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Calendar

CLASS # TOPICS READINGS ASSIGNMENTS
1. Introduction: The History of Renaissance History.
2. Geography, Demography, Global Trade, 1300-1600. Le Roy Ladurie. Montaillou. Pp. 3-135.
3. The World of the Peasantry, ca. 1300. Le Roy Ladurie. Montaillou. Pp. 139-230.
4. The Black Death.

Herlihy. The Black Death and the Transformation of the West. Pp. 1-81.

Boccaccio. Introduction to The Decameron (Course Reader [CR]).

Map quiz.
5. The Discarded Image. Ross and McLaughlin. The Portable Renaissance Reader (RR). Pp. 580-3. First paper due.
6. The Beginnings of Humanism in Fourteenth-Century Italy.

Rice and Grafton. The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559 (RG). Pp. 1-10, 77-90.

RR. Pp. 120-30.

Petrarch. The Ascent of Mount Ventoux (CR).

Second paper due.
7. Civic Humanism in Early Fifteenth-Century Italy and beyond.

Introduction and Bruni's Panegyric to the City of Florence (CR).

RR. Pp. 476-9.

8. Art and Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy.

RG. Pp. 90-114.

RR. Pp. 140-5, 527-40.

Baxandall. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy. Pp. 1-27.

9. A Visit to the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. Baxandall. Pp. 29-153. Third paper due.
10. Burgundy and Late Medieval Politics in the North. RR. Pp. 185-202.
11. The New Monarchies and the Invasion of Italy.

RG. Pp. 110-45.

RR. Pp. 279-94.

12. Politics Reinvented. Machiavelli. The Prince (all).
13. Christian Humanism in the North.

RR. Pp. 80-6, 401-8, 717-21.

Erasmus. Julius Excluded From Heaven (all) (CR).

14. Martin Luther and the Protestant Challenge.

RG. Pp. 146-77.

RR. Pp. 677-703.

15. The Age of Reformations.

RG. Pp. 178-202.

RR. Pp. 234-41.

Lyndal Roper. "Sexual Utopianism in the German Reformation." In Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality, and Religion in Early Modern Europe. London: Routledge, 1994 (CR).

Fourth paper due.
16. Sixteenth-Century Peasants I. Davis. The Return of Martin Guerre. Pp. 1-61.
17. Sixteenth-Century Peasants II. Davis. The Return of Martin Guerre. Pp. 62-125. Fifth paper due.
18. 1543: The Copernican Revolution.

RG. Pp. 18-26.

RR. Pp. 584-611.

19. 1543: The Vesalian Revolution. RR. Pp. 552-73.

Visit to the Dibner Library.

Sixth paper due.

20. Individual consultations with instructor.
21. Review.
22. Portuguese Expansion. RG. Pp. 32-38.
23. Spanish Exploration.

RG. Pp. 38-44.

RR. Pp. 146-57.

24. Spanish Conquest.

Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson. Colonial Latin America. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, Pp. 41-50 (CR).

Stuart B. Schwartz, ed. Victors and Vanquished. Boston: St. Martin's, 2000, pp. 182-213 (CR).

25. Long paper due.
26. Scientists, Magicians, and Humanists. John Henry. "Magic and Science in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries." In R.C. Olby et al., eds. Companion to the History of Modern Science. London: Routledge, 1990, pp. 583-96 (CR).
27. Literary Magic. Shakespeare. The Tempest (all).