Fifteenth Century Florence: Art in context.
Seminar
Dr. Federica Carta
BA
BA KuWi 5 (Kunst und Kontext)
Mittwoch, 16-18.00 Uhr c.t.
A 072
The seminar will be in English
Since Jacob Burckhardt’s Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien (1860) and Die Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien (1867), 15th-century Florence has been framed as the birthplace of the Renaissance. This seminar will examine the construction of this idea, and its mythologization, before analyzing the artistic production of Early Quattrocento Florence in its historical contexts.
Through the works of artists such as Donatello, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Masaccio or Fra Angelico (among others), we will explore the intersections of painting, sculpture, architecture, stained glass, goldsmithing, and decorative arts with the political, social, and economic context of the period. Particular attention will be given to the material properties of objects, their conditions of production (workshops, patronage networks), and their functions in public and private spaces. Students will work directly with artworks and primary sources to reconstruct the layered contexts in which these objects were created, circulated, and interpreted.
Some sessions will be held at the Gemäldegalerie and the Bode-Museum.
Introductory bibliography
Ames-Lewis, Francis ed., Florence, Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Baxandall, Michael, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972.
The Springtime of the Renaissance: Sculpture and the Arts in Florence 1400-1460 exhib. cat. (Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, 23 March - 18 August 2013 ; Paris, Musée du Louvre, 26 September 2013 - 6 January 2014), Bormand, Marc and Paolozzi Strozzi, Beatrice eds, Firenze, Mandragora, 2013.
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Fabricius Hansen, Maria. Übersetzungsfragen: Eine Neubewertung der Begriffe ‚Renaissance‘, ,Antik‘ und ‚Klassisch‘ in der Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, Deutscher Kunstverlag (DKV), 2026 https://doi.org/10.1515/978342280268
Welch, Evelyn S., Art and Society in Italy 1350 - 1500. Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 1997.
