A classical painted scene showing two nude human figures on opposite sides of a wide horizontal composition, each extending one arm toward the center with fingertips nearly touching; one figure reclines on a rocky surface, while the other floats surrounded by a cluster of additional human figures and flowing fabric.

HA 305/505/550

Inventing the Renaissance: From Leonardo to Columbus

Invention was a multivalent term in the Renaissance. With roots in classical rhetoric, Renaissance invention encompassed diverse activities related to innovation, creation, and discovery. This course focuses on the Renaissance culture of invention and its afterlives. Students will study invention as represented in early modern art theory and literature, and in the works of Sofonisba Anguissola, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Diana Mantuana, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Stradanus, among others. We will consider the power structures that allowed creative labor to be recognized while also enabling—or making difficult—artistic invention. We will study new technologies, such as the printing press, that redefined artistic invention for the early modern age. Throughout, the course will emphasize the invention of the Renaissance as a concept and mythologies surrounding rebirth and genius that continue to shape the way we think about art today.