We are delighted that you have decided to study at The Courtauld and even more

excited that you will be taking our MA course Continuity and Innovation: Reframing
Italian Renaissance Art from Masaccio to Michelangelo. Before everyone disappears
for the summer, we thought it would be useful to explain the structure of the course in
greater detail and suggest some preparatory reading.

All students working on Italian art between 1400 and 1550 take a core course in the
autumn term, which is co-taught by Barbara Furlotti and Scott Nethersole, together with
a teaching assistant. It is envisaged that there will be about 25 students on this
component of the course. The focus of this term is on skills that you will need in order
to study Italian art (visual analysis, reading documents, etc.), as well as on recurrent
historiographic themes (such as questions of periodisation, authorship, etc.). This
element of the course is a combination of lectures accompanied by large- and small-
group discussions and exercises. You will also write a series of essays which are
assessed formally and informally.

In the spring term, you break into smaller seminar groups of about eight students to
study a particular theme or period intensely. These are discursive classes run by an
individual tutor during which you will deliver presentations and complete coursework.
You will also travel in these groups to Italy. Next year, these topics will be ‘Arts in
Rome, 1520-1550’ with Guido Rebecchini, ‘Reacting to Florence? Perugia, Siena and
the Art of Central Italy’ with Scott Nethersole and ‘Versions of Antiquity in Venetian
Art, ca. 1470-1550’ with Irene Brooke. There will be a session during the autumn term
in which you can talk with the various tutors about their seminars and find out more
about what they entail. These courses have been designed to cover different locations,
methodological approaches and linguistic ability and we will assign you to them
according to our assessment of your interests and skills. We will make every effort to
respect your choices, but our primary concern is small class size and what we perceive
to be in your best interest.

Thereafter, you will begin to work on your dissertations. If you are able to combine
the skills, methodologies and historiographic knowledge you acquired in the autumn
term with the intellectual rigour and sharp focus of the spring term, then you will be in
a good position to submit a first-class dissertation during the summer term. However,
this is a long way off and you will receive a lot more information about what is involved
once the course has begun.

We also thought that we would suggest something to read over the summer. These
readings are intended as an introduction for those of you who might not have studied
art history formally before, or for those who are not familiar with Italy in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. Evelyn Welch’s book on Art and Society in Renaissance Italy
will introduce many of the issues that will concern us, even if she does only consider
the period between the late fourteenth century and circa 1500. Stephen Campbell and
Michael Cole’s beautifully-illustrated book, A New History of Italian Renaissance Art
covers the entire period. If you are not yet familiar with Michael Baxandall’s celebrated
Painting and Experience we would certainly recommend that you read it. It’s short and
can be finished in an afternoon. This can be usefully complemented by reading a few
of the chapters in Patricia Rubin’s book Images and Identity in Fifteenth-Century
Florence. Also useful will be Enrico Castelnuovo and Carlo Ginzburg’s essay on
‘Centre and Periphery’, in E. Bianchini & C. Dorey (ed.), History of Italian Art,
Cambridge, 1994, pp. 29-113. Those of you interested in Venetian Art can usefully read
Patricia Fortini Brown, Venice and Antiquity, Paul Joannides, Titian to 1518, and the
first five chapters in Tom Nichols’s Renaissance Art in Venice: From Tradition to
Individualism?

For sixteenth-century Italy, it will be useful to start the course with clear ideas about
Raphael’s and Michelangelo’s works and careers, which you can gain from Johannes
Wilde’s Michelangelo: Six Lectures (Oxford, 1978) and Bette Talvacchia’s Raphael
(New York, 2007). An interesting critical approach to their careers is in Rona Goffen,
Renaissance Rivals: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, New Haven and
London, 2002.

Most important of all, however, is to engage with primary sources. Giorgio Vasari’s
Lives of the Artists can be read in English and are a good and enjoyable starting point.
There are several good compilations of documents, including David S. Chambers’
Patrons and Artists in the Italian Renaissance, 1400-1500 and Robert Klein’s and
Henri Zerner’s Italian Art 1500-1600, both published within the series “Sources and
Documents”. You will find these referenced and discussed in Martin Kemp’s Behind
the Picture: Art and Evidence in the Italian Renaissance. In terms of documents for
Venice, Part X (pp. 385-441) of Chambers and Pullan, eds., Venice: a Documentary
History 1450-1630 is dedicated to the visual arts.

We realize that some of you might need to brush up on your Italian and can strongly
recommend the courses offered by the “Università per stranieri” in either Perugia or
Siena. Otherwise, if your budget or commitments do not allow you to spend time in
Italy over the summer, there are bound to be evening classes or conversation groups
nearer to your home (the Italian Cultural Institute on Belgrave Square in London is
especially good).

Of course, you could not prepare yourself better for study at The Courtauld than by
spending time looking at paintings, sculptures and drawings, either in Italy, London, or
your home town. We also strongly recommend that you familiarise yourself with the
Italian Renaissance paintings in the National Gallery, London, and the corresponding
collections of sculpture at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Otherwise, we hope you have a relaxing summer.

With best wishes,

Irene Brooke, Barbara Furlotti, Scott Nethersole and Guido Rebecchini