Chapter 22 Beauty, Science, and Spirit in Italian Art: The High
Renaissance and Mannerism - Notes
The 15th century artistic developments in Italy matured during the 16th century. The 15th
century is thus designated the “Early Renaissance” and the 16th century the “High
Renaissance”. Although there is no single style that defines the period, there is a distinct level
of technical and artistic mastery that does. This is the age of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael,
Michelangelo, and Titian, artists whose works exhibit such authority, that later generations of
artists relied on these works for instruction.
These exemplary artistic creations further elevated the prestige of artists. Artists could claim
divine inspiration, thereby raising visual art to a status formerly only given to poetry. Painters,
sculptors, and architects were elevated to a new level and they claimed for their work a high
position among the fine arts.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) was born in the small town of Vinci, near Florence. He
trained in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. He was brilliant man with many interests. His
directions foreshadowed those that art and science would take in the future. A discussion of his
many interests enhances our understanding of his artistic production. Those interests are seen
in his Romulus sketchbooks filled with drawings and notes from his studies of the human body
and natural world. He explored optics in-depth, allowing him to understand perspective, light,
and color. His scientific drawings are artworks themselves.
Leonardo’s ambition in painting, as well as science, was to discover the laws underlying the
processes and flux of nature. Leonardo believed that reality in its absolute sense is inaccessible,
and that humans can only know it through its changing images. He considered the eyes the
most vital organs and sight the most essential function. In his notes, he repeatedly stated that all
his scientific investigations made him a better painter.
Around 1481, Leonardo left Florence, offering his services to Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan.
In his offer he highlighted his competence as a military engineer, mentioning his artistic
abilities only at the end. This provided Leonardo with increased financial security and
highlights the period’s instability.
During his first trip to Milan Leonardo painted Virgin on the Rocks as a central panel of an
altarpiece for the chapel of the confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in San Francesco
Grande. The painting builds on Masaccio’s understanding and usage of Chiaroscuro. Modeling
with light and shadow and expressing emotional states were, for Leonardo, the heart of
painting.
A good painting has two chief objects to paint - man and the intention of his soul.
The former is easy, the latter hard, for it must be expressed by gestures and the
movement of the limbs... A painting will only be wonderful for the beholder by
making that which is not so appear raised and detached from the wall.
Leonardo presented the figures in Virgin of the Rocks in a pyramidal grouping and more
notably, as sharing the same environment. This groundbreaking achievement - the unified
representation of objects in an atmospheric setting - was a manifestation of scientific
curiosity about the invisible substance surrounding things.
The Madonna, Christ Child, infant John the Baptist, and angel emerge through nuances of light
and shade from the half light of the cavernous visionary landscape. Light veils and reveals the
forms, immersing them in a layer of atmosphere that exists between them and the viewer.
Atmospheric perspective is in full view. The figures actions unite them; prayer, pointing, and
blessing. The angel points to the infant John. His outward glance involves spectators out of
view, perhaps the viewers of the painting. John prays to the Christ Child and is blessed in
return. The Virgin herself completes the series of interlocking gestures, her left hand resting
protectively on John’s shoulder. The mood of tenderness, enhanced by caressing light, suffuses
the entire composition. Leonardo succeeded in expressing “the intention of his soul.”
For the refectory of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Leonardo painted Last
Supper. Despite its ruined state (in part from Leonardo’s unfortunate experiments with his
materials) and although it has often been restored ineptly, the painting is Leonardo’s most
formally and emotionally impressive work. Christ and his twelve disciples are seated at a long
table set parallel to the picture plane in a simple, spacious room. Leonardo amplified the drama
by placing it in an austere room. Christ with outstretched hands, has just said, “one of you is
about to betray me” Matt 26:21. A wave of intense excitement passes through the group as
each disciple asks himself or his neighbor, “Is it I?”
In the center, Christ appears isolated from the disciples and in perfect repose, while emotion
swirls around him. The central window in the back frames Christ and has a curving pediment
above it. The arc serves as a diffused halo. Christ’s head is the location of the single vanishing
point on which the orthogonals converge, further emphasizing Christ. Leonardo presented the
agitated disciples in four groups of three, united among and within themselves by the figures’
gestures and postures. The artist sacrificed traditional iconography to pictorial and dramatic
consistency by placing Judas on the same side of the table as Jesus and the other disciples. His
face in shadow, Judas clutches a money bag in his right hand and reaches his left forward to
fulfill the Master’s declaration” :But yeah behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is on the
table” Luke 22:21. The two disciples on the end contain the action by their quiet composure.
