The Italian Renaissance

The Great Courses

by Kenneth R. Bartlett

The effects of the Italian Renaissance are still with us today, from the incomparable paintings of Leonardo da Vinci to the immortal writings of Petrarch and Machiavelli. But why was there such an artistic, cultural, and intellectual explosion in Italy at the start of the 14th century? Why did it occur in Italy? And why in certain Italian city-states such as Florence? Professor Bartlett probes these questions and more in 36 dynamic lectures. This is your opportunity to appreciate the results of the Italian Renaissance and gain an understanding of the underlying social, political, and economic forces that made such exceptional art and culture possible. At the heart of Renaissance Italy were the city-states, home to the money, intellect, and talent needed for the growth of Renaissance culture. You'll look at the Republic of Florence, as well as other city-states that, thanks to geographical and historical circumstances, had much different political and social structures. This course contains a wealth of details that will give you a feel and appreciation for the Italian Renaissance - its contributions to history, the ways it was similar and dissimilar to our times, and how the people of the time, both famous and ordinary, experienced it. You'll come away surprised by how much of our modern life was made possible by the Renaissance. Our concept of participatory government, our belief in the value of competition, our philosophy of the content and purpose of education, even our notions of love all have roots in the Renaissance period. Its loftiest ideals - the importance of the individual, the value of human dignity and potential, and the promotion of freedom - are ones we embrace as our own.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Italy, Art, Renaissance, Historical

18 pages, Audio CD

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Kenneth Bartlett is a professor of History & Renaissance Studies at the University of Toronto. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, where he served as the editor of Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Reforme and president of the Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies. He has received multiple teaching awards and was appointed the first director of the Officer of Teaching Advancement for the University of Toronto. Professor Bartlett has written three books, including Humanism and the Northern Renaissance.

Reviews

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

The old story: classical individualism, patrician merchants, civic humanism, republican liberty, elegant courts, and then foreign invasions and counter reformation.

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Overview of A Massive and Complex Subject
There's no easy way to tackle something as massive, complex, and multi-faceted as this subject, but Prof Bartlett does an admirable job breaking it down into clear themes and locations in this series of college-level lectures. It's actually a great companion-piece to his other audiobook series on the subject, The Italians Before Italy: Conflict and Competition in the Mediterranean. I listened to that one first, and as it was my first exposure to Italian history from that period, I was a bit overwhelmed with all the information, especially lacking proper historical background in so many of the complexities of European dynastic politics of Spain and France and the Hapsburg-Valois struggle and how that impacted affairs in the Italian Papal States and Italian League. So I had much better footing when I tackled this set of lectures, which really helped me get a grasp on such a complex tapestry.

It helped that I watched 3 seasons of Medici The Magnificent drama series on Netflix at the same time, so it was a lot of fun getting the different takes on the same historical figures and their motivations, personal passions and struggles, and of course seeing all of the Florentine art and architecture really brought to life the incredible explosion of creative energies and the backlash to that as well from those who felt their traditional power base threatened by it. It's an amazing era of history and a great introduction once you understand the dynamics.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well done, nicely detailed. I like how he shows the connections between the various themes and topics of each section.

[Jennifer Heise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed listening to this, and also learned a lot of renaissance history that I had previously overlooked. Everyone talks about the Italian Renaissance, but most authors are writing about England and France in response to the renaissance, leaving curious holes in my education-- I've been reading about the pre-1600 period for years and don't recall actually hearing about the Sack of Rome, for instance. Names that hung in the air, like Medici and De Estes, now fit so much better into my mental picture. However, given the way Bartlett tackles each of the major renaissance cities of Italy in turn, I did miss some things and don't have them firmly fixed into my world view-- so I'll have to listen to it again some time.

One issue to be aware of, though, is that even though Bartlett tries to be dispassionate, he's clearly in love with Renaissance Italy and is biased toward telling the story from the perspective of the renaissance humanist governments. Where other historians relish telling you about the tyrannical and manipulative acts of renaissance men like Cosimo de Medici and Ludovico Sforza, he concentrates on the qualities that made them useful, when they were useful, to their cities. He is clearly anti-Papal-State-expansion, and pro-Italian-League, and he is definitely horrified by the Sack of Rome. This is no more than I would expect of an academic who loves his subject-- and who has freely admitted he's Burckhardtian in his outlook. But, as I think about the figures of the Italian ren. I have to be careful not to take sides based on his enthusiasm for them!

