This module explores the cultural vitality of the Italian peninsula approximately from the fourteenth century (the age of Petrarch) to the 1530s. It asks what contributed to making this period so special in European history and considers a series of upheavals, tensions and rivalries in a time-span that included some of Italy’s most famous writers, artists and thinkers, such as Petrarch, Boccaccio, Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli, Ariosto and Michelangelo. Among other topics, we shall look at the rivalries between humanism and scholasticism, magic and philosophy, ancient and modern languages, poetry and other genres, Florence and other centres, manuscript culture and print culture. We shall look at how and why this period came to be known as the ‘Renaissance’, ask whether it was the cradle of modernity, and consider how different it really was from the Middle Ages.

Primary readings for this module will be taken mainly from Italian and Latin texts (the latter in translation). A weekly reading group will considerably aid the understanding of these passages.

Dr Maria Pavlova

Week-by-week