13th Century Italy – High Middle Ages
Chapter 14
Late Medieval Italy
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13th Century Italy timeline
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1204 - 4th Crusade results in Venetians sacking Constantinople
1226 – Death of St. Francis of Assisi
1260 – Nicola Pisano creates the Pisa pulpit
1296 – Work on the Florence Cathedral begins
1305-1378 – The Popes move and live in Avignon, France
1306 – Giotto completes the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua
1307-1321 – Dante composes the Divine Comedy (first work in Italian)
1311 – Duccio’s Maesta completed in Siena
1341 – Petrarch is made Poet Laureate in Rome
1347-1348 – The Black Plague ravages Europe
1365-68 – The Way of Salvation painted in the Guidalotti Chapel in Florence
1395 – Giangaleazzo Visconti becomes Duke of Milan
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13th century Italy Background
• Developing urban economies and independent states in Florence, Pisa,
Siena, Padua, and Milan become important centers for artistic
patronage
• Growing wealth and prosperity in Florence and Siena attributable to
banking and the cloth business
• Important private and ducal patrons emerge in the north of Italy, like
Enrico Scrovegni in Padua and Giangaleazzo Visconti in Milan
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• Important to the development of late medieval spirituality, urban
development, and artistic patronage are the Franciscan and Dominican
orders
• The Franciscans are formed by St. Francis of Assisi
• The Dominicans are formed by St. Dominic
– The ideal proportions of classical sculpture
– The numeric harmonies found in the ruins surrounding them.
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13th Century Italy Background
• Important sources of patronage are local governments that are
developing a sense of how to rule these late medieval communes
and duchies and how to represent that rule in the visual arts.
• The Florentines build the Palazzo della Signoria
• The Sienese commission Ambrogio Lorenzetti to paint frescoes
in the Palazzo Pubblico representing good and bad government
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• Major disturbances affect the patronage and production of art.
• Constant warfare led scores of banks and merchants into
bankruptcy; internal upheavals shook governments.
• Repeated crop failure and famine make life bleak and difficult.
• The arrival of the plague, or Black Death, in 1377-1348
devastates Europe.
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Goals
• Understand the influence of the Byzantine and classical worlds
on the art and architecture.
• Understand the rejection of medieval artistic elements and the
growing interest in the natural world.
• Examine the revival of classical values, in particular, the growth
of humanism.
• Examine elements of the patronage system that developed at that
time, and the patronage rivalries among the developing city states.
• Examine the architecture and art as responsive to the growing
European power structures at that time.
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14.1 Rejection of Medieval
Artistic Values
• Understand the influence of the Byzantine and classical
worlds on the art and architecture.
• Understand the rejection of medieval artistic elements and
the growing interest in the natural world.
• Examine the artistic interest in illusionism, pictorial solidity,
spatial depth, and emotional display in the human figure.
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Figure 14-2 NICOLA PISANO, pulpit of the baptistery,
Pisa, Italy, 1259–1260. Marble, 15’ high.
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Figure 14-3 NICOLA PISANO, Annunciation, Nativity, and Adoration of the Shepherds, relief panel on the baptistery pulpit,
Pisa, Italy, 1259–1260. Marble, 2’ 10” x 3’ 9”.
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Figure 14-4 GIOVANNI PISANO, Annunciation, Nativity, and Adoration of the Shepherds, relief panel on the pulpit of
Sant’Andrea, Pistoia, Italy, 1297–1301. Marble 2’ 10” x 3’ 4”.
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Figure 14-5 BONAVENTURA
BERLINGHIERI, panel from the Saint
Francis Altarpiece, San Francesco, Pescia, Italy,
1235. Tempera on wood, 5’ x 3’ x 6”.
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14-5A Nave (looking west) of the upper church, San Francesco, Assisi, Italy, 1228–1253.
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14-5B GIOTTO, Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds, upper church, San Francesco, Assisi, Italy, ca. 1290–1300.
Fresco, ?’ ?” high.
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The Altered Byzantine Style
• Examine the Byzantine styles and classical style that is seen
in the religious panel painting.
• Understand growing interest in the natural world and the
presentation of more physically solid human figures.
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Figure 14-6 CIMABUE, Madonna Enthroned with Angels and
Prophets, from Santa Trinità, Florence, Italy, ca. 1280–1290.
Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 12’ 7” x 7’ 4”. Galleria degli
Uffizi, Florence.
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Figure 14-7 GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Madonna
Enthroned, from the Church of Ognissanti, Florence, Italy,
ca. 1310. Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 10’ 8” x 6’ 8”.
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
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14-6B PIETRO CAVALLINI, enthroned apostles, detail of Last Judgment, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, Italy, ca. 1290–
1295. Fresco.
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Figure 14-1 Giotto di Bondone, Arena Chapel
(Cappella Scrovegni; interior looking west),
Padua, Italy, 1305–1306.
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Interest in the Natural World
• Understand the growing interest in the natural world and the
interest in real space.
• View how artists began to depict human emotion in their
work (influence of humanism)
• Explore how these elements are depicted in the art.
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Giotto di Bondone
Interior of the Arena
Chapel
Padua, Italy
1305-1306
fresco
Figure 14-8 GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Lamentation, Arena Chapel, (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy, ca. 1305. Fresco, 6’ 6
3/4” x 6’ 3/4”.
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Late Middle Ages
14-8A GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Entry into Jerusalem, Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy, ca.
1305. Fresco, 6’ 6 3/4" X 6’ 3/4".
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14-8B GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Betrayal of Jesus, Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy, ca. 1305.
Fresco, 6’ 6 3/4" X 6’ 3/4".
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