The Italian Renaissance July 10 - 15, 2016

What gave rise to the Renaissance in Italy? The transition from a medieval mentality to its Renaissance alternative developed only gradually across the Italian peninsula. The imperial pretensions of Milan, the eastern (and then western) outlook of Venice, and the expansionist policies of Florence are well known both to students of history and savvy travelers. So too are the sights and sounds of humanist Rome, which still retain the aura of early modernism. But in the Italian countryside lies a string of smaller hill towns no less important for our understanding of this evolutionary period-after all, Leonardo was born in Vinci, Michelangelo in Caprese-near Arezzo. These intimate, stimulating towns, lauded more for their charms today than for their place in history, testify in equal measure to the ingenuity and power of the more famous centers of the Italian Renaissance.

In tracing the rise of the Renaissance, we'll focus on these hill towns as we explore the systems, ideas, and images that made places like Siena, Pienza, and Assisi vital cultural, political, and intellectual centers during the decades that framed the early 15th century. We'll learn how Humanists became popes, how theologians became antiquaries, and how artists and philosophers incorporated a new emphasis on history into communicative forms that changed the way people thought about themselves. We'll examine and interpret the messages that framed debates and propagated truths that came to be held as self-evident. We'll see that the seemingly remote communities nestled in the hills of Tuscany were not simply the refuge of vintners, cheese mongers, or culinary masters. They were, instead, the fertile nests of great minds and great spirits, whose ideas were incubated and hatched during one of Western history's greatest moments.

Among those serving as faculty are George Bent, the Sidney Gause Childress Professor in the Arts, and David Peterson, professor of history and chair of the department. This program also anticipates a W&L Traveller program in Tuscany in late April of 2017.

Above: image by Sandro Botticelli