Professor:Alessandra Becucci - Ph.D.
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This is most recent syllabus. Your final syllabus will be given during your first day of class
Note: This course was formerly AHIR 310.
Course Description
This course examines the major developments in Italian painting, sculpture a
nd architecture and the culture which produced them between the 14th through the late 16th centuries. Particular emphasis will be placed on the great artistic centers of Rome and Florence and especially the masters who created monuments in Florence. The artists to be studied include Giotto, Donatello, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Leonardo, and Michelangelo. Works of art will be discussed in relation to their original location, function, patronage, style, iconography and construction. Furthermore, whenever possible, artistic commissions will be viewed either in their intended locales or elsewhere “on-site.”
Course Objectives
You will be introduced to different principal painters, sculptors and architects active during the late Medieval and Renaissance periods. You will learn to recognize selected masterpieces and how to analyze their formal and innovative qualities in order to understand the cultural context of these artistic commissions. Thus, you will become acquainted with the original uses and functions of art, with stylistic developments, and with religious and secular subject matter. The goal is to develop your critical reasoning and analytical approach to art.
Course Materials
F. Hartt and D. Wilkins, History of Italian Renaissance Art, 6th ed., New York 2007.