11965 - History of Modern Art (1)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course students will possess a detailed knowledge of Italian and European art history from the early Cinquecento to the end of the Settecento. They will be familiar with the main issues and research lines of these centuries’ art, recognising and commenting on works by artists who best represent the various movements.

Course contents

The objective of the course is to provide the student with adequate critical tools for the study and interpretation of works of art parting with a historical contextual approach.

The course is devoted to the study of magic and witchcraft in art from the Sixteenth to the Seventeenth century. At the beginning of the course, will be considered engravings, drawings, paintings, with magical-witchcraft subjects, produced in Northern Europe, initially by anonymous draughtsmen, then by very important artists such as Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and Hans Baldung Grien (1476-1545), but also by Italian artists such as Agostino Veneziano (ca. 1490-1540). It will be shown that the subjects treated by these artists have numerous references to classical Latin literature. It will then consider the sorceresses of literature, particularly Circe, Melissa, Medea and Armida and their representation by artists. As for the Seventeenth century, special attention will be payed to artists working in Bologna and Rome. The course intends to examine a type of artistic production, which, due to the nature of the subjects depicted - sorceresses and witches were often represented lewdly and semi-nude -, demonstrate that the establishment's attempts, specially since the Council of Trent, to control artistic production not always was successful., Indeed, also through the treatise writers, the establishment sought to set aesthetic and iconographic and therefore absolute and coercive moral canons, but it experienced phenomena of dissidence and rebellion.

This program is reserved exclusively for students who attend lessons, because notes taken in the classroom and educational material provided by the professor will constitute, beyond the bibliography provided below, a fundamental part of the course that will be evaluated during the final exam. Students who do not plan to attend lessons should refer to the dedicated bibliography below.

Readings/Bibliography

Bibliography for students who attend lessons

M. Montesano, Maleficia. Storie di streghe dall'Antichità al Rinascimento, Roma, Carocci, 2023 (ed. or. Classical Culture and Witchcraft in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, Cham, Svizzera, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) or, alternatively, A. Pinelli, La Storia dell’Arte. Istruzioni per l’uso, Bari, Giuseppe Laterza & figli, 2009 (or following editions).

 

A. Anselmi, “Dipinti a soggetto magico stregonesco nella Roma barocca: tra ‘crisi della presenza’ e letteratura latina", in Il Barocco a Roma: la meraviglia delle arti, edited by M. G. Bernardini-M. Bussagli, Milan, Skira, 2015, pp. 170-176.

 

A. Anselmi, Magia e stregoneria nel teatro di Nicolò Piperno, Filippo Acciajoli e Girolamo Fontana: la Noce di Benevento, in Trame di meraviglia. Studi in onore di Silvia Carandini, a cura di P. Bertolone- A. Corea-D. Gavrilovich, Roma, Universitalia, 2016, pp. 11-25.

Like test of reference is recomended S. Settis-T. Montanari, Arte. Una storia naturale e civile, 5 voll., Milano, Mondadori, 2019, vol. III.

 

Students who do not attend lessons have to study:

A. Pinelli, La Storia dell’Arte. Istruzioni per l’uso, Bari, Editori Laterza & Figli, 2009 or following editions.

and one of the three following texts:

C. Ginzburg, Paura reverenza terrore. Cinque saggi di iconografia politica, Milan, Adelphi, 2015 (English edition, Fear, Reverence, Terror: Five Essays in Political Iconography, Seagull Books, 2016).

or

D. Frascarelli, L’arte del dissenso. Pittura e libertinismi nell’Italia del Seicento, Turin, Giulio Einaudi editore, 2016

or

M. Montesano, Maleficia. Storie di streghe dall'Antichità al Rinascimento, Roma, Carocci, 2023 (ed. or. Classical Culture and Witchcraft in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, Cham, Svizzera, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

 As a reference manual, students may consult S. Settis-T. Montanari, Arte. Una storia naturale e civile, 5 vols., Milan, Mondadori, 2019, vol. III.

 

Teaching methods

Lessons with projections and analyses of images.

Teaching partecipate to the educational experimental project of the University following the model of " Digital integrative teaching"

 

Assessment methods

EXAMS WILL BE ONLY IN ITALIAN.

Students who follow the course can choose, only for the first two convocations, between a written proof (24 questions at multiple choice and three open questions) or an oral proof. Since third convocation the exam will be only oral. Students who do not follow the course have to pass an oral examination, they do not have the possibility to partecipate to the written proof partially based on the content of the course.

Grades are assigned in relation to a total of thirty points, with a laude for outstanding performance. The minimum passing grade is 18/30. Examinations will serve to verify the student’s level of preparation and critical skills in relation to the classroom lessons and assigned readings.

Exams convocations will be six: the first one in  November, then  January, March, June, July and September. The precise day will be comunicate as soon as classrooms will be assigned.

 

Students with disabilities and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who require specific services and adaptations to teaching activities due to a disability or specific learning disorders (SLD), must first contact the appropriate office: https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students .

Teaching tools

Projector and personal computer. Didactic materials, like power point presented during the class, will be put in virtual resources.

Office hours

See the website of Alessandra Anselmi