Skills

A quick review of Monday's catechism. Ask: what is true freedom? (Not doing whatever we want, but the power to choose the good.) What is conscience, and what two things do we owe it? (The inner judgment of right and wrong; we must both follow it and form it by truth and the Church's teaching.) Connect to the week: the Renaissance prized human freedom and creativity — wonderful gifts, but ones that are good only when ordered toward the true and the good. End with a brief prayer asking God to form your conscience in truth.

The comma is the most-used and most-misused punctuation mark. Four rules cover the vast majority of cases.

RULE 1 — In a series (list) of three or more items, put a comma between each. The final comma before 'and' is the 'Oxford comma' and we will use it: 'Florence, Venice, and Milan were rival city-states.'

RULE 2 — Before a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet) that joins two complete sentences: 'Gutenberg built the press, and Europe was changed forever.' (Do NOT use a comma if the conjunction is just joining two verbs of one subject: 'He designed and built the press.')

RULE 3 — After an introductory word, phrase, or clause: 'In Florence, the Medici ruled.' 'Because books were now cheap, ideas spread fast.'

RULE 4 — To set off non-essential (extra) information that could be removed without changing the basic meaning: 'Erasmus, the greatest scholar of his day, stayed Catholic.' The phrase between the commas is extra. (If the information is essential to identify which one, do NOT use commas: 'The scholar who edited the Greek New Testament was Erasmus.')

Renaissance Italy was not one country but a patchwork of rival, independent city-states, each with its own government, army, and ambitions — and this competition helped fuel the explosion of art and learning, as each city tried to outshine the others. Today you will map them. The boot-shaped Italian peninsula juts into the Mediterranean, with the Tyrrhenian Sea on the west, the Adriatic Sea on the east, and the Alps along the north. Five powers dominated. Florence, inland in Tuscany on the Arno River, was the cradle of the Renaissance, ruled in practice by the Medici. Venice, built on lagoons in the northeast, was a great maritime republic grown rich on trade with the East. Milan, in the northern plain (the Po Valley), was a powerful duchy. Rome, on the Tiber River in the center, was the seat of the popes, who became major art patrons. And Naples, in the south, was the capital of a large kingdom. Around and between these lay the Papal States (lands ruled directly by the pope) cutting across the center of the peninsula. Knowing where these cities sit — and that they were rivals, not one nation — explains much of Renaissance history: why Florence and Milan competed, why the popes in Rome could hire the greatest artists, and why a divided Italy was also vulnerable to invasion.

Look at your Italy map and your comma practice. Write one sentence about Renaissance Italy that correctly uses a series comma (Rule 1) and one introductory comma (Rule 3).