The Black Death slowed economy, debilitated society, and started riots, how can it be possible for a renaissance to occur while millions are dying?
It doesn't make a lot of sense for a Renaissance of arts and culture to flourish while people are focusing on not-dying. I read somewhere that there was a period of religious enlightenment during the Bubonic Plague, as people wanted a faith to pray to for the hope of survival, as well as flagellation occuring to punish humanity for the plague, but weren't people also believing that if they were to die anyway, then there is no point to continuing their daily prayers and traditions?
The Italian Renaissance occurred in the mid to late 15th century, by which point the Black Death was not in full effect. There were in fact a number of plague recurrences, but none quite as severe as the original Black Death epidemic and at the point of the Renaissance the Italian Peninsula did not have any particularly bad ones. One of the worst Italian incident was Venician 1576-77 but that was much later. The Italian Peninsula was indeed doing well at the time with the pinnacle of Venetian power and the success of the Medicis in Tuscany. Commercial activity was quite strong and they were relatively peaceful. This became a problem in the early 16th when France and Charles V realised that the wealthy but small and peacable Italian States were reliant on their neutrality and could be easily conquered. But I digress. The Renaissance happened because of translation efforts and archival discoveries primarily. The use of rediscovered ideas and styles done more accurately created cultural change, including the accidental creation of Protestantism by a movement started by Italian Catholics, their very opposite.