Renaissance Studies Courses

REN240H1F
The Renaissance in Italy
Professor Ken Bartlett
T 11-1

This course is an introduction to the culture of Renaissance Italy. It begins with Petrarch (d.1374) and the invention of the modern concept of the autonomous individual capable of self-creation. This idea arose from the recovery and ancient Latin and later Greek texts whose content was then applied to the conditions and problems of 14th and 15th century Italy. From this, Humanism arose, a set of secular ideas which became the animating force, the “energizing myth”, of the Renaissance. This confident belief in individual genius, the power of words and images, and the celebration of beauty and proportion in art and architecture came to define the period, as represented by artists and writers such as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bramante, Brunelleschi, and Castiglione.The rich and cosmopolitan Republic of Florence adopted these ideas as a collective elite ideology, making it the “cradle” of the Italian Renaissance. Our course will then follow these ideas throughout Italy, from Florence to Venice, the small despotisms, and papal Rome, to illustrate how these flexible concepts could animate an entire culture.  

Exclusion: VIC240Y1, REN240Y0, VIC240Y0
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1), Society and its Institutions (3)

REN241H1F
Renaissance Masterworks and Remixes
Professor Paul Stevens
T 1-2, R 1-3

REN242H1S
Scientific Worldviews of the Renaissance
Professor Hakob Barseghyan
F 11-1

REN244H1S
The Renaissance in Europe and around the World
Professor Jennifer DeSilva
T 11-1

REN245H1S
Race and Power in the Renaissance
Professor Laura Ingallinella
W 3-5

REN338H1F
Renaissance in the City
Professor Ken Bartlett
T 3-5

This new half course is taught with HIS327HF, Rome, the City in History, an illustrated lecture course that traces the development of Rome from its mythological foundation in 753 B.C. until the present, using the structures and sites of the city as material. Students in REN338H will share the lectures with the HIS327 students but will have readings and assignments that focus on the period of the Renaissance in Rome, beginning with the return of a united papacy after the Great Western Schism in 1420 and ending with the establishment of the baroque in the 17th century. After the addition of Rome to the united kingdom of Italy in 1870, subsequent regimes continued to refer to Renaissance models and greatness to reinforce their own agendas.  Emphasis will be on how the ancient traditions and memories of republican, imperial, and Christian Rome continued to inform the shape, function, mythology, and building in the urbs aeterna, the eternal city. 

REN342H1F
Woman and Writing in the Renaissance
Professor Manuela Scarci
W 10-12

Focusing on writers from various geographical areas, the course examines a variety of texts by early modern women (for example, treatises, letters, and poetry) so as to explore the female experience in a literate society, with particular attention to how women constructed a gendered identity for themselves against the backdrop of the cultural debates of the time.

Exclusion: VIC342H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)

REN346H1S 
The Idea of the Renaissance
Professor Matt Kavaler
W 10-12

REN392
Renaissance Studies Independent Study

REN492
Renaissance Studies Independent Study