Civil War in Ancient Rome and Early Modern Florence
Medici Patronage and the Example of the Classics
ReMa / PhD course NIKI, Florence
10-17 November 2025
6 ECTS
David Rijser, Koen Ottenheym
Introduction
In 1478 the Florentine banking family of the Pazzi, aided and abetted by intimates of Pope Sixtus IV, prepared an attempt on the life of the capi of their rivals, the Medici, at that time the dominant party in Florentine finance and politics. The leading role of the Medici in Florence promised that the undertaking, were it to be successful, would be considered a spectacular feat. Yet by itself the violent disposal of political enemies was by no means exceptional in early modern Italy.
In the attack in Florence cathedral, Giuliano was killed and Lorenzo was wounded. In order to give the attack the character of a coup d’état and thus be able to eliminate the Pazzi for good, Lorenzo commissioned Angelo Poliziano, humanist, domestic tutor and client of the Medici family, to put a spin on the events by means of a short monograph in the international lingua franca, Latin, which was to influence public opinion in the surrounding Italian city-states, and in Florence itself, in favour of the Medici. To this end, Poliziano used the format of an ancient text quite well-known to his reading public: Sallust’s description of the conspiracy of Catiline in 63 BC known as the Bellum Catilinae, which was then, and still is today, considered a pinnacle of classical Latin prose.
Programme
Friday 7 November
Arrival at NIKI Florence
Saturday 8 November
Introduction
Morning: Introductory lecture: Rome 63 vC & Florence 1478: Renaissance receptions of Rome, modern reception theory
Readings classical reception
Afternoon San Miniato al Monte, exploratory walk
Sunday 9 November
Histories of Rome and Florence
M: Lecture on classical historiography and its reception
Discussion of passages from Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Bruni, Machiavelli
A: Mercato vecchio & surroundings, Museo Archeologico
Monday 10 November
Republican Florence
M: Lecture on Florentine history and politics
Readings and discussion from Sallust, Bellum Catilinae
A: Palazzo vecchio, Battistero, Orsanmichele
Tuesday 11 November: Rome
Day excursion to Rome
M: The trajectory of Catiline’s conspiracy around the Forum Romanum; antiquities visible and influential in Quattrocento
A Sistine Rome (Santa Maria della Pace, Ponte Sisto, Ospedale Santo Spirito)
Diner in Rome, evening train back to Florence
Wednesday 12 November
Patronage
M: Lecture on antique and early modern patronage
Reading and discussion passages on Medici patronage
A: Santa Croce (Bardi Chapel, monument Bruni, Pazzi Chapel), Bargello
Thursday 13 November
The Medici & humanism
M: Lecture on Medici literary patronage
Readings and discussion, Coniurationis commentarium, Angelo Poliziano
A: Palazzo Medici, San Lorenzo, Biblioteca Laurentiana
Friday 14 November
Run-up and Attack
M: The Pazzi, Sixtus IV, alum, international politics and finance
Readings & discussion of Poliziano, part 2
A: Duomo, Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo
Saturday 15 November
Aftermath: Lorenzo & the Orators
M: Lecture: the consequences of the conspiracy; Florentine culture at the turn of the century
Readings & discussion Ficino, Savonarola, Machiavelli
A: Santa Trinita, Santa Maria Novella, San Pancrazio (Poliziano, Alberti)
Sunday 16 November
Poggio a Caiano
M: Visit to Lorenzo’s villa at Poggio a Caiano
A: Farewell lunch in Florence
Course details
Professors David Rijser (University of Groningen), Koen Ottenheym (Utrecht University)
Location The Netherlands University Institute for Art History, Florence (NIKI), www.nikiflorence.org
Credits 6 ECTS
Each student should arrange with their home university whether the course can be part of the existing curriculum. Upon successful completion of the course, the NIKI will provide a certificate mentioning the study load and grade.
The study load is based on:
- Before arriving in Florence: introductory class in Utrecht (date to be fixed, attendance mandatory); preparation of readings to allow for class discussion: 2 ECTS (56 hours)
- Active participation in seminars, excursions, museum visits in Florence, and presentations: 2 ECTS (56 hours)
- Writing of a research paper (deadline to be confirmed): 2 ECTS (56 hours)
Language English
E-mail d.rijser@rug.nl
Costs Course fee: free of charge for students registered at one of the six participating Dutch universities; € 500 (all other students).
