Renaissance Splendor: The Golden Age of Venice and the Veneto
This course proposes to engage students in a comprehensive examination of the painting, sculpture, and architecture produced during the Golden Age of Venice and the Veneto. Establishing ourselves in the historic heart of the great city itself, we will study the evolution of Venetian culture from its origins as an outpost of the Byzantine Empire to its rise as the greatest and most enduring republic the world has ever known, as well as one of the richest and most magnetic artistic centers in Europe. This evolution is amply documented in the Doges’ Palace and its adjacent chapel, the Basilica of San Marco. At the famous Accademia, we will trace the swift development of Venetian painting from the age-old medieval traditions that still prevailed at the outset of the fifteenth century to the flourishing of the largest of all Italian Renaissance painting studios, that of Giovanni Bellini, which by the end of the same century produced the geniuses, Giorgione and Titian, as well as hosts of other celebrated talents. After viewing some of the most impressive medieval and early Renaissance buildings in Venice, we will undertake a detailed study of works by the giant of sixteenth-century Northern Italian architecture, Andrea Palladio, moving from his late churches on the Giudecca Canal to the city of Vicenza. Day trips from Venice will also be made to Padua (site of Giotto’s Arena Chapel), Verona, Maser (site of Palladio’s spectacular Villa Barbaro), and Asolo, each in its own way an important testimonial to Venetian cultural supremacy in the north of Italy throughout the Renaissance.The basic goal of the course is to immerse students in the living culture of Northern Italy, and to imbue in them an appreciation and understanding of its history, its urban and rural landscapes, its public and domestic architecture, and the enduring beauty of its artistic legacy in every medium and on every scale.
Reading List: Students who will be taking the course will be provided with a list of required readings, drawn from seminal bibliographies on the most prominent topics and artists to be covered, including Giotto, the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Palladio, Longhena, Tiepolo, etc.
Faculty
- David D. Nolta
- Nolta received a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History and English Literature from The University of Michigan, where he won several Hopwood Awards for Poetry and Essay Writing. He went on to receive an MA in English Literature from The University of Chicago and a PhD in The History of Art from Yale University. He has been the recipient of Kress, Fulbright, and Mellon fellowships, and taught art history and literature at Yale and Massachusetts College of Art, where he is currently Professor of Critical Studies. He has lectured throughout the United States, Great Britain, and Italy. His published work includes articles on Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italian painting, and contemporary art. His curatorial work includes Florence and Beyond for the South Shore Art Center (2003), and, with Professor Ellen Shapiro, the acclaimed exhibition, Inlands: Photographs by Mimmo Jodice (catalogue Skira, 2001). Nolta’s first novel, an academic mystery entitled Grave Circle, was published in 2003, and his second, Lostlindens, appeared in April, 2005.
- Ellen R. Shapiro
- Ellen Shapiro, Professor of Art History at Massachusetts College of Art, is a specialist in Italian architectural history and theory of both the twentieth century and the Renaissance. Professor Shapiro’s teaching interests include Palladio, Italian villas and gardens of the 15th-18th centuries, modern and contemporary architecture and the history of design. She lived in Italy for six years, two of them spent as a Fulbright Scholar and Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. She was awarded the Ph.D. from Yale University with a dissertation on the aesthetics and politics of Italian architecture during the Fascist Regime. Professor Shapiro is an Italian citizen, and is bilingual in Italian and English. She has published extensively in her field in both languages, in publications that include Architectural Design (London) and the catalog of the 1996 Milan Triennale exhibition on the work of modernist architect Giuseppe Terragni. In addition, she has lectured on Italian architecture at scholarly venues that include Princeton, Harvard and M.I.T. She has translated National Geographic documentaries for Italian television, and has worked as a translator for the Chairman of the Board of the FIAT Corporation in Turin. With David Nolta, she curated and wrote the catalogue for the award-winning exhibition, Inlands: Images of Boston, Photographs by Mimmo Jodice (Skira, 2001). Most recently, she published five chapters in The Seventy Wonders of the Modern World: 1500 Years of Extraordinary Feats of Engineering and Construction (Thames & Hudson, 2002).