Renaissance
1300-1600
“rebirth” of classical learning, art,
and creativity.
The Renaissance
has its birth in Florence, Italy
Brunelleschi’s dome
Renaissance
Renaissance is a: French word meaning
rebirth
Dates: 1300 - 1600
 The Renaissance is a period of great
intellectual & artistic creativity which
included the revival of interest: in the
great Classical culture of ancient Greece
& Rome
 The Renaissance grew out of: the new
ideas combine with classical ideas
 The people of the Renaissance had a new
view of: themselves and their world
The Renaissance began about 1300 in
Northern Italy because of the
following advantages:
a. Large urban centers
b. Merchants acquired great wealth from
trade
c. Merchants were also patrons: sponsors of
art, artists, writers, by hiring them
d. Italy was not unified politically, many
individual city-states
Florence, Italy:City of Flowers
Birthplace of the Renaissance
a. Led the Renaissance in: artistic excellence
b. Became the financial capital of Europe:
the Florin was used throughout Europe
c. Florentine economic activities: textiles
(manufacturing and trading cloth) and
banking (finance)
d. Florentines developed a republican form of
government but: only guild members (3%)
could hold government office
Florentine cloth
Florin
Values that shaped the Renaissance
a. Celebration of the individual: Artists and
writers wanted to be known
b. Love of Classical learning: Greece & Rome
Humanists: scholars who studied the
classical texts
Petrarch – Father of humanism who coined
the phrase: “Dark Ages” to sum up the
Middle Ages
c. Enjoyment of worldly pleasures – The ideal
for the renaissance man was to be:
successful in many fields (versatile)
Medieval Man
a. Very religious
b. Greatly influenced
by the church
c. Accepted ideas on
authority (did not
question)
d. Felt wealth and
pleasure were
sinful
Renaissance Man
a. Religious, but not
obsessed by
religion
b. Involved in worldly
affairs
c. Questioned
traditional
attitudes
d. Enjoyed the
pleasures of living
Art and Patronage
 Italians were willing to spend a lot of
money on art.
/
/
Art communicated social, political, and spiritual
values.
Italian banking & international trade interests
had the money.
 Public art in Florence was organized and
supported by guilds.
Therefore, the consumption of art was used as a
form of competition for social & political status!
Quattrocentro: Italian name for
the 15th century
Florence’s Golden Age which saw the
powerful de Medici family come to power in
Florence
Cosimo de Medici
Rule of Cosimo de Medici
a. Controlled the
government of
Florence for 30 years
without holding
political office
b. Beautified Florence
with his own money
c. Collected books and
provided Florence
with the first free
public library
Cosimo’s library
Rule of Lorenzo de Medici (the Magnificent):
grandson of Cosimo de Medici
a.
Ruled with absolute power
but kept up the appearance
of the republican gov’t
b. Sponsored balls &
celebrations in Florence to
gain support of the people
c. Michelangelo studies at the
school of sculpture which was
housed at Lorenzo’s home
d. Avoided assassination
e. Quattrocentro (Golden Age)
ends: two years after his
death
Isabella d’Este – da Vinci, 1499
1474-1539
“First Lady of
the Italian
Renaissance.”
Great patroness
of the arts in
Mantua.
Known during her
time as “First
Lady of the
World!”
Florence is invaded by France and then Spain
after Lorenzo’s death
The Renaissance spreads to Rome and
Northern Europe
Pope Julius II – famous papal patron who
commissioned Michelangelo to paint the
ceiling of the: Sistine Chapel in Rome
The Renaissance belief in the worth of the
individual played a key role in the: rise
of democratic ideas
Francesco Petrarch
 1304-1374, Italian,
humanist.
 Considered the first
modern poet.
 Perfection of the
sonnet influences
English poets.
 Key figure hunting down
classical manuscripts.
Francesco Petrarch
 Wrote some of the
greatest love poems ever.
 Created abba, cdcdcd
meter sonnet –
Shakespeare based work
off him. ( iambic
pentameter = Petrarchan)
 His sonnets devoted to
Laura.
 His main influence was his
interest in classical
writers.
 Studied the writings of
ancient Greeks and
Romans.
 Made Poet Laureate of the
Senate of Rome in 1341.
