Learning objectives
Expected learning outcomes: knowledge of the proposed texts.
Knowledge and understanding: critical attitude, with the aid of human sciences and their interdisciplinary intersections.
Ability in applying knowledge and understanding: making use of the critical tools and historical insights acquired.
Making judgments: it is the overarching goal of the course, with particular reference to the acquisition of an awareness of historical distance and of the longue durée of the investigated phenomena.
Communication skills: acquisition of a language not necessarily technical, but able to distinguish and give an account of the characteristics of an educational texts from the past.
Learning skills: in proportion to the individual abilities.
Course unit content
Warfare and humanities: educational paradigms in the Renaissance
Bibliography
SOURCES
* Senofonte, Ciropedia, libro I (IV secolo a.C.); traduzione italiana di Francesco Regis, 1821
* Pseudo-Plutarco, De liberis educandis (II-III secolo d.C); versione latina di Guarino Guarini (1410 circa); edizione italiana a cura di Rossella Cassì (PhD Diss., Boston College, 2016)
* Pier Paolo Vergerio, Dei nobili costumi e degli studi liberali della gioventù (1400 circa), in E. Garin, L’educazione umanistica in Italia, Bari, Laterza, 1953.
SECONDARY LITERATURE
* Peter Oskar Kristeller, Umanesimo filosofico e umanesimo letterario, “Lettere italiane”, 14, 4, 1962;
* Antonia Tissoni Benvenuti, Le armi e le lettere nell'educazione del signore nelle corti padane del Quattrocento. "Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Moyen-Age, Temps modernes", tome 99, n°1. 1987;
* Monica Ferrari, Lettere di principi bambini nel Quattrocento lombardo, "Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée", tome 109, n°1. 1997.
This program is to be considered work-in-progress and will be considered final at the end of the 1° module (mid-March 2019).
Non-native speakers with serious difficulties in reading 19th-century Italian can study Xenophon in whatsoever scholarly edition, with translation in English, French or German.
Teaching methods
Selected passages from the texts will be read during the lessons, with comments aimed at highlighting the cultural context and the main decisions made by the authors. Through the comment and, when possible, the discussion with the students, critical skills and independence of judgment of the students will be trained.
Assessment methods and criteria
Final assessment will consist of an interview in which the student has to show:
- The ability to set out clearly, with appropriate vocabulary, features, content and historical context of a pedagogical text.
- Knowledge of the historical background and the major pedagogical elements of the proposed texts, ascertained, if necessary, through questions posited by the teacher in the context of the presentation offered by the student.
- The threshold of pass mark is defined by the presence of both parameters:
a. full reading of the proposed texts;
b. Implementation of a research / individual reflection on the text with the elaboration of individual proposals and criticism.
