in Florence, but it lasted less than three years. He was abandoned by the people and suffered martyrdom for his defiance of Pope Alexander VI, who was famous for his patronage of pagan culture.