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Describing the history of the renaissance is like trying to catch a greased pig...it's gonna take a lot of effort. In these lectures, Dr Bartlett presents the Italian Renaissance clearly and definitively in well-organized lectures that will take me several tries to absorb...and I look forward to re-listening to those lectures, as they follow the rise and fall of the Italian Peninsula as it first tries to restore the Roman Republic, but ultimately falls into the Hapsburg-Valois struggles.

For those thinking about listening to these lectures, be advised that this definitely is a college level lecture series...it requires paying attention and following all the names of families and individuals. But the lectures are quite significant in understanding the effects of the 're-birth' mostly in Florence, as well as other early Italian city-states, and how it affects the 21st century. There are lessons to be learned that involve the importance of a free society and the preservation of individuality in terms of the way in which we live our lives (morality, honesty and all that stuff). Florence, under the early...and late influence of the Medici Dynasty serves as a stark example of how good intentions can ultimately lead to bad results.

Highly recommended, especially now with all those coupons and heavy discounts. There are many of these older, yet basic lectures series that may need revision. Not this one...this one is a timeless bargain.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This lecture series can be considered a companion lecture to The Italians Before Italy or it to this one. Either way you look at it they cover a lot of the same material except in a different way and with a different focus. These lectures focus on Florence and Papacy with just enough of Milan and Venice to show some of the differences in how the Renaissance was experienced. It also focus more on the Art, Humanism and architecture.

A very enjoyable lecture series and I highly recommend listening to this one and the Italian before Italy within a short time of each other as they reinforce ideas and help cement concepts.

Bartlett is my second favorite lecturer in the Great Courses series, Harl being the first, and he doesn't disappoint with this one.

Well worth the time commitment .

[Jeremiah Lorrig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful, detailed, and understandable.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have almost finished listening to this and I have quite enjoyed it. I honestly did not know much about the Italian Renaissance. All I remember from my high school European history course was that Italians re-discovered the Roman and Greek past, art flourished, developed humanism, and the Italian cities were insanely rich. Their ideas and influence eventually spread to the rest of Europe and you don't hear about Italy again until Mussolini.

My main driver for listening to this course was to figure out what the hell happened to Italy that they are just mostly forgotten after the Italian Renaissance. This course provides a pretty convincing explanation. Basically, Italian merchants and wealth were based on being the middle men of Europe and the Near East, as well as wool cloth manufacturers and bankers. Obviously, around 1500 that started to change with Portugal and Spain finding routes to the East and then the new world that completely bi-passed the Italian cities. They were able to go closer to the producer and undercut Italian prices, putting them in financial difficulty. This wealth flowing into Atlantic Europe also undercut Italy's other major businesses, Banking and wool manufacturing, which were increasingly taken up by the Dutch.

Another major issue was that Italy was not united, but divided into city-states. This was further exacerbated by the way these Italian cities fought. They used paid mercenary bands to fight their wars. Not surprisingly, these mercenary bands did not like bloody battles that weakened the company's future, so battles were more about positioning and tactics rather than death and slaughter. Once the French, Spanish, And German rulers started eyeing the Italian cities as a prize to be taken Italy was pretty much fucked, the barbarians won (Italy thought the Spanish, French, and German were uncultured barbarians) and the Renaissance died.

I also thought his selection of characters to focus on was interesting. When I think of the Renaissance I think of Dante, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Machiavelli. Instead, the lecturer focuses on Petrarch, The Medici family, Frederigo de Montelfelgro of Urbino, Castiglione, Savanarola, Machieveli, and Guicciardini. I appreciated his focus on more of the political players, the political thinkers, and basically the people who influenced the thought and temper of the age.

His treatment of Machiavelli was quite interesting since most people, me included, think of him as an advocate of autocratic authority and the ends justify the means. In fact, he was actually a committed republican, but was living through a time where Italy and Florence were getting their shit pushed in by the French, Spanish and Germans. Italy simply couldnt compete, and Machiavelli wanted Italy to unite and adopt the Barbarian's ruthlessness and cruelty to push those barbarians out, but then afterwards adopt the institutions that made Italy in the Renaissance the cultural and economic center of Europe. So, the Prince should be seen as Machiavelli's response to a particular situation, not his ideological beliefs.

[Irena Pasvinter · Rating 3 out of 5]

These Great Courses lectures presented by professor Kenneth Bartlett are extremely informative but also a bit disjointed. Sometimes the big picture of what the Renaissance really was about becomes lost behind all the particular historical events of the period.

