OSHER 333 - Twenty Five Centuries of Creativity: An Introduction to Italian Art

Well before the Roman Empire, Italy had been the place where very different peoples decided to settle. Phoenicians, Greeks, Arabs, French, Spaniards, and Normans all ruled that land, intertwining with Etruscans, Celts, Romans, and Sicilians, creating a culture that has influenced Western culture for twenty centuries in economics, art, music, and science. We will see how and why Venice, Florence, Milan, Naples, Bologna, and Rome developed what we now call Italian civilization.