HISTORY OF ITALIAN CULTURE AND LITERATURE-FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE RENAISSANCE

To offer students the possibilities to read the political realities they encounter today.
To enable students to recognize the specific Italian character of our literature.
To develop linguistic competence in Italian.
To have some ideas about questione della lingua and the relationship between spoken Italian and Italian literature.

This course is made up of 12 lessons (2 ½ hrs each) and provides a quick introduction to Italian culture up until the Renaissance, focusing on the role of Venice in order to offer exchange students the chance to get to know the city. We will study the following texts:
- Gli affreschi di San Clemente: rapida descrizione dell’Italia dalla crisi dell’Impero romano d’occidente alle prime testimonianze linguistiche
dell’italiano. Nascita di Venezia. Diffusione del cristianesimo.
- Visita a San Marco, il ciclo dei mosaici, Palazzo Ducale, San Zaccaria.
- Dante. l’inferno. Canti 1
- Dante canto 5
- Dante, Il purgatorio, canto 1
- Dante Pardiso, canto 33
- Petrarca, il Canzoniere
- Boccaccio, Decamerone
- L’umanesimo e Venezia nel XV sec.
- Machiavelli, lettera a Vettori, il Principe.
- La riforma protestante e la nascita dell’opera
- La controriforma e Venezia.

Hearder, Harry. Italy: A Short History. C.U.P. 2001

12 lectures

English

One oral exam