The renaissance came to be for several reasons:
1. The increased centralisation and thus resources of government. France was forced to become like England in this regard to win the Hundred Years' War.
2. The exchange of trade and ideas between the Islamic world and the Christian world due to the crusades and the reconquisita.
3. The flight of learned Hellenists from the Otttomans as they over-ran what remained of the Eastern Roman Empire.
4. The increase in trade and establishment of stable bullion currencies in replacement of barter (and banks, exchange offices etc.)
Any and all of these scenarios can be forced through earlier and thus create an earlier renaissance.
There was already such an "elite" forming, and the lot of the peasants changing isn't really producing a middle class (for want of a better word).
Already as of the time the plague hit, that is.
Oh yes it is
The feudal system was based on the believe that everyone had his place in the world and to challenge this is blasphemy.
This was proven wrong when everybody regardless of status/rank died from the plague.
The remaining peasants found themselves in a land of plenty and in real demand - talk about labour shortage.
Suddenly you could advance based on your knowledge and the sweat on your skin.
Jobs that were previously frowned apon by the church - banker, trader - became suddenly important and socially accepted.
The Fuggers were weavers, the Medici doctors later textile traders , neither family of any importance before the plague.
100 years later they practically ruled Europe and the church.
The feudal system had seen this already starting to crumble. You could say that the plague accelerated the process, but the idea that "everyone had his place in the world" weakned as people like the Fuggers gained the ability to be more than that, not by some plague benefit in the sense of "suddenly, society stopped preventing weavers from become bankers".
I think we need to make a distinction (when looking at the Fuggers and Medici and the like) between "opportunities only available in a post-plague world" and the progress from nobody to somebody happening to take place in those years.
I see what you mean and agree. The plague accelerated a social progress that would have eventually occured in the long run. However this would have put the renaisssance at a later date or at least excluded a lot of Up and Comers from participating.
I think that people tend to greatly underestimate what a blessing in a horrible disguise the plague for european society was. For me, this was the OTL POD when Europe left the rest of the world behind.
I wonder if there's a viable way to have the Byzantine Empire split up politically without also collapsing economically and culturally, to set the stage for a Greek or Anatolian Renaissance.
It didn't start in Italy, nor did it start in the 14th century.
It started in Spain, during the Reconquista, when the Spanish rulers had the Muslim libraries translated into Latin.
If you wanted an earlier Renaissance, make the Reconquista happen faster. Maybe like what happened in Scarecrow's Song of Roland, where Charlemagne obtained the submission of that Muslim lord (who's name escapes me at the moment), and gains a big foothold in Spain.
And if not in Italy then where?