da Vinci and the Renaissance 2020 Dashboard

Description

Leonardo drawingsDa Vinci and the Renaissance is a fully cross-disciplinary study-abroad program that explores the transition from the medieval period to the Renaissance across multiple subjects (art, architecture, engineering, science and more), laying out how much of what we take for granted today about technology or about the human subject were implemented in this rich period, especially in Italy.  Our focus will be that most famous “Renaissance man,” Leonardo da Vinci.  The course’s interdisciplinary approach asks students to think about the constructed nature of the things we take for granted as “natural” (e.g., time, space, human subjectivity, meaning, sight, knowledge, and law), thus opening our eyes to the significance of cultural differences. We will also consider the many ways that we are now seeing a cultural, ontological, and epistemological shift that is as far-reaching as the one between the medieval period and the Renaissance

The 3 credits will be split between 8 weeks of instruction at Purdue (1 credit) and our study-abroad program to Venice and Florence (2 credits). In Italy, we will see a number of things that we will have discussed before getting on a plane together. We will also think about the nature of confronting a different culture and of being a tourist in a foreign land.

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Individual Entries

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Posted by Jacob Halpern on Saturday, February 8, 2020 - 17:22

Leonardo’s final resting place, he died of a stroke here in 1519. While he was heralded in life as a great man of the Renaissance, his astronomical studies remained largely unknown due to his leaving many of his notes unpublished. As a result, many of Leonardo’s discoveries regarding the solar system—the physical features of the sun and moon, various phenomena of optics, and astronomy-related inventions and experiments—were lost and rediscovered later, resulting in the credit going to other great scientists. However, these discoveries were over a hundred years after da Vinci’s lifetime, slowing the progress of knowledge about the universe we live in.

Works Cited:

Leonardo, & Richter, Jean Paul. (1883). The literary works of Leonardo da Vinci. S. Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington.

Welther, B. L. (1999, October). Leonardo da Vinci and the Moon : The famous Renaissance artist and scientist made an insightful interpretation about our nearest neighbor in...

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Chronology Entry
Posted by Jacob Halpern on Saturday, February 8, 2020 - 16:59
Place
Posted by Ariana Eskew on Friday, February 7, 2020 - 12:39

When Brunelleschi began to design the structure of the Florence Duomo's lantern, he was conflicted on how he should go about supporting the arches.  One of his options was to adopt the technique used in Ancient Rome and have tie rods on the arches and cupola.  Brunelleschi had long had an affinity for the architecture of Ancient Rome after he failed to be recognized as one of the first sculptors in Florence during his time.  Nevertheless, he was still a sculptor with a rare creative mind that led to him creating several inventions and works of art.  His desire for inspiration to help with the dome's construction and love for techniques created in Ancient Rome drew him to travel to Rome to see it all for himself.

Works Cited

Prager, Frank D., and Gustina Scaglia. Brunelleschi: Studies of His Technology and Inventions. Dover Publications, 2004.

Posted by Jacob Halpern on Thursday, February 6, 2020 - 22:01
Posted by Jacob Halpern on Thursday, February 6, 2020 - 20:10
Place
Posted by Madeline Quinn on Thursday, February 6, 2020 - 11:45

The original Virgin of the Rocks painting is now hanging in the Louvre, but before this the original painting was in the chapel in San Francesco Grande in Milan as a piece of the altar.  This painting was commissioned to go here in 1483 as a part of a sculpture that had already been created in the altar there.  Many elements from San Francesco Grande have been destroyed and Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks are no longer there, but from different paintings and imaginings of the chapel, one can imagine the beauty of the chapel while the full sculpture, original altarpiece, and painting were all there.

Works Cited:

“Leonardo Da Vinci: The Virgin of the Rocks: NG1093: National Gallery, London.” The National Gallery,...

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Place
Posted by Madeline Quinn on Thursday, February 6, 2020 - 11:19

The image on the sketch does not have a known location as it was most likely a place Leonardo da Vinci imagined, but the sketch is now available for all of the public to see on display the Louvre Museum in Paris.  The research that Leonardo did to discover more about the Earths geological formations can be translated directly into his paintings that now hang in the Louvre.  With the shift in art styles from the Byzantine era to the Renaissance, there was a shift to have a lot more focus in the background of paintings which Leonardo studied extensively in sketches such as this one.  In a large amount of Leonardo's paintings there is a beautiful backdrop of rock formations and otherwise, but there is not many sketches such as these found from his notebooks.

Works Cited:

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Chronology Entry
Posted by Madeline Quinn on Thursday, February 6, 2020 - 09:38
Posted by Cooper Slack on Tuesday, February 4, 2020 - 23:22
Place
Posted by Jacob Halpern on Tuesday, February 4, 2020 - 23:20

A frequent travel spot for Leonardo, Monte Rosa is a large mountain in the Swiss Alps, very close to the Swiss-Italian Border.  At the peak, da Vinci noticed the extreme blueness of the sky,  commenting that "If you go to the top of a high mountain the sky will look proportionally darker above you as the atmosphere becomes rarer between you and the outer darkness; and this will be more visible at each degree of increasing height till at last we should find darkness." He speculated that the blue effects was due to the humidity in the air catching the rays of the sun (i.e. the same process which gives water its blue tint). While not completely correct, da Vinci shows a scientific mind well ahead of his time, as it took until 1871, when Lord Rayleigh published a paper depicting this phenomenon as the quantum interaction between particles and radiation. In this way, da Vinci unknowingly also explains the reason outer space is dark, despite stars shining light throughout it: there needs...

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