Ital 437 - Caffe, Cadavers, Comedy, and Castrati: Italy in the Age of the Grand Tour

Institution:

Washington University in St Louis

Subject:

Description:

Taught in English. With French libertine philosopher the Marquis de Sade, German novelist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Romantic poet Lord Byron, and other illustrious travelers of high birth and good fortune who sought finishing enrichment by making their Grand Tour to Italy from the mid-18th through the early 19th centuries, we explore the richness and variety of Italian life and culture as depicted by both Grand Tourists as well as their Italian interlocutors. Chief among our destinations are Venice, Bologna, Florence, and Rome. Attractions typical of the early modern Tour circumscribe our journey. Coffee houses first appeared in the eighteenth century and, in ways strikingly similar to their function today, became the real and symbolic centers of social, intellectual, and civil exchange. We explore 18th-century coffee culture through comedies and Enlightenment and popular journals that took them as their theme, as well as through a study of the coffee houses themselves, a number of which are still in existence. Theaters, concert halls, gaming houses, literary and scientific academies, galleries, churches, and universities are part of the standardized itinerary we follow. During the period, anatomy and physiology attained new legitimacy as crucial scientific disciplines and we visit both the anatomical theater at the University of Bologna, where the annual Carnival dissection took place, as well as the first museum of anatomy and obstetrics founded in the Bolognese Institute of Sciences in 1742 by Pope Benedict XIV. We visit archeological excavation sites, in particular Pompeii, first unearthed in 1748. Fashion, an obsessive preoccupation of the day, also is a point of interest in our travels. Through primary and recently published secondary sources we also encounter the remarkable authority of Italian women unmatched anywhere else in Europe at the time. Readings in Italian or English. Prerequisite: at least one 300-level literature course..

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.wustl.edu

Phone Number:

(314) 935-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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