WEEK I | August 31 – September 4

Dante, Divine Comedy: Inferno.

Erwin Panofsky, “Renaissance and Renascences” (pamphlet).

Lecture: Dante’s World (Knapp)

WEEK II | September 8 - 12

NOTE: THE LECTURE THIS WEEK IS ON WEDNESDAY, SINCE LABOR DAY IS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7th

Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2nd Part of the 2nd Part: Question 8, The Gift of Understanding, Question115, Flattery, and Question 182, The Active Life in Comparison With the Contemplative Life. The Summa is available on the World Wide Web at www.newadvent.org/summa. The required reading is at the following sites: www.newadvent.org/summa/300800.htm, www.newadvent.org/summa/311500.htm, and www.newadvent.org/summa/318200.htm. Note that Question 8 has 8 parts; Question 115 has 2 parts; and Question 182 has 4 parts—be sure to read them all. Copies of this reading will also be on reserve.

Petrarch, “Ascent of Mount Ventoux,” Renaissance Philosophy of Man, edited by Cassirer et al., 36-46.

Pico della Mirandola, “Oration on the Dignity of Man,” Renaissance Philosophy of Man, 215-254.

Rice/Grafton, The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1-109.

Wednesday Lecture: The Humanist Response to Scholasticism (Garrett)

WEEK III | September 14 - 18

Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in 15th-Century Italy, 29-93 [optional: 1-27, 94-108].

Randolph Starn and Loren Partridge, Arts of Power, 83-148 (on reserve).

Alberti, “On Painting” Italian Art 1400-1500 (pamphlet).

Lecture: The Arts of Perspective (Katz)

WEEK IV | September 21 - 25

Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, Prologue, 31-36; Book I, 39-45, 51-98, 102-104; Book II, 107-133, 199-202; Book III, 207-231, 274-278; Book IV, 281-282, 288-304, 315-345.

Lecture: Impersonating a Courtier (Steinman)

WEEK V | September 28 – October 2

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (entire; in Selected Political Writings).

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses, Book I: Preface, Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 55; Book II: Chapter 2; Book III: Chapter 41 (in Selected Political Writings).

Rice/Grafton, Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 110-45.

Lecture: Machiavelli (Miller)

WEEK VI | October 5 - 9

Desiderius Erasmus, Praise of Folly (and the “Letter to Dorp”).

John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400-1700. Part I.

Lecture: Foolish Rhetoric (Steinman)

WEEK VII | October 12 - 16

Thomas More, Utopia.

Lecture: Of The Best State of a Commonwealth (Sacks)

WEEK VIII | October 26 - 30

Bartolomé Las Casas, “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,” (pp. 3-30, 42-56, in pamphlet).

Bernal Diaz, The Conquest of New Spain, 85-99, 107-118, 166-188, 189-204, 216-219, 232-235, 245-257, 278-304, 353-413..

Hernan Cortes, “Letters from Mexico,” First Letter (pp. 3-46), Second Letter (pp. 47-81, 130-159, in pamphlet).

Lockhart, Ed., We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico (pp. 1-21, 27-37, 48, 70-88, 114-122, 138-156, 180-184, 214-220, 224, 246-254, in pamphlet).

Monday Lecture: The New World (Miller)

Wednesday Lecture: Representing the Spaces of Conquest in the New World (Katz)

WEEK IX | November 2 - 6

M. Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian” in Luther, Three Treatises, (pp. 277-316, in pamphlet).

Luther and Erasmus, Free Will and Salvation, 35-64, 68-69, 74-79, 85-97, 101-144, 169-173, 208-215, 246-249, 329-334 .

Erasmus, "Hyperaspistes," 96-97; 135-137; 157-160; 296-297 (pamphlet, from Controversies).

Rice/Grafton, Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 146-177.

Lecture: Human Freedom, Divine Necessity, and the Self: Erasmus vs. Luther (Bedau)

WEEK X | November 9 - 13

S. Lotzer, “Twelve Articles of the Peasantry” (pamphlet; from The German Peasant War of 1525).

Luther, “Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants” (pamphlet; from Luther’s Works, vol 46).

Natalie Davis, Society and Culture, “The Rites of Violence,” 152-187.

Jean Calvin, “Of Eternal Election,” “On Resistance and Magistracy” (pamphlet; from Institutes of the Christian Religion).

John Sleidan, The General History of the Reformation (1555, selections in pamphlet).

Lecture: Reformation and Society (Knapp)

WEEK XI | November 16 - 20

Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel: 1) Pantagruel, Prologue and chapters 1-9, 16, 23-34 and 2) Gargantua, Prologue and chapters 1, 3-8, 14-17, 21-32, 34-36, 48-58 [note: Gargantua is a “prequel” to Pantagruel].
If you are using the 2006 edition edited by M. A. Screech, the pages to read are Pantagruel pp. 11-62; 86-91; 118-164 and Gargantua, pp. 203-211; 215-233; 250-260; 268-307; 313-319; 356-379.

Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, (pp. 59-101, in pamphlet).

Lecture: Rabelais (Knapp)

WEEK XII | November 23 - 25 [Thanksgiving vacation Nov. 26 - 29]

Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms.

Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, “Reasons of Misrule” and ”Women on Top” 97-151.

Lecture: High and Low: Elite and Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Kierstead)

WEEK XIII | November 30 - December 4

Michel de Montaigne, Essays: “On the Power of Imagination,” “On Cannibals,” “On the Custom of Wearing Clothes,” “On Experience.”

Lecture: Montaigne: What Do I Know? (Kierstead)