Chapter 13
The High Renaissance in Italy
13.1 Popes and Patronage
Goals
Recognize the contributions to the art world by three significant artists: Leonardo, Michelangelo, and
Raphael.
Discuss the role played by the Church in fostering the arts in Rome.
The High Renaissance is summed up in the lives and works of three artists: Michelangelo, Raphael, and
Leonardo da Vinci. The first two did their most famous work in the Vatican in the 16th century, while
Leonardo, true to his restless spirit, sojourned there only for a time before he began his wanderings through
the courts of Europe. The works of these three artists give full meaning to the summation of Renaissance
ideals.
In examining the work of Raphael and Michelangelo under the patronage of the popes, one should not
forget that this explosion of art and culture was taking place while a new and formidable revolution was in
the making: the Protestant Reformation. Although it would be overly simplistic to think that the
Renaissance caused the Reformation, it certainly must be seen as a factor. Even so, there is a marked shift
in the atmosphere in which Michelangelo worked in Rome before 1521 and afterward, when the full force
of the Protestant revolt in the North was making itself felt in Rome.
13.2 The High Renaissance in Venice
Discuss the development of the arts in Venice.
Discuss the works of representative Venetian artists and their works.
The artistic work in Rome can be profitably contrasted with that which took place in Venice during roughly
the same period. The Roman Renaissance was under the patronage of the Church. Venetian art and music
enjoyed the same patronage source as did Florence in the preceding century: commerce and trade. Venice
made its fortune from the sea. The shipping of its busy port looked to both Europe and the Middle East. It
was fiercely protective of its independence (including its independence from papal Rome) and proud of its
ancient traditions. Even the religious art of Venice had a certain freedom from the kind of art being
produced in Rome in the same century because Venice had less contact with the seething ideas current in
the century.
Renaissance ideas had also penetrated other areas of Italy. Florence still had its artistic life (although
somewhat diminished from its great days in the 15th century), but provincial cities like Parma and Mantua
were not without their notables. Much of this artistic activity rested in the courts of the nobility who
supplied the kind of life and leisure that made possible the courtier and the court lifestyle immortalized in
the book by Castiglione. The insufficiencies of this court culture would become clear when the religious
wars of the 16th century broke out and humanism had to confront the new realities coming from the
increasingly Protestant North.
13.3 Mannerism
Recognize and discuss the characteristics associated with Mannerism.
Discuss the works of representative Mannerist artists and their works.
Under severe intellectual, psychological, and cultural pressure late in the second decade of the 16th
century, High Renaissance art in Italy gave way to Mannerism, an art style that seemed to be an
exaggeration of Renaissance form and a loosening of Renaissance intellectuality. While some viewed
Mannerism as a sign of decadence and decay, others embraced it. The works of Parmigianino and
Pontormo clearly exhibit Mannerist characteristics, as does Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment fresco in
the Sistine Chapel. Today, Mannerism is often viewed as a testament to the inventiveness and restlessness
of the human spirit.
13.4 Music in the Sixteenth Century
Discuss the development of music in Rome under the patronage of the popes.
Discuss the development of music in Venice.
Discuss the contributions of representative musicians.
Under the patronage of the popes, music was subsidized and nurtured in Rome. St. Peter’s Choir served in
the pope’s private chapel and became known as the cappella Giulia after it was endowed by Pope Julius II.
The Sistine Choir used only male voices, sang a capella [link to glossary], and flourished under the
direction of the Flemish composer Josquin des Prez, who displayed his creative genius in the motet for four
voices. The 16th-century composer most often identified with the Vatican is Giovanni Pierluigi da
Palestrina, who served in many capacities: as a singer in the Sistine Choir, as choirmaster of the cappella
Giula, as choirmaster at two other Roman basilicas, and ultimately as director of all music for the Vatican
for the final twenty years of his life.
Greater variations in musical composition occurred in Venice, in particular at the Church of St. Mark,
whose choirmaster, Giovanni Gabrieli, became the most renowned Venetian composer of the 16th century.
At a comfortable distance from the Vatican’s influence, Venetians were more willing to include
instrumental music in their liturgical repertoire. Venice, in fact, pioneered the use of the organ for liturgical
music.