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This humanities seminar (2-hour, 10-week) is an examination of the art, architecture, sculpture, literature and history of the republic of Florence during its period of greatest importance to world history. We will begin by examining the first glimmerings in the frescoes of Giotto, the literary works of Petrarch and Boccaccio, the sculptural work of Donatello and Ghiberti, and the architecture and engineering of Brunelleschi. We will study the dynamics of the court of Lorenzo de’Medici, including Poliziano, Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Botticelli.
As artistic experimentation with anatomy, musculature, and linear perspective accelerate throughout the 15th century, we examine Fra Angelico, Verrochio, Pollaiuolo, and others. We will follow the fortunes of the republic of Florence in its ups and downs, including the 1478 Pazzi Conspiracy, and the career of Savonarola.
Through these political upheavals the cultural expressions of Florence still triumph in the High Renaissance masterpieces of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. We will read Machiavelli’s Prince, and examine Mannerism in the work of Rosso Fiorentino, Parmigianino, Pontormo, and Bronzino.
Required Reading:
- Boccaccio, The Decameron: A Norton Critical Edition. Trans. Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa, (Norton Critical Editions) Norton, 1977. ISBN – 0393091325
- Richard Turner, Renaissance Florence: The Invention of a New Art (Perspectives Series) Pearson, 1997. ISBN – 0131344013
- Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, Trans. J.C. Bondanella, and P. Bondanella. (Oxford Classics editions) Oxford University Press, USA, 2008. ISBN – 0199537194
- Machiavelli, The Prince (Norton Critical Edition), Trans. Robert Adams, Norton, 2d edition, 1992. ISBN – 0393962202
- Benvenuto Cellini, My Life, Trans. P. Bondanella, (Oxford Worlds Classics). 2009. ISBN – 0199555311
