Renaissance Art and Architecture in Florence and Venice Dr. David Oldfield Dynamic, imposing and highly creative, the Italian Renaissance is one of the great periods in art history. Many of our modern ideas about art can be traced back to the genius of artists like Brunelleschi, Leonardo and Michelangelo. They and countless others saw art as a priority where the skill in execution was matched by the beauty of the final production. Patrons willingly paid astonishing sums of money in pursuit of this artistic excellence. In many respects, it was a brave, new world where reverence of the classical era was combined with an emphasis on the artist’s inventive powers to produce an innovative realism which went far beyond the traditional realms of the medieval craftsman. Our studies will focus on the artistic achievements of Renaissance Florence and Venice. Florence was undoubtedly the hot-bed of the new ideals, with plenty of demand by insatiable patrons like the Medici and plenty of supply by artists like Donatello, Botticelli and Leonardo. Brunelleschi’s re-interpretation of classical architecture and Michelangelo’s search for the ideal will also be featured. Venice provides a delightful contrast, in that paintings by Bellini, Giorgione and Titian or churches by Palladio are decidedly different from their Florentine counterparts. To explain these differences, the social, political and theoretical context will be explored through documents of the period. No prior knowledge of art history is required for this introductory course. Our studies will be supplemented by visits to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Suggested Reading M. Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Oxford, 1972) R. Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore and London, 1980) H.Huse and W. Wolters, The Art of Renaissance Venice: Architecture, Sculpture and Painting 1460-1590 (Chicago and London, 1990)

Lectures Seminars Florence 1/ Introduction to course - International Gothic 1/ Patronage in Florence versus Early Renaissance 2/ Fra Angelico and Masaccio 2/ Visit to Fitzwilliam museum - 1 3/Donatello 3/ Florentine drawings 4/Brunelleschi 4/ Visit to Fitzwilliam museum - 2 5/ Florence 1470-1500 6/ Leonardo Venice 7/ Introduction to Art in Venice – Giovanni Bellini 5/ Venetian collections 8/ Giorgione 6/ Visit to Fitzwilliam Museum - 3 9/ Titian – 1 7/ Disegno vs Colore 10/ Titian – 2 8/ Architecture in Venice 11/ Tintoretto 12/ Veronese