Faith, Science and the Classical Tradition in Renaissance Florence

The story of the Renaissance can be told as a shift from a god-centered world to a human-centered one, a shift that began with the rediscovery of the classical humanist tradition (especially the philosopher-poet Lucretius) and led eventually to the scientific revolution. It is quintessentially the story of Florence. This course presents the story by using the city itself to look at the ways people represented their relationship with God and their understanding of what it is to be human and rational. That in turn leads us to a larger question: how to understand belief itself.