- UCAS course code
- VV20
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Course unit details:
The Art of Late Medieval Italy: Commerce, Religion, Travel
Unit code | AHCP20171 |
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Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 2 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 1 |
Available as a free choice unit? | Yes |
Overview
Aims
Introduce students to primary and secondary source material – visual and textual – for studying art in Italy during the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
This will include consideration of:
- Techniques and materials, including those relating to sculpture, textiles, and painting
- The impact of state and religious institutions on art
- The ways in which religious beliefs were demonstrated in art of the period
- Secular art
- Encounters with other cultures
- Questions surrounding the commissioning of art by different types of patron, including women
Learning outcomes
This course unit will enable students to gain and improve a number of skills including:
- Time management and being able to work to deadlines.
- Working in a team and leading and participating in discussion.
- Presenting an argument to an audience and being able to field questions.
- Presenting written material in a professional format.
- Working, with guidance, on research including finding suitable material for assessments and being able to assess this material.
- Reflection on discussions and assignments enabling future improvement.
Syllabus
Topics covered may include:
1. The religious orders and their art in Italy (Franciscans)
2. The religious orders and their art in Italy (Dominicans)
3. Ruling Italy: The City State and its images
4. Secular art in the home
5. Ruling Italy: The Kingdom of Naples
6. Women and Art
7. Encounters with other cultures
8. Images, miracles, relics and reliquaries
9. Sculpture
10. The artist’s world: materials, techniques, and commissions
11. Textiles and Art
Teaching and learning methods
Knowledge and understanding
- Identify different types of sources for Italian art of the period being studied.
- Explain key issues in the study of art in Italy during this period.
- Demonstrate the ability to locate, select, organise, interpret, evaluate and present material appropriate to the course.
Intellectual skills
- Analyse art covered in the course unit.
- Articulate intellectual arguments orally and in writing.
- Critically evaluate secondary source material.
Practical skills
- Produce detailed visual analyses.
- Use appropriate software (e.g Powerpoint) to give a presentation in class.
- Carry out supervised research in order to meet assessment requirements.
Transferable skills and personal qualities
- Participate confidently and appropriately in group discussions.
- Manage time effectively.
- Respond positively to constructive feedback.
Employability skills
- Group/team working
- Working in a team and leading and participating in discussion.
- Written communication
- Presenting written material in a professional format.
- Other
- Time management and being able to work to deadlines.
Assessment methods
Formative - Essay plan.
Summative - Literature review weighting 40%.
Presentation weighting 10%.
Essay weighting 50%.
Feedback methods
Formative - Individual meeting.
Summative - Written feedback with opportunity for individual meeting.
Recommended reading
Overviews of Italian art in the fourteenth century can be found in:
John T. Paoletti and Gary Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy, 3rd edition (London: Laurence King Publishing, 2005), pp. 47-202.
Evelyn Welch, Art in Renaissance Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
John White, Art and Architecture in Italy, 1250-1400 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966).
For life in the medieval city, focused on Italy, see:
Chiara Frugoni, A Day in a Medieval City (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
For specific examples of fourteenth-century art, and some of the questions that we will discuss in this course unit, see:
Roxann Prazniak, ‘Siena on the Silk Roads: Ambrogio Lorenzetti and the Mongol Global Century, 1250-1350’, in Journal of World History 21.2 (20102), pp. 177-217.
Vera-Simone Schulz, ‘Infiltrating artifacts: The Impact of Islamic Art in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Florence and Pisa’, in Konsthistorisk tidskrift 87:4 (2018), pp. 214-233.
Anne Dunlop, ‘On the origins of European painting materials, real and imagined’, in Christy Anderson, Anne Dunlop, and Pamela H. Smith, eds, The Matter of Art: Materials, Practices, Cultural Logics, c. 1250-1750 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), pp. 68-96.
Mario Ascheri and Bradley Franco, ‘Siena’s Golden Age: Montaperti and Good Government’, in A History of Siena from its Origins to the Present Day (London: Routledge, 2018), pp. 39-65.
Bronwen Wilson, ‘Bedroom Politics: The Vexed Spaces of Late Medieval Public Making’, in History Compass10.9 (2012), pp. 608-621.
Bradley Franco, ‘The functions of early Franciscan art’, in The World of Saint Francis of Assisi, ed. William H. Ahlquist (Leiden: Brill, 2015) pp. 19-44.
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
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Seminars | 33 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 167 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Cordelia Warr | Unit coordinator |