The Renaissance Company

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: LIBERAL STUDIES PROGRAM STUDY TOUR

The Italian Renaissance and the Literature of the Grand Tour, 3 credits**

in conjunction with the  “Hilltowns of Tuscany and Umbria” Study Tour and the “Venice, Ravenna, Verona and the Po Valley” Study Tour

SYLLABUS

The goal of this course is give participants the unique opportunity to read and reflect on some of the great works of travel writing and literature that have been inspired by the country and culture of central Italy during the Renaissance while at the same time visiting that region and experiencing many of its natural and artistic beauties for themselves first-hand.

The tour will begin in the city of Florence. During our brief stay here, we will use our time to become acquainted through lectures, slide presentations and discussion with the places we will visit, their special attractions, and the rich patterns of historical and cultural interconnection among them during the Renaissance. In addition, we will begin reflecting and discussing what we can learn from our discoveries for living more fully and humanely in our own societies, guided by 19th and 20th American and British authors who for whom the tradition of the European “Grand Tour” became a prism through which to examine the powerful impact of exposure to a cultural tradition altogether different than their own which opened up new horizons and powerfully challenged all their assumptions about human living. The Hilltowns tour is more fully described in the accompanying itinerary.

The course instructors and tour leaders will be Associate Professor of Philosophy, Francis J. Ambrosio, Director, Doctor of Liberal Studies Program, and Ms. Deborah Warin, Director, Renaissance Tours Company, LLC, former Director of Continuing Education and lecturer at Georgetown University, and author of the forthcoming book, Battista Sforza and the Court of Urbino. Together they have led more than 25 previous Liberal Studies tours to Italy.

The course, which can be taken for graduate or undergraduate credit ** in the Georgetown Liberal Studies Program, includes the following additional elements:

• Two  on-campus  classroom sessions prior
• Participation in the full Study Tour Program
• Required readings as described in the “Reading List” below
• A research paper of approximate 7500 words (graduate) or 5000 words (undergraduate) on a subject of the student’s choice related to the course material and approved by the Instructors, to be completed upon return from the study tour.

READING LIST

Henry James, Portrait of a Lady and Daisy Miller

Edith Wharton, Roman Fever

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

E.M. Forster, Room with A View, and Where Angels Fear to Tread

Paul Johnson, The Renaissance, Modern Library Chronicles

Christopher Hibbert, The House of the Medici, W. Morrow Publishers.

A. Richard Turner, The Renaissance in Florence, The Everyman Art Library, Calmann and King

** Fourth Credit Option (undergraduate only): With permission of the Dean, undergraduate Liberal Studies students may opt to complete a fourth credit option involving additional reading and writing assignments as well as an oral examination which enables the course to fulfill the requirement for either the Medieval or Renaissance Core Course in the BALS program.