THE ART OF THE

RENAISSANCE,
1300-1600
PROF. MARK ROSEN

Course Information

AHST 3315 Section: 001

Spring 2011
Tuesday, 4–6:45 pm

Professor Contact Information

Office: JO 4.636
Email: mark.rosen@utdallas.edu
Office phone: 972-883-2367
Office hours: Thursday, 1–2 pm or by appointment

Course Pre-requisites, Co-requisites, and/or Other Restrictions

Prerequisites: The introductory Art History survey (AHST 1303 and 1304) or AP Art History in
High School; AHST 2331 or ARTS 1301 are also acceptable.

Course Description

This course covers the development of Italian art from the late Gothic period through the Counter
Reformation, or (in other words) from Giotto to Tintoretto. The lectures will serve as both an
introduction to the major artists of the period as well as to the functions, themes, and patronage
behind their most significant works. We will focus on the major urban centers (Florence, Venice,
Rome, Siena) as well as some of the Italian courts (Mantua, Milan), each of which had its own
distinctive artistic tradition and system of patronage. Among the artists and architects discussed
will be Giotto, Masaccio, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea Mantegna
Michelangelo, Raphael, Parmigianino, and Titian. We will also discuss the relevant ancient and

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medieval background that Renaissance art and architecture grew from. Unlike the central
textbook (Hartt/Wilkins), the lectures will not move through the material exclusively
chronologically but rather follow more thematic subjects. The course will not be just a survey of
major works of art, but also of the culture that created them and the reasons that Italian art and
architecture took the forms it did. Although this is a lecture class, we will often have discussion
as a group based not only on the images we’re looking at but also on the reading, so it’s important
to keep up. After each week, I will post the images from the lectures on eLearning. Many of these
images are also in the textbook, although not everything we see in class will also be in the book.

Student Learning Objectives/Outcomes

• Students will analyze and evaluate Italian Renaissance artworks beyond considerations of
style and authorship, understanding their creation in the context of the religious, political, and
social concerns of the period
• Students will develop their skills of visual analysis by writing a paper comparing several
Renaissance artworks.
• Students will gain an understanding of historical works of art that they can carry with
them beyond this class to studying or evaluating artworks from other periods and cultures.

Required Textbooks and Materials

Note: all three of the required textbooks have been published in multiple editions in the past. It
isn’t essential that you buy the current one (especially if you can save a lot of money buying an
earlier edition), but the page numbers listed in the syllabus are for the most recent edition.

Frederick Hartt and David G. Wilkins, History of Italian Renaissance Art, 7th edition (NY:
Prentice Hall, 2011). [NOTE: The 6th edition is also fine.]

Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Artists, trans. Julia Conway Bondanella and Peter
Bondanella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). There are other acceptable editions that
you can use (most notably the Penguin edition translated by George Bull).

Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy, 2d edition (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1988). You can also use the first edition.

Readings should be done before each class meeting. Some readings will be discussed during the
lecture and it is expected that students will be prepared to participate in the discussion and be
familiar with the works.

Papers and Assignments

You will have three exams (two midterms and a cumulative final) and two writing assignments: a
short (2-page) reading response on Baxandall’s book (due Mar. 1) and a visual analysis of 6
pages (due Apr. 19). For the paper, you will have a choice of topics to write about; each asks you
to compare works of art from different time periods. On March 1, you will also do a short in-class
presentation with two or three other students, presenting an artwork to the group.

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 Assignments & Academic Calendar

Class Topic Reading

11 Jan. Introduction: Approaching Renaissance

Art
18 Jan. Overview of Italian Politics and Culture Hartt/Wilkins, Ch. 1–2 (pp. 17-71).

Life in the City: The Piazza, the Palace,

and the Cathedral
25 Jan. Devotional Practices, Ritual Art: The Hartt/Wilkins, Ch. 3–5 (pp. 73–156).
Church and the Chapel
Vasari, Lives of Giotto, Simone Martini,
Duccio
1 Feb. Art as a Window: Humanism and Hartt/Wilkins, Ch. 6–8 (pp. 159–221).
Developments in Quattrocento Art
Vasari, Lives of Masaccio, Fra Angelico,
Discussion section Alberti
8 Feb. Public Art, Public Rivalries: Monumental Hartt/Wilkins, Ch. 9–11 (pp. 221–293).
Sculpture, Civic Palaces, and the Nature of
Artistic Competition in Florence Vasari, Lives of Uccello, Masaccio,
Brunelleschi, Donatello, and
Midterm review Castagno/Veneziano

Baxandall, 1–27
15 Feb. Quattrocento Portraiture Hartt/Wilkins, Ch. 12–13 (pp. 299–357).

