The option is one of two that MA students take in their term in Venice. While the other option addresses Venetian theories and writings on art, this asks students to look at the urban fabric of Venice as a whole, making maximum use of the opportunities offered by in situ and research-led, interdisciplinary teaching.

 

The course’s approach is informed by recent work on urban geographies and material culture, and consciously eschews traditional art historical analysis. Topics will address how distinctive Venetian settings informed the design of art/artefacts and in turn their consumption by Venetian and non-Venetian consumers. Venice’s position as Europe’s principal centre of production for luxury goods is a central concern of the course, and will relate painting and sculpture with the city’s metalwork, glass, printing, and textile industries. Trade, Venice’s pivotal position between East and West, and the city’s large foreign communities provide the backdrop.

 

This course and its companion will present MA students with two different sets of approaches and methodologies, and will encourage them to think independently about their own research interests at an early stage in the year, during the term in which they can take advantage of the rich primary sources afforded by Venice’s monuments, museums, libraries and archives.

 

 

 

Week 1: The Urban Armature: Jacopo de’Barbari’s Printed View and Venice in 1500 

Week 2: Sacred Spaces and Devotional Practices 

Week 3: Domestic Spaces and Venetian Material Culture 

Week 4: Civic Spaces and Venetian Identities 

Week 5: Economic Spaces: Trade, Food and Provisioning the City

Week 6: Reading week 

Week 7: Industrial Spaces: The Production of Luxury Goods

Week 8: Artists’ Spaces: Studios, Workshops and Foundries

Week 9: Musical Spaces: Production and Performance of Music

Week 10: Hedonistic Spaces: Theatres, Gaming Rooms and Brothels

 

 

 

 

 

 

C. J. Berry, ‘Luxury, Necessity and Social Identity’, in The Idea of Luxury: A Conceptual and Historical Investigation (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1994)

 

David Chambers and Brian Pullan (eds), Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630 (Blackwell: Oxford, 1992)

 

S. Connell, The Employment of Sculptors and Stonemasons in Venice in the Fifteenth Century (Garland: New York and London, 1988)

 

M. Feldman, City Culture and the Madrigal at Venice (University of California Press: Berkeley, CA, and London, 1995)

 

Ian Fenlon, Music and Culture in Late Renaissance Italy (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2002)

 

Richard J. Goy, The House of Gold: Building a Palace in Medieval Venice (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1992)

 

Paul Hills, Venetian Colour: Marble, Mosaic, Painting and Glass, 1250-1550 (Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 1999)

 

Deborah Howard, Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture, 1100-1500 (Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 2000)

 

Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. D. Nicholson-Smith (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1991)

 

Rosamund E. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300-1600 (University of California Press: Berkeley, CA, and London, 2001)

 

William P. McCray, Glassmaking in Renaissance Venice: The Fragile Craft (Ashgate: Aldershot, 1999)

 

Luca Molà, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice (Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore and London, 2000)

 

Luke Syson and Dora Thornton, Objects of Virtue: Art in Renaissance Italy (British Museum Press: London, 2001)

 

Wolfgang Wolters, Architektur und Ornament: Venezianischer Bauschmuck der Renaissance (C.H. Beck: Munich, 2000)