AH2 Ch. 19 (2011)
th
Renaissance Art in 15 century Italy
The post-middle ages:
- Wealthy families: power and art
patronage/politics
Medici - Florence
Visconti & Sforza - Milan
Gonzaga - Mantua
Este - Ferrara
Montefeltro - Urbino,
(see nose/eye scars f. 19-27)
These “benevolent dictators” had power
and were art patrons.
Cosimo de Medici the Elder founded the
Neo-platonic Academy in Florence
emphasizing spiritual over carnal values
through discipline and denial.
- New commerce, cities grow
- Money, not heredity, conferred status
- Giovanni Rucellai: “because [the arts]
serve the glory of God, the honor of
the city, and the commemoration of
myself…” (Florentine merchant)
- More than mere artisans, artists were
becoming “geniuses”
- Inspiration: the classical antique
(Ancient Greece and Rome), nature,
the Masters (e.g.: Giotto)
- Religion dominates the subject
matter
- Male nudes became acceptable
- Female nudes became acceptable
near 1500
- Figures are more “bodily” than
Flanders
- Less surface detail than Flemish art
- Linear perspective perfected by
1450.
Stan, draw a cube!
 Horizon
 Vanishing points
 Parallels appear to converge
 Things get smaller in the
distance
 Brunelleschi, starting about
1420, gets the credit!
 Alberti developed and codified
Brunelleschi’s rules of
perspective into a mathematical
system for representing three
dimensions on a twodimensional surface in his
treatise, in Latin, De Pictura
(On Painting) in 1436. A year
later he published an Italian
version, Della Pittura.
Sub. 19-2 Cutaway of Brunelleschi's
dome, Florence Cathedral, dome 1420-36,
lantern 1471
- Ogival dome, herring bone brickwork
- Double shell, ribs, lantern
- Immense local pride, “triumph of
engineering”
- 138 ft. diameter (duomo)
- Go to:
http://www.pbs.org/empires/medici/medici/
for more information about the Duomo
and the family who paid for its
construction.
19- 4 F. Brunelleschi, Plan of San
Lorenzo, Florence, 1421-28, (nave
designed 1434), 1442-70
Medici parish church
- Christian basilica (cruciform)
- Medieval bay system (square modules)
- Classical style (rebirth = renaissance of old
Rome)
- Pietra serena – a grayish stone
synonymous with his interiors
- Rationality, order and classical motifs
(columns and arches) were seminal to later
renaissance architects
19-5 Michelozzo di Bartolommeo,
Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence,
begun 1446
- Seminal Italian townhouse
- Roman insula-like
- Plain, albeit large exterior (reflecting
Christian ideals of poverty and
charity), lavish interior
- Florentine Sumptuary laws (no
ostentatious displays of wealth and
power) often ignored
- 3, (twenty foot plus) stories tall
- Loggia in central courtyard (covered
gallery)
- Rustication, classical elements,
Medici symbols
19-10 Donatello, David, c. 1446 – 60
(?), Bronze, 5’2¼” high
- Early Italian renaissance sculptural
genius
- Long career, experimental, innovative
(e.g.: sculptor’s aerial perspective)
- 1st life-size male nude since antiquity
- Antiquity = ancient Greek & Rome
(Greco-Roman), Rome fell in 400
C.E.
- First recorded in the courtyard of the
Medici palace in Florence, although
David is a church symbol
- Medici = rulers, merchants, bankers
to all of Europe, humanists, neoPlatonists, Christians
- Christian humanism (classical heroic
nudity)
- Child porn?
- Symbol of Florence (defeat of
Milanese in 1428), small, beautiful,
smart and powerful (Florence’s
population at the time: 100,000)
19-12 Lorenzo Ghiberti, Gates of
Paradise, Baptistry of San Giovanni,
East doors, Florence, 1425-52
- Gilt bronze, 15’ – he won a
competition to create this
- Self-portrait doorknobs
- 10 Old Testament scenes
- Nature, perspective, classics, figures
Michelangelo later admired the Gates of
Paradise
19-13 Lorenzo Ghiberti, Jacob and
Esau (Genesis 25 and 27) from the
Gates of Paradise, Florence, 1435
(Baptistry of San Giovanni) 31.25”
square
The birth narrative of Jacob and Esau
establishes points of contact with the Abraham
cycle. Rebekah was barren. Like Sarah before
her she had children only after Yahweh
intervened. The pregnancy proved painful as
the babies jostled each other in the womb.
Yahweh revealed this was happening because
the twins would be rivals.
Two nations are in your womb, and two
peoples born of you will be divided; the one will
be stronger than the other, the elder will serve
the younger. (25:23)
The brothers would struggle with each other,
but the outcome was foreordained. The
younger would win. In the present case the
cycle is driven by Jacob's determination not to
let Esau inherit. First, Jacob bought the
birthright (25:27-34) from Esau, who was
willing to sell it for a pittance. The birthright is
the right of the firstborn to inherit the family
estate. Then Jacob deceived his father, Isaac,
into giving him the blessing that was intended
for Esau (27). The irony of the cycle is that
Jacob did not know he had been foreordained
to prevail. He schemed to get what God had
already granted him at birth.
There is also a transparently deeper level to
the sibling conflict. The divine oracle to
Rebekah reveals that these stories are about
more than just brothers at war.
