G	Rome (in the Early Modern era)	Dr. S. ffolliott                          Robinson B 357b 993-1011                                 sffollio@gmu.edu http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/ffolliott/arth311 MW 3:00pm-4:15pm Fine Arts Building B212 George Mason University Department of History and Art History
ARTH 311/599 Design of Cities

Important!

• GMU requires you to activate your GMU e-mail account to receive official campus communications.  If you prefer to use another address, you must activate the e-mail forward (www.gmu.edu/email).  I shall use .gmu addresses exclusively.
• GMU operates with an Honor Code.  It is clearly defined in the catalogue http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/plagiarism.htm    It is everyone’s responsibility to enforce it.  Plagiarism (the unacknowledged use of someone else’s work as your own; whether on a test or an assignment prepared outside of class) violates the Honor Code.  I shall notify the Honor Committee concerning possible infractions.
• Class time is for class matters.  Phones, pagers, ipods with earphones etc. must be turned off and put away in class.  Computers may be used for note taking and class projects only. 
• You are responsible for everything that goes on during the entire class period (whether you are there or not), both the material covered and any announcements made that might have a bearing on assignments.  If you miss class, it remains your responsibility to make arrangements with a fellow student to obtain information about what you’ve missed

I.  KEY DATES

Jan. 31	Critical Take Paper #1 due
Feb. 5	Critical Take Paper #2 due
Feb. 6	Absolutely, positively last day to add classes
Feb. 7	Library Instruction: meet in Fenwick A 214
Feb. 14	Critical Take #3 due
Feb. 21	Critical Take #4 due
Feb. 23	Last day to drop without the Dean’s permission
Mar. 7	Midterm
Mar. 19	Critical Take #5 due
Mar. 28	Class does not meet
May 4	Last day of classes.  Final day for receipt of any excused late work.
May 14, 1:30-4:00	FINAL EXAMINATION, begins promptly at 1:30.  The date is set by the registrar, published with the schedule of classes, and cannot be changed.

II. OFFICE HOURS

   Tuesdays, 10:30-noon; Wednesdays 4:30-5:30

   Robinson B 357b   Telephone: 993-1011 

   It is a good idea to schedule an appointment and to let me know if you are unable to keep it. 

Scope.  This course will focus on Rome, as city and idea. While the primary emphasis will be on the early modern city (15th-17th centuries), we shall look both backwards and forwards to explore this “baroque jewel in an antique setting.” We’ll examine Rome in terms of its urban fabric, political organization, and inhabitants. We’ll consider the “Eternal” City as habitation - investigating the papacy; the cardinals and the great patrician families; the city’s streets and street life; and contentions among groups (class and nationality) - and as destination - for VIPs, pilgrims, artists, writers, and well-heeled travelers from northern Europe. Important to both these functions is Rome’s role as stage for periodic or special civic and religious ceremonies or simply for personal display. We’ll draw from architectural, cartographic, demographic, literary, and legal evidence to consider people, individual spaces and monuments, as well as what “Rome” means, or has meant, as a concept. A major component of the course is annotating the city view of Rome produced by Antonio Tempesta in 1592 as an online resource for social and art/architectural history.

III. COURSE GOALS

A. Learning Objectives:  To acquire a sense of the complex texture of the city of Rome in the early modern era (the 15^th-17^th centuries), in terms of its topography and main monuments, enriched by an understanding of its social and political structure as well as its inhabitants and visitors.

B. Methods of Instruction. This is a participation-intensive reading, thinking, and discussion course (not a sit-back-and-listen lecture course).  We’ll read and discuss primary and secondary sources to enrich our understanding of the city.  Students will undertake independent research projects that will contribute to annotating Antonio Tempesta’s 1593 Rome city view for an eventual website. 

IV. METHODS OF EVALUATION/GRADING

C- and D fair (60-72) is minimally passing; unsatisfactory understanding and presentation of factual and conceptual material and poorly conceived and expressed written work.  This should provide a wake-up call. 

C good (73-76 is a C; 77-79 is a C+) is a good basic grade; it represents the average expected performance of COLLEGE students.

B work very good (80-82 is a B-; 83-86 is a B; 87-89 is a B+) is significantly better.

A excellent work (90-93 is an A-; 94-97 is an A, 98-100 is an A+) is truly remarkable:

Further expectations: 

• To receive a grade, all assignments must complete and submitted in hard copy by the due date (or a later date IF you demonstrate progress on the assignment and obtain an excuse in advance of the due date).  ASSIGNMENTS SENT VIA E-MAIL ARE NOT ACCEPTED. 
• If you do not submit an assignment (or do not obtain an excuse IN ADVANCE of the due date) you receive a zero. Final grades will NOT be calculated from a fraction of required work completed.
• Any excused work submitted late will be graded down.  If you are experiencing difficulty completing an assignment on time, don’t wait!  Please consult with me immediately. 
• No excused late work is accepted after May 4, the last day of classes.

