Venice: From Origins to the REnaissance

Lecturers: Dr Kathleen Olive, Robert Veel, Dr Nick Gordon

Course Description

Explore the art, history and architecture of Venice in depth, from its Byzantine beginning to its medieval glory and on to the age of Titian and Palladio.

The origins of the city are the stuff of myths - those the Venetians told themselves about an angel’s message to St Mark and those of our own about refugees and fishing communities taking shelter on muddy islands. Neither fully explains the growth of the humble towns of the lagoon, especially the rise of the ‘Rivo Alto’ settlement and its connections to Byzantium, or the creation of Venice as the city where ‘east meets west’.

By the year 1200, Venice had taken control of trade routes that ran from the Black Sea to the gates of Gibraltar. But these commercial routes were only part of how Venice became the emporium of the Mediterranean: trade networks were augmented by systematic colonisation of the coastlines, new technologies, novel accounting systems, canny politics and crusading. The city’s success in the Middle Ages is evident today in the enduring monuments of Venice and unique Venetian Gothic art and architecture which makes the city seem to rise gloriously above the waters.

But Venice’s strong cultural and economic connections to the Eastern Mediterranean have been argued to have ‘delayed the Renaissance’, which sometimes seems to have arrived suddenly with the Bellini dynasty. Venice’s interest in (and acquisition) of mainland Italy, however, increased across the fifteenth-century and the success of other artistic dynasties, such as the Vivarini, the Bon and Veneziano families, opens up a more complex picture for us to explore. Nevertheless, the influence of the Bellini on a generation of artists - Carpaccio, Cima da Conegliano, Giorgione, and Titian - is hard to underestimate and we end this course in the High Renaissance when these artists and architects such as Palladio created much of what we see today in Venice.

Your lecturers have worked together for more a decade and look forward to sharing with you their passion for and deep interest in all things Venetian, and their different insights into the Most Serene Republic.

Course Content

Session 1: From muddy foundations to Queen of the Mediterranean (Robert Veel)

Session 2: Spices, Silks and Slaves: The Trading Empire (Dr Kathleen Olive)

Session 3: Venice in the fifteenth century: Bartolomeo Bon, the Vivarini and the Bellini (Dr Nick Gordon)

Session 4: Venice in the High Renaissance: Titian, Palladio and Veronese (Dr Nick Gordon)

Lecturers

Dr Kathleen Olive is well known to Italian enthusiasts for her lectures and seminars, including popular short courses at the WEA, Sydney, and national lectures for the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Association (ADFAS). She has worked as a cultural tour leader for over 15 years, with deep expertise in Italy, and in France, Spain and Japan. Her published research on a Renaissance Italian manuscript, the so-called Codex Rustici, was presented to Pope Francis I in 2015 as the official gift of the Florentine Curia.

Robert Veel has more than 20 years experience teaching the history, art and music of Italy, and a particular passion for all things Venetian. Robert lectured at the University of Sydney before turning to leading life-long learning programs at the Centre for Continuing Education, where he also served as Assistant Director. In addition, Robert has led small group cultural tours to Italy for 30 years, is a founding director of Academy Travel and the publisher of Limelight magazine.

Dr Nick Gordon has extensive experience as a cultural tour leader, having taken small group tours from Australia to Italy, the Low Countries, Germany and Scandinavia for more than ten years. He is a practising and exhibiting artist with an encyclopedic knowledge of contemporary art, and his research on the Italian Middle Ages has won numerous academic scholarships and prizes (including a University of Sydney medal in History).

Course Structure

4 x 1.5 hour sessions

Each session includes an interactive lecture and time for group discussion and analysis.

Course Dates

To find out when this course will run next, please join the waitlist using the form below.

REquirements

This course does not require any assumed knowledge, only a willingness to learn and an interest in art.

Sessions require access to ZOOM (which is free), a device with a camera (such as a tablet or computer with a webcam), and an internet connection.

Waiting List

To find out when this course will run next, please join the waitlist using the form below.