When you think of the Italian Renaissance, chances are you think of what it gave us. The extraordinary sculptures of Michelangelo. The incomparable paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. The immortal written works of Petrarch and Machiavelli.
But have you ever wondered why?
Why was there such an artistic, cultural and intellectual explosion in Italy, beginning in the 14th century?
Why did it occur in Italy and not some other part of Europe, and why did it happen predominantly in certain Italian city-states, such as Florence?
Why did it ultimately fail, in the middle of the 16th century?
Professor Kenneth Bartlett offers you the opportunity not only to appreciate the results of the Italian Renaissance, but to probe its origins. You will gain an understanding of the underlying social, political, and economic forces that made such exceptional art and culture possible.
In this course, you will learn from two masters: Professor Bartlett himself, and the eminent 19th-century art historian Jacob Burckhardt, who created the scholarly model—cultural history—through which the Renaissance is still widely studied today. Burckhardt believed that the Renaissance was best understood by examining the culture from which it arose: its social relations, economic structures, political systems, and religious beliefs.
Dr. Bartlett believes that this approach is akin to creating a mosaic using "tesserae," or pieces, that consist of questions about social, economic, and political history, and about the day-to-day lives of individuals and families of the time.
How did the city-states of Italy amass such enormous wealth, and why did states such as Florence invest so much of their capital in art and learning?
How did people live and work, and how were they educated?
What was the relationship of parents to children, husbands to wives, and citizens to their community?
Who could hold political power, and why? How is it that the Renaissance manifested itself so differently in different political environments: in a republic like Florence, a despotism like Milan, or a principality like Urbino?
Even such seemingly pedestrian issues as the geography and topography of Italy become surprisingly crucial pieces of the picture. How did Italy's unique shape among European regions—a peninsula with a mountain range running up its center—help to spark the Renaissance? Could the Renaissance even have happened had Italy 's geography been different?
This course will teach you that the Italian Renaissance mosaic is incomplete without large pieces, such as the sack of Rome or the French invasions of 1494, and very small ones, for example, the dowry that a woman's family needed to provide so that she could be married. In addition, you will learn that some pieces that you may have associated with a different genre of history—the Protestant Reformation or the Council of Trent, for example—are in fact very much a part of an accurate Renaissance depiction.
You will gain a sense of how the Renaissance really looked, through the eyes of men and women who lived it. In addition, you will appreciate the Italian Renaissance as the moment in history when culture reached a point that is still very much with us, in the way we view the world and structure our lives, and in the extant Renaissance cities of contemporary Italy.