The Florentine Golden Age 1469–1512

A four-week Seminar Series with Lisa Kaborycha.

How do we define a “golden age”? It can be either an imagined time of peace and plenty, a mythological Arcadia or Camelot, or else a historical reality, such as Periclean Athens during the 5 th century BCE with its extraordinary flourishing of poetry, visual arts, drama, science, and philosophy. Renaissance Florence was another such era, when looking back to ancient Greece, Florentines liked to think of their city as “a new Athens on the Arno.”

This seminar will explore the seemingly inexhaustible surge of astonishing creativity and innovation that took place here during the mid-15 th through early 16 th centuries. In the words of humanist Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499): “If we are to call any age golden, it must be our age which has produced such a wealth of golden intellects … and all this in Florence.”

Recommended reading:

Kaborycha, A Short History of Renaissance Italy, 2nd ed. Routledge, 2023

Kaborycha, Voices from the Italian Renaissance: A Sourcebook. Routledge, 2024