The Renaissance movement produced radical changes in almost every aspect of early modern Italian life—art, architecture, culture, economics, politics, and society. Renaissance artists, patrons, thinkers, writers, and rulers such as Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Isabella d’Este, Lorenzo “il Magnifico” de’ Medici, Vittoria Colonna, Caterina Sforza, Niccolò Machiavelli, Catherine de’ Medici, and Galileo Galilei continue to excite our imaginations and inspire creative work.
This course will delve into the historical context of the Renaissance movement in Italy, including discussions of Renaissance ideals, Renaissance art, the commercial revolution, urbanization, the Renaissance palazzo, theater, ceremonial, the Columbian Exchange, and the New Science. During the course, we will consider how the Renaissance movement in Italy reshaped European society and whether the Renaissance really invented ‘modernity’.
HIST 420 The Renaissance Syllabus: HIST420syllabus
See the Renaissance Art and History category on the sidebar of this webpage for recent posts relating to this course.
Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives 