Fall 2002

The Renaissance

History B353/H509, Herron H400.

(In Conjunction with the Special Exhibition: "The Print in the North,"

Indianapolis Museum of Art.)

Time: Thursdays, 5:45 p.m.-8:25 p.m.

Place: Deboest Lecture Hall, Indianapolis Museum of Art

Instructor: Dr. Kevin C. Robbins

Associate Professor

History/Philanthropic Studies

IUPUI

Office: CA 504Q.

Office Phone: 317-274-5819; Fax: 317-278-7800.

E-Mail: krobbin1@iupui.edu

Office Hours: Tue./Thur. 12:30-2:00 p.m. (and by Appointment).

Course Description: This course will make a possibly heroic (and probably foolhardy) attempt to comprehend Europe's Renaissances. Since the course runs in conjunction with a magnificent special exhibition of prints by some of the greatest northern European Renaissance artists, the illustrations, at least, will be lovely and consoling. To dispel any initial student alarms or anxieties over course content, the instructor wishes to emphasize that this class is not conceived solely as a class in art history--although the examination and interrogation of Renaissance masterworks in all the fine and decorative arts will be constant components of the course. Students without prior experience in art history courses should have no fear and are most welcome to excel here--especially since there are no art history or even history prerequisites for this class (and the teacher isn't even an art historian!). Since the instructor is a European urban and cultural historian by training, the emphasis here falls on the socio-historical, socio-economic, and socio-cultural factors combining over time to create the distinctive era in European history now known as "The Renaissance."

The course is not really designed to tell you what the Renaissance was, but, more importantly, to question what the Renaissance (or better Renaissances) may have been or meant across Europe and why such a term as "Renaissance" ("new birth," "rebirth," or "revival") can properly be used to describe this fascinating and beautifully complex era. In a sixteen-week search for the real, human, and cultural meanings of "Renaissance," we will turn for clues to the social, economic, material, cultural, and art histories of this era. We will examine, for example, contemporary changes in how people really lived, how Europeans got a living at the time, how they educated themselves, how they built and furnished their houses as well as their minds, how innovations in business and trade on a global scale at the time helped to form new, mannerly arts of living, new expressive art forms (like prints), and new habits of thinking and graphic self-assertion. Special topics of analysis in class readings, serving to contextualize richly and deeply the art works on display, will be the globalizing commercial economy of Renaissance Europe, the vogue for conspicuous consumption of material goods that swept European cities at the time (Florentines then and now love to shop), the artful nature of life in cities of the day, the rise and history of printing as an innovative and liberating art form, great themes and novel arguments in high and low Renaissance literature of all kinds immensely appealing to literate people like the artists who made the works on exhibition, the life histories and life cycles of Renaissance Europeans (like the artists who made the prints on display), and the ways in which the "Renaissances" differed geographically and in different media of artistic expression including paintings, graphic art (like prints), architecture, poetry, drama, and music. The entire syllabus is also designed to help students understand more fully and more humanely where the prints on display "come from" and how they, too, serve as beautiful documents of the dynamic times cultures, and values in which they were constructed.

This course, by presenting students with several different kinds of readings by a diverse array of authors, also will address the historiography of the "Renaissances," that is how scholars with differing perspectives on the subject document and describe it. Students will learn not just what may have happened during "The Renaissance," but also how scholars have come to write about, define, and redefine what the term "The Renaissance" meant or means today. In keeping with this important class theme, all students should be continually asking themselves over the course of the semester what they believe the term "Renaissance" really to mean--historically and culturally. How, for example, do the prints visible in the exhibition accompanying this course embody, explain, and merit the term "Renaissance Art"? What is "Renaissance" about them? Each student will have to decide for himself or herself.

