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.