Even though there was a split, both Renaissance shared and believed in the same religious Christian stories (Hunt 12). Religion was very important during the Renaissance and taken pretty serious. Just by looking at most of the art work during that era shows the significance it had on the culture. The majority of the art work was religious based. The Guild system is another common factor between the North and Italian Renaissance. This was an organization of merchants or artisans that were taught to do a certain craft (The Guild of Florence); when they mastered the craft they were able to make a profit off of it. This System was important to the culture because it helped both the Renaissance economically, and helped the merchants. In Northern Europe, as in Italy many artists were sons of craftsmen. It is known that at least fourteen artists out of seventeen were sons of craftsmen (Burke 249). Some of the known occupations were a weaver, a cutler, a smith, and more. "Painting was a family business and there were well known dynasties of artist, such as the Bouts, Brueghel, Floris, and Massys families" (Burke 249). This shows us that even during this era, if someone were a craftsmen they could still achieve greatness. .
Around the mid-1300's the Middle Ages, was slowly ending and the Italian Renaissance was beginning. The Italian Renaissance was the first age to discover that they were the beginning of a new age/period. For a few years central Italy was being run by the papacy, controlling politics and their way of living (Hale 14). By 1305, the papacy was no longer running Rome and the cities in Italy began to have more freedom. It was not up until the middle of the 14th century that they realized their cultural movement was something new and unique. According to Hale, in art "Men and nature were treated not as generalizations of themselves, but as individual beings and things, interesting for their own sake" (Hale 11).