Also, although I'm not in any way a specialist on history in general or on Italian Renaissance in particular, I noticed that in some cases Kenneth Bartlett's presentation of the events is a bit twisted or over-simplified in order to illustrate his message: for example, he says that Copernicus published his book on the planetary movements and then died peacefully in his bed, but Galileo, who had a misfortune to live when Renaissance was over, was persecuted by the inquisition. Well, I actually happen to know that Copernicus was on his deathbed when his book was published, so to persecute him the inquisition would have to dug him out of the grave which is neither practical nor convenient.

Nevertheless, I liked the lectures and learned a lot from them, and hopefully my memory will preserve at least a small percentage of this information, in addition to Kenneth Bartlett's favorite word "consequently" which he uses every other minute.;)

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in preparation for traveling to Italy, since my European history pre-World War era is how do you say, totally anemic. I thought it did a great job covering the major people, places, & events of the era between say 1400 & 1550, and I found a lot of it fascinating. There is no way I will remember all (or even most) of the details, but I feel like I've got the broad strokes now & I won't be that one dumb American wandering around Florence being all like, "Ooooh, that's pretty, what's that?"

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb!! Ken Bartlett is a first rate historian and a great teacher. He provides an in-depth and multi-faceted analysis of the period. I learned a great deal. It was truly a great course!! I now understand why Bill Gates spends a half an hour each day listening to one of the courses in this series.

[Brett Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This course does a particularly fine job of making grand summary overviews of the dramatic change to human experience that was the Renaissance, and is my favorite aspect of these lectures. That is, it really was as advertised: a sea change in human outlook, understanding, hope, promise, and agency with a consequent eruption in human expression in art and the science to come. Were it not for Renaissance, there would be no Scientific Revolution as the Renaissance set the mental stage, one might say the “psychological permission” to explore nature in a quest for truth unleashed from centuries of Dark Age superstition and belief that human suffering from poverty, political abuse, and even plagues were deserved as God’s punishment for sin. It also digs into the weeds of personalities unwilling or still unable to make the change, preferring the old dogmatic ways. Like every transition in thought, this makes for power struggles over the trajectory of the mind with corruption, intrigue, betrayals, and the typical war to short-circuit the time-consuming difficulty of persuasion.

Peaks for me in the series were coverage of Petrarch as the father of the Renaissance, and its later collapse. With Petrarch’s discovery of unknown letters of Cicero, lost for a thousand years, Petrarch became “engaged in a revolution which he didn’t altogether grasp but others did and which he himself unleashed,” says Professor Bartlett. “There had always been a dichotomy from the early years of the church about the relationship between classical literature and Christianity. There were those amongst the early fathers who saw it as a danger. Some suggested that all pagan literature should be destroyed. That not a word should survive of Horace or Virgil or Ovid. The reason being, they said, was not that it was pagan, but that it was too beautiful and too profound. In the words of one, ‘It made us love this life too much, and not put all of our emphasis on the achieving of the next.’ Petrarch’s discovery completely overturned this set of principles because, he said, the ancients had to be good men because they wrote good books full of ethical advice in a beautiful style that convinced the reader that being good is better than being bad; they gave you the instruments for convincing others to follow the path of goodness and virtue.”

While this series was recorded in 2005, it may as well have been today as a commentary on America’s current fall. “The Renaissance declined and came to an end in Italy as a result of the cessation of those very principles and values that gave rise to it. The Renaissance ended because its energizing myth was no longer believed… The idea of an energizing myth, the idea of people believing in a set of principles that then galvanize their action, to believe in a particular way, to open their minds to certain sets of ideas and to change the way they looked at their world and their relationship to their world and one another, all of this came to an end… Now, they served the prince; they did not serve one another. The result is that the ideas of republican participatory democracy that we’ve seen as one of the engines of Renaissance culture, modeled on Florence simply stopped functioning… The idea of the individual recognized as having ability through the exercise of language and reason, and that person then being seen as someone with responsibility because of his personal qualities—no longer were personal qualities required… Others did what the prince told them. It was a government of obedience. It was a government of accepting of authority. More than forgotten, Renaissance thought was actively suppressed. Roman inquisitions suppressed it. The index of prohibited books suppressed it. Scholars, teachers, educated individuals were afraid to speak… Stick to what you’re told. Read what you’re told to read. Do what you’re told to do… Society became then far more conservative because it was just too dangerous to speak your mind… So let’s be safe. Let’s be mediocre. Basic ideas central to the Renaissance mentally were questioned or rejected. Concepts like the dignity of man… Man could no longer do anything if he but willed it… The Renaissance ended because the sets of attitudes and beliefs and self-confidence, that energizing myth… as the motive power of the Renaissance mind simply ceased to function.” In America, all we need to do to see this history repeat is to watch the nightly news. This series allows for a good comparison of eras, amazed by what people could do.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's another good and informative series from The Great Courses, even though it wasn't quite what I was expecting. This is indeed about the Italian Renaissance, but it's not the book for you if you want any information at all on Michaelangelo, DaVinci, or any of the other artists from the era...although they are mentioned in passing. As I've come to expect with all these titles, you won't even hear a single reference to the music of the era, not one composer.

