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 influence over both the arts of their time and on posterity's perception of the Renaissance. They include Pope Pius II, born Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who tried to revive papal fortunes with a grand crusade, and commissioned the extraordinary urban re-design of Pienza to express his ordered view of the ideal cosmos. Pius also authored 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 mathematics and the new art of perspective, which helped to elevate the role 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 great artistic projects. 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.

Students will be responsible for attending scheduled classes three times a week. Monday and Wednesday's classes will typically be lectures, while Fridays will be reserved for discussion on a noted topic; students will be expected to come prepared to participate in these discussions. Reading assignments required for each class are noted on the date they are due. Class schedule also includes a required trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The first graded project will be a short (4-5 pages) paper on the organized urban space of the student's choice (there are a number of options in Philadelphia beginning with aspects of the Penn campus). This paper will include some research, but will primarily focus on the student's experience of the space following our discussion of Renaissance urbanism in the context of Pius II and Pienza. Students will also prepare a semester-long research project on a class-related topic either of their own choosing or at the instructor's suggestion. They will present their work both in the form of an in-class presentation of approximately thirty minutes and as a formal paper of 13-15 pages. Students may choose to schedule their presentations for the middle or the end of the semester. Grades will be assigned as followed: class preparation and participation, 20%; first paper, 20%; presentation, 25%; final paper, 35%.

Wed., Sept. 8: Introduction to the Renaissance. Reading: Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, 74-96.

Fri., Sept. 10: Discussion: The phenomenae of about art or writing about the self: Why start doing it in the fifteenth century? Reading: T.C. Price Zimmerman, "Confession and Autobiography in the Early Renaissance," Renaissance, Studies in Honor of Hans Baron, 121-40. Martin Kemp, "Ideas: The Ordering of Artistry," Behind the Picture: Art and Evidence in the Italian Renaissance, 79-117.

Mon, Sept. 13: Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini and the formation of the humanist Pope. Reading: Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, 269-317. Robert Glendinning, "Love, Death, and the Art of Compromise: Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini's 'Tale of Two Lovers'," Fifteenth-Century Studies 23: 101-20.

Wed., Sept. 15: Urbanism in the Renaissance: The ideal and the real in Florence and Rome. Reading: Charles Burroughs, "Below the Angel: An Urbanistic Project in the Rome of Pope Nicholas V," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45: 94-124. Recommended Reading: Tim Benton, "The three cities compared: urbanism," Siena, Florence, and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280-1400, 7-28.

Fri., Sept. 17: Discussion: Pienza and the realization of the ideal Renaissance city. Reading: Charles R. Mack, "The First Phase: The Monumental Arena," Pienza, The Creation of a Renaissance City, 43-106. Caroline Elam, "Lorenzo de'Medici and the Urban Development of Renaissance Florence," Art History 1: 43-66.

Mon., Sept. 20: Papal Rome c. 1450: Caput Mundi or squalid pig sty? Reading: Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, 293-365. Recommended Reading: Peter Partner, "The Renaissance Popes and their See," The Renaissance in Rome, 2-25.

Wed., Sept. 22: Pius II and the Last Crusade. Fri., Sept. 24: Discussion: Pius' life in letters vs. Pius' life in paint: Images of the renaissance man in the Cathedral of Siena. Reading: Enzo Carli, "The Pious Humanist: The Piccolomini Library," FMR 14: 47-73.

Mon., Sept. 27: Introduction to Piero della Francesca: Painting in Florence in the early quattrocento. Reading: Carlo Bertelli, "The Making of a Painter," Piero della Francesca, 7-51.

Wed., Sept. 29: Piero to 1450.

Fri., Oct. 1: No Class.

Mon, Oct. 4: Discussion: Piero della Francesca and early renaissance treatises on the Arts: De prospectiva pingendi. Reading: J.V. Field, "Alberti, the Abacus, and Piero della Francesca's Proof of Perspective," Renaissance Studies 11: 61-88.

Wed., Oct. 6: Piero meets Pius and the Legend of the True Cross cycle at Arezzo. Reading: Barbara Deimling, "The meeting of the Queen of Sheba with Solomon: crusade propoganda in the fresco cycle of Piero della Francesco in Arezzo," Bruckmanns Pantheon 53: 18-28.

