OSPFLOR 78F: A Global Renaissance in Florence (Way: A-II, EDP)

Instructor: Palozzi, Luca

Still pictured in popular culture today as eminently Italian and specifically Florentine, in recent decades the Renaissance has come to be understood by scholars as a global cultural and artistic phenomenon. While Florence was indeed one of its epicenters, the city’s wide-ranging mercantile, political, and religious networks impacted in a myriad fundamental ways on artistic production. They provided the city access to precious commodities and costly materials, like African gold; allowed the circulation of foreign artefacts, to be collected and studied, including by artists; and facilitated the transmission of ideas, knowledge and technologies across vast expanses of space, and across cultures.

By looking at the art produced in and for Florence afresh and through the prism of current debates on the Global Renaissance, this course tells a relentless, and at times fraught, story of political dominance, economic and artistic success, as well as one of cultural transfer and appropriation. This course has an enrollement cap of 23.

Units: 3 | Grading Basis: Letter grade | Way: A-II, EDP | Component: Seminar
Category: Elective

*All courses are subject to change