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Crosslistings: ITAL 235 |
Renaissance Italian humanists were hunting for ruins of buildings as much as for fragments of texts. They invented archeology and philology, two new disciplines to integrate the system of liberal arts. They were
architects
of an encyclopedia of learning that looked at the past as the source of a globally humanized future. In this course we will focus on works by Petrarch, who reshaped Latin prose and created Italian poetry; pope Pius II,
a.k.a.
the humanist Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini whose autobiography revolutionized the classical and Christian idea of the self; Lorenzo Valla, who demonstrated on a strictly linguistic basis that the Donation of Constantine was
a forgery; Leon Battista Alberti, the prototype of the Renaissance Man, whose reflections on monuments and letters, perspective and craft opened the way to Leonardo and Michelangelo; and finally by Machiavelli, who
rethought
the radical meaning of political plots.
We will also be looking at different Italian cities (Siena, Rome, Florence, Naples and Milan) and their architectural development.
COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA FIST Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: NONE
Last Updated on MAR-19-2004
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459