Religious Architecture and Art in Venice in the Age of the Serenissima: syllabus

1 Week
 “The Bosom of all Christendom”: The Churches and the City
February 26: course introduction
February 28: class discussion

Reading (to be discussed on February 28): Canon Pietro Casola’s Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the Year 1494, by M. Margaret Newett, Manchester 1907, chs. ii-iv: a description of Venice by a 15th-century priest from Milan.


2 Week
 “Holy Strongholds”: History, Mythology, and Architecture of the Earliest Churches
March 4: lecture
March 6: visit to San Giacomo di Rialto

Self-sightseeing + written report: San Nicolò dei Mendicoli. (By Sunday PRIOR to this week)

Reading (to be discussed on March 4): Paola Modesti, “A Builder Patron Saint for Venice: The Fifteenth-Century Rediscovery of Magnus”, forthcoming in the proceedings of the conference Faith and Fantasy in the Early Modern World, Victoria University of Toronto, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 19-20 October 2007.


3 Week
San Marco
March 11: lecture
March 13: class discussion

Image reading + written report (by Sunday PRIOR to this week).

Reading (to be discussed on March 13 and 18): Humfrey, “The church of San Marco”, in The Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice, as above, pp. 21, 24-29.


4 Week
Liturgy, Devotion, and Celebration: Church Decoration and Furnishing
March 18: lecture
March 20: visit to the Museum of San Marco

Image reading + written report (by Sunday PRIOR to this week)


5 Week
The Mendicant “Revolution”
April 1: lecture

Self-sightseeing + written report (by Sunday PRIOR to this week): Santi Giovanni e Paolo.

Reading: Humfrey, “The Gothic tradition”, in The Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice, as above, pp. 31-40.


6 Week
The Churches and the “Venetian Renaissance”
April 8: lecture
April 11, Friday morning: on-site seminar, churches of Santa Maria dei Frari, Santa Maria dei Miracoli, and San Salvador.

Self-sightseeing + written report (by Sunday PRIOR to this week): San Zaccaria

Reading (to be discussed on April 8): Humfrey, “The new architecture”, in The Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice, as above, pp. 40-48.
(to be discussed on April 11) David Rosand, “Titian and the Challenge of the Altarpiece”, in Painting in Sixteenth-Century Venice. Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Cambridge UK et al. 1997, pp. 35-61.


7 Week
Mid-term test and discussion
April 15: test
April 17: class discussion


8 Week
Church Design and Religious Patronage in the Sixteenth Century: the work of Jacopo Sansovino
April 22: lecture
April 24: on-site seminar, church of San Zulian

Self-sightseeing + written report (by Sunday PRIOR to this week): San Francesco della Vigna.

Reading (to be discussed on April 22): Wolfgang Wolters, “Jacopo Sansovino and his contemporaries”, in Norbert Huse, Wolfgang Wolters, The Art of Renaissance Venice, Chicago 1990, pp. 88-94.


9 Week
Religion and Social Boundaries: The Places for Worship and Devotion of Foreign Communities and Social Minorities
April 29: lecture
May 6: on-site seminar, Scuola of San Rocco

Self-sightseeing + written report (by Sunday PRIOR to this week): San Giorgio dei Greci.

Readings (to be discussed on April 29): “The Rule of a Lay Fraternity, 1535”, “Criticism of the Scuole Grandi, 1541”, “The Greeks. The Church and the Scuola at San Biagio in Castello”, “The Church of San Giorgio dei Greci”, and “The ‘Geto at San Hieronimo’, 1516”, in David Chambers, Brian Pullan (eds.), Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630, Toronto et al. 2004, pp. 209-216, 333-336, 338-339.


10 Week
Antiquity and Order: The Work of Andrea Palladio
May 8: lecture

Self-sightseeing + written report (by Sunday PRIOR to this week): San Giorgio Maggiore.

Reading: Wolters, “Andrea Palladio”, in Huse, Wolters, The Art of Renaissance Venice, as above, pp. 94-103; Peter Humfrey, “Coordinated altarpieces in Renaissance Venice: the progress of an ideal”, in Peter Humfrey, Martin Kemp (eds.), The Altarpiece in the Renaissance, Cambridge et al. 1990, pp. 190-211.


11 Week
Calamities and Exaltation: Venetian Churches in the Counter-Reformation Age
May 13: lecture
May 16, Friday morning: on-site seminar, churches of the Redentore, Santa Maria della Salute, and Santa Maria del Giglio

Self-sightseeing + written report (by Sunday PRIOR to this week): church of the Gesuiti

Reading (to be discussed on May 16): “The resolution to build the church of Santa Maria della Salute, 1630”, in Chambers, Pullan (eds.), Venice: A Documentary History, as above, pp. 414-416.


12 Week
Bright Epilogues: Church Design and Decoration in the Eighteenth Century
May 20: visit to the church of the Gesuati
May 22: final class discussion

Image reading + written report (by Sunday PRIOR to this week)

Reading (to be discussed on May 20): Adriano Mariuz, “Giambattista Tiepolo: “Painting’s True Magician”, in Giambattista Tiepolo, exhibition catalogue (Venice 1996-New York 1997) ed. by Keith Christiansen, London 1996, pp. 3-13.