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· Course Description
From Aristotle we will turn to the ancient Roman republic where the public world expands in significance, insofar as all Romans are under a law they regard as “greater than any human being” (Livy II.1). Under the empire the public world remains intimately bound up with the private one, and new kinds of families and friendships become predominant. Stoic, Christian , and modern reactions to the Roman model of public life fundamentally redefine the private sphere. We will try to understand the Roman model and the reactions to it through Livy, Virgil, Plutarch, Paul, and Shakespeare. Readings in Virgil and Aristotle will make up about half of the course. We will do the readings at a leisurely pace so that we will have time to visit Rome. Rome is the natural setting for this course. The connections between the course and the city require little explanation. The history of ancient Rome, pagan and Christian, is central to many of our ideas of public and private. Further, many of the authors we will read in this class are concerned with ancient Rome. Beyond this, much of the most important art in Rome, from ancient through Renaissance to Baroque, reflects on our theme. For more on the connections of the course with the city, see the excursion descriptions below. Most days after the morning seminar, students will get a brief pre-visit presentation intended to make a provocative connection between the text under discussion and the site to be visited in Rome that day. Informal discussion can follow then, or later on, when on site. Two formal lectures will address us on our theme. · Excursions The class will go on four formal, full-day excursions. Three are in Rome, while a fourth excursion, together with the other RILA class, will take us outside of Rome, to Naples. In formal excursions students explore sites together with one or both seminar leaders and usually with an art historian or classicist. In addition, the class goes on an informal, non-required excursion at least one afternoon per week with one or both seminar leaders. Finally, there will be two optional weekend overnight trips outside of Rome. Formal excursions will begin with the introduction of our theme at the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s. Many important works of art in the Vatican are intimately tied to, and of profound significance for our theme and our readings. In classical art, and in artists from Raphael to Michelangelo, Bernini and Caravaggio, we will try to understand what might be at stake and how artworks and architecture might help us think about our questions. The second week’s formal excursion day will take us to sites that will help us begin to outline Roman history. We will discuss changes in the roles of ruler and subject from the period of the kings, to the republic, to the empire, while visiting the Capitoline Museums, the Palatine and Forum. In the third week we will begin at the Naples Archeological Museum, one of the finest archeological museums anywhere. Of particular interest in the collection for our theme and readings are the Farnese Hercules, the decorations of the Temple of Isis, as well as many other impressive paintings and sculptures. We will also visit the Museum of Capodimonte, which houses many major works of Renaissance art of interest for our theme. Finally, in a fourth excursion we will consider the notion of public and private in early modern art and architecture. We will focus on the new theatricality that is distinctive of the Baroque, considering the relation with the spectator in Bernini and Caravaggio. We will visit in paintings and architectural works in the following museums and sites: Galleria Borghese, San Luigi dei Francesi, Santa Maria della Vittoria, San Andrea al Quirinale. Weekly informal excursions are designed to supplement these formal excursions. As a group we will visit the Pantheon, the great collections of classical art in the Palazzo Altemps and the Palazzo Massimo; the ancient church of Santa Sabina on the Aventine hill and the Gesu’ church; the Villa Farnesina, a Renaissance palace, and Palazzo Barberini, now a museum of Baroque art. Optional Overnight Trips All students and faculty in both RILA summer classes will be invited on two non-required, overnight trips outside of Rome. The first optional trip will be to Florence. Florence’s museums and churches offer numerous works of art that will be of deep interest to students in both RILA classes. Students in the class “Gods and Giants” will also be able to visit the Institute and Museum of the History of Science which houses a vast collection of ancient and modern scientific instruments, including Galileo’s drawings, documents, telescopes, and other instruments. Another trip will be to Siena, where students in “Public and Private” can visit the Palazzo Pubblico, which was the beginning of a new development in the idea of public life in the late middle ages, the birth of the commune and the end of the feudal order. Within the historic building are Lorenzetti’s Aristotle inspired frescoes of good and bad government. These famous frescoes alone are worth the trip for readers of Aristotle’s Politics. Siena, which is one of the most beautiful cities in Italy, has much else to offer. It contains some of the finest examples of art from the middle ages and renaissance.
Each optional trip requires paying separately for a bus trip as well as one night in a hotel. Details will be made available later, but we make sure these trips are very inexpensive. In past years nearly all participants in all RILA courses went on both optional trips.
