Presented within the frame of ‘early modern history’ and ‘cultural history’, this course explores early-modern Europe through the three main historiographical categories with which it is usually associated: Renaissance, Reformation, and the Age of Discovery. It investigates the people, events, and ideas that shaped early modern Europe. While roughly adhering to a chronological structure, and focusing on the period 1450–1750, the overall approach will be thematic.
The course introduces students to the foundational themes, methods and skills necessary for the study of upper-level history. With a particular focus on the study of primary sources, including site visits in the city of Rome, it enables students to explore for themselves the characteristics of early modern Europe.
The assessment schedule for this course is set out in stages to allow for the incremental development of core skills in the study of history. It is student-centred and involves short written essays about set primary and secondary readings for the course (with feedback), seminar leadership, site visit leadership, and an examination.
The course introduces students to the foundational themes, methods and skills necessary for the study of upper-level history. With a particular focus on the study of primary sources, including site visits in the city of Rome, it enables students to explore for themselves the characteristics of early modern Europe.
The assessment schedule for this course is set out in stages to allow for the incremental development of core skills in the study of history. It is student-centred and involves short written essays about set primary and secondary readings for the course (with feedback), seminar leadership, site visit leadership, and an examination.
teacher profile teaching materials
Classes start on Thursday, March 3, at 3pm, aula 9
Readings
All readings will be made available by the professor on Moodle. The Prof.’s lectures as well as class discussion will be based on those readings.
Assignments:
1. Paper (1500/2000 words) (30%)
2. Research outline presentation (10-15 mins) with a ppt (25%)
3. Final exam (30%)
4. Class participation (15%)
Course Syllabus: (days, topics, and readings)
Week 1
TH 3 March - Course Intro: Historical Thinking and Cultural History
- M. C. Lemon, Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students, pp. 290-303 (“The What is History Debate”)
- Alessandro Arcangeli, Cultural History: A Concise Introduction, pp. 1-17 (“In search of a definition”); pp. 30-48 (“Interwoven paths”)
F 4 March – NO CLASS (Make-up Class: 5 May)
Week 2
TH 10 March - Popular Culture?
- Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, pp. 3-22 (The Discovery of the People)
- Aron Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, pp. 78-103
(Popular Culture in the Mirror of the Penitentials)
F 11 March – Francis Petrarch and Humanism
- Kenneth Bartelett, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, pp. XIX-XX; 1-8 (Introduction; Quintilian); pp. 25-34 (Petrarch: Introduction; Letter to Posterity; The Ascent of Mount Ventoux; Letter to the Shade of Cicero)
Week 3
TH 17 March – The Humanist “Revolution” and the Renaissance
- Kenneth Bartelett, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 66-86 (Coluccio Salutati, Letter to Peregrino Zambeccari; Vespasiano da Bisticci: Life of Poggio Bracciolini; Life of Niccolò Niccoli; Lorenzo Valla, The Glory of the Latin Language)
- Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination (Ch."Humanism: A Program for Ruling Classes")
F 18 March - Women of the Renaissance
- Bartelett, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 111-133 (Marriage, the Family, and Women: Intro; Francesco Barbaro; Leon Battista Alberti)
- Carolyn James, “Politics and Domesticity in the Letters of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga, 1490 –1519”, Renaissance Quarterly 65 (2012): 321–52
Week 4
TH 24 March The “Universal Man” of The Renaissance
- Bartelett, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 97-104 (Florentine Neoplatonism and Mysticism: Intro; Marsilio Ficino); pp. 104-108 (Giovanni Pico della Mirandola)
- Leonardo da Vinci, Selections from the Notebooks, in The Italian Renaissance Reader, ed. by Bondanella and Musa, pp. 185-195
F 25 March - An Exercise of Critical Thinking: Lorenzo Valla’s Reading of The Donation of Constantine
- Bartelett, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 206-210 (Lorenzo Valla The Principal Arguments from the Forged Donation of Constantine)
- The Donation of Constantine: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/donatconst.asp
Week 5
TH 31 March Political Thought: Niccolò Machiavelli
- Starn, Seeing Culture in a Room for a Renaissance Prince, in Biersack, Aletta, The New Cultural History, pp. 205-232
- Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, in Bondanella and Musa (eds.), The Italian Renaissance Reader, pp. 258-264; 273-274; 291-293
F 1 April - Pope Sixtus IV, Conspiracies, and the Making of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel
- Joseph H. Lynch and Phillip C. Adamo, The Medieval Church: A Brief History, pp. 318-327 (“Crisis and Calamity”); pp. 329-342 (“The Church in the Fifteenth Century”)
- Marcello Simonetta, The Montefeltro Conspiracy: A Renaissance Mystery Decoded, selected pp.
