This course explores the Renaissance phenomenon of the “ideal city” – its origins, successes, and spectacular failures. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, major artists and architects like Leonardo da Vinci participated in a radical experiment that transformed how urban spaces were designed, represented, and built. The Renaissance ideal city was invented as a utopia, featuring straight processional avenues, a rigid street plan, and monumental sculptures inserted into public squares like props on a stage. We will consider three variations on the Renaissance ideal city, both in Italy and neighboring regions: fictional cities like the star-shaped Sforzinda (1465) that were imagined in sketchbooks, paintings, and the pages of printed books; new cities and towns that were built from the ground up according to ideal models of urban planning, such as Pienza (1459) and Palmanova (1593); and the demolition and reconstruction of entire neighborhoods in existing metropolises like Palermo and Rome. Throughout, we will question how Renaissance architects exploited the basic infrastructure of daily life – roads, gates, walls, squares, and even sewage systems – to perfect their environments. What role did the artistic principles of harmony, proportion, and perspective play in the design or depiction of ideal cities? How were those principles used to promote civic virtue and good governance or to reinforce social hierarchies and absolutist rule? This course has no pre-requisites and requires no prior knowledge of art history, architecture, or the Renaissance.
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