Florence, Italy - Course Descriptions - Survey of Italian Architecture

Course Information

Contact Hours and Credits

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Full Description

This course will provide the student with a basic survey of the history of architecture, from antiquity through the twentieth century, using the city of Florence as a case study of major movements and issues in architectural and urban design. We will examine the city from its earliest foundations as a Roman military colony through its great Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance monuments that still define the city today. We will finish the course by looking at the interventions of Poggi and Michelucci in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Classes will consist of a combination of slide lectures in class, site visits to major monuments, discussions and drawing assignments. The objectives of the course are to have you achieve a thorough understanding of the buildings, urban structures, and spaces of the city of Florence as well as an understanding of the general themes of architectural and urban history. In addition, it is hoped that through your study of the particular case of Florence, you will be equipped with an intellectual framework by which you may examine the architecture and urbanism of other places in various periods. An ancillary objective is to provide you with an opportunity to develop skills in drawing, sketching, and analyzing buildings and urban spaces.

Prerequisites

None. This course is open to students of all levels.

Lectures will include:

• Introduction to Course
• The Layered City: The Architecture of the Ancient World
• Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture
• Romanesque Architecture IV Florence: From Antiquity through the 11th century
• Italian Gothic Architecture
• Brunelleschi’s New Language of Architecture: Cupola & Hospital of the Innocents
• Medici Patronage: San Lorenzo and Medici Palace
• Architectural Writing in the Renaissance
• Domestic Architecture: Quattrocento Palaces in Florence
• Renaissance Architecture in the 16th Century, part I
• Michelangelo, Architect: New Sacristy and Laurentian Library
• The Uffizi as Urban Design
• Renaissance Architecture in the 16th Century, part II
• Drawing on the Past: The Villa all’antica
• Baroque and Rococo
• Mannerist and Baroque Florence
• XIII The Dawn of Modernity
• Florence, Capital: Urban Transformations

Facilities

Students have access to the Santa Reparata Library for research and reading assignments during normal school hours. The library contains over 1,200 volumes of art history books and art catalogs in addition to numerous art periodicals.

Required Supplies and Course Fees

Art History supplies are not included in the program fee. Students will be supplied with a complete list of required and optional materials that can be purchased in Florence (approximately 30-60 Euro). Students may wish to bring other supplies with them as well.

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