MRST 110 - Medieval and Renaissance Culture

FDR: Offered as 110A when HL; or as 110 when HU; depending on topic.
Planned Offering: Winter
Credits: 3

Winter 2017, MRST 110-01: Life and Death in Dante’s Florence (3). People ate and slept and worked and played in the city of Florence during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, just as they do today. They studied and prayed and fought with each other, too, and they read books and considered images and sang songs to their heroes and advocates right up to the day they died. In this introduction to the history of European culture on the cusp of the early modern era, we examine the way common people, communal leaders, and spiritual guides conducted themselves on a daily basis. We read contemporary critiques of a socio-economic system that favored some (but not others) and see representations of concepts that held together the fabric of this society. We consider lay spirituality, art for common people, and the realities of life for women and children in their homes and in their neighborhoods. We wince at Dante’s bitter condemnation of his fellow Florentines in the Inferno and laugh at Boccaccio’s bawdy tales of vice and villainy in the Decameron. Specific events that challenged, confirmed, or changed this society serve as landmarks to help us construct a loose narrative of one of the region’s most influential and important centers, and help us understand how it came to be known as “the Cradle of the Renaissance”. (HU) Bent.