TimeDaysLocationInstructorGERCreditOPUS Class NumberSyllabus (Tentative)
10:40am-11:30am
MWF
Bowden Hall 116
Sharon Strocchia. HSC. 412928 TBA.

January 13, 2010- April 26, 2010

Catalog Description: History 201 recommended as background. Examines developments in politics, society, and the economy that created a new cultural style in Italy between 1350 and 1530. Students have the option of some readings in Italian.

Semester Details:

Content:  This course analyzes aspects of the Italian Renaissance from its beginnings circa 1350 through the High Renaissance (c. 1480-1530). We will investigate the economic foundations that supported the new visual styles for which the period is known; political innovations and the paradoxical failure of the Italian state system; urban family life and the everyday experiences of ordinary men and women; Italian religious practices and the institutional history of the Catholic Church; and the ways that artists, writers, and a merchant elite used the resources of classical antiquity for different purposes.

Possible Texts: Gene Brucker, Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence; Ross King, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling; Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince; Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy; and The Italian Renaissance Reader, trans. Julia C. Bondanella and Mark Musa.

Grading: Class attendance and participation; one short paper; a midterm and final exam.

The schedule of courses on O.P.U.S. is the official listing of courses, including days and times they meet and the General Education Requirements they satisfy. Students should use course descriptions as general guidelines. Course requirements, grading details, book lists, and syllabi are subject to change.