ARCH 458 – Urban Florence: Traveling Across Layers

Description
To many visitors and students Florence appears as a storybook city, a museum where everything stands still in a generic past. The common denomination “cradle of the Renaissance” gives a mistaken idea of the period in which the city came into being, expanded and remains today. This course will elaborate on the complex transformations of the city, from Etruscan village to Roman town, Renaissance metropolis and then Italian city. The course is designed as a historical analysis of the urban transformations that made Florence the city it is today. Site visits to the various (and very different) neighborhoods in Florence are therefore a significant part of the program. Readings and analysis will furnish the background knowledge needed in order to visualize the different urban expansions of this city. At the end of the course, students will be able to determine the historical period of parts of the city based on the information obtained in lectures, readings and site visits.

Objectives and Outcomes
The aim of the course is to enable students to:

– Possess good knowledge of course material, and the ability to elaborate on the urban transformations of the city of Florence through time.
– Show the ability to recognize areas of the city and place their construction in time.
– Demonstrate a grasp of the subject, using appropriate terminology to express judgements regarding the transformation in the form of the city.
– Demonstrate satisfactory knowledge of urban history and development.

Course descriptions may be subject to occasional minor modifications at the discretion of the instructor.

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