Jacob receives Isaac’s Blessing, Esau faces
his father.
Rebecca shown twice: (upper right) listening to
God. (left arch: giving birth)
-In the Renaissance interpretation, Esau
symbolized the Jews and Jacob the Christians.
-
Continuous narrative, lots of perspective,
classical antiquity (Roman palace setting)
Sculptor’s aerial perspective
Page 608 Pietro Perugino,
Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter, fresco,
Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome, 1481,
11’5½” x 18’8½”
- Open Space is rare in Rome! St.
Peter was the 1st Bishop
- Perspective! Temple at center
(central plan)
- Lots of Renaissance traits
19- 16 Masaccio, Trinity with the Virgin,
St. John the Evangelist and Donors,
fresco, Santa Maria Novella, Florence,
c. 1425-27/28, 21’ x10’5”
- Donors = public relations
- Massaccio: “big, ugly, clumsy, crude
Tom” nickname
- Career < 10 years, seminal painter,
trompe l’oeil
- Linear perspective, momento mori,
Christian humanism
- The transcription reads: I was once
that which you are, and what I am
you also will be.
- Early renaissance triangular
composition
List the classical features here:
Addl. Fra Filippo Lippi, The Adoration
With St. Joseph, St. Jerome, Mary
Magdalene and St. Ilarion., tempera on
wood, 1453, 137x134 cm
19- 19 Masacchio, Tribute Money,
fresco, from the (19-20) Brancacci
Chapel c. 1427, 8’11” x 19’7”
- Masaccio invented the 3D halo
- Continuous narrative (Matthew
17:24-27)
- St. Peter gets the coin from the fish’s
mouth to pay the Jewish Temple Tax
- An allegory for the 1427 Florentine
“graduated” tax for the military
- Compare to the Byzantine mosaic,
Emperor Justinian
19- 24 Andrea del Castagno, Last
Supper, fresco, Monastery of Saint
Apollonia, Florence, 1447, 16’ x 32’
- Trompe l’oeil effect
- Sinopia = fresco underdrawing,
traced form full- scale cartoons (prep.
sketches)
- the sinopia was discovered when the
fresco was removed (fresco uses
plaster as the binder)
Addl. Piero della Francesca, Discovery
and Testing of the True Cross, fresco,
Bacci Chapel, San Francesco, Arezzo,
1454-58, 11’8” x 6’ 4”
- The legend = Helena, Emperor
Constantine’s Christian mother,
discovered the true cross in 270 C.E.
(It brought a dead man back to life.).
- all the early Renaissance traits are
here
- He wrote about his art theories (few
artists do)
- emphasized “geometry and volume”
- Foreshortening = figures or objects
sharply project into space
- Jerusalem becomes a Renaissance
city with an Alberti-like building
Addl. Andrea Mantegna, The Dead
Christ, tempera on canvas, 1465, 26”
high
Addl. 3 slides Leon Battista Alberti,
Plan of Sant’ Andrea, Mantua, 1470
Plan, (seminal architect)
- Latin cross plan
- A redesign (add on plan), modular
- Christian humanism (classical temple
front)
- Sant’ Andrea housed a relic believed
to be the blood of Jesus, Gonzaga
commissioned Alberti to create a
large space, enough for all comers
- Pilgrims = $$$
Addl. Giuliano da Sangallo, Plan of
Santa Maria delle Carceri, Prato, before
1485-92
- Seminal architect, he copied Roman
monuments
- St. Mary of the Prisons (votive
church)
- In 1484, the Virgin miraculously
“appeared” to a child on the wall of
the town prison (a “painting come to
life”)
- Central-plan church, Greek cross
plan
- A circle in a square = humanist
perfection and cosmos symbolism,
renaissance clarity and order
19-34 Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of
Venus, c. 1484-86, tempera on canvas,
@5’9” high
- Again, Neoplatonic
- Based on a Medici sculpture of
Venus, this was commissioned by the
Medicis for one of their retreat homes
– not for a church.
- Venus, the classical goddess of love
and beauty, is blown by Zephyr and
Chloris to her earthly home.
- This is the first life-sized female nude
since antiquity.
Page 626 (detail) Sandro Botticelli, La
Primavera (Three Graces), 1482,
tempera on wood panel
- In Greek mythology, the three
goddesses of joy, charm, and beauty.
The daughters of the god Zeus and
the nymph Eurynome, they were
named Aglaia (Splendor),
Euphrosyne (Mirth), and Thalia
(Good Cheer). The Graces presided
over banquets, dances, and all other
pleasurable social events, and
brought joy and goodwill to both gods
and mortals.
- Patroned by the Medici, this is a
section of one of many paintings that
interwove Neoplatonic ideas with
references to classical sources.
These figures are to the left of Venus
in the painting.
- The entire painted composition is
believed to have been intended to
portray the theme of love and fertility
in marriage.
19-38 Giovanni Bellini, St. Francis in
Ecstacy, 1470’s, oil and tempera on
panel, 49” x 56”
- Almost Flemish realism, his hands
show the stigmata
- Flemish-like secondary symbolism
(tree = bush, St. Francis = Moses)
- Golden light (Venice), seminal painter
- Bellini’s painting career lasted 60
years