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Kicking off this Interseason Trilogy, this episode discusses the early life of Filippo Brunelleschi, the early phases of the construction of the Duomo, and the famous competition against Lorenzo Ghiberti for the commission of the bronze doors of the Baptistry of Florence.

All of this is meant as a prelude of how Brunelleschi came to be the architect who solved the mystery of how to construct the largest dome in the world.

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The Magi, or the Three Wise Men who followed the star of Bethlehem to find the infant Christ, are essential components of understanding religious life in Florence. In the 1400's under Cosimo de' Medici, the culture around the Magi was appropriated to establish a parallel between local devotion and Medici power and patronage. This episode highlights how the Magi became a symbol for the Medici family, and how the use of a popular Christmas theme enabled a vivid propaganda based on establishing the Medici as a global dynastic entity.

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The Season 1 finale brings you five tales from Italy of ghosts, witches, murder, and plague.  Story-telling and folklore are essential aspects of Renaissance history and society. Many of the stories told on this episode are grounded in truth. Whether or not the supernatural lays its cold, chill hands upon these moments or not, is up to you.

Why is a disembodied head on the walls of Santa Maria Maggiore? How did the bones of 800 bodies come to decorate the Otranto Cathedral? What happened when the cruel culture of the Inquisition believed it found witches in Triora? All this, and more in this spine-tingling, hair-raising, heart-pounding Halloween special.
 
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All across the United States debates are flaring up around the legacy of Christopher Columbus and social traditions that spawned from his journey across the Atlantic. In light of a developing history around Columbus, one that highlights his cruelty and questionable navigational ability, the call has been made: eliminate Columbus Day and replace it with a holiday that elevates those who fell victim to his imperial mode of 'discovery.'

Based on thorough historical analysis, The Italian Renaissance Podcast supports this notion. This episode looks to lay out the argument, supported by contemporary, medieval, and renaissance sources, in order to exam the facts around Columbus. Additionally, it looks at the voice of the opposition, the stakes of cultural heritage, and the difficulties of nationalistic patriotism in light of this essential moment that bridges the Renaissance to the modern Americas.

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The name Sandro Botticelli is inseparable from a rich visual vocabulary of mythological subjects, abstract bodies, and an achieved pictorial aesthetic that diverts the mind from the vast complexities of his work. Yet, when we dive deep and look close, his works demonstrate a series of compound interpretations that render them often puzzling and difficult.

Looking at his Primavera, this discussion unpacks several interpretations of the painting, looking at the literature around the subjects, and trying to place them in a specific historical time and context that gives a series of possible meanings to the work.  We must also discuss questions of patronage, and how a work of art can give convincing clues as to its origin. All of this relates to cultural attitudes around paganism, Christianity, eroticism and marriage in Renaissance Italy.

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Equally as important as humanism, naturalism, innovation, and invention, the Cult of the Saints is a long standing tradition that continues to thrive during the Renaissance period. Only through understanding this current and ongoing cultural trend can art and society in Italy  be properly comprehended.

This discussion details the position of saints, how they are worshiped, and how their pictorial depictions inherited from the Middle Ages are influenced by the changing attitudes of the Renaissance through the likes of Filippino Lippi and Leonardo da Vinci.

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She was the ultimate Muse of the Renaissance, inspiring princes, painters and poets. This discussion looks to unpack the shockwave that followed the arrival of Simonetta Vespucci in Florence. Who was she, and how does history inform her impact on the Italian Renaissance?

We dive deeper, interpreting how to digest the questions around attributions of her image, and how virtue, courtship, and Neoplatonic thought elevated her in Florentine society.  Even after her tragic death, La bella Simonetta was closely entangled in the developing culture by the likes of the Medici, Sandro Botticelli, and Angelo Poliziano.

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Let's take a deep and thorough look at one of Michelangelo's most exceptional works, the drunken, stammering Bacchus.

Jumping off from where the Young Michelangelo episode ended, this discussion covers the commission, provenance, and a detailed visual analysis and interpretation of the artist's first major life-sized marble, Bacchus, the god of wine and fertility.

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We are shifting gears as I share my experiences on how the Renaissance fits into our modern world. Listen to these stories, some funny some not,  that help paint a picture of how the Renaissance is engaged by scholars, students, and tourists. I do not intend to show it in its glory, but rather the difficulties and tensions.

Galleries in Italy are overcrowded. The process of art education is harmed by this. What is worse, many academics are in denial, or even hostile toward the Renaissance, especially in light of the Middle Ages. I will try to nuance how I have experienced this.

***When talking about the cathedrals, I meant to say Santa Maria del Fiore, not Santa Maria Novella. Begging your pardon.

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In our final discussion of Dante's masterwork, The Divine Comedy, this analysis seeks not only to outline these last two books, but to show them as precursors to Renaissance thought, grounding Dante as both a writer of the Middle Ages and an object of proto-humanism.

What must Dante do to ascend Mount Purgatory and reach the heavenly realm, and how does his poetics amplify this? How does his strong reliance on classical reference clash with his contemporary Christianity?

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