Leonardo’s, Mona Lisa is the world’s most famous portrait. The sitter’s identity is not certain,
but Vasari asserted that she is Lisa di Antonio Maria Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy
Florentine - hence, “Mona (an Italian contraction of ma donna, “my lady”) Lisa.” It is notable
because it is a convincing representation of an individual, rather than serving as an icon of
status. The ambiguity of the famous “smile” is really the consequence of Leonardo’s
fascination and skill with chiaroscuro and atmospheric perspective. Her they serve to disguise
rather than reveal a human psyche. The artist subtly adjusted the light and blurred precise
planes - Leonardo’s famous smokey sfumato (misty haziness) - rendering the facial expression
hard to determine.
The lingering appeal of Mona Lisa derives in large part from Leonardo’s decision to set his
subject against the backdrop of a mysterious uninhabited landscape. Originally Leonardo
represented Mona Lisa in a loggia with columns. The painting was cropped later on (not by
Leonardo) and the columns were eliminated. The remains of the column bases may still be seen
to the left and right of Mona’s shoulders.
Leonardo completed very few paintings; his perfectionism, relentless experimentation, and far
ranging curiosity diffused his efforts. The drawings in his notebooks preserve an extensive
record of his ideas. His interests focused increasingly on science in his later years, and he
embraced knowledge of all facets of the natural world. One example is The Fetus and Lining
of the Uterus, although not up to 20th century standards for accuracy, it was an astounding
achievement in its day. Though not the first scientist, Leonardo certainly originated a method
of scientific illustration, especially cutaway and exploded views. Scholars have long
recognized the importance of these drawings for the development of anatomy as a science,
especially in an age predating photographic methods such a X rays.
Leonardo was well known as an architect and sculptor in his lifetime, but no existing building
or sculptures can be attributed to him. From his drawings he was interested in the central style
plan of buildings. Leonardo left numerous drawings of monumental equestrian statues of which
one was made into a full scale model for a monument to Francesco Sforza (Ludovico’s). The
French used it for a target and shot it to pieces when they occupied Milan in 1499. Due to the
French, Leonardo left Milan and served for a while as a military engineer for Caesar Borgia,
who, with the support of his father, Pope Alexander VI, who tried to conquer the cities of the
Romagna region in North Central Italy and create a Borgia duchy. At a later date, Leonardo
returned to Milan in the service of the French. At the invitation of King Francis I, he then went
to France, where he died at the Chateau of Cloux in 1519.
Julius II: The Warrior Pope
Pope Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere (1503 - 1513), was an individual whose interests and
activities effected the course of the High Renaissance. Julius II was a very ambitious man who
indulged his enthusiasm for battle in a supposed quest to expand the church and the Kingdom of
Heaven by worldly means. This earned him a designation as the “warrior pope”. He selected
his name Julius after Julius Caesar, and he ran the papacy using the Roman Empire as his
model.
Julius II’s papacy was notable for his contributions to the arts. He was an avid art patron and
understood well the propagandistic value of visual imagery. After his election as pope, he
immediately commissioned artworks that would present an authoritative image of his rule and
reinforce the primacy of the Catholic Church. He commissioned a new design for Saint Peter’s
basilica, the construction of his tomb, the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and the
decoration of the papal apartments. These large scale projects clearly required considerable
finances. Because of this need, Julius sanctioned the huge increase in the selling of
indulgences as a way to raise the revenue needed to fund the art, architecture, and the
lavish papal lifestyle. This perception prompted disgruntlement among the faithful.
Despite his exceptional artistic legacy, Julius II’s patronage contributed to the rise of the
Reformation.
Saint Peter’s
Old Saint Peter’s had fallen into considerable disrepair and did not fit Julius II’s taste for the
large, colossal, and glorious. He wanted control over all Italy and make the Rome of the Pope’s
as glorious as or greater than that of the Caesars. This important commission was awarded to
Donato D’Angelo Bramante (1444 - 1514). Bramante was trained as a painter. He went to
Milan in 1481 and stayed till the French arrived in 1499. In Milan he abandoned painting and
went on to become the most renowned architect of his generation. Influenced by Brunelleschi,
Alberti, and perhaps Leonardo, who favored antiquity, Bramante developed the High
Renaissance form of the central plan church.
