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Module

HIS3352 : The Renaissance World of Florence, 1450-1550: Machiavelli, Mayhem, and Strife

  • Offered for Year: 2024/25
  • Module Leader(s): Dr Katie East
  • Owning School: History, Classics and Archaeology
  • Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus
  • Capacity limit: 40 student places
Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Semester 2 Credit Value: 20
ECTS Credits: 10.0
European Credit Transfer System

Aims

This Special Subject uses the works of one of the greatest minds in history, that of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), to explore the world of Renaissance Florence. Using Machiavelli’s writings, scholarship, plays, letters, and diplomatic texts as a lens, we will discover the various cultural, political, religious, and social issues which shaped events in Florence across the fifteenth and into the sixteenth centuries. This was a period of radical change, political upheaval, violence, and high personal drama. Across the module we will encounter key figures of the period, such as Cesare Borgia, Caterina Sforza, Pope Alexander VI, Girolamo Savonarola, and members of the Medici family, while also examining the tensions at work in Italy at this time, between city states and the Papacy, and with respect to external threats from France and the Holy Roman Empire. Florentine culture during the Renaissance will also be studied, particularly the importance of humanism, the arrival of print, the role of the genders, and the occupation with questions of morality.

Students will engage with a rich and active historiographical tradition, in which debates concerning the character of Machiavelli, his aims and beliefs, and his ultimate importance, will be confronted different approaches which instead of placing Machiavelli from front and centre broaden that focus to consider the world within which he moved. Students will also engage with a diverse array of sources, encompassing not only Machiavelli’s written works of numerous genres, but also works by his contemporaries, examples of print and scholarship, and images drawn from the rich offerings of Renaissance Florence.

Outline Of Syllabus

Each week of the module will address a different theme related to Florentine history, approaching it through both the works of Machiavelli and a number of other sources, including print and images. Topics typically covered during this module may include:
• Citizenship and living in a civic society
• Political Power
• Religion
• Gender and morality
• The function of war
• Renaissance Humanism and Print Culture
• The afterlife of Machiavelli

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities
Category Activity Number Length Student Hours Comment
Guided Independent StudyAssessment preparation and completion631:0063:00For two assessment components
Scheduled Learning And Teaching ActivitiesLecture111:0011:00One one-hour lecture p/w
Guided Independent StudyDirected research and reading411:0041:00Set, recommended and further reading
Scheduled Learning And Teaching ActivitiesSmall group teaching112:0022:00One two-hour seminar p/w
Structured Guided LearningStructured research and reading activities112:0022:002 hrs prep tasks per seminar
Guided Independent StudyIndependent study411:0041:00N/A
Total200:00
Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures will introduce topics with key debates and themes. Seminars encourage independent learning, discussion, and debate, while also guiding students on how to approach primary sources and historiography in a critical and effective manner.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment
Description Semester When Set Percentage Comment
Written exercise2M301000 words (including footnotes but excluding bibliography)
Essay2A702500 words (including footnotes but excluding bibliography)
Formative Assessments

Formative Assessment is an assessment which develops your skills in being assessed, allows for you to receive feedback, and prepares you for being assessed. However, it does not count to your final mark.

Description Semester When Set Comment
Oral Presentation2MEach student will give a 5-10 minute presentation and provide a handout for that presentation for their peers
Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The shorter written exercise will take place during the semester, and will focus on analysis of sources, allowing both the accumulation of understanding and a tool for tracking and informing student progress. The final essay will test both knowledge and understanding, and the students’ ability to synthesise and evaluate the themes studied during the module.

The presentations will, while developing the relevant skill-set for presenting ideas, build up knowledge of how to analyse primary sources.

Study-abroad, non-Erasmus exchange and Loyola students spending semester 1 only are required to finish their assessment while in Newcastle. Where an exam is present, an alternative form of assessment will be set and where coursework is present, an alternative deadline will be set. Details of the alternative assessment will be provided by the module leader.

Reading Lists

Timetable