The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Rethinking the Italian Renaissance
FIST 224 – COL 224 – ITAL 224 – MDST 223 (Discrepancies with WesMaps are being fixed on the website)
Prof. F.M. Aresu | Monday and Friday, 10:50 AM – 12:10 PM | FISK210
In this course we explore the intellectual achievements of the Italian Renaissance. We study the development of new secular values and the quest for the fulfillment of body and soul, glory, and exuberant pleasures. We question notions of beauty, symmetry, proportion, and order. We also unveil often-neglected aspects of Renaissance counter-cultures, such as the aesthetics of ugliness and obscenity and practices of marginalization (misogyny, homophobia). We inquire into the rediscovery of classical civilizations. We consider how the study of antiquity fundamentally changed the politics, literatures, arts, and philosophies of Italy at the dawn of the modern era. Through a close reading of texts by authors such as Francesco Petrarca, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Michelangelo, we investigate continuities and ruptures between their quest for human identity and ours.
* Fear not! All readings in English.
Selected Bibliography
N. Machiavelli, The Prince and The Mandrake
Michelangelo, Poems
L. Ariosto, Mad Orlando
B. Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier
F. Petrarch, My Secret Book