One major reason the Renaissance began in Italy is linked to its geography. The city-states of Italy, on the Mediterranean Sea, were centers for trade and commerce, the first port of call for both goods and new ideas. I'm not completely sure if it avoided crisis.
Italy was the core of the former Roman empire and at the collapse of the Byzantine empire in 1453, became the refuge for the intellectuals of Constantinople who brought with them many of the great works of the ancient Greeks and Romans, works that had been lost to the West during the Dark Ages. Prior to this, scholars in Italy had been examining the works of the ancients, but they were not very good and often incomplete.
The third reason was political. Because of many political changes, the Holy Roman Empire had essentially lost power in northern Italy, the papal states were governed by various leading families within each region, and the city of Naples dominated the South.
The Renaissance was a rebirth of ancient Greek and Roman thinking and styles, and both the Roman and Greek civilizations were Mediterranean cultures, as is Italy. The best single reason for Italy as the birthplace of the Renaissance was the concentration of wealth, power, and intellect in the Church.
