Italian Renaissance

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course examines the political, cultural, social, and religious history of Italy from about 1350 to 1550. Starting with an extended study of Florence, its economic foundations, social and political structures, artistic monuments, and key personalities, the course then examines how the culture of the Florentine Renaissance spread to the rest of Italy, especially to the papal court of Rome and the princely courts of northern Italy, and, finally, to the new nation-states of northern Europe. Key topics will include: the growth of the Italian city-state; the appearance of new, Renaissance "characters" (the merchant, the prince, the courtier, the mercenary, the learned lady, the self-made man); Renaissance humanism and the classical revival; the relationship between art and politics; and Renaissance ideas of liberty, virtue, historical change, and the individual's relationship to God. The course will not tell a story of steady progress from medieval to modern institutions, societies, and modes of thinking; rather, we will consider the Renaissance as a period in flux, in which established traditions thrived alongside creative innovations and vigorous challenges to authority. Students will write one long paper and take a midterm and a final exam.