| Discussion topics | Documents | Reading |

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 Discussion topics and Essay questions

a) The Renaissance Legacy

• Was the Renaissance a period or a movement?
• 'More pagan than Christian'. Is this a fair judgement of the Renaissance?
• What were the aims of humanist education and how did it spread across Europe?

b) Art and Society

• What functions did the visual arts serve in early modern Europe?
• In what ways can a focus on visual culture and the arts enhance our understanding of early modern change?
• Was art accessible to all early modern Europeans?
  
• How important was the role of the arts in creating and propagating the image of a ruler?

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Documents

**NOTE: Some eresources are accessible only on-campus or via off-campus proxies or the athens service**

Texts	[Interpret]	Images	[Interpret]
Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, trans. John Wilson Battista Guarino, De Ordine Docendi et Studendi (1459) Thomas More, Utopia (1516) Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of Artists Pier Paolo Vergerio, 'De Ingenuis Moribus', in W.H. Woodward, ed. and trans., Vittorino da Feltre and other Humanist Educators.		ItalyGuides (virtual panoramas of Italian cities) Renaissance Art in Italy and outside Italy Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (c.1484-86) Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam (1510) Raphael, The School of Athens (1510-1511) Renaissance portraits of Women

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Secondary literature

Audio links

BBC Radio 4 Programme 'In Our Time' on 'Paganism in the Renaissance'.

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Selected Key Texts

• R. Black, Renaissance Thought: A Reader (2001).
• Alison Brown, The Renaissance (1999)
• W. Chadwick, Women, Art and Society (2002)
• H. Butters, 'The Renaissance' in B. Kumin (ed.), The European World (2009)
• E. Gombrich, 'The Renaissance - Period or Movement', in R. Black, Renaissance thought : a reader (2001), 23-46 (scanned extract)
• ", In Search of Cultural History (1969) [also in E.H. Gombrich, Ideals and Idols: Essays on Values in History and in Art (1979)]
• A. McGrath, Reformation Thought: An Introduction (1999), (ebook) ch. 3 'Humanism and the Reformation'
  
• L. Molà, 'Arts and Society' in B. Kumin (ed.), The European World (2009)
• L. Shiner, The Invention of Art: A Cultural History (2001), scan availble of ch. 5 'Polite Arts for Polite Classes'
• E. Welch, Art in Renaissance Italy, 1350-1500 (1997)

Further reading

a) The Renaissance Legacy

• R. Black, ‘Education and the Emergence of a Literate Society’, in J. Najemy (ed.), Italy in the Age of the Renaissance (2004) (ebook)
  
• J. Chipps Smith, The Northern Renaissance (2004)
• R.A. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy, 1300-1600 (1993)
• J.J. Martin (ed.), The Renaissance: Italy and Abroad (2003)
• S. Nash, Northern Renaissance Art (2008)
• C.G. Nauert Jr., Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe (2006)
• Guido Ruggiero, The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento (Cambridge, 2014) (ebook)
  
• Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art, trans. Barbara F. Sessions (New York, 1953; rept. New York, 1961)
• R. Starn, ‘A Postmodern Renaissance?’, Renaissance Quarterly 60 (2007), 1-24
• E. Welch, Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy, 1400-1600 (2005)
• J. Woolfson (ed.), Palgrave Advances in Renaissance Historiography (2004)

b) Renaissance and Humanist Thought

• R. Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom (1969)
• B. Bradshaw, ‘More on Utopia’, Historical Journal 24 (1981)
• A. Fox, Utopia, an Elusive Vision (1993)
• P. Kristeller, 'Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance', in his Renaissance Thought: The Classic, Scholastic and Humanist Strains (1961), 92-119, 150-63 (ebook).
• J. McConica et al., Renaissance Thinkers (1993), chs. on Erasmus, More and Bacon
  
• J. McConica, Erasmus (1991)
• ", Thomas More: A Short Biography (1977)
  
• ", 'Thomas More as Humanist', in G. M. Logan (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More (2011) (ebook)
• Q. Skinner, ‘Utopia and the language of Renaissance humanism’, in A. Pagden (ed.), The Languages of Political Theory (1987)

c) Art and Society

• S. Alpers, The Art of Describing. Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century (1983)
• E. Barker et al (eds), The Changing Status of the Artist (1999)
• A. Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1600 (1956)
• J. Brown and J.H. Elliott, A Palace for a King. The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV (1980)
• J. Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs. Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe (1995)
• P. Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV (1992)
• C. Clunas (ed.), Chinese Export Art and Design (1987)
• A. Cole, Virtue and Magnificence: Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts (1995)
• B. Cole, The Renaissance Artist at Work: From Pisano to Titian (1983)
• C. Goldstein, Teaching Art: Academies and Schools from Vasari to Albers (1996)
• R. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy 1300-1600 (1993)
• E. Holt (ed.), A Documentary History of Art. Vol. 1: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance
  (1981)
• ", (ed.), A Documentary History of Art. Vol. 2: Michelangelo and the Mannerists. The Baroque and the Eighteenth Century (1982)
• E. A. Honig, Painting and the Market in Early Modern Antwerp (1999)
• O. Impey and A. MacGregor (eds), The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe (2001)
• A. Keller, ‘Renaissance Theaters of Machines’, Technology and Culture 9 (1978), 495-508 (review article)
  
• J.L. Koerner, The Reformation of the Image (2003) (ebook)
  
• M. North, Art and Commerce in the Dutch Golden Age (1997)
• W. Stechow (ed.), Northern Renaissance Art, 1400-1600: Sources and Documents (1966)
• H. Trevor-Roper, The Plunder of the Arts in the Seventeenth Century (1980)
• “ Princes and Artists: Patronage and Ideology at Four Habsburg Courts, 1517-1633 (1991)
• E. Welch, Art in Renaissance Italy (1997)
• E. Welch, Shopping in the Renaissance. Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400–1600 (2005)

Module Forum

Module Homepage

E-Resources

External Links

Mark Hadden's Artchive - comprehensive collection of Italian and Northern Renaissance paintings with commentary

Renaissance Humanism and Christian Hebraism - discussion about the changes the Renaissance brought to understanding language

Renaissance electionic texts - digitised texts of English Renaissance manuscripts and books

Renaissance Dance - information about European dance from the 15th to early 17th centuries

Renaissance Exploration and Trade - short interactive discussion about trade and exploration during Renaissance

Renaissance Love Songs - discussion about love and music in the Renaissance

Renaissance Secrets - BBC open source page with short articles on different aspects of the European Renaissance