Course Description

The “Renaissance” is often hailed as the greatest age in Italian history: a period from roughly 1350 to 1550 in which Italians rediscovered the glories of ancient Rome and Greece, produced unparalleled art, led the way in long-distance commerce, and undertook political and technological experiments that pointed the path to modernity. In the first half of this course we examine some classic “Renaissance” topics, including commerce, humanism, art, politics and political theory, secularism, and individualism, with a strong focus on Florence as the center of the early Renaissance. In the second half of the course, we will take a broader view of the Renaissance. we’ll explore the character of other late-Renaissance centers like Venice and Rome; the different, often overlooked populations of Renaissance Italy, including women, Africans, Jews, and Eastern Orthodox; and Italy’s involvement in new European and global dynamics of the sixteenth century, even as the “Renaissance” expanded beyond its borders. There are many wonderful primary sources (that is, texts and works of art produced during the Renaissance itself) available in English translation, and we will take advantage of this by concentrating our reading on these sources, rather than scholarly articles about the Renaissance.  Throughout the course, we’ll be thinking about what “the Renaissance” means. Is the Renaissance a distinct age, and what does it stand for? What, and who, counts as Renaissance?