The Italian Renaissance in the City of Florence (Florence)

3 units

The Early Renaissance - also known as the quattrocento - usually denotes the period from circa 1400 to circa 1500. In those 100 years, Italy, particularly Florence, witnessed an extraordinary coming together of artistic talent, a passionate interest in the art and culture of Greek and Roman antiquity, a fierce sense of civic pride and an optimistic belief in the classical concept of Man as the measure of all things. This course examines the principal artists who contributed to this cultural revolution. In order to take full advantage of the special experience of studying the renaissance in the very city of its birth, the stress is mainly, although not exclusively, on Florentine artists who include sculptors such as Donatello, Verrocchio, and Michelangelo, painters such as Giotto, Masaccio, Uccello, Botticelli, Leonardo, and Raphael; architects such as Brunelleschi and Alberti up to Sangalo.