>Greek city-states lay the foundation of European culture

a large part of the renaissance came from roman knowledge brought by byzantine refugees after the fall of constantinople

>>2523231
>roman

*Greek

The Roman knowledge was already in the West before.

>>2523017
City-states were great because they instilled civic virtues onto a dense, urbanized population allowing them to stand up to political and economic rivals that would have swept them away as individual communes. You don't even necessarily need city-states, just having several competing cities in close proximity to one another is a boon to wealth and culture, such as the Rhine and Low Countries, the Hansa, the Andalusian Taifas, the Silk Road cities of Central Asia, and so on.

Modern nationalism however more or less does the same job, so you don't really need city-states any longer. Now it's all about a global networking of financial centers directing capital and goods between different economic tiers. No point in convincing New Yorkers to raid Boston harbor for their own benefit.

>>2523253
>*Greek
*Greek theater

Greek knowledge was already in the West before that as well.

>>2523262
Very little and almost no one could read ancient Greek at the time. Byzantine refugees brought most of the texts and taught people how to read them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_scholars_in_the_Renaissance

>>2523277
Nyet. Almost all the major works of science and philosophy had been translated into Latin by then, either from earlier Roman texts or through Arab intermediaries. No one by then could read ancient Greek because no one really cared to - Petrarch made an earnest attempt and disdained the whole ordeal since there was almost nothing unique worth reading in Greek by then outside of the arts. Greek translation efforts in the Renaissance came late in the movement in order to satisfy neoclassical interest in more accurate translations or reading works that already were translated in their original language.

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Yes. The unification was a mistake. Italy never shined again after that.

>>2523017
>>Are city-states the pinnacle of civilization?
Pretty much.