FIRST MIDTERM EXAM Vasari, Life of Leonardo da Vinci

Baxandall, 29–70
22 Feb. The Domestic World: Quattrocento Palaces Hartt/Wilkins, Ch. 14–15 (pp. 359–440).
and their Decoration
Vasari, Life of Sandro Botticelli
Presentation Preparation
1 Mar. SHORT GROUP PRESENTATIONS Baxandall, 70-153

Two-page reading response on Baxandall

due
8 Mar. The Call of the Ancient World: Hartt/Wilkins, Ch. 16–17 (pp. 443–541)
Renaissance Rome

15 Mar. Spring Break—No class

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 22 Mar. From Genesis to Revelation: The Sistine Vasari, Life of Michelangelo
Chapel
29 Mar. Pictorial Legitimacy: Halls of State Hartt/Wilkins, Ch. (pp. 391–442)

Vasari, Lives of Mantegna and Raphael

5 Apr. Sacred Drama: The Last Supper as Theme
SECOND MIDTERM EXAM
12 Apr. After ―Perfection‖: Mannerism and the
―Problem‖ of Late–Sixteenth Century Art
19 Apr. Biography through Art: The Life of Titian
Vasari, Lives of Andrea del Verrocchio
and Giorgione
Hartt/Wilkins, Ch. 18 (pp. 543–589)
Vasari, Preface to the Lives, Preface to
Part 2, Preface to Part 3
Hartt/Wilkins, Ch. 19 (pp. 591–647).

PAPER DUE Vasari, Life of Titian

26 Apr. Later Renaissance Portraiture and Self- No new reading

Portraiture

Final exam review (bring questions)

10 May Final Exam

Grading Policy

First Paper (1 Mar.): 10%

Second Paper (19 Apr.): 20%
Midterm 1 (15 Feb.): 10%
Midterm 2 (5 Apr.): 10%
Cumulative Final: 30%
In-Class Presentation (1 March): 10%
Attendance and Participation: 10%

Course & Instructor Policies

Office hours are meant for the benefit of you students, so use them! They can be used to discuss
class materials, assignments, and questions arising from the readings, or other issues you’d like to
discuss. If you can’t make it to the scheduled hours, you can make an appointment with me at
some other time.
I can be reached by email and will make efforts to respond in a timely manner, but I’m not on call
at all hours; use email sparingly, please.
All major assignments must be completed to successfully pass the class (you can’t skip the first
paper and still expect to get a B+).
No written assignments will be accepted via email—if for some reason you can’t make it to
class, bring a hard copy to my office as soon as possible.

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 Late assignments will be marked down substantially.
Please turn off your phone and refrain from texting in class. It’s a drag for everyone.
Class begins at 4 pm each week. If you must come in late, try to be as quiet as possible.
Since we only meet once a week and we will be covering so much material each class, you may
have no more than two unexcused absences—if you have more than that, you will get a zero for
your participation grade.

Accessing Course Image Presentations via eLearning

After each week, the instructor will post the image presentations seen in lecture. These
are created via a piece of software called the ArtStor Offline Image Viewer (ArtStor is a
huge database of images that students can access online; the OIV is a program like
PowerPoint that is used in lecture to present those images).
In order to view the presentations, students will need to download the Offline Image
Viewer to run them. Follow the numbered instructions below to install the software. Then
download the image presentations from the ―Image Presentations‖ folder on the course’s
eLearning homepage.
If you have any trouble, contact the McDermott Library Ask-a-Librarian Service
(http://www.utdallas.edu/library/askalib/askalib.htm) or Jennifer Gordon, UTD’s
ARTstor administrator (jennifer.gordon@utdallas.edu, 972-883-4563). You can also
consult the Troubleshooting ARTstor tips at
http://help.artstor.org/wiki/index.php/ARTstor_Troubleshooting.

Getting Started with ARTstor: Set Up a Personal Account

1. Go to ARTstor at
http://libproxy.utdallas.edu/login?url=http://www.artstor.org/index.html
Note that if you are off-campus, you will be prompted to enter your UTD-ID and last
name to log in.
2. Click on the GO button in the ENTER THE ARTSTOR DIGITAL LIBRARY box, in the
upper-right corner of the screen.
3. You will now need to create a personal account on ARTstor. You will only have to do
this one time.
4. Look for the LOG IN TO ARTstor box, in the upper-right corner of the screen.
5. Click the link that says, NOT REGISTERED?
6. Enter your email address and a password of your choice, and click SUBMIT.

How to Install the OIV Software (you can skip this step if you don’t want to download the
entire presentation)
1. Log in to your personal ARTstor account.
2. Now click on the TOOLS menu, from the on-screen ARTstor toolbar (inside the gray-
shaded area along the top of the screen).
3. Click on DOWNLOAD OFFLINE PRESENTATION TOOL (OIV).
4. Click on ACCEPT.
5. Choose either the Mac or Windows version of the OIV, and click DOWNLOAD.
6. Save the file to your desktop, or in another folder you can locate easily.
7. Go to your desktop and open the OIV setup folder.
a. If you are using Windows, the folder will be labeled OIV_3.1_Win_Install.zip.
b. If you are using a Mac, the folder will be called OIV_3.1.2_Mac_Install.zip.
8. Now click on the file called oiv_setup, and proceed with the installation.

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 These descriptions and timelines are subject to change at the discretion of the Professor.

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