B.  The Numbers Game.  Monitor your own performance using the chart that appears on the course website.  All work earns a numerical grade from 0-100.  Each numerical grade bears a percentage weighting resulting in a corresponding number of points for each assignment.  At the end of the semester, the point total translates into your letter grade.  

V.  COURSE REQUIREMENTS

1) Assigned readings and discussion: co-discussion leading (10%).  Two students will co-lead some aspect of the discussion of a particular reading.  You will need to sign up for a specific date.  Discussion leaders need to work as a team and coordinate the leading questions that they will circulate in advance to the class and others that they will pose at the time.  Their job is NOT to present the material, but rather to elicit responses from other students.

(2) Exams— a Midterm (15%) and a Final Examination (25%).

(3) Class Participation (10%)

(4)  5 Critical take papers on readings (will count best 4 grades) 15%.  Specific directions will be distributed. 

(5)  Research project.  25%.  City topic; presentation and plotting, succinct script with references.  You will choose a topic from the list, attend the library instruction session, and MEET with me to find appropriately authoritative research resources.  Specific directions will be forthcoming, but the point is to produce something that can be added to the Tempesta website—a good informative essay with a bibliography.

1. READING:   Specific reading assignments appear in the course schedule at the end of this syllabus.  Some is on the course website.  I’d recommend locating and printing out all the readings at one time, putting them into a folder and bringing them to every class.

• Use the “On Reading Critically” handout on the website and the specific questions pertaining to each reading (also on the website) to help you get the most from your reading.  As indicated in the Schedule (Section VI below), on the days for which a reading is assigned, come to class prepared to discuss it. 
• The Grove Dictionary of Art, available through the GMU databases, is another good source for artists’, architects’, and patrons’ biographies, the city, plus entries on themes and concepts.

2.  EXAMS:  There will a midterm examination (75 min.) and a final exam (120 min.) during the exam period.  All exams will take place as scheduled except if the University declares an official snow emergency.  

 a.  The Ground Rules.

§ Exams begin on time and take place as scheduled except if the University declares an official weather emergency. 

§ Plan ahead and allow sufficient time for parking, etc.

§ To be excused from a scheduled quiz or exam due to illness (the only VALID excuse), you MUST inform me in advance of (as close to as possible) the exam DAY and HOUR by one of these methods: telephoning 993-1011 (leave a message if necessary) or by e-mail.  If you do not do follow these rules, you will receive a zero for the assignment.

§ When you have obtained an excuse for the quiz or the midterm, you must then arrange for a make-up.  Make-up tests may differ in format from the regular exam.  The Fine Print: only your academic dean can excuse you from a final examination.

b.  Format.  All tests have a similar format; knowing what to expect will help you take notes and prepare for class NOW.  Do not leave all this work to do until the night before the exam!  Exams test for the forest as well as the trees.  Expect questions that ask for specific information as well as those that challenge you to place that information into the context of the history of early modern Rome.  This requires a combination of knowledge (from class notes AND reading) and analytical skills (developed in class). 

The types of questions that you will find on exams are:

(1) Definition of terms.  Technical terms discussed in class and in the reading will be listed and you will be asked to (a) define them clearly, (b) give an example of their use in an appropriate work, and (c) state the significance of the term to the history of Rome.  Midterm.

(2) Identification/significance.  Single slides will be shown for 4 minutes each.  In each case, you must identify what is shown as precisely as possible (it will be something we have emphasized in class, either a monument, an image of street life, or a detail from Tempesta’s view).  Then, in a single sentence, or as succinctly and unequivocally as possible, state the significance of the work to an understanding of early modern Rome.  Do not describe it, state WHY what you are being shown is important.  Midterm.

(3) Short essay.  An amplified version of the Definition of Terms focusing on the readings.  Midterm.

(4). Long essay.  You will choose from questions formulated to allow you to discuss material from the entire semester.  The questions will derive from discussion in the final class period of the major themes and issues of the semester. Final examination only.

3. CLASS PARTICIPATION. Class attendance/participation/note taking and in-class writing (10% of final grade).  The GMU catalogue states: “Students are expected to attend the class periods of the courses for which they register… instructors may use absence, tardiness, or early departure as de facto evidence of non-participation.”  This course follows that principle.   Participation starts with attendance.  If you fail to attend more than 1 week’s worth of class for reasons other than illness, you will not receive a good grade for participation.  To improve your class participation grade come to class prepared to discuss (volunteer to speak).   The success of this class depends upon us all—class attendance and participation also demonstrates respect for your peers. 

4.  Critical Take papers (directions provided separately).

5.  Research topics:

People:

Antonio Tempesta, maker of the 1592 city view.   

