What were the key social hierarchies in Renaissance Europe?
TTHE DIVISION BETWEEN EDUCATED AND UNEDUCATED PEOPLE was only one of many social hierarchies evident in the Renaissance. Social hierarchies in the Renaissance were built on those of the Middle Ages that divided nobles from commoners, but they also developed new concepts that contributed to modern social hierarchies, such as those of race, class, and gender.
Laura de Dianti, 1523The Venetian artist Titian portrays a young Italian woman with a gorgeous blue dress and an elaborate pearl and feather headdress, accompanied by a young black page with a gold earring. Both the African page and the headdress connect the portrait’s subject with the exotic, though slaves from Africa and the Ottoman Empire were actually common in wealthy Venetian households. (© Human Bios GmbH, Switzerland. Courtesy, Heinz Kisters Collection.)