What are some scholarly sources that discuss the birth of the Renaissance in Italy?

The big old classic is Jacob Burkhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. It is still great good fun to read, has a lot of stories of intrigue, plots, murders... Like a lot of the old histories that made grand sweeping statements, it was pecked away by critics until the essential story- turbulence, egotism, violent leaders created a new flowering of culture and the individual, unlike anything seen before- just does not hold water anymore. People like Huizinga found a lot of the medieval world simply carrying forward into the Renaissance, and scholars like CS Lewis would make a case for the medieval world being quite vibrant and lively- Lewis thought the 12th c. Renaissance was more important than Burkhardt's 13th-15th c. one in Italy.

It's been a while since I was in school on this, so I would not be able to recommend an up-to-date history of Italy in this period. But for primary texts, Burkhardt worked a lot from Machiavelli and Machiavelli's friend Guicdiardini's History of Italy and it's hard to avoid thinking of Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography, when you think of Renaissance talent, egotism and violence.

/r/AskHistorians Thread