Course Outline & Reading Assignments

  1. Introduction: the Renaissance   TR 1 & 5
    1. History of the concept
    2. Humanism: essence of the concept
  1. Renaissance Humanism in the fine arts TR 8 & 10
    1. Painting
      1. The ancient and medieval background
      2. Cimabue (active 1272-1302): Roman influence
      3. Giotto (c. 1335) and the late medieval painters
      4. Masaccio (1401-1428) and the early Renaissance painters
      5. Botticelli (1444-1510) and the neo-Platonist revival
      6. The High Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Michelangelo (1475-1564), and Raphael (1483-1520)
      7. Beyond the Renaissance
    1. Sculpture
      1. Donatello
      2. Ghiberti (1378-1455)
      3. Michelangelo (1474-1564)
  1. Renaissance Humanism in literature
    1. Growth of vernacular literature       TR 6 & 7; ER & RP
      1. Late medieval sources
      2. Sweet new style
      3. Dante (1275-1321)
    1. Early Italian Humanism
      1. Petrarca (1304-1374)
      2. Boccaccio (1313-1375)
      3. Coluccio Salutati
    1. Quattrocento
      1. Eastern influence: Greek
      2. Niccolo Niccoli (1363-1437)
      3. Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444)
      4. Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459)
      5. Lorenzo Valla (1405-1457)
    1. Late Humanism
      1. Cosimo dei Medici & Medici patronage
      2. Lorenzo dei Medici
      3. Marsiglio Ficino & the Platonic Academy
      4. Pico della Mirandola & his nephew
      5. Savonarola
      6. A new literary style
  1. Emergence of a New Society              TR 5
    1. Economic changes
      1. Commercial revolution
      2. Nascent capitalism
    2. Social adjustments                TR 4 & 9
      1. Social classes and unrest
      2. Urban society and problems
    1. Political developments
      1. Rise of territorial states and theory
      2. Italian city states                         TR 3, 9, & 10
      3. Northern princely states
    1. Religion and the Church in a period of stress
      1. Christendom and otherworldliness
      2. Papal supremacy and bureaucracy         TR 2
      3. Mysticism, heresy, and the Conciliar Movement
    1. Intellectual Ferment and Struggle
      1. Metaphysics: the cosmos
      2. Epistemology
      3. Practical affairs: technology & knowledge
  1. Northern or Christian Humanism  TR 11
    1. General characteristics
    2. Spain, France, and England
    3. Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469?-1536)
    4. The Empire

Last updated: 15 August (Ass. Marie), 2008.
Comments to: Dr. William J. Wright

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