Renaissance Research Project
Framing the Research Project
SOURCES 2016
Trials
Paintings of Sofonisba Anguissola
Lorenzo de’ Medici, Poems and Prose
Girolamo Cardano, Book of My Life
Alessandra Strozzi, Letters
Maps
Depictions of Venus
Pope Pius II, Commentaries
Paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi
Antonio Beccadelli, Hermaphroditus
Pietro Aretino, Letters
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
Depictions of animals in art
Rape trial of Artemisia Gentileschi
Pietro Aretino, La Cortigiana
Marin Sanudo, Diaries
Antonio Vignali, La Cazzaria
Niccolò Machiavelli, Florentine Histories
Nights of Straparola
Filippo Lippi, politics in art
Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus
Veronica Franco, Poems and Letters
Depictions of Mary, St. Sebastian, and St. Mark
Paganism in art
Francesco Petrarca, Letters
Marco Parenti, Memoir
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Art of War
The aim of the Research Project is to shift your attention
to primary sources and allow you to seriously engage
with them, in preparation for more extensive research
as in your final year dissertation.
NB The key question you are trying to answer with the
project: How can we use this source (or these sources)
to illuminate Renaissance History?
The source should drive the content of the project. (In
this sense, this is different from what you are asked to
do in a normal research essay)
E. H. Carr, What is History? How can we buy fish?
Having chosen the source, read or examine it carefully,
BEFORE you do too much secondary reading. Go back
and read/examine it again after you have read more
about its context.
Your close examination of the source should help you
determine which issues you think are most important to
focus on in the project; which aspects of Italian
Renaissance life it tells us most about.
The Project should include discussion of: what kind of
source is it? Its form, author, purpose, language,
audience, context.
Title
What is the correct and full title of the source?
Author
Who produced the source?
Who were they?
Patron
Was there a patron?
If so, who were they?
NB Remember the contemporary view of the patron as
the creator.
Date
When was the source produced?
Is the date significant? Why?
Form
What form does the source take? E.g. letter, legal document,
treatise, dialogue, play, poem, (auto)biography, history,
chronicle, diary, painting, sculpture, building, etc.
Why was that form chosen?
How does the form affect the way the views are expressed by
the author/artist?
Language
If you are analysing a text, in which language was it written
originally?
Why was that language chosen?
Audience
To whom is the source addressed?
How do we know the audience?
Who were the audience?
Why does the author/artist/patron address that audience?
Is the way the source is produced influenced by whom it is
addressed to? How? Why?
Reference to event or situation
Does the source refer or react to a particular event or situation?
If so, discuss the context and nature of the event or situation in
detail.
What is the attitude of the author/artist/patron to the event or
situation?
Why does the author/artist/patron take that attitude?
Reference to people
Does the source refer to a particular person or group of people?
If so, discuss that person or group of people in detail.
What is the attitude of the author/artist/patron to that person or
group of people?
Why does the author/artist/patron take that attitude?
Reference to text
Does the source refer to a particular text? If so, discuss that text
in detail.
What is the attitude of the author/artist/patron to that text?
Why does the author/artist/patron take that attitude?
Reference to existing belief, idea or practice
Does the source refer or react to an existing belief, idea or
practice? If so, discuss the context and nature of the belief, idea
or practice in detail.
What is the attitude of the author/artist/patron to the belief,
idea or practice?
Does the author/artist/patron support it or challenge it? How?
Why?
Expression of new belief or idea
Does the source express a new belief or idea? If so, discuss the
belief or idea in detail.
How is the belief or idea new?
How did the author arrive at the new belief or idea?
Why does the author express it now?
Diction
If you are analyzing a text, how does the choice of words reflect
the author’s attitude?
If you are analysing a visual source, check the questions
about design, setting, symbols, and colour in the Visual
Sources powerpoint.
Issues and Values
What does the source tell us about
social/religious/political issues and values such as
gender, marriage, sexuality, morality, social status,
justice, honour, family?
What does the source tell us about cultural issues and
values such as the revival of antiquity, humanism, the
use of the vernacular?
NB If you are using several sources, do they reveal
changes over time or do some things continue? What
are the reasons for this? What is the significance?
NB If you are analysing several sources, don’t write
about each source in turn. Instead, you should identify
themes and base your analysis on these themes.
In week 9 or 10 of this term you will give a short
presentation (5 minutes) on your project and receive
feedback from your tutor and seminar peers.
The presentation workshops will be held from 9.00 to
1.00 on the Fridays of Weeks 9 and 10 in H5.45 (9-11)
and F1.10 (11-1).
The deadline for the 4,500-word essay is 12 noon on the
Thursday of Week 2 of the Summer Term. For details of
submission, see
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/students/es
saysubmission