The teaching offers a detailed overview of spectacularity in the Ancien Regime, starting with the analysis of the social, economic and, moreover, spectacular 'assumptions' strictly related to the medieval age, then focusing on the specific spectacular features of Renaissance and Baroque ages, with a special attention to the Medicean area of Tuscany. Then, we will deepen the various constituent elements of the theatrical phenomenon, aiming to show their close and mutual relationships.
L. ALLEGRI, Teatro e spettacolo nel Medioevo (1988), Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2011.
C. BINO, Il dramma e l’immagine. Teorie cristiane della rappresentazione (II-XI sec.), Firenze, Le Lettere, 2015.
P. VENTRONE, Teatro civile e sacra rappresentazione a Firenze nel Rinascimento, Firenze, Le Lettere, 2016.
S. FERRONE, L. ZORZI, G. INNAMORATI, Il teatro del Cinquecento. I luoghi, i testi e gli attori, con il film di S. F. I teatri d’Italia, Perugia, Morlacchi, 2006.
S. MAMONE, Il teatro nella Firenze medicea, Milano, Mursia, 1981.
Learning Objectives
Knowledge and understanding: completion of a generic training already acquired with the basic knowledge of the history of the theater and its methodology.
Applying knowledge and understanding: deepening of the characteristics of Medieval and Renaissance spectacle, focusing attention on the passage from the typology of the widespread spectacularity of the Middle Ages arriving at the "modern" typology of spectacle typical of the Renaissance and subsequent periods.
Making judgements: acquisition of basic critical-analytical skills in the history of Medieval and Renaissance theater. Development of the interpretative and critical capacity, both with regard to the sources for the history of Medieval and Renaissance spectacle, and to the contents and phenomena studied, always read in relation to the historical, social and cultural context of the reference period.
Communication skills: use of the specific terminology of the history of theater, in particular the peculiarities of the technical and iconological language of the court and professional production system for the centuries investigated.
Prerequisites
Students must have achieved 6 cfu in the disciplines of the L-ART/05 area.
Teaching Methods
Frontal lessons, written tests, vision of multimedial sources.
Further information
The frequency is indispensible and it will be checked during the course.
Type of Assessment
Written or oral tests during the course. The final exam is oral. During the esamination, students must prove to have acquainted the bases of the discipline, the key ideas and to refer them with a critical exposition.
Course program
The historian of the spectacle: a difficult job. The problem of the sources: monuments and documents. Reading of “Document / Monument” by Jacques Le Goff.
From the Roman Empire to the Christian society: elements of continuity and break between the spectacle in Rome and the medieval spectacle.
"Spread theatricality": from the jester to the sacred representations. The loss of memory: the reuse of ancient urban spaces and theatrical buildings.
The jester and his art: a historiographical label for the multiform and varied medieval spectacle. Church against jesters: toward a regulated spectacle. The spectacle from Saint Thomas Aquinas to the Humanism. Lo spettacolo da San Tommaso d'Aquino all'Umanesimo. The censures of Lattanzio, Tertullian and Augustine against the Roman spectacularity of the Imperial age.
From the medieval to the humanistic-renaissance spectacle. Humanism: the recovery of the past through the vestiges of classicism and literary tradition.
The invention of perspective. The sacred representation of Brunelleschi at San Felice in Piazza. The perspective scene of the city.
From amateurism to professionalism: texts, places, actors. The birth of the Commedia dell'Arte or the trade companies.
Theater and power: the Florentine show of the great dynastic events of the Medici family. Bastiano da Sangallo and the staging in the second courtyard of Palazzo Medici of Antonio Landi’s “Commodo” for the wedding of Cosimo de’ Medici and Eleonora of Toledo (1539). Giorgio Vasari and the staging in the Salone dei Cinquecento of Francesco D’Ambra’s Cofanaria for the wedding of Francesco de’ Medici and Giovanna of Austria (1565). Bernardo Buontalenti and the staging in the Medici theater of the Uffizi of Bargagli’s Pellegrina with the intermezzi by Giovanni de 'Bardi for the wedding of Ferdinando de' Medici and Cristina of Lorraine (1589).
The spectacle of the professional actors and the Dogana theatre.