Archeologia e storia dell’arte greca (Ordinario)

Theory and methodological approaches to the study of ancient art.

Cities and Sanctuaries in the Mediterranean

The course aims to provide an overview of the discipline of archaeology, its protagonists, theoretical approaches, and methods, retracing some crucial historiographical turning points. After an introduction dedicated to theoretical reflections on art in the ancient world through literary and philosophical sources, the course will analyze certain aspects of ancient and modern collecting, leading up to the beginning of the explorations of Herculaneum (1738) and Pompeii (1748), and the rediscovery of ancient Greece. Another section will examine some of the most eminent scholars and their contributions to the discipline—from ceramics to architecture to sculpture—beginning with J.J. Winckelmann and his Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (Dresden 1764) and continuing through to the major archaeologists, not only Italian, of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In the second part, the course focuses on the topography of ancient cities, with a particular focus on their relationship with sacred areas and their main monuments. Through a selection of cases, from Greece proper to Magna Graecia and Sicily, to Asia Minor, we will attempt to illustrate the formation and consolidation of the city, its spatial organization and definition, its development, and its transformations from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period.

Within the EELISA Community "Archaeology & Architecture," a series of meetings dedicated to the city of Ephesus is planned: in the Spring, a visit to the ancient city will be organized with faculty and students from UPM and ITU.

During the academic year, laboratory exercises and educational visits to museums and archaeological sites in Italy and abroad are planned.