Hybrid Renaissance presents the Renaissance in Italy, elsewhere in Europe, and in the world beyond Europe as an example of cultural hybridization. The two key concepts used in this book are 'hybridization' and 'Renaissance.' Roughly speaking, hybridity refers to something new that emerges from the combination of diverse older elements. The term 'hybridization' is preferable to 'hybridity' because it refers to a process rather than to a state, and also because it encourages the writer and the readers alike to think in terms of more or less rather than of presence versus absence.