LECTURE 1 "Florence"
Myth & History of the Renaissance City:Florence,..
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1h 3m
Florence was the first Italian city consciously to seek out ancient Roman sculpture and architecture as models for its own art. Prompted by the new interest in classical Roman texts, an awareness of its own history as having been founded as Roman military camp and the political needs of the city at the beginning of the fifteenth century, Florentine artists sought a visual language that would complement this expanding understanding of the city’s Roman past. But the very nature of this antique awareness itself changed by the end of the century to meet the needs of an increasingly autocratic culture dominated by the Medici family, ultimately leading to an art that spoke more to an educated citizenry rather than to the much more numerous underclasses.
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LECTURE 2 "Rome"
When the papacy returned to Rome in 1420 after an exile in Avignon because of schism that had begun in 1378, Pope Martin V began the task of restoring the city so that it would indicate the power of the restored papacy to govern not only the Church but also the political territory of the Papal St...
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LECTURE 3 "Venice"
Venice is distinct from Florence and Rome, most notably because it had no history attaching it to ancient Rome. Built on bogs that did not provide a solid foundation for large urban structures, it did not even begin to emerge as an inhabitable city until the middle ages when the small islands beg...
