HSY2860 - The Renaissance in Florence

Leader(s): Peter Howard

Offered

Overseas Summer semester A 2009 (Off-campus Day)

Synopsis

This intensive course of 4-week's duration departs from Melbourne in mid-November. It involves interdisciplinary study, conducted in the city itself, of the political, social and cultural history of Florence, from the late thirteenth to the early sixteenth centuries, with particular reference to the Renaissance period. Students who have not passed HSY1010 and HSY1020 should do the preliminary reading with great care.

Objectives

Students successfully completing this unit will be expected to demonstrate:

1. A knowledge of the city of Florence itself - including its churches, palaces, museums, piazzas, monuments and streets - as an artefact of its complex history.
2. The development of the requisite skills to interpret the Renaissance aspects of that artefact within an historical framework.
3. Enhanced skills in the critical and analytical reading of a variety of texts, including contemporary documents, religious and polemical literature, historical scholarship, physical monuments and visual representations.
4. An acquaintance with the considerable body of knowledge that has been built up about late medieval and Renaissance Florence (in the context of Italian history in general).
5. A critical understanding of this fascinating society and its historiography.
6. The ability to use this knowledge (1, 3, 4, 5) and these skills (2) as a capital source for contributing to an understanding of the Renaissance city, its society and culture.

Assessment

Site visit / tutorial preparation and participation: 10%
essay related work: 65%
class test: 25%

Contact hours

Intensive lectures, tutorials and field trips for 35 hours per week, over 1 month (November/December)

Prerequisites

A first-year sequence in History or permission

Prohibitions

HSY2630/3630, HSY3860