Description This pioneering interdisciplinary course sets out to confront two major historical events, the conspiracies of Catiline in ancient Rome and that of the Pazzi in Renaissance Florence from the perspective of two contemporary historical sources, the monographs of Sallust and Poliziano. Both texts fascinate because they contains detailed descriptions of the topographical, social and political context of the events they describe in ancient Rome and Renaissance Florence, the latter comprising interior and socio-political function of the Medici residence on the Via Larga, as well as the cathedral and the Palazzo Vecchio. But equally interesting is the way Poliziano ‘reads’ Sallust, illustrating as it does to what extent late republican Rome functioned as a mirror for the early modern Florentines. A reading of and comparison between these two texts allows students and researchers to get unusually close to historical realities in 63 BC and 1478, while at the same time brilliantly illustrating the role of classical antiquity in the Florentine ‘Renaissance’, and confront these readings with visuals in Florence and Rome which are still largely extant.
Historically, moreover, both conspiracies were the prelude to major political changes: the birth of the principate in antiquity, and the transformation of Florence from republic to grand duchy. The theme of civil war, alarmingly topical at the moment, thus also offers fascinating links to the present. A multi-media reimagining of the Pazzi conspiracy and its (cultural) historical contexts is thus an ideal subject for a course on location in Florence for ReMa and PhD students with strong interests in cultural history.
Each day in [Florence] of the 7-day course is composed of two sections: teaching at NIKI and tours of the city and its surroundings. In preparation, participants read a pensum of primary and secondary literature. After completing the course, they individually write a 4000-word paper. All texts will be presented in English translation, with the Latin original on the facing page to facilitate discussion of concepts and terms. Knowledge of Latin, although it may be helpful, is thus emphatically not prerequisite.
Site-visits See provisional programme
Target group (Prospective) MA-, RMA students and PhD candidates in Classics & Ancient Studies, Early Modern Studies, History, Art History, and related disciplines from the NIKI- NWIB partner universities (UvA, VU, UL, UU, RU and RUG).
Objectives To introduce the student to the overlapping fields of comparative literature, cultural history and art history in late Republican Rome and Quattrocento Florence. The student will be introduced in theory and practice of classical receptions, and stimulated to form ideas about the confrontation between literature and life, and the function of culture in international politics in the respective periods. Emphasis will be placed on the social, political and intellectual context, with speciao focus on patronage. Given the interdisciplinary nature of this course, it is open to students of various disciples. In fact, facilitating a dialogue across different academic disciplines and faculties is one of the course’s objectives. Finally, daily class discussions of the literature in the Reader will aid the student in further developing his or her academic skills.
Structure The course will be a combination of lectures with power point presentation, class discussions of the readings, guided visits on site in museums in Florence and individual study and research (under supervision) in the library of the NIKI. Prior to arrival at the NIKI an introductory class will take place in Utrecht. After the course in Florence has ended, students will receive further guidance during a class meeting that will take place in Utrecht as well as during individual online meetings.
Course material
Course materials will be made available 6 weeks in advance of the preparatory session in Utrecht.
Form of assessment
Attendance and class participation: pass/fail
Presentation: graded, 40%
Research paper: graded, 60%
Course Requirements
Students will write a research paper (4000 words) subsequent to the course, with a deadline of February 1, 2026. During the course they will be asked to give a 10’ presentation during one of the excursions on a chosen topic that is part of the visit (list of possible topics and outline term paper will be handed out at the beginning of the course). The presentation should include a brief outline of possible research questions, state of research, method of research, sources used, questions raised by the item and some bibliography. The presentation should refer to the readings for and the lectures during the course.
Deadline paper
February 1, 2026
Use of generative AI (GenAI) in this course
The use of GenAI tools like ChatGPT affects the realisation of the objectives you seek to attain in this course. The professors therefore choose the following guidelines for this issue.
With a view to the objectives of this course the use of GenAI is permitted in the following way:
- improvement of language, idiom and style in composition
- finding information
- translation, summary or explanation of course literature
- translation of individual drafts
- formatting of bibliography
For other uses, the use of GenAI is forbidden in this course. In doubt, consult your tutors. The following guidelines remain in force:
- you are at all times personally accountable for the texts you submit. Be critical in the application of AI at all times.
- the generation of entire texts , paragraphs, sections or figures with the help of AI that are presented as your own work is forbidden and will be considered fraudulent.
- the output of GenAI can never be considered as a source, as it is itself a conflation of sources that cannot be traced or reproduced and as such is unfit for scholarly referencing.
- even if allowed, the use of AI is optional and may be passed by in every assignment on this course.
If the tutors in this course suspect uses of GenAI in this course other than those outlined above, you may be invited to elucidate the genesis of your work in an audit. If fraud or plagiarism is suspected, it will be reported to the examination board.
Provisional bibliography
ALBERTI. Grayson, C., ed. Leon Battista Alberti: De pictura lbri III, Biblioteca degli scrittori d’Italia degli editori Laterza. Roma-Bari, 1975.
AMES-LEWIS. Ames-Lewis, F. The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist. New Haven [etc.]: YUP, 2000.