Bramante originally conceived the new Saint Peter’s to consist of a cross with arms of equal
length, each terminated by an apse. Julius II intended the new building to serve as a martyrium
to mark Saint Peter’s grave and also hoped to have his own tomb in it. A large dome would
have covered the crossing, and smaller domes over the subsidiary chapels would have covered
the diagonal axes of the roughly squared plan. The ambitious plan called for a boldly sculptural
treatment of the walls and piers under the dome. His design for the interior space was complex
in the extreme, with the intricate symmetries of a crystal. It is possible to detect in the plan nine
interlocking crosses, five of them supporting domes. The scale was so titanic that, according to
sources, Bramante boasted he would place the dome of the Pantheon over the Basilica Nova.
During Bramante’s lifetime, the actual construction on the new Saint Peter’s basilica did not
advance beyond the building of the crossing piers and the lower choir walls. After his death,
the work passed on to other architects and finally to Michelangelo, whom Pope Paul III
appointed in 1546 to complete the building. Not until the 17th century did the Church oversee
the completion.
An earlier building completed by Bramante is considered the perfect prototype of classical
domed architecture for the Renaissance and after. The building is called Tempietto - “Little
Temple” because to contemporaries it had the look of a Roman pagan temple. The lower story
was directly inspired by the round temples of Roman Italy that Bramante would have know in
Rome.
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain commissioned the Tempietto to mark the
conjectural location of Saint Peter’s crucifixion. Available information suggests the project was
commissioned in 1502, but there is dispute over the date.
Bramante relied on the composition of volumes and masses and on a sculptural handling of
solids and voids to set apart this building, all but devoid of ornament, from the structures built
in the preceding century. Standing inside the cloister along side the church of San Pietro in
Montorio, Rome, and the Tempietto resembles a sculptured reliquary and would have looked
even more like one inside the circular colonnaded courtyard Bramante planned for it but never
executed.
At first glance, the structure seems severely rational with its circular stylobate and Tuscan style
colonnade. Wonderful harmony is achieved in the relationship of the parts (dome, drum, and
base) to one another and to the whole. Conceived as a tall domed cylinder projecting from a
wider lower cylinder of the colonnade, this building incorporates all the qualities of a sculpted
monument. There is a wonderful rhythmic play of light and shadow on the form. Although the
Tempietto may superficially resemble a Greek tholos, the combination of parts and details was
new and original.
If one of the main differences between Early and High Renaissance styles of architecture was
the former’s emphasis on detailing flat wall surfaces versus the latter’s sculptural handling of
architectural masses, then Tempietto certainly broke new ground and stood at the beginning of
the High Renaissance. The architect Andrea Palladio credited Bramante as the “first to bring
back to light the good and beautiful architecture from antiquity to that time had been
hidden.” Round in plan, it is elevated on a base that isolates it from its surroundings.
Michelangelo
The artist whom Pope Julius II deemed best able to convey his message was Michelangelo
Buonarroti (1475 - 1564), who received some of the most coveted commissions. Though a
man of many talents, architect, sculptor, painter, poet, and engineer, he thought of himself first
as a sculptor. He regarded sculptor as a superior calling to painter because the sculptor shares
in something like the divine power to “make man.” Drawing a conceptual parallel to Plato’s
ideas, Michelangelo believed that the image produced by the artists hand must come from the
idea in the artist’s mind. The idea, then, is the reality that the artist’s genius has brought forth.
But artists are not the creators of the ideas they conceive. Rather they find their ideas in the
natural world, reflecting the absolute idea, which, for the artist, is beauty.
One of Michelangelo’s best known observations about sculpture is that the artist must proceed
by finding the idea - the image locked in the stone, as it were. Thus, by removing the excess
stone, the artist extricates the ideas, like Pygmalion bringing forth the living form.
Michelangelo felt that the artist works through many years at this unceasing process of
revelation and “arrives late at novel and lofty things.”
Michelangelo sharply broke from his predecessors in a very important respect. He mistrusted
the application of mathematical methods as guarantees of beauty in proportion. Measure and
proportion, he believed, should be “kept in the eyes.” Vasari quotes Michelangelo as declaring
that “it was necessary to have the compasses in the eyes and not in the hand, because the hands
work and the eye judges.” Thus Michelangelo went against Vitruvius, Alberti, Leonardo, and
others by asserting that the artist’s inspired judgment could identify other pleasing proportions.
