Soaring to New Heights – The
Renaissance in Italy
TODAY: The Early Italian
Renaissance – Emergence of
a New Cultural Identity
LAST TIME…
(LEFT) Amiens Cathedral, Amiens, France, begun in 1220 on the plans of Robert de
Luzarches and largely finished by 1270. (RIGHT) – Notre Dame Cathedral
Crucifix - Cimabue 1268-71 - Tempera on wood, 336 x 267 cm
San Domenico, Arezzo
THE DIVIDING LINE BETWEEN MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE PAINTING
Duccio - Crucifix (detail)
- 1308-11 - Tempera on
wood
Museo dell'Opera del
Duomo, Siena
TRANSITION FROM
MEDIEVAL PAINTING
Giotto - Scenes
from the Life of
Joachim:
Meeting at the
Golden Gate
1304-06
FIGURAL AND
SPATIAL
VOLUME AND
INTEGRITY
Simone Martini - Saint
Martin Renounces his
Weapons
1312-17
Fresco, 265 x 230 cm
Cappella di San Martino,
Lower Church, San
Francesco, Assisi
DEVELOPMENTS IN
NARRATIVE
Ambrogio Lorenzetti Allegory of Bad
Government
1338-40
Fresco
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
THE SECULAR AND
FANTASTIC COMBINED TO
OFFER MORAL LESSONS
The Nativity, 1409 - Lorenzo Monaco - Tempera on panel; 8 3/8 x
12 1/4 in. (21.4 x 31.2 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art - Robert
Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.66)
Cosimo de’Medici – 1377-1446
Pater Patriae (Father of his Country) - His father, Giovanni di
Bicci de' Medici (1360–1429), considered the first of the
great Medici, inherited the family business based on cloth
and silk manufacturing and founded the Medici Bank.
Giovanni made the family powerfully prosperous. Cosimo,
however, is regarded as the founder of the Medici family line
that ruled Florence from 1434 to 1537. He was an avid
humanist and an extraordinary patron of the arts.
Giovanni "di Bicci" de ' Medici
Bronzino, c. 1569
Cosimo de ' Medici (The Elder)
Pontormo, c. 1518
Florence
Italian city located about 145 miles northwest of Rome. This
small city of moneylenders and cloth makers, without much
political or military power, rose to a position of enormous
influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. The Florentine
vernacular became the Italian language; and the local coin,
the florin, became a world monetary standard. Florence
began the Renaissance; and a Florentine navigator, Amerigo
Vespucci, gave his name to two continents.
Florence at the time of the Renaissance
Florence Today—Still the Cradle of the Renaissance
Filippo Brunelleschi – 1377-1446
One of the pioneers of early Renaissance architecture in
Italy. His major work is the dome of the Cathedral of Santa
Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) in Florence (1420–36),
constructed with the aid of machines that Brunelleschi
invented expressly for the project. Although profoundly
dependent on Gothic forms of architecture and
construction, he had a vision of art and science that was
based on the humanistic concept of the ideal.
Pantheon
118-125 C.E. Rome
Filippo Brunelleschi - Façade
1419-24 - Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence
Filippo Brunelleschi - Dome of the Cathedral
1420-36 - Duomo, Florence
Filippo Brunelleschi - c. 1436 Facade of Pazzi Chapel
Florence: S Croce
Donatello – 1386-1466
Master of sculpture in both marble and bronze, one of
the greatest of all Italian Renaissance artists. He had a
more detailed and wide-ranging knowledge of ancient
sculpture than any other artist of his day. His work was
inspired by ancient visual examples, which he often
daringly transformed.
Donatello
David
1409
Marble, height: 191 cm
Museo Nazionale del
Bargello, Florence
Donatello - Bearded Prophet - c. 1418 - Marble, height:
194 cm, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence
Pazzi Madonna – Donatello 1420-30s
Marble, 74,5 x 69,5 cm - Staatliche Museen, Berlin
Donatello David
c. 1430
Bronze, height: 185 cm
Museo Nazionale del Bargello,
Florence
Donatello - Allegoric Figure of a Boy - 1430s
Bronze, height: 104 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence
Donatello
c. 1436 External Pulpit
Prato: Cathedral
Giovanni Pisano - Pulpit
detail – Massacre of the Innocents –
ca. 1301
Marble, height: 465 cm - Baptistry, Pisa
Donatello - Crucifix
1449
Bronze, 180 x 166 cm
Basilica di Sant'Antonio,
Padua
Donatello St Mary Magdalen
c. 1457
Wood, height: 188 cm
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence
Masaccio – 1401-1428
Florentine painter of the early Renaissance whose
frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of
Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence (c. 1427) remained
influential throughout the Renaissance. In the span of
only six years, Masaccio radically transformed
Florentine painting. His art eventually helped create
many of the major conceptual and stylistic foundations
of Western painting. Seldom has such a brief life been
so important to the history of art.