Giovanni Boccaccio
 1313-1375.
 The Decameron, which
both Chaucer and
Shakespeare borrowed
from.
 Comprised of 100 short
novellas told by ten
people outside city of
Florence, which is
ravaged by Plague
 Celebrates love/lust
and attacks church,
medieval society.
Il Decameron
 Most important work.
 Began in 1348 and completed in 1353.
 It was first translated into English, as The
Decameron, in 1620.
Decameron
Niccolo Machiavelli:
 1469-1527, born in
Florence.
 Father of Modern
Political Science.
 Wrote His most
famous essay The
Prince which
describes government
not in terms of ideals
but how he thought
government worked.
 “ends justify the
means”
The Prince
 Machiavelli starts The
Prince describing two
different types of
government; Monarchies
and republics.
 Machiavelli, in The Prince,
uses the Cesare Borgia as
an example of achieving
political power through
cruel and ruthless means.
 Discusses power and he
insists that one must instill
fear in their subjects.
From the: Museum of Political Art
Machiavelli
 “It is safer to be feared than it is to be
loved.”
 On the Art of War:1521, describes the
advantages of conscripted military troops.
 The Mandragola: “The Mandrake” a satire
on the corruption of contemporary Italian
society.
Baldassare Castiglione by Raphael,
1514-1515
 Castiglione
represented the
humanist
“gentleman” as
a man of
refinement and
self-control.
Baldassare Castiglione
Wrote famous book, The Courtier,
which defines role of refined
courtier against rude and coarse
knight.
Reflects how gentlemen and ladies
should act in polite society.
Proper manners and behavior
stressed.
1. Realism & Expression
 Expulsion from
the Garden
 Masaccio
 1427
 First nudes since
classical times.
2. Perspective
The Trinity
Perspective!
Perspective!
Perspective!
Perspective!
Perspective!
Perspective!
Masaccio
1427
Perspective!
First use
of linear
perspective!
What you are,
I once was;
what I am,
you will
become.
3. Classicism
Greco-Roman
influence.
Secularism.
Humanism.
Individualism
free
standing figures.
Symmetry/Balance
The “Classical Pose”
Medici “Venus” (1c)
4. Emphasis on Individualism
 Batista Sforza & Federico de Montefeltre: The
Duke & Dutchess of Urbino
 Piero della Francesca, 1465-1466.
5. Geometrical Arrangement of
Figures
 The Dreyfus
Madonna
with the
Pomegranate
 Leonardo da
Vinci
 1469
 The figure as
architecture!
6. Light & Shadowing/Softening Edges
Sfumato
Chiaroscuro
7. Artists as Personalities/Celebrities
Lives of the Most
Excellent
Painters,
Sculptors, and
Architects
Giorgio Vasari
1550
Giotto
 Florentine who is
considered the first
Italian Renaissance
painter
 He started a
revolution in painting
by giving a sense of
depth and roundness in
his paintings
 He used naturalism in
his frescoes
 His figures interacted
with each other
 Their faces showed
realistic emotion
Giotto’s Madonna's
“St. Francis feeds
the birds”
“Slaughter of the
Innocents”
1. Self-Portrait -- da Vinci, 1512
 Artist
 Sculptor
 Architect
 Scientist
 Engineer
 Inventor
1452 - 1519
Leonardo da Vinci
 A true renaissance
man who was skilled in
many areas
 Kept “Notebooks”
filled with his ideas
 Met Machiavelli while
he was Cesare Borgia’s
military engineer
 Francis I invited him
to live in France.
Francis said, “no other
man had been born
who knew as much as
Leonardo”
 Vitruvian Man
 Leonardo da
Vinci
 1492
The
L’uomo
universale
Leonardo, the Artist
 The Virgin of
the Rocks
 Leonardo da
Vinci
 1483-1486
Leonardo, the Artist:
From hisNotebooks of over 5000 pages (1508-1519)
Mona Lisa – da Vinci, 1503-4
A Macaroni Mona
A Picasso Mona
An Andy Warhol Mona
A “Mona”ca Lewinsky
Mona Lisa OR da Vinci??
