This course focuses on the concerns and practices of Renaissance thinkers, writers, and artists, with particular attention paid to the ways in which they defined their own intellectual and artistic projects and how they situated them vis à vis the antecedent traditions to which they were reacting.

Segment 1: Renaissance Humanism

This segment begins with Italian Renaissance thought and traces the spread of humanism into northern Europe. Students will read such authors as Petrarch, Dante Alighieri, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Pico della Mirandola, Marsilius of Padua, Erasmus of Rotterdam.

Segment 2: Renaissance Art

This segment explores the art of the Renaissance, tracing it from its roots in the 14th century and relating it to the Renaissance texts read in segment 1. Although the focus will be on Italy (and especially Florence) and the development of art in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, other traditions (e.g., those of Germany, Flanders, and Venice) will be studied as well.