The special IMA exhibition this course accompanies, "The Print in the North," assembles 80 wonderful images made by craftsmen working in Germany and the Netherlands between 1425 and 1550--Renaissance times indeed. These masterworks come to us from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and form part of the finest print collection in the world. Students should regard the very rare and beautiful works on display as inviting, accessible, and intriguing puzzles fully capable of revealing to us a great deal about the various Renaissance cultures out of which they come. But we must work patiently and together on placing them in their times and on deciphering the historical (and artful) messages they convey. All semester, we will work together toward understanding these artworks as documents of their Renaissance times and places. Special class gallery tours of the show will be organized and the instructor looks forward to accompanying various groups of students through the exhibition throughout the semester. This exhibition will not close until February, giving students many opportunities to view it. Special guest lectures by Museum staff and visitors will also be on offer further to help students appreciate and contextualize these Renaissance artifacts. Students are encouraged by not required to make use of these fine prints as sources and topics for their research papers. The exhibition catalogue, The Print in the North, is for sale at the IMA and should be purchased and read by all students--although the catalogue is not one of the required class texts for the course. Extra copies of the catalogue will be available for consultation free of charge in the IMA Reference Library. A special study carrel devoted to this course and its subjects will be set up in the IMA Reference Library and will be available for all students to use during normal library hours. Note that the IMA Reference Library is a non-circulating collection. Books and journals may only be used at the Library. They may not be checked out.

Required Course Readings: Listed below (in order of use) are the required readings for this upper-division history course. Books may be purchased at the IUPUI campus bookstore (Cavanaugh Hall, Basement) on the History shelves (look for History B353), via online booksellers, or through local bookshops. All texts are in print and in paperback at this time. All students should have their own copy of all required texts.

Jardine, Lisa. Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance.

Turner, A. Richard, Renaissance Florence: The Invention of A New Art.

Richardson, Brian. Printing, Writers, and Readers in Renaissance Italy.

Bondanella, Julia and Mark Musa, (eds.), The Italian Renaissance Reader.

Bell, Rudolph M. How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians.

Kirkpatrick, Robin. The European Renaissance 1400-1600.

Harbison, Craig. The Mirror of the Artist: Northern Renaissance Art in its Historical Context.

Course Requirements: 1) Regular class attendance (two unexcused absences will lower your final grade). Class rosters for student signature will be circulated at all class sessions and reviewed daily by the instructor. Make certain that your name in on them at every session you attend. Students who cannot assure consistent attendance at all class meetings should save us all discontent and drop this class at once; 2) completion of all assigned readings by the dates listed below on the Course Outline and Assignments; 3) completion exactly on time of two written assignments, one paper (5-6 pages) on a topic assigned by the instructor and one final research paper (15 pages minimum before endnotes or bibliography) on a topic of the student's choice with prior topic approval expressly from the instructor; 4) completion of a take-home final essay examination in essay format; 5) informed, vocal participation in all class discussions. All written course work submitted late is subject to severe grade penalties at the discretion of the instructor. Deadlines are deadlines, learn to meet them for all assignments all of the time.

Additional Course Requirements for Graduate Students in Section H509: Graduate students will fulfill all of the course requirements as above, except for point 3 on papers. Graduate students will do the first short essay. They will then complete an annotated bibliography of 20 sources minimum and a research paper of 25 pages minimum before endnotes on a topic approved in advance by the instructor. A list of strongly recommended potential graduate research topics will be distributed by the instructor to all graduate students enrolled by the second week of class. This list will focus on rich primary sources of the era accessible in English versions. Graduate students should preferably seek out topics that will force them to confront primary documents or other graphic sources from the era in question. Topics that force graduate students to apply and refine their knowledge of any relevant foreign languages (Italian, German, French, etc.) would also be most suitable and welcomed by the instructor.

All students should note that progress toward the objectives of this course fulfills several of the IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning, including enhancement of Core Communication Skills (written and oral), Critical Thinking, especially analysis and synthesis of complex information, Integration and Application of Knowledge (crafting new knowledge through studying multiple disciplines simultaneously), improved Intellectual Depth and Breadth (intensive study of one historical era), and broader Understanding of Society and Culture (ancient and modern cultural traditions and ethical standards).

Course Grading:

B353/H400: First Paper, 20% of final grade; Research Paper 50% of final grade; Take-home Final Examination, 15% of final grade; Class Participation, 15% of final grade.

H509: First Paper, 10% of final grade; Annotated Bibliography, 20% of final grade; Research Paper 50% of final grade; Take-home Final Examination 10% of final grade; Course Participation, 10% of final grade.

COURSE OUTLINE AND READING ASSIGNMENTS

(All Readings to Be Completed by the Date They Are Listed.)

Th. 8/22 Course Introduction. Distribution and Explanation of Syllabus. Brief

Introductory Lecture, Renaissance Problems, Images, and Texts.

Th. 8/29 Lecture/Discussion: A "New" History of the Renaissance. European

Socio-Economic Transformations in Global Perspective.

