Renaissance Art in Rome
• Renaissance 1420-16th century
• Baroque 17th century
• Neoclassicism 18th century
• Early Renaissance 1420-1500c
• High Renaissance 1500-1520/1527
• Late Renaissance (Mannerism) 1520/27-1600
Artistic Renaissance in Rome
• Patronage of popes and cardinals of humanists and
artists from Florence and central/northern Italy
• Focus in painting shifts from a theocentric doctrinal
symbolism to an anthropocentric humanistic realism
• The recuperation of classical forms
– Study of classical architecture and statuary;
recovery of texts such as Vitruvius’ De architectura
• The application of mathematics to art/architecture and
the elaboration of single point perspective
– L. B. Alberti—1436 Della pittura: “vision makes a
triangle, and from this it is clear that a very distant
quantity seems no larger than a point”
• Changing status of the artist from an artisan
(mechanical arts) to intellectual (liberal arts)
San Clemente, Rome, apsidal mosaic, c. 1120
San Clemente, Rome, apsidal mosaic, c. 1120
Crucifixion,
San
Clemente,
Masolino da
Panicale,
1428-32
Palazzo Venezia, 1455
Palazzo della Cancelleria, 1489
Belvedere Apollo,
discovered c. 1489
L Laocoon, found 1506
a
o
c
o
o
n
Belvedere Torso,
discovered early
1400s
Roman (Curial) Humanism
cultural politics shapes artistic agenda
– Affirmation of Papal primacy and the petrine succession
vs. conciliarists
• Matthew 16: “You are Peter (petrus) and on this rock (petram) I will build
my Church and the Gates of Hell will not prevail against it. I will give to
you the keys to the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will
be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth with be loosed in
heaven.”
– Archeological rediscovery of both ancient and paleoChristian Rome in the service of the propaganda of papal
restoration
• Flavio Biondo: Roma instaurata/Rome restored (1444-46): the correct
identification and classification of the city’s ancient buildings and sites of
Christian martyrdom [topography, epigraphy]
– Dual Apostolate: Linking Roman Empire’s historical
mandate and Church’s divine mandate
• Popes as Christian Caesars restoring Rome
– Biblical and patristic exegesis as prefiguration
• Moses the law-giver prefigures Christ and becomes a typus Papae
• Jerusalem as a sacred capital and Solomon’s Temple prefigure Rome and
St. Peter’s
Martin V 1417-1431
• Oddone Colonna, Roman (returns to Rome in
1420)
• Commissioned first catalogue of city’s monuments
• Restoration work on four major basilicas and on
Palazzo Senatorio (Capitoline Hill), restoration on
Pantheon, Milvian Bridge, city walls
• Revived magistri viarum (“magistrates of the
streets”)
Masolino da Panicale,
Founding of Santa Maria
Maggiore (c. 1425)
[Church Militant]
Masolini da Panicale,
Assumption of the Virgin
[Church Triumphant]
Masolino da Panicale,
Founding of Santa Maria
Maggiore (c. 1425)
[Church Militant]
Sixtus IV [Francesco della Rovere] 1471-1484
• Placed collection of antique sculpture on Capitoline
Hill in Palazzo dei Conservatori
• Declared a Jubilee for 1475
• Rebuilt Ospedale degli Spiriti, built Ponte Sisto,
founded Vatican Library and built Sistine Chapel
• Known for his blatant nepotism
Melozzo da Forli,
Sixtus IV nominates
Barolomeo Platina
Prefect of the
Vatican,
1480
Rome, once full of squalor, owes to you, Sixtus, its temples,
foundling hospital, street squares, walks, bridges, the restoration
of the Trevi fountain, the port for sailors, the fortifications on the
Vatican Hill, and now this celebrated library.
Sistine Chapel, 1475-1482
Sistine Chapel,
Cycles of the
Lives of Moses
and Christ,
Portraits of
First Popes,
1480-1482,
Perugino,
Botticelli, et al
Sandro Botticelli, Punishment of Korah, 1481-82
Conturbatio Moisi Legis Scriptae Latoris
[Challenge to Moses Bearer of the Written Law]
Perugino, Christ Giving the Keys to Saint Peter, 1481-82
Perugino, Christ Giving the Keys to Saint Peter, 1481-82