Summer Courses

Art History: The Italian Renaissance

Credit hours:-- Contact hours: 45

Dept: Art and Design

Course Description: Florence is and was a city of art and also an intellectual and mercantile center, and these factors converged to integrate the arts into the social fabric of the city. The most flourishing period for the town goes from the early fourteenth century to the late sixteenth century. Most of this period is known as the Renaissance and produced a large number of great artists, who worked in an atmosphere that encouraged the production of art and architecture for religious, political and personal enhancement.

The study of the Classics and the discovery of perspective transformed Florence in the cultural capital of Italy.

The lessons will focus the attention on some of the main artists of this time, starting with Giotto, Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Ghiberti and Donatello up to the young Michelangelo. We will also focus our attention on the art patrons, particularly the Medici family, dominating the Florentine scene until the late Renaissance.

Instructor:
Caterina Romei was born in Florence in 1960 and she has lived there her entire life. In 1986 she completed her Laurea in Art History at the University of Florence with a thesis on the history of the church of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence.

In addition to the courses she teaches for Santa Reparata International School of Art, she has taught art history for several foreign university programs and schools for foreigners in Florence, including Washington University, Goshen College, the Koinè School, the Emily School of Art and Design, and others. In 2004 she completed a specialized thesis in Museum Studies at the University of Florence, writing a thesis about visitors and copyists in the Uffizi during the late eighteenth century.