Art and Architecture in Rome c 1500 - 1527

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 6
• Convenor: to be confirmed
• Assessment: to be confirmed

Rome in the early decades of the sixteenth century became a centre of artistic production that was to set standards of excellence for centuries to come. Bramante, Michelangelo and Raphael were engaged on projects of unparalleled grandeur and ambition for popes Julius II and Leo X, such as the building of the new St Peter's and the decoration of the Sistine chapel and of the papal apartments at the Vatican.

We will place these achievements within the framework of the renewal of papal authority in Rome from the fifteenth century and the urban project to make the city 'head of the world' again. We will also consider the patronal activities of the cardinals and bankers in addition to those of the popes, as will the spread of the cult of antiquity beyond the intelligentsia of the papal bureaucracy. Finally we will look at the sack of Rome in 1527, placing the concept of the 'High Renaissance' within the cultural debate that began with that catastrophe.