ACADEMIC SEMESTER IN FLORENCE [list of courses]

Dr. Maria Antonia Rinaldi
Italian Renaissance Art

Students will study the great Italian artists of the first half of the XV century and the art of the High Renaissance. Works will be analysed so as to understand the laws of compositions that, for the first time, were discussed by the artists and that, during the following centuries, have become unquestioned academic rules observed until the first avant-gardes of the XIX century.

Certain aspects of art such as the re-discovery of Ancient and Classical myths, means of intricate intellectual symbolism, will also be examined. In fact, although very distant chronologically, a fine thread connects together works of art and artists, so that it is possible to analyse how Leonardo's style and ideas played a fundamental role for a Baroque artist such as Caravaggio.

Students will also study the different and various critical interpretations given by the most important art historians to better understand Renaissance art works. Special attention will be given to the iconological interpretation of the Aby Warburg School, whose interpretative system is particularly appropriate to try and understand the complex symbolism of Renaissance Art.

Syllabus

First Week
Ghiberti and Brunelleschi: between Gothic and Renaissance. The 1401 contest. Site Visit: Museo Opera del Duomo.

P.O. Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and its sources,   Columbia University Press, New York&London, 1979, pp. 21-49
G. Brucker, The Florentine Elite in the Early Fifteenth Century, in R. Goffen (ed. by), Masaccio's Trinity, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 33-42

Second Week
Masaccio; Site Visit: Cappella Brancacci, Chiesa di Santo Spirito.

T. Benton , Architecture: theory and practice. Vitruvius and the Renaissence,   pp. 141-144 Filippo Brunelleschi ¸ pp. 157-168 in K. W. Woods (ed. by), Making Renaissence Art ¸ Yale University Press, 2007
J.M. Aiken , The perspective Construction of Masaccio's Trinity. Fresco and Astronomical Graphics , in R. Goffen ( ed. by), Masaccio's Trinity, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 90-107

Third Week
Donatello and Luca della Robbia. The Renaissance Iconography.
Site Visit: Museo del Bargello.

M. Podro , Donatello and the Planes of Relief , in Depiction , New Haven & London, pp. 29-59
S. B. Mcham , Donatello's Bronze David and Judith as Metaphors of Medici Rule in Florence, in "The Art Bullettin", vol. 83 (1), 2001, pp. 32-54

Fourth Week
Beato Angelico, Domenico Veneziano, Benozzo Gozzoli.
Site Visit: Museo di San Marco

E. Panofsky , Perspective as Symbolic Form , New York 1997, pp. 27-45.
K. Clark , Leon Battista Alberti on painting , in The Art of Humanism , pp. 79-105

Fifth Week
Painting in Florence after Masaccio. Painting in Italy in the mid 1400's.

T. Verdon , Mary in Western Art , Hudson Hill Press, 2004, pp. 203-227
C. Ginzburg , The Enigma of Piero , London 1985, pp. 7-15, 53-145

Sixth Week
Piero della Francesca and the Court of Urbino. Lorenzo de Medici's Court.

Aristotle , Poetics , Chs 1.15, in D.E. Cooper, Aesthetics. The classic readings , pp. 29-44
Plato , The Republic , Book 10 in D.E. Cooper, Aesthetics. The classic readings , pp. 11-28

Seventh Week
Botticelli and Neoplatonism.
Site Visit: Uffizi.

O. Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and its sources,   Columbia University Press, New York&London, 1979, pp. 50-65
Plotinus , Enneads , 1.6 in D.E. Cooper, Aesthetics. The Classic Readings ,pp. 55-64

Eighth Week
The great Florentine Workshops: Ghirlandaio and Verrocchio.
Site Visit: Chiesa di Santa Maria Novella.

C. King, Making histories, publishing theories, in K. W. Woods (ed. by), Making Renaissence Art ¸ Yale University Press, 2007, pp. 251- 260
P. Nuttall , Jan van Eyck's Paintings in Italy in S. Foister, S. Jones and D. Cool, Investigating Jan van Eyck , pp. 169-182

Ninth Week
Leonardo da Vinci: his influence on Northern Italian painters.
Young Michelangelo.

M. Kemp , The Eye and the Light, pp. 49-51, Colour and Perspective of Colour, Perspective and Disappearance, Light and Shade , pp. 70-115, Posture, Expression and Decorum , pp. 144-153, The Invention and Composition of Narratives, Example of Allegories and Emblems, pp. 220-248, in M. Kemp (ed.) Leonardo on Painting, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1989.
E. Panofsky , The Neoplatonic Movement and Michelangelo , pp. 171-230
in E. Panofsky Studies in Iconology

Tenth Week
Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael in Florence.

H. Hibbard , High Renaissance in Florence , pp. 51-84 e p. 97 in H. Hibbard Michelangelo , II edition, Penguin Books, London, 1985
R. GOFFEN, Renaissance Rivals. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, Yale University Press, New Haven&London, 2002, pp. 31-66

Eleventh Week
Raphael, Stanze in Vaticano.
Site visit: Palatine Gallery

A. Chastel , Roma Babylon, pp. 49-90, Urbis Direptio , pp. 91-96 in A. Chastel The Sack of Rome , Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ), 1983
E .H. Gombrich , Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura and the Nature of its Symbolism , pp. 85-102, in E.H . Gombrich Symbolic Images , Phaidon, Oxford, 1972.

Twelfth Week
The Sistine Chapel. The Last Judgement.
Visit to the Cappelle Medicee and Biblioteca Laurenziana

H. Hibbard , The Sistine Ceiling : 1508-12 , pp. 99-147 in H. Hibbard Michelangelo , II edition, Penguin Books, London, 1985
E.H. Gombrich , Mannerism: The Historiographic Background , pp. 99-106, in E.H. Gombrich Symbolic Images ,

Thirteenth Week
The Mannerist Artists.

M. Barasch, The Artist and the Medium: Some Facets of the High Renaissance, pp. 163-202, in M. Barasch, Theories of Art. From Plato to Winkelmann, New York University Press, New York and London, 1985
E. Panofsky , The Neoplatonic Movement in Florence and Northern Italy (Bandinelli and Titian) , pp. 129-170 in E. Panofsky Studies in Iconology .

Fourteenth Week
Venice, the oriental link and the color of the Laguna. Bellini, Giorgione, Tiziano

Fifteenth Week
Oral presentations.
Final Exam

Maria Antonia Rinaldi / Biography

Laurea with Honors in History of Architecture and Post-Graduate Specialization in History of Art, University of Florence; Post-Graduate Specialization in Economics and Management of the Cultural Patrimony, University of Torvergata, Rome. In 1995, she was awarded a scholarship by the European Union to work in Spain in the field of museology. Has worked for the Marino Marini Museum in Florence and the San Pio V Museum in Valencia, Spain. She currently works on a freelance basis with the Ministry of Historic Patrimony of Florence on exhibitions in Germany and the US. Has lectured at a Post-Graduate Specialization course in History of Art at the University of Rome and teaches Renaissance history at the Sarah Lawrence program in Florence.