Renaissance and Baroque Italy 1350-1800

4 credits · Undergraduate

This course will focus on the history of Italy during a period when it was the leading center of European artistic and cultural production and the driving force in the revival of classical learning and literary ideals. At the same time, Italy was a political battleground through most of this period, both in the realm of ideas and theory but also in a literal sense. It was in Italy that "the art of war," as Machiavelli called it, took center stage as the peninsula became one of the major theaters of war between the great powers of the age, France and Spain. We'll study the artistic, intellectual, religious, and political history of Italy both as it developed internally and as it was related to the rest of Europe and the Mediterranean world.