How does geography help explain the connection between the Italian renaissance and ancient Greece and Rome?

Answer 1

Centered first in the peninsula of Greece, then in Rome's burgeoning provinces, the new Mediterranean culture did not embrace all of the civilized lands of the ancient Middle East. Greece and Rome do not merely constitute a westward push of civilization from its earlier bases in the Middle East and along the Nile.

Answer 2

Italy was the geographical connection. Rome was (and is) in Italy. Italy was the heart of the Roman Empire, its most urbanised area and the hub of the trading networks of the empire.

Up to the capture of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottoman Turks, the Italians of the Renaissance were only interested in the Romans. Greek scholars fled to Italy and taught Greek and Greek literature, philosophy and science, reviving the interest in the ancient Greeks. Prior to this knowledge of the Greek classics and the Greek language had disappeared.

The Romans were a bit like ancestors for the Italians. The independent city-states of medieval Italy used the Roman Republic as an inspiration for their political systems. The rediscovery of the Corpus Juris Civilis, also known as Justinian Code, had fostered interest in Roman civil law and Bologna university had the top experts in this. Petrarch, the father of Humanism, played a big part in the rebirth (this is what renaissance means) of interest in the Romans. He advocated that the education of the elites should include Latin literature and rhetoric.