Course Description
The course introduces students to the world of Art and Architecture through the approach and methods of a historian. It provides skills and “tricks” needed to interpret Renaissance works of art and architecture, as well as appreciate them aesthetically.
The course guides the students in the acquaintance of major protagonists of Venice Renaissance Art and Architecture. It examines the evolution and development of Venetian Art and Architecture from the late XV century to the beginning of the XVII century, focusing on a selection of great masters and their masterpieces. Venice, with its outstanding monuments and its connections with all the great cultural centres in Europe and down along the whole Mediterranean sea, will give us a special opportunity to examine artworks and monuments in their original settings.
A great emphasis will be given to the rediscovery, use and interpretation of classical models of Roman and Greek tradition in all the fields of Renaissance culture.

Learning Objectives
The objectives are: to learn methods to analyse Renaissance works of art in their form, meaning and visual symbolism; to relate artworks to their historical background; to understand the master’s artistic views and intentions.
To be able to recognize the major social and historical forces which conditioned Renaissance Art in Italy and in Venice through the analysis of Italian intellectual, social, economic and political history.
To build a “language of observation”: a proper visual vocabulary to adequately describe artworks.
To improve the critical approach to reading, talking and writing on Art and Art history.
To become more familiar with the principal resources and tools for scholarly research in Art History (books, articles, web-sources etc.).

Course Prerequisites
The course doesn’t require any specific prerequisites.

Teaching methods
The lectures are supported by slide show presentations combined with seminars (for which students are assigned weekly reading tasks), site visits and research challenges.
Students will be encouraged to take part in discussions in Renaissance styles, workshops and techniques. Strong emphasis is set on the actual material culture of the city of Venice and its connections with the subject.

 
Course program
1) Opening lesson: Venice and the Myth of the Origins
2) Introduction lessons: the study of Antiquity in Art, Architecture and Literature as the beginning of the Renaissance
3) A family of sculptors and architects: the works of Lombardo
4) Outside lesson: Art, Architecture and collectors: Palazzo Grimani and the Grimani collection
5) Early masters of Venetian Renaissance Architecture: Antonio Rizzo and Mauro Codussi
6) Outside lesson: SS. Giovanni e Paolo and the Scuola Grande di San Marco
7) The renewal of St. Mark's square: the Old Procuratie and the Clock Tower
8) Outside lesson: The Doge palace
9) The Bellinis (1430-1516 Giovanni) and the reinvention of the Byzantine icons
10) The “Scuole Grandi” and the “teleri” (large paintings) masters: Vittore Carpaccio (1465-1525)
11) Outside lesson: Frari, Scuola grande San Rocco, Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista
12) From the Netherlands to Venice: merchants, artists and collectors
13) Iconology methods and Renaissance Painting, Warburg, Panofsky and Sebastiano del Piombo
14) Aldo Manuzio and Daniel Bomberg, Venice as the leader in the art of typography. The engravings as a way for spreading art and architecture.
15) The Venetian School: Giorgione (1497-1510)
16) From Rome to Venice: Andrea Sansovino, architect and sculptor
17) Outside lesson: St Mark Library / Correr Museum: the buildings and the collections preserved inside
18) Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (1489–1576)
19) Palladio and the new idea for Renaissance churches
20) Outside Lesson: the churches of Redentore and San Giorgio
21) Music, Art and Architecture in Renaissance Venice
22) The art of Veronese (1528-1588), Tintoretto (1518-1594) and Jacopo Bassano (1510-1592)
23) Outside Lesson: Gallerie dell'Accademia
24) Vincenzo Scamozzi and the completion of St Mark's square

Co-curricular activity
Visit to Vicenza, the town of Palladio.

Evaluation
40% attendance and participation to lessons and visits, participation in class discussions
60% individual oral discussion, oral presentations in class or during a visits, research paper

General Readings
• Concina, Ennio: A history of Venetian architecture, translated by Judith Landry, Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• Frederick, Hartt, A history of Italian Renaissance art: painting, sculpture and architecture, New Jersey: Prentice Hall; New York: Abrams, 2003
• Goy, Richard J.: Building Renaissance Venice: Patrons, Architects and Builders, C. 1430-1500, New Haven and London, 2006.
• Howard, Deborah. - Howard, Deborah: The architectural history of Venice, New Haven : Yale University Press, c2002.
• Humfrey, Peter: Painting in Renaissance Venice, New Haven : Yale University Press, c1995
• Huse, Norbert - Wolters, Wolfgang: The art of Renaissance Venice : architecture, sculpture, and painting, 1460-1590, translated by Edmund Jephcott, Chicago London : The University of Chicago press, c1990
• Ilchman, Frederick: Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese : rivals in Renaissance Venice, with contributions by Linda Borean ... [et al.].Boston : MFA Publications ; New York, N.Y. : D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, 2009.
• McAndrew, John:Venetian architecture of the early Renaissance,Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1980
• Renaissance Venice and the North : crosscurrents in the time of Dürer, Bellini and Titian / edited by Bernard Aikema, Beverly Louise Brown, London : Thames & Hudson, 1999 (Cinisello Balsamo : A.Pizzi)
• Tafuri, Manfredo: Venice and the Renaissance, translated by Jessica Levine, Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1989

A list of reading assignments and suggestions will be given for each lesson week by week.