FYS: How to be a Renaissance Person

3 Credits.

How do we decide what it means to “live well”? Who defines virtue, success, health, power, or goodness? The Italian Renaissance had answers—sometimes practical, sometimes poetic, sometimes strange. This First-Year Seminar explores a large sampling of advice from famed thinkers such as Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci, alongside a book of manners, a cookbook, a manual on sword fighting, magic potions, longevity diets, feminist call-to-arms, and more.Through close reading and discussion, students examine how these historic examples of self-help work: What values do they promote? What fears do they reveal? What kind of person do they imagine we should become? We will consider how Renaissance advice compares to the guidance that surrounds us today.Through visits to museums and workshops on calligraphy, fencing, book-binding, writing letters of appreciation, oratory, and more, students will learn about the Italian Renaissance while also unpacking the persuasive devices that shape advice across time. By studying what authors from the past thought would help us “be better,” students develop critical tools to examine what is at stake whenever someone offers help—or whenever we seek it.