He believed that the artist must not be bound, except by the demands made by realizing the
idea. This insistence on the artist’s own authority was typical of Michelangelo and
anticipated the modern concept of the right of self expression of talent limited only by the
artist’s own judgment. The artistic license to aspire far beyond the “rules” was, in part, a
manifestation of the pursuit of fame and success that humanism fostered. In this context,
Michelangelo designed architecture and created paintings that departed from High Renaissance
regularity. He put in its stead a style of vast, expressive strength conveyed through complex,
eccentric, and often titanic forms that loom before the viewer in tragic grandeur.
Michelangelo’s self imposed isolation, creative furies, proud independence, and daring
innovations led Italians to speak of the dominating quality of the man and his work in one word
-terribilita, the sublime shadowed by the awesome and the fearful.
David
In 1501, the Florence Cathedral building committee asked Michelangelo to work a great block
of marble left over from an earlier aborted commission. From this stone, Michelangelo crafted
David, which assured his reputation then and now as an extraordinary talent. The form and its
references to classical antiquity appealed to Julius II who associated himself with the humanists
and Roman emperors. This sculpture and the acclaim that accompanied its completion lead to
Michelangelo’s papal commissions.
Like other David sculptures, Michelangelo’s had a political dimension. With the political
instability of the time, Florentines viewed David as the symbolic defiant hero of the Florentine
republic, especially given the statue’s placement near the west door of the Palazzo della
Signoria. Forty years after David’s completion, Vasari extolled the political value of David
claiming that “without a doubt the figure has put in the shade every other statue, ancient or
modern, Greek or Roman - this was intended as a symbol of liberty for the palace, signifying
that just as David protected his people and governed them justly, so whoever ruled Florence
should vigorously defend the city and govern it with justice.”
Michelangelo depicted David, not in victory, but turning his head sternly watching the
approaching foe. His whole body and face is tense with gathering power. This energy in
reserve is characteristic of Michelangelo’s later figures.
The Roman sculptor’s skill in precise rendering of heroic physique impressed Michelangelo. In
David, without strictly imitating the antique style, Michelangelo captured the Lysippan athletes
and the emotionalism of Hellenistic statuary. This David differs from Donatello’s and
Verrocchio’s as Hellenistic statues depart from classical ones. Michelangelo abandoned the self
contained compositions of the 15th century David statues by giving David’s head the abrupt
turn toward Goliath. Michelangelo’s David is compositionally and emotionally connected to
an unseen presence beyond the statue; a quality in Hellenistic sculpture. As early as
David, Michelangelo invested his efforts in presenting towering pent up emotion rather
than calm ideal beauty.
Julius II’s Tomb
The first project Julius II commissioned from Michelangelo in 1505 was the pontiff's own tomb.
The original design called for a freestanding two story structure with some 28 statues. This
colossal monument would have given Michelangelo the latitude to sculpt numerous human
statues while providing the pope with a grandiose memorial which Julius intended to be in St.
Peter’s. Shortly after the project began, it was interrupted, possibly because funds had to be
diverted to Bramante’s building of St. Peters. After Julius II’s death in 1513, Michelangelo was
forced to reduce the scale of the project step by step until, it became a simple wall tomb with
one third of the originally planned figures. The tomb was completed in 1545 and was placed in
San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, where Julius at one time had been a cardinal. It is with surety that
the ambitious Julius II would have been bitterly disappointed. The spirit of the tomb may be
summed up in the figure of Moses, which Michelangelo had completed in 1513, during a
sporadic resumption of work. It was meant to be seen from below and to be balanced with
seven other massive forms related to it in spirit. The position of Moses now in his rather paltry
setting’ does not have its original impact. Michelangelo depicted the Old Testament prophet
seated, the Tablets of the Law under one arm and his hands gathering his voluminous beard.
The horns were a recognizable convention to identify Moses. Michelangelo used the turned
head, which concentrates the expression of awful wrath that stirs in Moses’ powerful frame and
eyes. The muscles bulge, the veins swell, and the great legs seem to begin slowly to move with
pent up energy.
Originally 20 sculptures of slaves in various attitudes of revolt and exhaustion, appear on the
tomb. Bound Slave is one of those sculptures. Scholars question whether this sculpture and
three other slave sculptures should have been part of Julius’s tomb. Many scholars also reject
their identification as “slaves” or “captives.” What ever their intended purpose they are
definitive. The figures do not represent an abstract concept, as in medieval allegory, but
embody powerful emotional states associated with oppression. Michelangelo based his whole
art on his conviction that whatever can be said greatly through sculpture and painting must be
said through the human figure.
