The Medici, Patrons of the Renaissance. A dynasty between Culture, Politics and Art.

The course will explore the Medici, one of the most powerful and important families of the Italian Renaissance.  As bankers, politicians, patrons, writers, cardinals, popes the Medici represent the perfect example of a civilization that used beauty and the arts to achieve power, and dynastic prestige.  
The course will explore literary texts, paintings, plays, political and economic aspects related to such a prominent family. Also, it will explore diversity issue, such as the African origins of the first Duke of Florence, or homosexuality on Renaissance Italy and Florence.  The importance of patronage cannot be stressed enough, as well as the importance of political meanings and messages “carved” into some of the most beautiful, and influential masterpieces of all times.  Also, the strategies that the Medici adopted to achieve wealth and power are of particular interest even today.
The course will also explore thinkers such as Machiavelli, or great architects such as Brunelleschi, and Alberti, or artists, and the relation that the Medici had with the political and cultural milieu of Florence. 
Finally, one of the goals of the course is to present the meaningful intersections between politics, art, literature and religion.  
The course is taught in Italian.