Elements of Christian Culture

Christianity played a crucial role in both preserving and transforming classical Greek and Latin culture throughout the Mediterranean region and as far as Central Asia.
This was not only because, as is well known, the texts of classical antiquity survived almost exclusively thanks to the copying efforts of Christian scribes and scholars during the Middle Ages and beyond, but also because ancient Christianity—whether Latin, Greek, or Middle Eastern—deeply absorbed classical culture at every level: literary, philosophical, artistic, and scientific. Classical greco-roman culture has come down to us not only in its original form, through the books copied by Christians, but also—and perhaps more importantly—in the form that Christians gave it over the centuries.
Finally, Christian culture, despite its historical and geographical diversity, is itself a "classical culture" of Europe and the world, whose presence has profoundly shaped, for better or worse, the intellectual and artistic development of many vastly different cultures.
Therefore, one cannot fully understand the endurance—and thus the relevance—of the classical tradition in Europe and the modern world without a knowledge of the foundations of Christianity and, in particular, of its relationship with ancient cultures.

By the end of the course, you will be familiar with the fundamentals of Christian history, particularly of its origins; you will have a solid understanding of the Christian assimilation of Greco-Roman classical culture and of the reasons behind the preservation and transmission of that culture; and you will possess the basic tools to decipher Christian iconography, which permeates all of late antique, medieval, and modern European art.
In this way, you will be able to better understand a series of crucial turning points in the history of what is considered "classical" in European culture and in various other parts of the world reached by Christianity. Moreover, the goal will not simply be to learn certain aspects of Christian history, but also to grasp its complexity: the main objective of the course is precisely to provide you with a nuanced, critical, and non-monolithic perspective on this religion, which is too often identified solely with its contemporary manifestations.