Department of French and Italian

Seminar in Renaissance Italian Literature

In such seminal texts as Pontano’s De sermone (1509), Castiglione’s Cortegiano (1528), Della Casa’s Galateo (1558) and Guazzo’s Civil conversazione (1574) the Italian Renaissance created a new style of moral conduct: the style of civility. This graduate course examines the classical genealogy, the social and historical milieu and the rhetorical matrix of this new form of social interaction, which was to become the generative model of early modern European ethics, and which was governed by the values of moderation, convenience, conformity, adaptability, grace, and dissimulation. The course will be conducted in Italian.

Image attribution: Sandro Botticelli  [Public domain]