Fri., Oct. 8: Discussion: Who Am I? Piero's representation of the Montefeltri in the context of early Renaissance portraiture. Reading: Joanna Woods Marsden, "'Ritratto al naturale': Questions of Realism and Idealism in Early Renaissance Portraits," Art Journal 46: 209-16. Thomas Martone, "Piero della Francesca's Triumphs of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino," Petrarch's Triumphs: Allegory and Spectacle, 211-22. Cecil H. Clough, "Federigo da Montefeltro: The Good Christian Prince," Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 67: 293-348.

Mon, Oct. 11: Piero at Borgo San Sepulchro. First Paper Due.

Wed., Oct. 13: Piero at Rimini and Urbino. Reading: Marilyn A. Lavin, "Piero della Francesca's fresco of Sigismondo Pandolofo Malatesta before St. Sigismund: theoi athanatoi kai tei polei," Art Bulletin 56: 345-74.

Fri., Oct. 15: Discussion: Piero as Late Medieval or Early Modern Painter? Piero della Francesca has been acclaimed as both the last of the Medievalists and a pioneer who pointed the way to Modernist abstraction. How do both of these elements fit into his complex persona? Reading: Rosalind E. Krauss, "The grid, the True Cross, the abstract structure," Studies in the History of Art 48: 302-12. Thalia Gouma-Peterson, "Piero della Francesca's Flagellation: an historical interpretation," Storia dell'arte 28: 217-33.

Mon., Oct. 18: No Class, Fall Break.

Wed., Oct. 20: Student Presentations I.

Fri., Oct. 22: Introduction to Leonardo da Vinci. Reading: Leonardo on Painting, 9-46. Giorgio Vasari, Life of Leonardo, 77-91. Sigmund Freud, "Excerpts from Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood," Leonardo da Vinci: Selected Scholarship, 364-86.

Mon., Oct., 25: Leonardo's early work in Florence. Reading: David Allen Brown, "The Annunciation: Science and Sensibility," Leonardo da Vinci: The Origins of a Genius, 75-99. Regina Stefaniak, "On looking into the abyss: Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks," Konsthistorisk tidskrift 66: 1-36.

Wed., Oct. 27: The First Trip to Milan.

Fri., Oct. 29: Discussion: Leonardo's views on the arts: The Paragone in Theory and Practice. Reading: Carlo Pedretti, "A proem to sculpture," Achademia Leonardi Vinci, 11-39. Claire J. Farago, "Leonardo's color and chiaroscuro reconsidered: the visual force of painted images," Art Bulletin 73: 63-88.

Mon., Nov. 1: Return to Florence. Reading: Leonardo on Painting, 119-58. Claire J. Farago, "The Battle of Anghiari: a speculative reconstruction of Leonardo's design process," Achademia Leonardi Vinci 9: 73-86.

Wed., Nov. 3: Return to Milan.

Fri., Nov. 5: Discussion: That Mona Lisa smile: Leonardo and the re-invention of portraiture. Reading: Frank Zöllner, "Leonardo's portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo," Gazette des Beaux-Arts 121: 115-38. Charles H. Carmen, "Towards a Context for Understanding Leonardo's Mona Lisa: Universality and Nothingness," Storia dell'Arte 76: 247-55.

Mon., Nov. 8: Leonardo in Rome. Reading: Leonardo on Painting, 194-248. Avigdor W.G. Posèq, "The Case of the Two-Headed Figure and the Elusive Lamb," Achademia Leonardi Vinci 7: 81-95.

Wed., Nov. 10: Leonardo in France.

Fri., Nov. 12: Discussion: What becomes a legend most? The legacy of Leonardo. Reading: Patricia Rubin, "What Men Saw: Vasari's Life of Leonardo da Vinci and the Image of the Renaissance Artist," Art History 8: 33-45. Catherine B. Soussloff, "Otto Rank's Artist and Freud's Leonardo," and "Art History's 'Leonardo,'" Leonardo da Vinci: Selected Scholarship, 467-83.

Mon., Nov. 15: Introduction to Cellini: Renaissance into Mannerism. Reading: Cellini, 1-34. John Shearman, "A 'More Cultured Age' and its Ideals," Mannerism, 135-70.

Wed., Nov. 17: The Training and Status of a Goldsmith in Renaissance Italy.

Fri., Nov. 19: Discussion: Fact or Fiction? Cellini's family and the construction of heroic lineage in the Renaissance. Reading: Paul Barolsky, Giotto's Father and the Family of Vasari's 'Lives,' 114-31. Henk Th. Van Veen, "Art and Propoganda in Late Renaissance and Baroque Florence: The Defeat of Radagasius, King of the Goths," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 47: 106-18.

