Widely regarded as the 'cradle of the Renaissance', in the fifteenth century especially Florence experienced a remarkable flourishing of literature and the arts: it is strongly associated with figures such as Leon Battista Alberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Medici family (as well as, later on, Michelangelo, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Francesco Guicciardini). But what, precisely, lay behind these developments, and was Florence really quite as isolated in its glory as its portrayal often suggests? This module will examine various aspects of Florence's history and cultural production, up to the start in 1494 of the 'wars of Italy'. It will go through the fifteenth century in chronological sequence, pausing along the way to discuss and evaluate some signal cultural developments and compare the Florentine context with what was happening elsewhere in the Italian Peninsula.
Classes start on Thursday, 12th January and run from 15:00 to 17:00 in FAB 1.10.
Contact the tutor, Prof. David Lines, at d.a.lines@warwick.ac.uk.
Did you know that the far-right movement QAnon may have been inspired by an Italian novel of 1999? Since the 1960s, Italy's geo-political specificity made it a most vital cradle of conspiracy theories, contemporary legends, and more or less fake news, which were later disseminated on a global scale. From the political violence of the 1970s through the 'urban legends' of contemporary, multicultural Italy or the response of 'Italian Theory' to the Covid-19 pandemic, this module will offer a fascinating journey into the 'glocal' intersections between Italian culture and the contemporary world.
Through the analysis of novels, films, essays, and newspaper articles, lectures will lead you through the history of Italy's 'divided memory' in the 20th and 21st centuries, from the legends of WWII and the memory of Fascism through the terrorist attacks of the 1960s and 1970s, the emergence of controiformazione (alternative information) and conspiracy theories in the 1970s and 1980s, the diffusion of urban legends across the 1990s, and the debate on post-truth of the 2000s.