Topic: Writing for Professional Practise

Your Brief
Deakin University is seeking student feedback on a number of key services offered to current students. Alison Burns of Deakin University has commissioned you to research and write a brief report that evaluates the current state and future direction of one of the following Deakin University services:

Social Media at Deakin –  HYPERLINK https://www.deakin.edu.au/socialmedia/index.php www.deakin.edu.au/socialmedia/index.php
Travel Smart Program –  HYPERLINK https://www.deakin.edu.au/travelsmart/ www.deakin.edu.au/travelsmart/
Study Skills Program –  HYPERLINK https://www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/study-skills/ www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/study-skills/
Careers and Employment
–  HYPERLINK https://www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/services/careers/index.php https://www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/services/careers/index.php

Purpose
These reports will be evaluated and selected findings will be collated into a final report to be submitted to the head of each service.

Research
All the research material you need is on the Deakin University website. You may have to do some outside investigation to help you decide on your Recommendations.

Writing
Your report should include:

an Executive Summary
an Introduction covering scope, objective, purpose and use.
an evaluation of the current service, including key issues, strengths and weaknesses
an evaluation of 2-3 potential improvements to the service
a persuasive Conclusion, arguing for the implementation of at least one of your improvements
3-4 Recommendations outlining actions required to implement of your improvement
Appendices (optional)
Reference list

Your recommendations should provide clear strategic directions for Deakin University i.e. they should clearly indicate what actions Deakin take in order of priority.

Word Count
As the reports need to be collated into a longer report you need to keep to the limit of 1000 words. The word limit does not include the Executive summary, Table of Contents, appendices or reference list.
Introduction
Welcome to Topic 2: The Spread of Renaissance.
In this module, you will be introduced to the spread of the Italian Renaissance and the craze that soon swept much of northern Europe. You will familiarise yourself with the various attempts by France and England to imitate the architecture and decoration details of the Italian Renaissance.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completing this module, you will be able to:
€¢    Identify the application of Renaissance principles outside of Italy.
€¢    Describe the assimilation of Italian Renaissance principles with the local culture and geographical conditions of France and England.
€¢    Discuss the inherent religious Catholic connotations of late Renaissance and how it affected the import of the style into northern countries that embraced Protestantism.
Focus Questions
Use the following focus questions to guide your work on this module. They will give you an idea of what you need to learn.
€¢    What transformation did the Italian Renaissance style undergo in countries like France and England?
€¢    What were the local cultural and religious conditions that impacted on the style’s transformation?
€¢    How did the ideals of the new Renaissance man affect the monarchs of France and England?
€¢    What roles did the large buildings (residential or religious) commissioned by the monarch play?
Module Topics
This module is broken into the following topics:
Let us look at each one in detail.
Introduction
In module one, you learnt about the rise of Italian Renaissance. You read about the cultural, economic and political climate that helped evolve a style that revelled in its sacred geometry and its mathematical beauty. You were introduced to the Renaissance principles and how these ideals permeated through every fabric of Italian society and culture. However, what was not touched on in Topic 1 was the religious context played out in the background of the Renaissance style.
Across Europe, Catholicism and the Church had grown in power through the middle ages. It not only governed Christendom in matters of religion but also displayed much authority in political arenas. The Church became more secular and materialistic in the process. As the situation worsened, discontentment grew among the religious purists of Northern Europe, particularly in Germany. Until in 1517, Martin Luther (1483-1546), an Augustinian monk nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church as a challenge to the practices of the Church.
With that as a brief background, you can begin to understand why the Renaissance style did not spread into Northern Europe quickly. The resistance may have been due to the association of Renaissance with the papacy or it may be due to the move for identity and nationalism in the smaller countries of Northern Europe. Nevertheless, the Renaissance style did permeate into countries like France and England eventually. Pay close attention to how the style was transported and why it gained popularity.
The next section discusses the Renaissance style in France and the king behind its spread to the French landscape.

Further Reading

€¢    For more information on Martin Luther and his role in the Reformation, read Martin Luther and the Reformation provided by Professor Gerhard Rempel.

€¢    For further information regarding the Reformation, read The Protestant Reformation (early 1500s to Mid 1600s) written by Miles H. Hodges.

