A second circumstance that doubtless contributed to make Italy the birthplace of the Renaissance was the fact that in Italy the break between the old and the new civilization was not so complete as it was in the other countries of Western Europe.
Born circa 428 B.C.E., ancient Greek philosopher Plato was a student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle. His writings explored justice, beauty and equality, and also contained discussions in aesthetics, political philosophy, theology, cosmology, epistemology and the philosophy of language.
Around 387, the 40-year-old Plato returned to Athens and founded his philosophical school in the grove of the Greek hero Academus, just outside the city walls. In his open-air Academy he delivered lectures to students gathered from throughout the Greek world (nine-tenths of them from outside Athens).