· Guest Lectures To be announced · Readings
Sophocles, Antigone. · Seminar Faculty Katherine Heines, St. John’s College, Annapolis Joseph Walter Sterling, St. John’s College, Santa Fe · Art Historian Gianpaolo Castelli · Optional Courses Italian language course
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· Course Description
Rome is a unique place to study our theme. The history of ancient astronomy, and its political significance for the Roman emperors, is inscribed in the monuments and measuring devices they built as signs of their rule. Later, the art of the Renaissance will stage debates about nature, opposing materialism and neo-Platonism. Baroque art and architecture take up new attitudes towards materiality and space, in the works of revolutionaries like Caravaggio and Borromini. Comparing Galileo’s geometry with that of the Baroque architecture contemporary with him, or reading Ptolemy or Aristotle within the Pantheon, illuminate rival accounts of space through rival architectural forms. Of course, there are also direct historical connections to our Galileo segment. The history of Galileo’s initial closeness with the Jesuits, Bellarmine, and Pope Urban VIII, and their eventual opposition to him, helps elaborate the political questions our theme raises. Galileo frequently visited and taught in the very building where we will have class, formerly the Roman College, home to Jesuit scientists and mathematicians. Right across the street is the room where Galileo was condemned. There are monuments, buildings, and artworks throughout the city that are connected historically to his presence in Rome. But the city will be of use to us not simply in illustrating our readings, and not simply for historical interest. Rather, the great art and architecture of Rome offers other primary sources that we can put side by side with the readings we do in class. Most days after seminar, students will get a brief pre-visit presentation intended to make a provocative connection between the text under discussion and art/architecture to be visited in Rome. Informal discussion can follow then, or later on, when on site. Two formal lectures will address us on our theme. · Excursions The “Gods and Giants” class will go on four formal, full-day excursions. Three are in Rome, while a fourth excursion, together with the other RILA class, will take us to Naples. In formal excursions students explore together with both seminar leaders and often also with an art historian or classicist. In addition, the class goes on an informal, non-required excursion at least one afternoon per week with one or both seminar leaders. Finally, there will also be two other optional weekend trips outside of Rome to which all RILA students and faculty are invited. Formal excursions will begin with a day on Platonism in Rome. We will visit the Vatican, where we can sketch out the meaning of our gods/giants divide. We will use our theme to illuminate individual artworks and to juxtapose artworks by classical artists and by figures like Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggio, and Bernini. The formal excursion in the second week will begin with two astronomical monuments in the Campus Martius section of ancient Rome. We will examine Augustus’ meridian device and discuss its connection to his political monument, the Ara Pacis, as well as to his mausoleum. We will continue on to Hadrian’s Pantheon, an even more interesting and complex astronomical measuring device which also had its own political significance. In the afternoon we will visit the Villa Farnesina. There Ptolemy’s astrology is given a political twist in the ceiling decoration, while on the walls in the rooms below are two sets of Platonic allegorical fresco cycles by Raphael. In the third week we will visit Naples Archeological Museum and the Museum of Capodimonte. There, amongst the many treasures of these great museums, we will be able to examine the Atlas sculpture with the famous star catalogue of Hipparchus, and decipher the Platonic allegories in the ancient temple of Isis, as well as in Renaissance painters like Raphael, Bellini, and Titian. A fourth trip, back in Rome, will compare Galileo’s ideas of space and geometry with those of his contemporary, the architect Borromini. We will visit a number of his buildings, the churches of Sant’ Ivo, San Carlino, and Sant Agnese, and his work in the Palazzo Spada. There will also be a number of informal excursions that supplement the formal ones. We will visit buildings artistically important in themselves that also happen to be sites of historical interest for Galileo’s time in Rome, like Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Sant’ Ignazio, Palazzo Barberini, and Santa Maria Maggiore. We will also visit the collections of classical art in the Palazzo Altemps and the Palazzo Massimo; the great collection of the Galleria Borghese. Optional Overnight Trips Both RILA summer classes will be invited on two non-required, overnight trips outside of Rome. The first optional trip will be to Florence. Florence’s museums and churches offer numerous works of art that will be of deep interest to students in both RILA classes. Students in the class “Gods and Giants” will also have a special interest in the Institute and Museum of the History of Science which houses a vast collection of ancient and modern scientific instruments, including Galileo’s drawings, documents, telescopes, and other instruments. Another trip will be to Siena, where students in “Public and Private” can visit the Palazzo Pubblico, which was the beginning of a new development in the idea of public life in the late middle ages, the birth of the commune and the end of the feudal order. Within the historic building are Lorenzetti’s Aristotle inspired frescoes of good and bad government. These famous frescoes alone are worth the trip for readers of Aristotle’s Politics. Siena, which is one of the most beautiful cities in Italy, has much else to offer. It contains some of the finest examples of art from the middle ages and renaissance. Each optional trip requires paying separately for a bus trip as well as one night in a hotel. Details will be made available later, but we make sure these trips are as inexpensive as possible. In past years nearly all participants in all RILA courses went on both optional trips. · Guest Lectures To be announced · Readings Plato, Timaeus. · Seminar Faculty Chester Burke, St. John’s College, Annapolis Gabriel Pihas, St. John’s College, Annapolis, RILA Academic Director · Art Historian Gianpaolo Castelli · Optional Courses Italian language course
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