Readings: Jardine, Worldly Goods, Preface, Prologue, and Chapts. 1-3, pp. xxiv-

180.

Select List of Potential Graduate Research Topics Distributed in Class.

Th. 9/5 Lecture/Discussion: The Commodification of Culture and Civilization in the

Renaissance. Marketing Things and Marketing the Self.

Readings: Jardine, Worldly Goods, Chapts. 4-5, 8 and Epilogue, pp. 181-274 and

377-436.

All Graduate Students to Have Confirmed Research Topics by this Date.

Th. 9/12 Special Class Tours of the Exhibition, "The Print in the North."

Th. 9/19 Lecture/Discussion: A Renaissance in a Singular Urban Space: Florence.

Readings: Turner, Renaissance Florence: Invention of A New Art, Introduction and

Chapts. 1-4, pp. 6-89. (Note Useful Chronology, pp. 168-169.)

First Short Paper Topics Distributed in Class.

Th. 9/26 Lecture/Discussion: Renaissance Urban Fine and Decorative Art: To What

Effects and Purposes?

Readings: Turner, Renaissance Florence, Chapts. 5-7, pp. 91-169.

Th. 10/3 Lecture/Discussion: Renaissance Printing, Writing, and Reading. Personal and

Public Technologies of Liberation and Self-Assertion.

Readings: Richardson, Printing, Writers, and Readers in Renaissance Italy, Parts I-II,

Chapts. 1-3, pp. 3-76.

First Papers Due in Class. No Exceptions.

Th. 10/10 Lecture/Discussion: What do Renaissance Books do to the People who Use

and Love Them?

Readings: Richardson, Printing, Writers, and Readers, Parts II-III, Chapts. 4-

6, pp. 77-157.

Th. 10/17 Lecture/Discussion: Grand Themes in Original Renaissance Literature.

Readings: Bonadella and Musa (eds.), Italian Renaissance Reader, Petrarca,

"Letter to Posterity," "Ascent of Mount Ventoux," and "Poems from

Canzoniere; Alberti, "Selections from the Book of the Family; and Mirandola,

"Oration on the Dignity of Man," pp. 1-59 and 164-183.

Th. 10/24 Lecture/Discussion: What Do Renaissance Artists Write? Why?

Readings: Bonadella and Musa, (eds.), Italian Renaissance Reader,

Da Vinci, "Selections from Notebooks;" Cellini, "Selections from Life;"

and Michelangelo, "Selected Poems," pp. 185-195 and 306-381.

Th. 10/31 Lecture/Discussion: "How to Do It," How Renaissance Books Told

Italians the Facts of Life--Or--What Reading Ancient Manuals of Self-Help

Can Tell You about the Renaissance.

Readings: Bell, How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians,

Chapts. 1-3, pp. 1-123.

Th. 11/7 Lecture/Discussion: What Are the Stages of Human Life in the Renaissance

and What Does the Original Literature on this Topic Tell Us about this Era?

Readings: Bell, How to Do It, Chapts. 4-6, pp. 124-278.

Graduate Annotated Bibliographies Due in Class. No Exceptions.

Th. 11/14 Lecture/Discussion: Renaissance Individualism, Radicalism, and Science.

Readings: Kirkpatrick, The European Renaissance 1400-1600, Introduction and

Chapts, 3-4, pp. 1-28 and 106-161.

Th. 11/21 Lecture/Discussion: Renaissance Art, Renaissance Music, Renaissance Drama.

Readings: Kirkpatrick, European Renaissance, Chapts. 5, 7-8, pp. 165-219 and

269-370.

Th. 11/28 NO CLASS NO CLASS NO CLASS GENERAL THANKSGIVING!

Th. 12/5 Lecture/Discussion: The Historical Context of Northern Renaissance Art.

Readings: Harbison, The Mirror of the Artist: Northern Renaissance Art and its

Historical Context, Introduction, Chapts. 1-4, and Conclusion, pp. 7-167.

(Note useful Chronology, pp. 168-169).

Final B353/H400 Research Papers Due in Class. No Exceptions.

Final H509 Grad. Research Papers Due in Class. No Exceptions.

Take-Home Final Examination Distributed in Class

Th. December 12, Take-Home Final Examination Due in to Instructor's Mailbox by

5:00 p.m. Cavanaugh Hall, Room 504M, IUPUI Campus or FAX to 317-278-7800.