The culture of Renaissance Italy placed unprecedented emphasis on the unlimited potential for individual achievement, and this culture produced
some of the most spectacular and influential works of art in the Western tradition.  This class is designed to explore the circumstances that
inspired the creation of these monuments by examining the careers of four individuals who had a decisive impact on both the arts of their time and
on posterity's perception of the Renaissance.  They include Pope Pius II, born Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who revived Rome's fortunes after the
devastating Avignon Captivity, and commissioned the extraordinary urban re-design of Pienza.  Pius also wrote a series of notes on his life and
travels that reveal a new sense of self- awareness.  The painter Piero della Francesca  absorbed the lessons of mid-quattrocento Florence and
Rome before retiring to his native Umbria to produce a series of images of profound geometric simplicity and to write treatises on the fine arts,
which helped to elevate the roll of the artist from a manual craftsman to the status of an intellectual.  Following Piero, the renowned genius
Leonardo da Vinci not only painted some of the icons of the Renaissance, such as the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, but also wrote theoretical
works on the fine arts, explored the limits of the contemporary scientific world, and, as the intimate of kings and popes, left a
powerful legend that has shaped our perception of the Renaissance artist.  In 1558 the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini took the unprecedented
step of writing a full autobiography, the first produced in modern literature.  Inspired by the examples of Pius, Piero, and Leonardo,
Cellini used literature to record an image of himself that has created a prototype for the Modern rebel-artist, and also influenced our
understanding of his own works.  We will read original texts by these figures as well as subsequent scholarship in conjunction with visual
examination of the works of art produced for and by them in order to come to a better understanding of the Renaissance and the individuals who
shaped it.