Thought it was obvious, but I don't own Hetalia.

Set in Renaissance

The Medici's:

Everyone knew the Medici family. Italy especially knew about them, since he worked for them as a maid. Sometimes he was ridiculed for being a guy in women's clothes, but he found that he didn't really care. The Medici's did control much of the land through Lorenzo, who was kind of mean in Italy's opinion, but he couldn't care less. He was just happy to be cleaning and doing something.

They were patrons of his arts, the ones that he created when he had enough money and time to buy some paints and a canvas and paint the city or the sky. It was a fun pastime of his and he enjoyed it immensely.

Values of Renaissance vs. Middle Ages:

Catholic Church was having a hard time convincing Italy of what was right and what was wrong. He sighed and placed a hand to his brow in frustration. Honestly, couldn't the kid just understand already?

Maybe having the sermons in Latin wasn't helping...

"Now listen to me Italy," he said as he sat the child down, he himself sitting down opposite from Italy. "You cannot go around saying that you should celebrate the individual and enjoy worldly pleasures such as art. You also can't deviate from the church and learn what the old people with no real god said." His face was so concerned and yet so mad, it made the Italian almost want to cry.

"But why?" He asked in a childlike voice for a ten-year old. His big brown eyes were watering at the edges. He just wanted to learn more and enjoy life at the moment instead of only living like everyone else. He wanted to paint what he liked to paint, which was God's nature instead of always painting Jesus Christ and his mother, Mary. Or painting angels from heaven. He would rather paint the countryside and document what was happening than constantly paint everything from one source and ignore the rest of the world.

"Because the Lord tells you to," Catholic Church said.

Italy sighed and mumbled a "Yes, signore..." before returning to his painting, erasing the sketches as he started to make another one of angels in heaven.

Although really he just wanted to draw Holy Roman Empire...

Still just going through AP Euro notes. Catholic Church is a real asshole throughout European history. That's my impression of him at least...

Can't wait until I get to write French Revolution for you guys, France gets sooooo angsty. :D