Sat., Nov. 20: Visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Please be at the West Entrance (away from the city) at 11:00 with your Penn ID and a pencil for taking notes. All jackets and large bags should be checked before the tour. Our tour will last until approximately 12:30 and will focus on examples of Renaissance perspective, fifteenth and sixteenth-century portraits and self- portraits, and the PMA's contemporary copy (?) of Leonardo's Leda and the Swan. Reading: Barbara Hochstetler Meyer, "Leonardo's hypothetical painting of Leda and the swan," Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorishen Institutes in Florenz 34: 279-94.

Mon., Nov. 22: Cellini and the court of Clement VII. Reading: Cellini, 62-100.

Wed, Nov. 24: Discussion: The Sack of Rome: Is the party over? Reading: Andre Chastel, "Misera Caput Mundi," and "The 'Clementine Style'," The Sack of Rome, 22-48, 149-78.

Fri., Nov. 26: No Class, Thanksgiving Break.

Mon., Nov. 29: Cellini and Francis I: The Renaissance in France. Reading: Cellini, 245-323. Recommended Reading: R.J. Knecht, "Patron of the arts," Renaissance Warrior and Pope: The Reign of Francis I, 425-61.

Wed., Dec. 1: Cellini at the Court of Cosimo I. Reading: Cellini, 326-94.

Fri., Dec. 3: Discussion: Between the artist and the patron: Reading Cellini's Perseus. Reading: Corrine Mandel, "Perseus and the Medici," Storia dell'Arte 87: 168-87. Victoria C. Gardner Coates, "Ut vita scultura: Cellini's Perseus and the Self-Fashioning of Artistic Identity," Fashioning Identity in the Renaissance, 1-16.

Mon., Dec. 6: A Troubled Heritage: The Critical Fortunes of Cellini's Vita. Reading: Cellini, 395-418.

Wed., Dec. 8: Student Presentations.

Fri., Dec. 10: Student Presentations.

Fri., Dec. 17: Final papers due in instructor's mailbox (Jaffe Building) no later than 5:00.

Textbooks and reserve readings: There are two textbooks for this course available at the Penn Book Center: Leonardo on Painting, ed. Martin Kemp The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, trans. John Addington Symonds The third required text, Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, by Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini (Pius II), is out of print and is available on reserve at the Fine Arts Library. If they like, students may acquire a copy of the text from www.bibliocity.com. Individual readings are available as a bulk pack from the Campus Copy Center. These readings MUST be done in preparation for class the day they are assigned. The following works are on reserve at the Fine Arts Library as they will be in demand for multiple paper topics. The also offer an introduction to different methodological approaches to the Renaissance and serve as general reference:

Bertelli, Carlo. Piero della Francesco ND 623.P548 A4 1992

Campbell, Lorne. Renaissance Portraits ND1313.2 C36 1990

Collins, Bradley. Leonardo: Psychoanalysis and Art History. N6923.L33 C65 1997

Farago, Claire. Leonardo da Vinci's Paragone ND1140.F35 1992

Hartt, Frederick. Italian Renaissance Art N6915.H37 1994 Kemp, Martin. Leonardo da Vinci N6923.H37 1994

Behind the Picture: Art and Evidence in the Italian Renaissance N6915.K46 1997

Mack, Charles R. Pienza: The Creation of a Renaissance City NA1121.P5 M33 1987

Pernis, Maria Grazia and Laurie Schneider Adams, Federico da Montefeltro and Sigismondo Malatesta: The Eagle and The Elephant DG537.8F42 P47 1996

Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius (Pius II), The Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope BX1308 P58213 1988

Pope-Hennessay, John. The Portrait in the Renaissance ND1308.P6 Cellini NB623.C4 P66 1985

Shearman, John. Mannerism N6370.S48 1967 Only Connect...Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance N6915.S54 1992

Turner, A. Richard. Inventing Leonardo N6923.L33 T87 1993

Vasari, Giorgio. Lives N6922.V2213 1965 (vol. 1-2) Welch, Evelyn. Art and Society in Renaissance Italy 1350-1500 N6915.W45 1997

Wohl, Helmut. The Aesthetics of Italian Renaissance Art: A Reconsideration of Style N6915.W565 1999