Art, History, and Culture in Rome, 1527-1798

FAIN: FS-50255-10

American Academy in Rome (New York, NY 10021-4905)
Vernon Hyde Minor (Project Director: March 2010 to May 2012)

A five-week seminar for sixteen college and university teachers to explore, in situ, the painting, sculpture, and architecture of early-modern Rome.

This seminar will study the visual arts and culture in Rome from its sack in 1527 to its capture by Napoleonic troops in 1798, a coherent period in Roman art and culture in which highly talented writers, thinkers, and artists from all over Europe found the city and its ecclesiastical leaders to be welcoming. Popes and cardinals put painters, sculptors and architects to work in the service of the Church; the European Republic of Letters had an important presence. Here was born the baroque style and here it was attacked. We will try to answer the question "What is baroque?" through readings and on-site visits. Understanding the political, religious, literary, and artistic elements of the baroque is fundamental to determining the full significance of what comes afterward: neo-classicism, pastoralism, and enlightenment ideas. This will afford an important research opportunity to scholars of art history, history, religious studies, baroque literature, and rhetoric.

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