Italian Renaissance Art & Architecture

The years between 1300 and 1550 saw the political and social reorganization of Italian life, including new ways of representing the image of that society in the visual arts. The sum of these changes constituted a cultural revolution described as "the Renaissance," the tenets of which have dominated Western culture until the early twentieth century. This course takes a critical look at the dynamic interplay between the social, cultural, and political institutions and the art and architecture produced in this period. The material is organized around a roughly chronological sequence and concentrates on the centers of Florence, Rome, Venice and the north Italian courts. One goal of the course will be to understand Italian Renaissance art in its larger social and intellectual context.