Time, Space and Cultural Memory in Florence Fall 2015 ACM Florence Program

Description of Course: This course focuses on the ways in which the public spaces of Florence become activated through the movement and engagement of the people who live there as well as those who visit. More specifically, we will focus on three specific historical phenomena/moments in the city: pilgrimage in the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Grand Tour, and today's tourist environments.

Throughout the class, we will visit and re-visit the significant spaces of Florence in order to understand how they function differently for each audience at these specific historical moments, as well as how these spaces become more richly layered with meaning over time. By examining the visual elements of each site alongside textual and historical data and information, we can sharpen our understanding of the ways in which the past is made present in Florence today and yesterday. Not only are the public spaces of Florence rich visual sites for observation, but relics from all eras of the city’s past are found everywhere within it, from the miraculous image of the Virgin at Santissima Annunciata to Galileo’s finger in the science museum to the permanent “Traces of Florence” exhibit of the city’s history at the Palazzo Vecchio.

We also will visit sites outside of Florence to understand how similar rituals have been enacted both in the past and present. For example, we might take a pilgrimage to see the relics of St. Catherine in Siena or St. Anthony in Padua. Similarly, seeing St. Mark’s in Venice or St. Peter’s in Rome in light of their multiple pasts also will help us explore the ways in which past and present are richly intertwined.

In addition to investigating the ways in which visitors and inhabitants of Florence perceived spaces and objects in the past, students will consider the effects of these layers of meanings today. Over time, these sites have become so richly saturated with meaning for their audiences that movement through them becomes almost performative, both consciously and unconsciously. In observing these spaces today, we will consider what can happen when these spaces become oversaturated with meaning, and visitors perform the past without understanding the significance of the rituals they enact as they follow checklists and guidebooks.

Objectives and Goals of the Course:  To understand the complex connections between past and present made manifest in Florence today, as well as the ways these meanings have been constructed both tangibly through material objects and intangibly through cultural memories  To be able to apply this historical and current knowledge to specific problems, objects, sites and situations  To consider Florentine art and architecture in context: both the original context in which these objects were created, as well as the contexts in which they are viewed by later audiences

Course Requirements and Evaluation:

Participation: (30%) Discussion, response papers and class presentations will inform your understanding of course content. Class attendance is essential as we will need to move through the spaces ourselves in order to understand the experiential effects of change and permanence.

Short Papers: (30%) Short papers will build the foundation for the text of your Layers of the Past Project. (See below.)

Layers of the Past Project: (40%) In this digital humanities-based project you will select an object, space or structure in Florence and then track its life in the world over time, paying particular attention to the effects rendered in specific historical moments. The project itself will be posted online, with layers of time superimposed through both word and image.

Course Schedule:

The course schedule is subject to change pending site visit arrangements to be made in Fall 2015. The following offers a general sense of the course content and organization.

Site visits may include (but are not limited to) Santissima Annunciata, Orsanmichele, Santa Croce, Piazza della Signoria, Piazza del Duomo, Santa Maria Novella, Palazzo Pitti, Piazza delle Republica; Palazzo Davanzati, San Miniato al Monte.

Week 1: Pilgrimage in the Later Middle Ages/Renaissance Readings: selections from Crum & Paoletti, Renaissance Florence: A Social History. Also, selections from “Time and Narrative” in Italian Renaissance Learning Resources: http://italianrenaissanceresources.com/units/unit-6/

Week 2: Pilgrimage in the Later Middle Ages/Renaissance Reading: “The Time and Space of the Miraculous Image” in Garnett and Rosser, Spectacular Miracles: Transforming Images in Italy from the Renaissance to the Present. Also: Selections from Holmes, The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence

Week 3: Pilgrimage in the Later Middle Ages/Renaissance Reading: Selections from Cornelison and Montgomery, eds. Images, Relics, and Devotional Practices in Medieval and Renaissance Italy.

Week 4: Grand Tour Reading: Selections from Black, Italy and the Grand Tour. Also, selections from Forster, A Room with a View (1908) and also the 1985 Merchant Ivory film version.

Week 5: Grand Tour: Reading: Selections from: Dolan, Ladies of the Grand Tour. Also selections from Black, Italy and the Grand Tour

Week 6: Grand Tour Reading: Selections from Goethe, Italian Journey (1816); Henry James, Italian Hours (1909)

Week 7: Today’s Tourism Contemporary guidebook selections, including: Testa, An Art Lover’s Guide to Florence; the Blue Guide, etc.

Week 8: Today’s Tourism Online vs real experiences of Florence. Guidebook selections and websites vs. site visits.

Week 9: Layering the past in the present Readings TBD

Week 10: Conclusions/Final Projects