WINTER/Spring Courses 2010
Shakespeare's Italy
Professor Enoch Brater, Department of English Literature, University of Michigan
4 credits
This course is designed to explore the profound influence Italy and Italian sources have had on the shape of Shakespeare‘s dramatic accomplishment. In order to do so, the class will focus on five central concerns:
1. The ―reinvention‖ of Rome based on Shakespeare‘s re-reading of Plutarch and Seutonius in Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus.
2. The direct borrowings from Italian romance writers, such as Cinthio, from whom Shakespeare derives several narratives, especially the one he develops in Othello. The ―return‖ to Italy of such a narrative in the hands of Verdi.
3. The incorporation of additional sites and sources in comedies, tragedies and romances such as Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Much Ado about Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Tempest.
4. The idea of the Italian ―renaissance‖ as embodied in Hamlet.
5. The development of a new lyrical language for drama and poetry (Shakespeare‘s sonnets) based on the ―dolce stile nuovo‖ of Dante and Petrarch.
Students in this course will be encouraged to visit the sites where these plays are said to have taken place (included on the program‘s trip to Rome) and consider as well other representations of the figures who appear in Shakespeare‘s writing (Brutus and Lucrezia, for example) as they have been imagined by other artists in the sculpture and painting of the period. The course will conclude with students performing scenes from the plays we have studied on the outdoor theater space on the villa lawn.
Galileo Galilei: Life and Times, Works and Interpretations
Professor Michael H. Shank, History of Science, University of Wisconsin
4 credits
The Winter/Spring semester of 2010 marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo‘s publication of his Sidereal Messenger, the first book of telescopic astronomy. In this festive year, both in the popular imagination and in the history of science, Galileo Galilei will cast an even longer shadow than he normally does. This course offers the unusual opportunity of learning on-site about his impact on science and religion, and on the history of physics and astronomy. We will emphasize the role of his context (Pisa, Padua, and Florence), and look into the many interpretations of both his scientific work and his trial. The course format combines lecture and discussion.
The Mathematical Science and the Arts in the Age of Piero della Francesca
Professor Michael H. Shank, History of Science, University of Wisconsin
4 credits
In the fifteenth century, the Italian peninsula was a particularly rich environment for both the arts and the mathematical sciences, both separately and together. This course will explore the interface between the two, with particular attention to the interaction of geometry and perspectiva (optics) to form linear perspective; the interface between art and astrology; and developments in astronomy on the eve of the Copernican Revolution. The course will highlight, among other contexts, Florence and Urbino; Piero della Francesca and his contemporaries; the astronomers Regiomontanus and Copernicus and their circles in Bologna, Padua, Rome, and Venice. The approach will be integrative and cross-disciplinary. The course format combines lecture and discussion.
Origins and Birth of the Renaissance Style in the Arts
Professor Josephine Rogers Mariotti, Florence Faculty, University of Michigan
4 credits
Florence offers the unique opportunity of studying ―in situ‖ the works of the great masters of the Renaissance. This course will therefore focus on the birth of the Renaissance style, strictly defined as the artistic movement originating in Florence at the beginning of the Quattrocento (1400s), tracing its development up to the initial stages of the following century, the Cinquecento (1500s). Beginning with early precedents – the so-called proto-renaissance: Nicola Pisano, Giotto di Bondone – we will see that episodes dating as early as the mid-1200s share with the later age basic figurative principles that will emerge in full in the ―new style‖ of the 15th century. How this relates to the coeval humanist movement will be one of our major considerations in the conviction that the history of artistic form is an expression of the history of the human spirit. Our goal shall be to continue in these types of cultural and contextual comparisons throughout the entire survey of the lives and works of the significant personalities in the history of the figurative arts within the 15th century. Florence‘s contacts and cultural exchanges with other major centers in Italy will necessarily be part of our interest and will, in some cases, be complemented by organized excursions to places outside Florence. In-class sessions will alternate with visits to monuments and museums in and around Florence and other nearby sites allowing students to integrate their academic studies with direct experience of artists and their creations. Required readings: Coursepack available at the Villa.
Florentine Renaissance Art: From Lorenzo il Magnifico to Cosimo I: 1469-1539
Professor Josephine Rogers Mariotti, Florence Faculty, University of Michigan
4 credits
The course proposes to survey the development of the arts in Florence from the time of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici (the Magnificent) to the reign of Cosimo I, the second Duke and the first Grand Duke of Tuscany. We will begin with a survey of the major workshops of late 15th century Florence: Pollaiolo, Verrocchio, Botticelli, Perugino, and Ghirlandaio, whose culture and activities constitute the training ground of the masters of the High Renaissance. These include Leonardo, Raphael, Filippino Lippi, Fra Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto and Michelangelo, whose life-span covers the entire period under exam, and whose art will serve as a guideline throughout the course: Michelangelo’s early activity in Florence, his decorative cycles in the Vatican in Rome, and his later activity. The ‘rival’ prince of the papal court, Raphael Sanzio, will likewise be our focus, as both become paragons of a ‘golden age’ of classicism, dramatically interrupted by the ‘Sack of Rome’ of 1527.
