Brief answer questions from ancient history (western civilization 101).

1) Recall how people reacted to the Black death, and the legacy of that disease on European society. We live on the same planet in the midst of the same "mother nature". How are we vulnerable, and how would our society cope with an cataclysmic disease of unknown cause?

2) What were the causes of the decline of the power of the papacy in the fourteenth century? Setting a good example of behavior and truthfulness seems to be an important part of credibility upon which power is built, whether political or spiritual. Is this equally true today both for religion and politics?

3) What seems to be the difference between Italian Renaissance humanism and what people refer to as humanism today? Is the term "Christian Humanist" an oximoron, or are they, as Erasmus would have liked, entirely compatible?

4) Was the Renaissance just about a bunch of very wealthy people competing with one another, using their artists as tools of conspicuous consumption, to show off their own magnificence? Does great art require great patrons of the arts? Is there a natural battle between the sensitivity of the artist and the taste of the patron?