The Quest for Nature in Italy

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

By reading works that range from St. Francis of Assisi’s canticle of creatures to the existential meditations of Giacomo Leopardi, this course explores how nature—and by extension, the natural order—was conceived and imagined within the Italian peninsula, from the Middle Ages to the Romantic period. We will trace the continuities and evolution of nature as a literary, philosophical, and theological idea and ask how past perspectives can inform our thinking about nature and its associated problems today. Questions to be pursued include: what is nature to begin with, and what parts of reality does it encompass? To what extent does it ground human ethics and craft? What trials and perils do humans face in their efforts to know, to master, and to care for, all things that move and grow? Do natural disasters and other forms of cosmic disarray threaten our belief in the order and goodness of the natural realm? And how do our representations of nature and its inhabitants shape our understanding of them and ultimately, of ourselves?