The ‘post-peak’ era to follow begins with the experimental and expressively charged art of Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino and other Tuscan masters who, along with the followers of Raphael and Michelangelo in Rome, are the protagonists of a transformation in style and content termed as ‘Mannerism’ or ‘Maniera,’ a label we will endeavor to define. The development of a self-conscious ‘stylish style’ in the 16th century brings us to admire the ‘court art’ of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, whose artists include some of the epoch greatest protagonists: Agnolo Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini, Francesco Salviati, Parmigianino and Giambologna. More than monographic coverage of each artistic persona, our goal will be to reconstruct the stylistic and cultural interactions and environment in which the artists and patrons operated.
In-class sessions will alternate with visits to monuments and museums in and around Florence, allowing students to integrate their academic studies with direct experience of the works and artists under study.
The Modern European Historical and Aesthetic Imagination
Professor Scott Spector, German, Judiac Studies, University of Michigan
4 credits
History, declared historian of the Italian Renaissance Jacob Burckhardt, ―is what one age finds of interest in another.‖ The common image of the Italian Renaissance as the moment of radical break from a European ―dark ages‖ to the modern era is relatively young. Why did it take a half-millennium--until the last half of the nineteenth century--for this image of the Renaissance to arise, for its history to be written? The place of the Renaissance in the modern European imagination is the subject of this colloquium, which will span disciplines from art to history and national traditions from German to Spanish. The modern European stake in the period identified with its own ―re-birth‖ may ultimately have more to say about our own times than the turn from the Middle Ages. This course is an introduction to a critique of historiography—an inquiry into the origins and dynamics of history-writing--where the ideological stakes of writers in uncertain times can be interpreted from their creative innovations. The question to keep in mind with regard to each of these thinkers is the task they set themselves--in re-presenting the Renaissance what they hoped to recover, and what they sought to create anew. Students will be graded on the basis of short
Comparative European Fascist Cultures: Germany and Italy
Professor Scott Spector, German, Judiac Studies, University of Michigan
4 credits
The later 1920s and 1930s was a period in which extreme right-wing authoritarian and populist movements threatened many countries in Europe, but found their most spectacular and dangerous manifestations in Italy‘s Fascist and Germany‘s National Socialist movements. The political contexts leading to the success of these movements will be important to review, but our focus in this course will be on how these violent ideologies sought to appeal to their populaces: what was the content of their messages, and how were those messages received? How was the symbolic role of ―Il Duce” Mussolini similar and different from that of the ―Führer‖ Hitler? What different and similar places did such concepts as nation, history, war, and race play in their world-views? The general definition of fascism is disputed, and part of our course will explore the literature that compares various European authoritarian movements and the roots of their ideas. We will also explore literature, art, feature films, and propaganda strategies of the two countries and ways of analyzing them.
10 The University of Michigan: Office of International Programs
Students will be graded on the basis of short response papers to the readings, regular class participation, and essay assignments.
Italian Cinema: Masterworks from Neorealism to the Present
Professor Stefano Socci, Theatre and Film History, Fine arts Academy of Brera, Milan, and Fine Arts Academy of Florence
4 credits
This course examines the historical, social and cultural roots of Italian Cinema, starting with the silent movies (Cabiria, 1913), and traces its development from Neorealism to the present. The course covers leading directors as Antonioni, Bertolucci, De Santis, De Sica, Fellini, Leone, Moretti, Pasolini, Rossellini, Taviani, Visconti. The course also offers an outline of main genres in Italian Cinema: drama, melodrama, comedy, spaghetti western, peplum (sandal movie). The main purposes of this course are: (1) to introduce students to major Italian movies from Neorealism to the present; (2) to examine some of the basic principles of film criticism; and (3) to show how Italian history is described by Italian directors.
Italian Language
Previous study of Italian is not required in order to apply for the program, as all non-language courses are taught in English. All program participants will be required to take one Italian language course and they are encouraged to study Italian prior to their participation in the program in order to facilitate their integration into Italian culture.
First Semester Italian
Professor Silvia Sammicheli
4 credits
Second Semester Italian
Professor Silvia Sammicheli
4 credits
Third Semester Italian
Professor Lucrezia Sarcinelli
4 credits
Fourth Semester Italian
Professor Lucrezia Sarcinelli
4 credits
Advanced Italian
Professor Lucrezia Sarcinelli
3 credits
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