Masaccio - Frescoes in the Cappella Brancacci (left view) - 1426-82
Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
Masaccio - Frescoes in the Cappella Brancacci (right view) - 1426-82
Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
Masaccio – The Virgin and Child
1426 – Galleria degli Uffizi
Masaccio - The Expulsion
The Brancacci Chapel,
Florence
1426
Masaccio - Predella panels from the Pisa Altar - 1426
Poplar, 21 x 61 cm - Staatliche Museen, Berlin
Masaccio - Raising of the Son of Theophilus and St Peter Enthroned
1426-27 - Fresco, 230 x 598 cm
Cappella Brancacci, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
Masaccio - St Peter Healing the Sick with his Shadow - 1426-27 - Fresco, 230 x
162 cm - Cappella Brancacci, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
Masaccio - The Distribution of Alms and the Death of Ananias
1426-27 - Fresco, 230 x 162 cm, Cappella Brancacci, Santa Maria del
Masaccio - Tribute Money
1426-27 - Fresco, 255 x 598 cm
Cappella Brancacci, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
Trinity (scheme of the
perspective)
1425-28
Fresco, 667 x 317 cm
Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Masaccio – Trinity - 1425-28 - Fresco, 667 x 317 cm
Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Giotto – Crucifixion DETAIL
Scrovegni Chapel, Padua - c. 1305
Fra Angelico – 1400-1455
One of the greatest 15th-century painters, whose
works within the framework of the early Renaissance
style embody a serene religious attitude and reflect a
strong Classical influence. Fra Angelico exerted a
significant influence in Florence, especially between
1440 and 1450, even on such an accomplished master
as Fra Filippo Lippi.
Fra Angelico - Fiesole Altarpiece (detail)
1428-30
Tempera on wood, 212 x 237 cm (entire
triptych)
San Domenico, Fiesole
Fra Angelico - c.1434-35 Deposition of Christ - Florence: San Marco
Fra Angelico
Saint Anthony the Abbot Tempted by a Lump of Gold
c. 1436
Tempera on panel, 19.7 x 28 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Fra Angelico - Flight
into Egypt
c. 1450
Tempera on wood,
38,5 x 37 cm
Museo di San Marco,
Florence
Fra Filippo Lippi – 1406-1469
Florentine painter in the second generation of
Renaissance artists. While exhibiting the strong
influence of Masaccio (e.g., in Madonna and Child,
1437) and Fra Angelico (e.g., in Coronation of the
Virgin, c. 1445), his work achieved a distinctive clarity
of expression. Later critics have recognized in Lippi a
“narrative” spirit that reflected the life of his time and
translated into everyday terms the ideals of the early
Renaissance.
Fra Filippo Lippi Adoration of the
Magi
c. 1445
Wood, diameter
137 cm
National Gallery
of Art,
Washington
Fra Filippo Lippi - Disputation in the Synagogue - 1452-65 - Fresco
Duomo, Prato
Fra Filippo Lippi - Herod's Banquet - 1452-65 – Fresco - Duomo, Prato
Fra Filippo Lippi Madonna in the Forest
c. 1460
Oil on panel, 127 x 116
cm
Staatliche Museen,
Berlin
Fra Filippo Lippi - Madonna
with the Child and two Angels
1465
Tempera on wood, 95 x 62 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
Cimabue – 1285-86
Piero della Francesca – c. 1416-1492
Umbrian painter whose serene, disciplined exploration of
perspective came to be recognized in the 20th century as a
major contribution to the Italian Renaissance. The vigorous
volume of his figures, the dignity with which they are
imbued, the spatial definition of his paintings, and, above all,
his very original use of color and light define a style that has
all the elements of the Renaissance, but is also one of the
most original of all times.
Piero della Francesca - Baptism of
Christ - 1448-50
Tempera on panel, 167 x 116 cm
National Gallery, London
Piero della Francesca - Adoration of the Holy Wood and the Meeting of
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
c. 1452 - Fresco, 336 x 747 cm
San Francesco, Arezzo
Piero della Francesca - Annunciation
c. 1455 - Fresco, 329 x 193 cm
San Francesco, Arezzo
Duccio – Annunciation - 1308-11
Piero della Francesca - Discovery and Proof of the True Cross
(also known as The Legend of the True Cross)
c. 1460 - Fresco, 356 x 747 cm
San Francesco, Arezzo
Piero della Francesca
1465-66 Federigo da
Montefeltro
Florence: Galleria degli
Uffizi
Piero della Francesca
Madonna del parto
1467
Detached fresco, 260 x
203 cm
Chapel of the cemetery,
Monterchi (Arezzo)
Andrea del Castagno – 1419-1457
One of the most influential 15th-century Italian
Renaissance painters, best known for the emotional
power and naturalistic treatment of figures in his work.
Castagno's emotionally expressive realism was
strongly influenced by Donatello, and perhaps by Piero
della Francesca. Castagno's work in turn influenced
succeeding generations of Florentine painters,
including Sandro Botticelli.
Andrea del Castagno - Last Supper
1447 - Fresco, 453 x 975 cm - Sant'Apollonia, Florence
Andrea del Castagno - The
Youthful David
c. 1450
Tempera on leather on wood,
width at bottom 115,6 x 41 cm
National Gallery of Art,
Washington
Andrea del Castagno - Famous Persons Cycle (reconstruction)
c. 1450 – Fresco - Villa Carducci, Legnaia
Dante
Petrarch
Boccaccio
The Cumean Sibyl
Andrea del Castagno - The Holy
Trinity, St Jerome and Two Saints
c. 1453
Fresco
SS. Annunziata, Florence
Andrea del Castagno - Crucifixion
c. 1455 - Fresco, 270 x 347 cm - Sant'Apollonia, Florence
Soaring to New Heights – The
Renaissance in Italy
OUR NEXT TOPIC WILL BE
The School of the World
Leonardo – Michelangelo –
Raphael and Others
A Maturing of Renaissance Ideals