Readings are also available by class session.
Required Readings
Rice, Eugene, and Anthony Grafton. The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559. 2nd ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1994. ISBN: 9780393963045. (RG)
Ross, James, and Mary McLaughlin. The Portable Renaissance Reader. New York, NY: Penguin, 1977. ISBN: 9780140150612. (RR)
Leroy-Ladurie, Emmanuel. Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error. New York, NY: Vintage, 1979. ISBN: 9780394729640.
Petrarch, Francesco. The Secret. Edited by Carol Quillen. Boston, MA: Bedford/Saint Martin’s, 2003. ISBN: 9780312154387.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Oxford, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780192804266.
A version of this text is available through Project Gutenberg.
Davis, N. Z. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780674766907.
Readings by Class Session
| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction: The History of Renaissance History | |
| 2 | Geography, Demography, Global Trade, 1300-1600 | Leroy-Ladurie. Montaillou. pp. 3-135. |
| 3 | The World of the Peasantry ca. 1300 | Leroy-Ladurie. Montaillou. pp. 139-230. |
| 4 | The Black Death |
Tuchman, Barbara. “‘This is the end of the world’: The Black Death.” In A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1987. pp. 92-125. Boccaccio. Introduction to The Decameron. New York, NY: Signet Classics, 2002. pp. 49-68. |
| 5 | The Discarded Image | RR. pp. 580-3. |
| 6 | The Beginnings of Humanism in Fourteenth-Century Italy |
RG. pp. 1-10, 77-90. RR. pp. 120-30. Petrarch. The Secret. pp. 1-70, 149-58. |
| 7 | Petrarch | Petrarch. The Secret. pp. 70-148. |
| 8 | Civic Humanism in Early Fifteenth-Century Italy and Beyond |
Kohl, Benjamin G., and Ronald G. Witt, eds. “Introduction and Bruni’s Panegyric to the City of Florence.” In The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978, pp. 121-175. ISBN: 9780812277524. RR. pp. 476-9. |
| 9 | Art and Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy |
RG. pp. 90-114. RR. pp. 140-5, 527-40. Simons, Pat. “Women in Frames: The Gaze, the Eye, the Profile in Renaissance Portraiture.” History Workshop 25 (1988): 38-57. |
| 10 | A Visit to the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University | Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 1-27. ISBN: 9780192821447. |
| 11 | Burgundy and Late Medieval Politics in the North | RR. pp. 185-202. |
| 12 | The New Monarchies and The Invasion of Italy |
RG. pp. 110-145. RR. pp. 279-94. |
| 13 | Politics Reinvented | Machiavelli. The Prince. all. |
| 14 | Christian Humanism in the North |
RR. pp. 80-6, 401-8, 717-21. Sowards, J. Kelley, ed. The Julius Exclusus of Erasmus. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1968, pp. 45-141. |
| 15 | Martin Luther and the Protestant Challenge |
RG. pp. 146-77. RR. pp. 677-703. |
| 16 | The Age of Reformations |
RG. pp. 178-202. RR. pp. 234-41. Hillerbrand, Hans, ed. “Radical Reform Movements.” In The Reformation. 6th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1978, pp. 214-38. |
| 17 | Sixteenth-Century Peasants I | Davis. The Return of Martin Guerre. pp. 1-61. |
| 18 | Sixteenth-Century Peasants II | Davis. The Return of Martin Guerre. pp. 62-125. |
| 19 | 1543: The Copernican Revolution |
RG. pp. 18-26. RR. pp. 584-611. |
| 20 | 1543: The Vesalian Revolution | RR. pp. 552-73. |
| 21 | Individual Consultations with Instructor | |
| 22 | Review | |
| 23 | Portuguese Expansion | RG. pp. 32-38. |
| 24 | Spanish Exploration |
RG. pp. 38-44. RR. pp. 146-57. |
| 25 | Spanish Conquest |
Burkholder, Mark A., and Lyman L. Johnson. Colonial Latin America. 4th ed., New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 42-59. ISBN: 9780195137026. Schwartz, Stuart B., ed. “The Siege and Fall of Tenochtitlan.” In Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 1999, pp. 182-213. ISBN: 9780312154080. |
| 26 | Conclusion: The Future of the Renaissance |
