13800 - Italian Literature in the Renaissance

Academic Year 2019/2020

  • Docente: Andrea Severi
  • Credits: 12
  • SSD: L-FIL-LET/10
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Humanities (cod. 8850)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students are expected to acquire: a sound knowledge of a specific cultural context (the Italian Renaissance) through the reading of literary texts in an interdisciplinary perspective; the ability to analyse and interpret literary texts (in linguistic, rethorical and philological perspective)

Course contents

The course is subdivided in two parts: the first part will be dedicated to a discussion of the 'Renaissance' as a cultural context (1 lesson) and historical category (2 lessons) as well as to crucial themes and authors of the period, from the end of the XV Century to the end of the XVI Century (12 lessons). The themes that will be pointed out in this first part of the course will be:

  • The XV Century roots of the Renaissance;
  • The new places of the knowledge, the main characters, the new institutions: the print, the Academies, the courts, the Universities, the censorship;
  • The concept of imitation: imitatio/aemulatio;
  • The debate about language as example of relationship between classics and moderns;
  • The Petrarchism and its variations;
  • The courtly and behavioral treatises;
  • The political treatises;
  • Epic poems from Ariosto to Tasso;
  • The rediscovery of Aristotele’s Poetica and the discussion above epic poem.

the second module will focus on a specific topic: "Universal genes: Leon Battista Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci". In the five hundredth anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci (1519-2019), the second part of the course intends to revisit, in the light of the most recent studies, the Burckhardt's category of "universal man", analyzing the two main exponents on which the Swiss historian erected this myth of the Renaissance man. The path proposed by the teacher will highlight the versatile and encyclopedic character of these "very powerful" personalities (Burckhardt), able to exalt themselves in the study of multiple disciplines and to express themselves in different languages, but which however find in writing (literary or otherwise) of their practical and intellectual experiments an indispensable place of sedimentation of their reflection, even before communicating the results of their research.

The course will begin on February 5th, 2020. Classes will be held on Wednesdays, from 9am to 11am in room VII (Zamboni Street, 38), on Thursdays from 13pm to 15pm in room XI (Zamboni Street, 38), on Friday from 15pm to 17pm in room VII (Zamboni Street, 38).

Readings/Bibliography

1) FIRST MODULE

For the first part of the course students are expected to know:

the fundamental features of the history of Italian literature of the Sixteenth century. Recommended texts: La letteratura italiana, diretta da Ezio Raimondi: Dalle origini al Cinquecento, a cura di L. Chines, G. Forni, G. Ledda, E. Menetti, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2007, capitoli 7-11; or: G. Alfano, C. Gigante, E. Russo, Il Rinascimento, Roma, Salerno ed., 2016 (capp. I-IV, VII, IX e le Conclusioni).

Students are required to prepare at least two of the following books (at least three for non-attending students):

  1. Eugenio Garin, La cultura del Rinascimento, Bari, Laterza, 1967;
  2. Jacob Burckhardt,La civiltà del Rinascimento in Italia, Firenze, Sansoni, 2000;
  3. Gian Mario Anselmi, L'età dell'Umanesimo e del Rinascimento. Le radici italiane dell'Europa Moderna, Carocci, Roma, 2008 (capitoli 9-15);
  4. Ugo Dotti, La rivoluzione incompiuta. Società politica e cultura in Italia da Dante a Machiavelli, Torino, Aragno, 2010 (capp. I-V della Seconda Parte);
  5. Nicola Gardini, Rinascimento, Torino, Einaudi, 2010.

2) SECOND MODULE

  Students are required to prepare one of the following two books:

- A. Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti: un genio universale, Roma, Laterza, 2003;

- C. Vecce, Leonardo, Roma, Salerno, 2006 (2° ed. aggiornata e rivista).

moreover one of the following two volumes: 

 - L.B. Alberti, Autobiografia, in Autobiografia e altre opere latine, a cura di L. Chines e A. Severi, Milano, Bur, 2012 (2015 2a ed.);

 - Leonardo da Vinci, Scritti, a cura di C. Vecce, Milano, Mursia, 1992.

  Finally one (two for non-attending students)  of the following essays:

- M. Paoli, Leon Battista Alberti, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2007;

- G. Albanese, Leon Battista Alberti nella storiografia letteraria e artistica dell’Umanesimo e del Rinascimento, «Rinascimento», 47 (2007), pp. 49-91;

- C. Vecce, Scritti di Leonardo da Vinci, in Letteratura italiana. Le opere, II (Dal Cinquecento al Settecento), diretta da A. Asor Rosa, Torino, Einaudi, 1993, pp. 95-124;

- C. Dionisotti, Leonardo uomo di lettere, "Italia Medievale e Umanistica", 5 (1962), pp. 183-216.

 

 

Teaching methods

Lectures and discussions aimed at reading texts and discussing interpretative hypotheses about them.

Assessment methods

Oral exam consisting of a discussion (approx. 40-45 minutes) of both the general and the monographic section. Students are required to show the ability to discuss and interpret the assigned texts clearly and persuasively, relating them to their cultural context. Also the student's ability to express himself with clarity and language properties will be evaluated. The standard of oral expression will also be assessed.

  • The lack of ability to orientate itself in the literary panorama of Renaissance culture and to recognize the fundamental characteristics of the major texts of the late 15th and 16th centuries of the program will entail negative voting;
  • The student who will grasp the fundamental aspects of the works and authors proposed during the course and will recognize the fundamental questions and the salient features of the most important works of Renaissance literature and its protagonists will achieve a positive evaluation (vote: 25-28);
  • An in-depth knowledge of humanistic texts and literature will imply a very good (29-30) and even excellent (30L) evaluation. To achieve excellence, a complete understanding of all the topics covered is required, and also the firm possession of the literary chronology (the dates of the major works' output of the authors treated are important), the use of precise technical terminology (in the rhetorical domain) , philological-literary, etc .. eg: to know being able to say the precise literary genre to which the mentioned works belong, or to indicate the chronological range of composition in the case of very famous works, such as L'Orlando furioso or Il Cortegiano) and, moreover , a personal critical elaboration of the acquired contents.

Teaching tools

Projection of word, pdf and ppw files.

Office hours

See the website of Andrea Severi