Art and Power in Florence is a three-credit hour honors seminar, focused on the history of Florence from the early 1400s to the 1600s through the lenses of art and power. As the capital of Tuscany and the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence offers a unique setting for examining how political ambition, patronage, and artistic innovation shaped one of the most influential periods in Western history. Conducted over two weeks in Florence, this course invites students to engage directly with the city’s art, architecture, and historical sites while uncovering the forces that ignited the Renaissance.
Spend three weeks studying in Florence
Learn more about Art and Power in Florence
August 6-21, 2026*
This course will also include two online asynchronous class sessions during the weeks before travel to Italy.
*All travel dates are tentative and subject to international travel restrictions.
November 18, 2025
| Hutton Honors Study Abroad Fair 3:00-5:00pm HHC Great Room |
Course Title:Art and Power in Florence
Academic Director & Instructor: Marco Arnaudo
Syllabus Description:
The class explores the history of Florence from the early 1400s to the 1600s through the lenses of art and power – two interrelated concepts that played a key role in shaping the city and triggering the Renaissance. Florence was a place where a banker could rule the state, leaders could be renowned poets, politicians could delight popes with erotic comedies, public spectacles established hierarchy, and painters could be traded as part of diplomatic bargains. The beauty of literature, painting, sculpture, and architecture was never far from calculations of influence and prestige.
Our exploration will start with the development of Florence into a financial and manufacturing powerhouse in the 1300s and 1400s, as symbolized by the completion of the gigantic dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in 1436. We will then focus on the first ruler of the Medici dynasty, Cosimo the Elder, and his relationships with artists like Donatello and philosophers like Marsilio Ficino.
We will discuss the delicate balance of politics and warfare that Florence had to engage in the mid-1400s, and we will be reminded of the potential for danger that lurked behind the beauty of this age (all Medici rulers of the 1400s had to survive deadly conspiracies, for example). We will explore the literary and artistic triumphs of the age of Lorenzo de’ Medici and the complex net of factors leading to the age of Machiavellian politics.
The changing political landscape of the Cinquecento will also be reflected in the artistic culture of the time, with gran duke Cosimo I favoring a grandiose style that projected authoritarian and personal power.
Our journey ends in the 1600s, a time when Florence turned into an autocratic state that still supported the creation of great masterpieces (now in the Baroque style) while allowing the leading scientist of the age, Galileo, to be tried by the Inquisition in Rome.
Excursions include visits to sites such as:
- Galleria dell’Accademia
- Basilica di San Lorenzo and the Medici Chapels
- Uffizi Galleries
- Pitti Palace
- Museo del Bargello
- Museo dell’Opera del Duomo
- Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Participants will stay in a centrally located hotel in Florence. The hotel will be located near shops, public transportation, and other meeting spaces.
Summer 2025 Program Fee - $2500*
The program fee includes airport transfers in country, accommodations in Florence, some meals, transportation to and from all excursion sites, entry fees to all excursion sites, student travel insurance, and administrative fees to cover program administrative costs.
*Program fee is subject to change due to unforeseeable circumstances.
Additional Variable Costs
Variable costs are paid before and after you arrive in Italy as you pay for roundtrip international airfare, most meals, snacks, personal expenses, and independent travel outside the program. See the program fee sheet for more details.
Note: The program fee and tuition will appear on your bursar bill and are paid directly to IU. See the program fee sheet for more details.
Scholarships
All admitted program participants are awarded an automatic HIEP Hutton Honors Study Abroad Scholarship of $500 applied directly to the program fee. No separate application is required.
Additionally, applicants to Hutton Honors Study Abroad programs may be considered for additional merit and need-based scholarships. If finances will be a barrier to participating in your study abroad experience, we invite you to apply for these awards. Please submit your application no later than your program's final application deadline.
Note: Program participants are not eligible to apply for the HIEP Grant.
Please see the IU Education Abroad Office website for more information on other available scholarships and financial aid opportunities.