The Medici family presence: Villa Medici, Palazzo Madama, S.M. Sopra Minerva, Palazzo Lante, etc.

The Farnese family presence: Palazzo Farnese, Cancelleria,  

Benvenuto Cellini in Rome, via his autobiography

Montaigne in Rome

Where artists and architects lived and are buried

Felice della Rovere Orsini, daughter of Pope Julius II

Corporate bodies and confraternities

Prostitutes

Agostino Chigi

Places

Women on the Quirinal Hill  

Jews and the Ghetto

Convents (several possibilities)

The Capitoline Hill

Jacopo Galli and his garden

Santo Spirito in Sassia (church and hospital)

Sixtus V and the Vatican obelisk

Via Giulia

Castel Sant’Angelo/Hadrian’s Tomb

Campo dei Fiori

Piazza Navona

Santa Maria della Pace

Santa Maria dell’Anima

Acqua Felice

Trinità ai Monti

Events

The 1527 Sack of Rome

The Possesso ceremony

The triumphal entry of Emperor Charles V

Pius II and the relic of Andrew’s head

Trials from the Magistrates’ court

The Ancient and modern city

Popes and antiquities  

Ligorio’s reconstruction  

VI.  Schedule

Date	Topic	Assignment
1. Jan. 22	course  overview
2. Jan. 24	approaching early modern Rome, conceptually: the topics
3. Jan. 29	approaching early modern Rome: the Tempesta plan
4. Jan. 31 1 2	nations and factions	read Thomas Dandelet, “Spanish Conquest and Colonization at the Center of the Old world: The Spanish nation in Rome, 1555-1625),: The Journal of Modern history 69(1997), 479-511 (locate using JSTOR) and write Critical Take paper 1
5. Feb. 5 1 2	neighborhoods	read Laurie Nussdorfer, “The Politics of Space in Early Modern Rome,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 42(1997), 161-86 e-reserves) and write Critical Take paper 2
6. Feb. 7	Library instruction: meet  in  Fenwick Library A 214
7. Feb. 12 1 2	governing the city	Read Thomas V. and Elizabeth S. Cohen  selections from the “Introduction,” to Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials before the Papal Magistrates”  (e-reserves)
8. Feb. 14 1 2	the cardinal	Read Advice to a cardinal (on course website) and Gigliola Fragnito, “Cardinals’ Courts in Sixteenth-Century Rome, The Journal of Modern history 65(1993), 26-56 (locate using JSTOR) and write Critical Take paper 3
9. Feb. 19 1 2	the palace and the familia	Read Ingrid Rowland, , “The Cultural Marketplace,” Chapter 4 of The Culture of the High Renaissance (on e-reserves)
10. Feb. 21 1 2	the Papacy, structure	Read H.D. Fernández, “The Patrimony of St. Peter: The Papal Court at Rome,” Chapter 6 of The Princely Courts of Europe (on e-reserves) and write Critical Take paper 4
11. Feb. 26 1 2	the Papacy, conclave	Read Pius II on the Conclave, from Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope (e-reserves) and Catholic Encyclopedia article on the conclave (on line resource, link on course website).
12. Feb. 28 1 2	The ceremony of the Possesso	Read Irene Fosi, “Court and City in the Ceremony of the Possesso in the Sixteenth Century,” Court and Politics in Papal Rome (e-reserves).
13. Mar. 5 1 2	The experience of a late 16^th-century visitor, 2	Read Montaigne, “Rome’ from his travel journal (e-reserves).
14. Mar. 7	Midterm
15. Mar. 19 1 2 3	Honor, gender, and the case of Camilla the go-between.		Read E. Cohen, “Honor and Gender in the Streets of Early Modern Rome,”  Journal of Interdisciplinary History 22(1992), 597-625 (access via JSTOR) and write Critical Take paper 5
16. Mar. 21 1 2	Pilgrimage		Read Debra Birch, Chapter 5 from Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages (on e-reserves)
17. Mar. 26 1 2	Master Gregory and the Mirabilia		Read Master Gregorius, The Marvels of Rome (Toronto, 1987),(on e-reserves)
18. Mar. 28	Class does not meet
19. Apr. 2	Class presentations		Papers due April 11
20. Apr. 4	Class presentations		Papers due April 16
21. Apr. 9	Class presentations		Papers due April 18
22. Apr. 11	Class presentations		Papers due April 23
23. Apr. 16	Class presentations		Papers due April 25
24. Apr. 18	Class presentations		Papers due April 30
25. Apr. 23	Class presentations		Papers due May 2
26. Apr. 25	Class presentations		Papers due May 2
27. Apr. 30	Class presentations		Papers due May 4*
28. May 2	Class finale: discussion of major themes and issues covered during the semester
May 14, 1:30	Final examination: long essay question based on discussion during final class period.