21H.311 | Fall 2004 | Undergraduate

The Renaissance, 1300-1600

Readings

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  

Course Info

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Fall 2004
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