Still pictured in popular culture today as eminently Italian and specifically Florentine, in recent decades the Renaissance has come to be understood by scholars as a global cultural and artistic phenomenon. While Florence was indeed one of its epicenters, the city's wide-ranging mercantile, political, and religious networks impacted in a myriad fundamental ways on artistic production. They provided the city access to precious commodities and costly materials, like African gold; allowed the circulation of foreign artefacts, to be collected and studied, including by artists; and facilitated the transmission of ideas, knowledge and technologies across vast expanses of space, and across cultures.
4 units · Letter (ABCD/NP) · GER: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Still pictured in popular culture today as eminently Italian and specifically Florentine, in recent decades the Renaissance has come to be understood by scholars as a global cultural and artistic phenomenon. While Florence was indeed one of its epicenters, the city's wide-ranging mercantile, political, and religious networks impacted in a myriad fundamental ways on artistic production. They provided the city access to precious commodities and costly materials, like African gold; allowed the circulation of foreign artefacts, to be collected and studied, including by artists; and facilitated the transmission of ideas, knowledge and technologies across vast expanses of space, and across cultures.
Offered in Spring 2026 at Stanford University.