Dr.

Christoph Greger
Humanities 41B
Spring 2019

Study Guide for Unit 1:

The Italian Renaissance
Below are some topics – concepts, questions, ideas and objects – that are fairly important to the course.
These are all topics that either we’ve covered in class or that are covered in some detail in our textbook,
Culture and Values (volume 2). In order to assure yourself of a good grade on quizzes, midterm and final
exams, you should familiarize yourself with most of these concepts.

What does “Familiarize yourself with…” mean? Of course you’re not expected to be an expert on any of
these topics, but you should be aware of why they’re important, what some of the questions are about them,
what’s unique about them… and you should be able to communicate some of this stuff in writing, of course.
Where there’s a broad concept like “humanism,” for instance, you should be able to cite some specific
examples of it or show how it applies to specific works we’ve looked at in class or that you’ve read about.

Some concepts you should be familiar with

 From the Middle Ages: The feudal  Some of Leonardo da Vinci’s

hierarchy, or pyramid
 Some new historical and economic
developments that had begun to reshape
worldviews in Italy by the 1400’s
 On the renaissance, the re-birth of
Classical knowledge and attitudes: Why
Italy?
 Humanism
 Linear perspective
 The system of patronage
accomplishments, and some of what
makes him unique
 Some of Michelangelo’s
accomplishments, and some of what
makes him unique
 A vague sense of what “Neo-Platonism”
refers to, and why Michelangelo is
considered a “Neo-Platonist”
 Two or three pieces of advice that
Castiglione gives a prospective “courtier”
on how to win friends and influence
people

 The Medici – Cosimo and Lorenzo  Two or three things that Machiavelli
offers to a political leader on how to
 The Platonic Academy succeed in running a state

 Pico della Mirandola and his “Oration on  That notion of Renaissance “self-
the Dignity of Man” – a couple of things fashioning” – what it is, why it is a new
he thinks makes humans particularly idea in the renaissance, and how it pops
unique, and why up in the material we’ve studied

 Some of Sandro Botticelli’s  “Sprezzatura”

accomplishments, and some of what
makes him unique