____, The Early Medici and their Artists, Birckbeck College 1995
Armitage, D. Civil Wars. A History in Ideas, Yale UP 2017
Baron, H. Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny, Princeton, 1966.
BAXANDALL I. Baxandall, Michael. Giotto and the Orators; Humanist observers of pianting in Italy and the discovery of pictorial composition, 1350-1450. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
BAXANDALL II. Baxandall, M. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972.
BOCCACCIO. Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, introduction
Bouwsma, W.J. The Waning of the Renaissance: 1550-1640, The Yale Intellectual History of the West New Haven [etc.] 2000.
Bredekamp, H. Sandro Botticelli: Primavera. Florenz als Garten der Venus Frankfurt am Main 1988.
BROWN. Brown, Alison, The Renaissance (London and New York: Longman), 1988.
BRUCKNER. Bruckner, G. The Society of Renaissance Florence: a documentory study. New York 1971
Burckhardt, J. Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien Basel 1870
Celati, M. ‘The conflict after the Pazzi conspiracy and Poliziano’s ‘Coniurationis commentarium’: Literature, law and politics’, Forum Italicum 53.2 (2019): 327-49
De Grazia, S. Machiavelli in Hell, Princeton 1989.
De Sanctis, F. Storia della Letteratura Italiana ed. Giorgio Luti & Giuliano Inammorati Florence 1960.
Dempsey, Ch. The Portrayal of Love: Botticelli’s Primavera and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent Princeton 1992.
ELMER. The Renaissance in Europe: An Anthology, ed. by Peter Elmer, Nick Webb, and Roberta Wood (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), 2000.
Enenkel, K. Die Erfindung des Menschen; Die Autobiographie des frühneuzeitlichen Humanismus von Petrarca bis Lipsius, Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008
GILBERT. Gilbert, Creighton E., Italian Art, 1400-1500: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.) 1980.
Godman, P. From Poliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine humanism in the High Renaissance, Princeton (1998)
GOMBRICH. ‘Botticelli’s mythologies’, ‘The Renaissance Concept of Artistic Progress’
Hankins, James. Plato in the Italian Renaissance. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990.
Inglese, G. Niccolò Machiavelli: Lettere a Francesco Vettori e a Francesco Guicciardini (1513-1527), Milaan 1989.
Jacoff. R ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dante Cambridge 20072 [1993].
Kent, Dale, Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance, Yale UP 2000
Kristeller, P.O. Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1964.
Mansfield, H. Machiavelli’s Virtue, Chicago 1996.
POLIZIANO. Angelo Poliziano, Silvae, I Tatti Library, Harvard 2004
Angelo Poliziano, Della congiura dei Pazzi – coniurationis commentarium, a cura di Al;essandro Perosa, Padova, 1958
Angelo Poliziano, Coniurationis commentarium – Commentario della congiura dei Pazzi, a cura di Leandro Perini, Firenze University Press 2012
(Coniurationis commentarium. Commentario alla congiura dei pazzi – Angelo Poliziano – Libro – Firenze University Press – Biblioteca di storia | IBS)
Angelo Poliziano, Gentile Becchi, La congiura della verità, introduzione, commento e cura di Marcello Simonetta, La scuola di Pitagora editrice 2012
(La congiura della verità. Testo latino a fronte – Angelo Poliziano – Gentile Becchi – – Libro – La Scuola di Pitagora – Umanesimo e Rinascimento | IBS)
Angelo Poliziano, Coniurationis commentarium, introduzione, traduzione e commento a cura di Marta Celati, Edizioni dell’Orso 2015
(Coniurationis commentarium – Angelo Poliziano – Libro – Edizioni dell’Orso – Ciceronianus.Scrittori latini per Europa | IBS)
Martines, Lauro, April Blood. Florence and the Plot against the Medici, Oxford 2003
Parks, Tim, Medici Money. Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in 15th Century Florence, 2005
Ramsay, J.T. (ed.) Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, Oxford 2007
Rijser, D. Raphael’s Poetics: Art and Poetry in High Renaissance Rome Amsterdam 2012.
ROETTGEN. Roettgen, Steffi. Italian Frescoes: The Flowering of the Renaissance: 1470-1510 / principal photography by A. Quattrone and F. Lensini. Translated by Russell Stockman. New York [etc.]: The Abbeville Press, 1997.
Roover, R. de, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397-1494, Norton 1966
Ruggiero, G. The Renaissance in Italy. A Social and cultural history of the Rinascimento, Cambridge 2015
VASARI. Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de’ più eccelenti pittori, scultori e architettori. 6 vols. Firenze: Giunti, 1568.
Wiseman, T.P. Remembering the Roman People. Essays on L:ate Republican Literature and Politics, Oxford, 2004
WREN. Wren, Linnea, ed. Perspectives on Western Art, Vol. 2 (New York: Icon Editions/HarperCollins), 1994.