WORLD OF HENRY VIII: SUGGESTED RESEARCH TOPICS

The following topics are meant as suggestions only. Students must discuss research topics with me beforehand and get help with the bibliography.

Leonardo da Vinci: artist, scientist, inventor

Northern Renaissance art; Medieval vs. Renaissance artistic styles

Translations; work done by the humanists

Rise of vernacular languages; poetics, poetry (only for those who can
read texts in the original)

English and French modern scholarship on the Renaissance: bring
the two currents together

History of book printing, typography; typesets, book illustrations,
bindings, etc.

Scientific and medical discoveries and methods

Voyages, travel (the "great" travelers such as Columbus, Cartier,
etc., and the "small"--the question of mobility in general)

Platonism and its influence on writers

The Inquisition (and censure); Reformation and Counter-Reformation

The Italian city-states (Rome, Florence, Naples, Milan)

Italian literary renaissance: Petrarch, Pico da Mirandola, Ficino

Satire, parody, "rustic" themes in prose (not for the timid or easily
embarrassed!): Firenzuola, Bonaventure des Perriers, Noël du Fail

Important cities of Renaissance Europe: Lyons, Antwerp, Paris,
London, Rome, Naples, Milan, Constantinople, Toledo, etc.

Suleiman the Magnificent and the "Eastern" influence

Families: Sforzas, Medicis, Borgias, Habsburgs