The Italian and European Renaissance

The lectures present the main research and interpretation problems of the birth of Renaissance humanism and Renaissance culture in Italy (14th to mid-16th century) and their reception in Europe in the 15th-16th centuries. Main topics: 1. urban civilization in the Apennine Peninsula in the 14th-15th centuries and the Medieval roots of Renaissance culture, 2. two alternative cultures in the West in the 15th century: the "Gothic" culture of Northern Europe and the Renaissance culture in Italy - differences and relations between them (Northern Europe's contacts with people from the Apennine Peninsula and cultural communities in Italy), 3. Italian mediation in the reception of classical culture, 4. roads, vehicles and models of reception of Renaissance culture in Italy, 5. the Reformation, the Catholic Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, 6. values, attitudes and fascinations of Renaissance people, 7. historiographic myths, textbook clichés, European awareness of the Renaissance.