Week 6
TH 7 April – The Age of Geographical Explorations
- Cristopher Columbus, Journal of the First Voyage, paragraphs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 50-54:
http://eada.lib.umd.edu/text-entries/journal/
F 8 April - Witchcraft: A Renaissance Contradiction?
- Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, Ch. 2 (The Intellectual Foundations)
- Charles Zika, Images of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, in Levack, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America
Week 7
TH 14 April – Heinrich Kramer’s Malleus Maleficarum and Related Traditions
- Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700, pp. 176-228 (“The Hammer of Witches”)
- Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, “Strix”, in Witchcraft in Europe, ed. by Alan Charles Kors
and Edward Peters, selected pp.
F 15 April – T 19 April: Spring Break (Make up Class for Friday: 6 May)
Week 8 -- Paper due: Thursday, 21 April at 11:59pm
TH 21 April - Carlo Ginzburg’s Benandanti
- Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, selected pp.
F 22 April - Civic Rituals and Popular Cultures: The Case of the Carnival
- Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early-Modern Europe, pp. 178-204 (The World of Carnival)
Week 9
TH 28 April – Protestant and Catholic Reforms
- Lisa Jardine, Erasmus: Man of Letters, selected pp.
- Martin Luther, Address to the Christian Nobility: https://history.hanover.edu/texts/luthad.html
- Paolo Giustiniani and Pietro Querini, Booklet to Pope Leo X on the Reform of the Church, selected pp.
F 29 April - Science, Theology, and Authority
- The Index of Forbidden Books: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/indexlibrorum.asp
- Giordano Bruno, On the Infinite, the Universe, and the Worlds, selected pp.
- Galileo Galilei's Indictment and Abjuration (1633): https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1630galileo.asp
Week 10 – Make-Up Classes
TH 5 May – Current Cultural Trends
- James Hankins, How Not to Defend the Humanities:
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/not-defend-humanities/
- Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, selected pp.
F 6 May - Course Recap and Final Exam Preparation
Mutuazione: 20710079 THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF EARLY- MODERN EUROPE in Storia e società LM-84 CONTI FABRIZIO
Programme
Course Schedule: Thursday 3pm-5pm, aula 9; Friday 11am-1pm, aula 9Classes start on Thursday, March 3, at 3pm, aula 9
Readings
All readings will be made available by the professor on Moodle. The Prof.’s lectures as well as class discussion will be based on those readings.
Assignments:
1. Paper (1500/2000 words) (30%)
2. Research outline presentation (10-15 mins) with a ppt (25%)
3. Final exam (30%)
4. Class participation (15%)
Course Syllabus: (days, topics, and readings)
Week 1
TH 3 March - Course Intro: Historical Thinking and Cultural History
- M. C. Lemon, Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students, pp. 290-303 (“The What is History Debate”)
- Alessandro Arcangeli, Cultural History: A Concise Introduction, pp. 1-17 (“In search of a definition”); pp. 30-48 (“Interwoven paths”)
F 4 March – NO CLASS (Make-up Class: 5 May)
Week 2
TH 10 March - Popular Culture?
- Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, pp. 3-22 (The Discovery of the People)
- Aron Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, pp. 78-103
(Popular Culture in the Mirror of the Penitentials)
F 11 March – Francis Petrarch and Humanism
- Kenneth Bartelett, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, pp. XIX-XX; 1-8 (Introduction; Quintilian); pp. 25-34 (Petrarch: Introduction; Letter to Posterity; The Ascent of Mount Ventoux; Letter to the Shade of Cicero)
Week 3
TH 17 March – The Humanist “Revolution” and the Renaissance
- Kenneth Bartelett, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 66-86 (Coluccio Salutati, Letter to Peregrino Zambeccari; Vespasiano da Bisticci: Life of Poggio Bracciolini; Life of Niccolò Niccoli; Lorenzo Valla, The Glory of the Latin Language)
- Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination (Ch."Humanism: A Program for Ruling Classes")
F 18 March - Women of the Renaissance
- Bartelett, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 111-133 (Marriage, the Family, and Women: Intro; Francesco Barbaro; Leon Battista Alberti)
- Carolyn James, “Politics and Domesticity in the Letters of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga, 1490 –1519”, Renaissance Quarterly 65 (2012): 321–52
Week 4
TH 24 March The “Universal Man” of The Renaissance
- Bartelett, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 97-104 (Florentine Neoplatonism and Mysticism: Intro; Marsilio Ficino); pp. 104-108 (Giovanni Pico della Mirandola)
- Leonardo da Vinci, Selections from the Notebooks, in The Italian Renaissance Reader, ed. by Bondanella and Musa, pp. 185-195
F 25 March - An Exercise of Critical Thinking: Lorenzo Valla’s Reading of The Donation of Constantine
- Bartelett, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 206-210 (Lorenzo Valla The Principal Arguments from the Forged Donation of Constantine)
- The Donation of Constantine: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/donatconst.asp
Week 5
TH 31 March Political Thought: Niccolò Machiavelli
- Starn, Seeing Culture in a Room for a Renaissance Prince, in Biersack, Aletta, The New Cultural History, pp. 205-232
- Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, in Bondanella and Musa (eds.), The Italian Renaissance Reader, pp. 258-264; 273-274; 291-293
F 1 April - Pope Sixtus IV, Conspiracies, and the Making of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel
- Joseph H. Lynch and Phillip C. Adamo, The Medieval Church: A Brief History, pp. 318-327 (“Crisis and Calamity”); pp. 329-342 (“The Church in the Fifteenth Century”)
- Marcello Simonetta, The Montefeltro Conspiracy: A Renaissance Mystery Decoded, selected pp.
Week 6
TH 7 April – The Age of Geographical Explorations
- Cristopher Columbus, Journal of the First Voyage, paragraphs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 50-54:
http://eada.lib.umd.edu/text-entries/journal/
F 8 April - Witchcraft: A Renaissance Contradiction?
- Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, Ch. 2 (The Intellectual Foundations)
- Charles Zika, Images of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, in Levack, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America
Week 7
TH 14 April – Heinrich Kramer’s Malleus Maleficarum and Related Traditions
- Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700, pp. 176-228 (“The Hammer of Witches”)
- Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, “Strix”, in Witchcraft in Europe, ed. by Alan Charles Kors
and Edward Peters, selected pp.
F 15 April – T 19 April: Spring Break (Make up Class for Friday: 6 May)
Week 8 -- Paper due: Thursday, 21 April at 11:59pm
TH 21 April - Carlo Ginzburg’s Benandanti
- Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, selected pp.
F 22 April - Civic Rituals and Popular Cultures: The Case of the Carnival
- Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early-Modern Europe, pp. 178-204 (The World of Carnival)
Week 9
TH 28 April – Protestant and Catholic Reforms
- Lisa Jardine, Erasmus: Man of Letters, selected pp.
- Martin Luther, Address to the Christian Nobility: https://history.hanover.edu/texts/luthad.html
- Paolo Giustiniani and Pietro Querini, Booklet to Pope Leo X on the Reform of the Church, selected pp.
F 29 April - Science, Theology, and Authority
- The Index of Forbidden Books: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/indexlibrorum.asp
- Giordano Bruno, On the Infinite, the Universe, and the Worlds, selected pp.
- Galileo Galilei's Indictment and Abjuration (1633): https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1630galileo.asp
Week 10 – Make-Up Classes
TH 5 May – Current Cultural Trends
- James Hankins, How Not to Defend the Humanities:
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/11/not-defend-humanities/
- Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, selected pp.
F 6 May - Course Recap and Final Exam Preparation
Core Documentation
All readings will be made available by the professor on Moodle. The Prof.’s lectures as well as class discussion will be based on those readings.Type of delivery of the course
tradizionaleType of evaluation
1. Saggio/Paper (1500-2000 parole/words) (30%) 2. Presentazione di una outline di ricerca (10-15 minuti) con powerpoint / research outline presentation (10-15 mins) with a ppt (25%) 3. Esame finale orale / final oral exam (30%) 4. Partecipazione in classe o da remoto (Teams) / class participation (also through Teams) (15%)