VENETIAN ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY – 1 FROM THE ORIGINS OF VENICE TO THE BIENNALE

The course is addressed to students coming from all study areas.The course is designed for international students and therefore represents an opportunity for native Italian students to experience 'internationalisation at home'.

Thanks to the combination of different teaching and learning techniques (frontal lectures; group discussion; guided tours) students will learn:
- to describe and compare works of Architecture, Painting and Sculpture and archaeological sites;
- to set them in their historical context and within the development of the History of European Art and Archaeology.

The course is conceived to introduce Venetian art to students who do not necessarily have a background in any field of Humanities, including Art. Students enrolled on a degree course in Classics, Arts or Humanities, especially MA students, are kindly asked to get in touch with the instructor.

The course will focus on the development and the spread of the arts in Venice from the origins of the city to the fall of the Serenissima. Starting from the analysis of the peculiar geo-morphological conditions of the city of Venice, the course will consider major works of Venetian art, ranging from architecture to sculpture and painting, in their historical and cultural context, from the high Middle Ages to the 19th century, also in connection with the artistic production of other important artistic centres of the Veneto region such as Treviso, Verona, Vicenza and Padua. The analysis of single masterpieces will represent a first glimpse at the historical context and will provide students with the opportunity to delve deeper into exploring their features, style and the techniques employed to produce them. Finally, the course will include a (virtual) visit to one museum (to be defined), which will provide the students a chance to experience some of the most beautiful and significant examples of Venetian works of art through the ages.

Recommended Reading List:

G. ORTALLI, G. SCARABELLO, A short history of Venice, Venezia, Pacini editore 1999 (available on Moodle).

E. DURSTELER (ed.), A Companion to Venetian History, Leiden, Brill, 2013.

C. BALDACCI, S. BASSI; L. DE CAPITANI, P. D. OMODEO (ed.), Venice and the Anthropocene. An ecocritical guide, Venezia, Wetlands, 2022.

Written test. Individual presentations on subjects previously discussed with the lecturer are welcome.
Attendance to classes is highly recommended.

Frontal lectures, guided tours (if possible).

The distinctive feature of the course is the international composition of the class, generally including a variety of provenances both in geography and education. For this reason too, attendance to classes is highly recommended. Please note that students who cannot attend classes are required to prepare some additional readings to be agreed with the instructor.

Please note that there is only one exam session. It is not possible to repeat the exam at a later date.
Students regularly enrolled in the Master's Degree Programme in European, American and Postcolonial Languages and Literatures are allowed to take the exam on an additional date no later than the end of the following month (i.e. the end of January 2024 if the exam session is in December 2023).
N.B. Students in this case must discuss the additional exam date with the teacher during the first weeks of classes.

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development