€¢    For further background reading, Renaissance France contains discussions and comparison between Gothic and Renaissance art and architecture

Renaissance in France
At the time when Italy was experiencing its Renaissance, the rest of Europe was still building in the Gothic tradition. The first instance of the spread of Renaissance across the Alps was in France. French kings of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries led military campaigns into Italy. The invasions and claims of power over Italy were unsuccessful but the irony is in the impact of Italian Renaissance aesthetics, not only on architecture, but also on all aspects of style including fashion and decoration.
By the end of the fifteenth century, France was evolving from a feudal society into a monarchical hierarchy headed by the king. This political structure affected the translation of Italian Renaissance into the French landscape. It impacted on the emphasis and subject matter of Renaissance art and architecture and limited its spread. Unlike in Italy, where it was the merchant princes who commissioned the Renaissance artist and architects, the king and his court were the dominant forces behind the Italian style in France. This resulted in the import of only a few of the Italian Renaissance building types such as the urban palaces, villas with formal gardens and bastioned defences.
The political structure also dictated the positioning of the French cultural centre in the early sixteenth century in the valley of the Loire where the king and his nobles maintained elaborate chateaux for leisure, entertaining and hunting. It is among this collection of chateaux in the Loire that early examples of Renaissance architecture can be found.

Required Reading €“ E-Reserve

Please read the following which is available via E-Reserve

€¢    The Humanist Prince’ in Seward, Desmond, 1973, Prince of the Renaissance: The Life of François I, Constable, London, pp. 87-113.
The most prominent advocate of the Italian style in France was François I. He set about transforming the chateau at Blois between 1515 and 1524. The chateau at Blois was a thirteenth century medieval hall with associated rooms. Louis XII had renovated it during his reign in the Gothic style between 1498-1504. When François I came into power, he embarked on extensive renovations in the Renaissance style. This resulted in a mixture of Gothic and Renaissance detailing that would have made the Renaissance masters recoil in horror.
This fusion of styles was an interesting feature of Italianated architectural styles in France. Another form of assimilation was between Renaissance and an essentially medieval style and planning. This can be found in the Chateau of Chambord (1519-1547). François commissioned the Italian architect, Domenico da Cortona, to build a chateau in the countryside using the planning of a medieval fortified castle within a bailey. The building complex can be divided into the castle keep and the bailey. The keep consists of a suite of rooms in each corner with a cruciform form circulation fashioned after the Medici villa at Poggio. An interesting feature of the chateau at Chambord is its double helix staircase influenced by a sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. A great lantern adorns the staircase and is part of the exuberant roofscape and projects a medieval profile against the sky. This contrasts with the order and clarity of its wall treatments. This reflects the assimilation of the Renaissance and medieval stylistics.
A second phase of Renaissance development in France occurred when Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554) and Philibert de l’Orme (1510-1570) began designing and building in France. Sebastiano Serlio, an Italian architect, was invited by the king to practice in France. Very little of Serlio’s architecture remains but his importance lies in his writings on architecture published from 1537 to 1551 and accumulated in 1584 as Tutte l’opere d’architettura et prospettiva, also known as the Five Books of Architecture. In his writing, Serlio discussed geometry, perspective drawings, antique Roman buildings, works by Bramante and Raphael. He also outlined the five orders of architecture (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan and Composite) and other ornamentations. He also illustrated centralized church designs among other drawings of his own designs. Like Serlio, not many of Philibert de l’Orme’s buildings remain and his influence on the spread of Renaissance architecture is through his various writings. His major work, Architecture, was published in 1567 in which he explores the ideas of Vitruvius and Alberti.
Useful websites

€¢    Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia provides more information on
François I

€¢    For an interesting comparison between Gothic architecture and Renaissance architecture in France, read Renaissance France provided at the Old and Sold website.
Renaissance in England
While the Renaissance style was flourishing in Italy, buildings were still being constructed in the Gothic tradition in England. An English variant of the Gothic style had developed in England called the Perpendicular Gothic was favoured well into the sixteenth century. It was Henry VIII who initiated the transfer of the Renaissance style into the English landscape. The reading below will provide you with an understanding of Henry VIII’s involvement with the arts and architecture.