However, it is consistent for what it actually is: an examination of the factors that led to the Renaissance happening when it did and where it did first (Italy), and the factors that caused it to end. It is very informative history, but look elsewhere if you want to know more about the art and music.

[Julian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bartlett is clearly an expert on the subject. He injects little details that demonstrates his travels and knowledge of the country and the subject. I found it was not easy to understand the larger thesis of this period beyond the humanism thesis in the early chapter. It's an assumption to view history as a constant progression but my mind was always searching for the trajectory. I was never sure what the great struggles of the states and their people were. If and how they were all connected. In the end, I couldn't keep interest in the litany of new names.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Bartlett weaves closely together the interactions of culture and events from Petrarch to the Index of Prohibited Books. The lecture on the end of the Renaissance in Italy is especially powerful.

[Selene Peck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous course—both interesting and factual and filled with articulate teaching and relevant, concrete anecdotes of the characters from Italian Renaissance history. I absolutely enjoyed each lecture and it added so much to my own reading and study of Italian history of this period.

[Xin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great listening

[Esther · Rating 5 out of 5]

Multi-faceted exploration of the Renaissance.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to learn about the Italian Renaissance this is the Great Course for. Professor Bartlett gives you insight and knowledge about the Renaissance. It is a must course for you to listen to.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this lecture! It wasn't about the art, which surprised me, and I learned a ton.

[Carolyn Deboer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed listening to these series of lectures. I really didn’t want the Renaissance to end.

[Elham Sarikhani · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for more in-depth information on Italian Renaissance than what was provided in this series of lectures.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sophisticated, comprehensive, and provocative analysis of the Italian Renaissance. Brilliantly styled and executed. A phenomenal go-to text for this period.

[Francesca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly comprehensive lecture series exploring the context, details, wonders and lessons of the Italian Renaissance. Thoroughly enjoyable and intellectually nourishing!

[melina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me ages to get through this because it could be kind of dense but it’s a pretty good overview of the culture and historical context surrounding the Italian renaissance

[Enrico · Rating 4 out of 5]

Broad overview about the huge topic of the italian renaissance. Feels a bit all over the place at times and not with a clear order.

[Lamadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the presentation by the professor. It was interesting and engaging with tons of info.

[Demian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very detailed and well explained account of the Italian Renaissance. It was a joy to listen from beginning to end partly because of its narrative.

[Nikolay Nadirashvili · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have been 5 stars, if not for constant preaching of prof. Bartlett.

[John Martindale · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated how this lecture series gave me an overall sense of a period which I knew very little about. Much of the book was on Florance, I was captured by Florances republic from which the renaissance sprung. I am curious if Montesquieu in his book "Spirit of the laws" reflected upon the freedom and flowering of culture that came from the Republic and what led to it's downfall so soon thereafter. I am also curious if the founders of the United States took in consideration the lessons from Florance's history. Bartlett does point out how, due to all the rival factions and all the unknown unknowns that befall them, Republics had a very short lived stability, whereas, absolute tyrannies could remain "stable" for 100s upon 100s of years. When you had one of those "philosopher kings" who had noble character and was a patron of the arts, he could accomplish much good in a short period of time. But of course, for every benevolent dictator there were 10 who were mad, cruel and demented. I did kind of get the impression that Bartlett either approves or at least sympathizes with the more Hobbesian Leviathan, that Machiavelli was right that the end of stability justifies the most diabolical means, and when dealing with barbarians, you must become barbaric to compete with them.
Bartlett is a good story teller, some of the tales in this series had me on the edge of my seat. I sure wish I could remember the Italian names (Even if I could, I couldn't even get close enough to spelling them right, for google to auto-correct) and I would mention some of favorite stories from the course.
After finishing this course, it is a wonder that so many harp upon the Crusades as the prime example of Christians behaving badly, it should instead be the sack of Rome, after which many reformers believing they were God's tool of judgment upon the evil catholic church, murdered over 12,000, plundered and destroyed and repeatedly raped woman until they couldn't get any more pleasure from them, when they killed them. The monstrous evil committed by these Lutherans and how the Reformers rejoiced throughout Europe when they learned of the carnage is definitely a HUGE blot in church history.