The Last Supper - da Vinci, 1498
& Geometry
Refractory
Convent of Santa
Maria delle
Grazie
Milan
vertical
The Last Supper - da Vinci, 1498
horizontal
Perspective!
Deterioration
 Detail of
Jesus
 The Last
Supper
 Leonardo da
Vinci
 1498
A Da Vinci “Code”:
St. John or Mary Magdalene?
Leonardo, the Sculptor
 An
Equestrian
Statue
 1516-1518
Leonardo, the Architect:
Pages from his Notebook
Study of a
central church.
1488
Leonardo, the Architect:
Pages from his Notebook
Plan of the city of Imola, 1502.
Leonardo, the Scientist (Biology):
Pages from his Notebook
An example of
the humanist
desire to unlock
the secrets of
nature.
Leonardo, the Scientist (Anatomy):
Pages from his Notebook
Leonardo, the Inventor:
Pages from his Notebook
Man Can Fly?
Leonardo, the Engineer:
A study of siege defenses.
Pages from
his Notebook
Studies of water-lifting
devices.
Inventions
Michelangelo
 Painter, sculptor,
architect, musician
 Studied sculpture at
Lorenzo de Medici’s home
 Moved to Rome where the
“Pieta” was completed in
1497
 “David” completed in 1504
 Pope Julius II commissions
the “Sistine Ceiling” (150811)
 “Last Judgment” completed
in the Sistine Chapel 1534
2. Michelangelo Buonorrati
 1475 – 1564
 He represented
the body in
three
dimensions of
sculpture.
The Popes as Patrons of the Arts
The Pieta
Michelangelo
Buonarroti
1499
marble
 David
 Michelangelo
Buonarotti
 1504
 Marble
The Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo
Buonarroti
1508 - 1512
The Sistine Chapel’s Ceiling
The Sistine Chapel Details
The
Creation
of the
Heavens
The Sistine Chapel Details
Creation of Man
A Modern “Adaptation”
Joe Gallo in the New York Daily News, 2004
The Sistine Chapel Details
The Last Judgment
15c
What
a
difference
a
century
makes!
16c
Comparing Domes
Raphael
 He painted many
frescoes in the
Vatican for pope Julius
II
 His “School of Athens”
portrays Socrates,
Plato, & Aristotle
 This piece glorifies
philosophy &
represents human
reason
 Famous for his
paintings of Madonna's
and the Christ child
3. Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520)
Self-Portrait, 1506
Portrait of the Artist with
a Friend, 1518
Perspective!
Betrothal
of the Virgin
Raphael
1504
Raphael’s Canagiani Madonna, 1507
Raphael’s Madonnas (1)
Sistine Madonna
Cowpepper Madonna
Raphael’s Madonnas (2)
Madonna della Sedia
Alba Madonna
The School of Athens – Raphael, 1510 -11
 One point perspective.
 All of the important Greek philosophers
and thinkers are included
all of the
great personalities of the Seven Liberal
Arts!
 A great variety of poses.
 Located in the papal apartments library.
 Raphael worked on this commission
simultaneously as Michelangelo was doing
the Sistine Chapel.
 No Christian themes here.
The School of Athens–Raphael, 1510 -11
Da Vinci
Raphael
Michelangelo
The School of Athens – Raphael, details
Plato:
looks to the
heavens [or
the IDEAL
realm].
Aristotle:
looks to this
earth [the
here and
now].
Hypatia
Pythagoras
Zoroaster
Ptolemy
Euclid
The Liberation of St. Peter by Raphael, 1514
Portrait of Pope Julius II
by Raphael, 1511-1512
 More concerned with
politics than with
theology.
 The “Warrior Pope.”
 Great patron of
Renaissance artists,
especially Raphael &
Michelangelo.
 Died in 1513
Titain -Activism
 Figures in motion
 Groups of figures
in paintings seem
to interact and
combine to give
the illusion of
movement.
 Figures are active
they are not posed
 Action is frozen in
time
Titian - Bacchus & Adriadne
Titan - A master of Color
 The Assumption and
Coronation of the
Virgin
 Complex double twist
of the Virgin is the
1st of its type in
Venetian art
 Color Triangle and
careful balance of
contrasting patches of
color sweep the eye to
the top of the picture