Required Reading

Please read the following which is available via E-Reserve

€¢    Henry VIII’ in Thurley, Simon, 1993, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: Architecture and Court Life 1460-1547, Yale University Press, new Haven, pp. 38-65.
The earliest important expression of the Renaissances style was the tomb for Henry VII (1511-1518) commissioned by Henry VIII. He employed Pietro Torrigiani (1472-1528) to the task and had the tomb placed in the Gothic Westminster Abbey. This mix of styles was common all across England as the Renaissance aesthetics never did fully catch the fancy of the English. Other examples of this jumble of styles were apparent across the sixteenth century, such as the Hampton Court Palace which was a medieval castellated palace renovated in the Renaissance style and King’s College Chapel , Cambridge which was finished in the Gothic style but its wooden choir screen is in the Renaissance style. In fact, this mixture of styles was a precursor to a battle of styles much later in the nineteenth century. You will read more about this in Topic 8.
When Henry VIII divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragón, he broke ties with Rome. Many Italian artists working in England left soon thereafter and the direct flow of Renaissance ideas from Italy ceased. However, Renaissance influence continued to seep in slowly through the Low Countries. Treatises of great Renaissance architects like Vignola and Serlio were all translated to English from Dutch. It was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century did the Renaissance style flourish in England.
Inigo Jones (1573-1652) is said to be responsible for the development of the Renaissance style in England and the development of English architecture in the broader sense. Unlike other English architects before him, Jones learnt the Italian Renaissance architecture through travelling in Italy and the Low Countries between 1600 and 1603. Much of his Renaissance influence is attributed to Andrea Palladio. This influence can be seen through the planning and architectural form of his design such as the Queen’s House , Greenwich (begun 1616), and the Banqueting House , London (1619-1622). The plans possess the symmetry and geometrical clarity of Palladio’s design. For example, the façade of the Queen’s House is reminiscent of Palladio’s Palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza. Jones had reversed the voids and solids. Sadly, not many of Jones’ designs survived due to the Great Fire of London in 1666.
Further Reading

€¢    For more information on Henry VIII , read the article provided by Infoplease

Useful websites
€¢    If you are interested to find out more about Renaissance England, try this website as a starting point, Renaissance: the Elizabethan World

Renaissance Urban Planning
Read the sections on The creation of the square’, The monumental street’ and Town planning in Spain and France’ from the textbook.

Text

Please read the following from your text book

€¢    Renaissance Harmony’ in Watkin, David, 2000, A History of Western Architecture, 4th edn, Calmann and King, London, pp. 280-282.
During the Renaissance period, there were two significant developments in the realm of urban planning: the square and the monumental street. You must bear in mind that during the Renaissance period, there was a thirst for all things classic. Scholars read and studied classical literature, where as, architects turned to ancient Greek and Roman architecture for inspiration. Their geometrical clarity was one of their biggest influences on Renaissance architecture. When it came to urban design, the Roman Forum is translated into the urban square. The sense of procession in the cardo and decumanus of Timgad in Algeria is translated into the monumental street.
At this point, stop and consider the role of these two urban elements: the public square and the monumental street. What were their roles in Ancient Rome? How did the Renaissance architects translate them into Renaissance Italy, France or Spain? What was their role in the Renaissance cities? Were there any political agendas?
As you continue thinking along these lines, Topic 3 introduces you to the next period, Baroque architecture and the way architecture can be used as a political tool.
Required Readings
If you haven’t done so already, please read the following articles that are available are available in E-Reserve:

€¢    The Humanist Prince’ in Seward, Desmond, 1973, Prince of the Renaissance: The Life of François I, Constable, London, pp. 87-113.

€¢    Henry VIII’ in Thurley, Simon, 1993, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: Architecture and Court Life 1460-1547, Yale University Press, new Haven, pp. 38-65.

And the following from your text book:

€¢    Renaissance Harmony’ in Watkin, David, 2000, A History of Western Architecture, 4th edn, Calmann and King, London, pp. 280-282.
Summary
This week’s module focused on a number of key topics including:

€¢    The spread of Renaissance ideas into France and England;
€¢    The Protestant Reformation and its effect on the spread of Renaissance ideas;
€¢    The works of Serlio and l’Orme in France;
€¢    The works of Inigo Jones in England;
€¢    The infusion of Renaissance ideas into vernacular architectural style; and,
€¢    The planning of villages, towns and cities in Renaissance Europe with particular regard to the square and monumental street.

Case Study
The following case studies are provided as starting points into various specific areas you may be interested in and want to learn more about. Choose one of the following case studies and perform an in-depth research on its social and cultural significance.
1.    Consider the cultural and political events that influenced the flow of ideas from Italy to France. Were there any transformations in terms of architectural form and style? If there were, how are they different from the Italian Renaissance style?

2.    Compare and contrast the designs by Andrea Palladio and Inigo Jones. Choose one building respectively as a basis for your discussion.

3.    Read the section on Town Planning’ of Chapter 6 in the textbook. Study the ideals and principles used in designing a Renaissance city and compare the Spanish and French town planning with those of the Italian cities. This discussion thread on urban planning will be touched on in future modules.

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