The Sistine Chapel
With the suspension of the tomb project, Julius gave the bitter and reluctant Michelangelo the
commission to paint the Sistine Chapel in 1508. Michelangelo gave in hoping that the tomb
commission would be revived. He faced enormous difficulties in painting the Sistine ceiling.
He was inexperienced in fresco painting. The ceiling was some 5,800 square feet of surface to
be covered and it was 70 feet above the ground. The vault’s height and curve created
complicated perspective problems. Yet, in less than four years, Michelangelo produced an
unprecedented work - a monumental fresco incorporating the patron’s agenda, Church doctrine,
and the artist’s interests. The theme of the creation, the fall, and the redemption of humanity
weave together more than 300 figures.
A long sequence of narrative panels describing the Creation as recorded in Genesis, runs along
the crown of the vault. The Hebrew prophets and pagan sibyls who foretold the coming of
Christ appear seated in large thrones on both sides of the central row of scenes from Genesis
where the vault curves down. In the four corner pendentives are placed four Old Testament
scenes with David, Judith, Haman, and Moses and the Brazen Serpent. Scores of lesser figures
also appear. The ancestors of Christ fill the triangular compartments above the windows, nude
youths punctuate the corners of the central panels and small pairs of putti (cherub little boys)
support the painted cornice surrounding the entire central corridor. The overall concept - a
sweeping chronology of Christianity - was keeping with Renaissance ideas about Christian
history. Such ideas include interest in the conflict between good and evil and between the
energy of youth and the wisdom of age. The conception of the entire ceiling was
astounding in itself, and the articulation of it in its thousand details was a superhuman
achievement.
One of the ceilings central panels, the Creation of Adam, is also one of the most famous.
Michelangelo created a bold, entirely humanistic interpretation of the momentous event. God
and Adam confront each other in a primordial unformed landscape of which Adam is still a
material part. The Lord transcends the earth, wrapped in a billowing cloud of drapery and
borne up by his powers. Life leaps to Adam like a spark from the extended hand of God. The
communication between Gods and man was common in myth and the connection here is clear.
It emphasizes how High Renaissance thought joined classical and Christian traditions. Beneath
the Lord’s sheltering arm is a female figure comprehensive but uncreated. Scholars
traditionally have believed this to be Eve, but recent scholarship suggests that it may be the
Virgin Mary with the Christ Child at her knee. If this is true, Michelangelo incorporated into
the fresco the basic tenets of the Christian faith.
Raphael
While Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Ceiling, Pope Julius II commissioned Raphael
(1483 - 1520) to decorate the papal apartments in 1508. Raphael painted the Stanza della
Segnatura (Room of the Signature - the papal library) and the Stanza d’Eliodoro (Room of
Heliodorus). His pupils completed the other rooms, following his sketches. On the Four walls
in the Stanza della Segnatura, under the headings of Theology (Disputa), Law (Justice),
Poetry (Parnassus), and Philosophy (School of Athens), Raphael presented images that
symbolize and sum up Western learning as Renaissance society understood it. The frescos refer
to the four branches of human knowledge and wisdom while pointing out the virtues and
learning appropriate to a pope. Given Julius II’s desire for recognition as both a spiritual and
temporal leader, it is appropriate that the Theology and Philosophy frescos face each other. The
two images present a balanced picture of the pope - as a cultured, knowledgeable, individual, on
the one hand, and as a wise, divinely ordained religious authority on the other. The Philosophy
mural (the so called School of Athens) is the setting not of a school but a congregation of the
great philosophers and scientists of the ancient world. Raphael depicted these luminaries rediscovered by Renaissance thinkers - conversing and explaining their various theories and
ideas. In a vast hall covered by massive barrel vaults that recall Roman architecture (and
approximate the appearance of the new Saint Peter’s in 1509 when the painting was executed),
colossal statues of Apollo and Athena, patron gods of the arts and of wisdom, oversee the
interactions. Plato and Aristotle serve as the central figures around whom Raphael carefully
arranged others. Plato holds his book Timaeus and points to heaven, the source of his
inspiration, while Aristotle carries his book Nichomachean Ethics and gestures toward the
earth, from which his observations of reality sprang. On Plato’s side are the ancient
philosophers, men concerned with the ultimate mysteries that transcend this world. On
Aristotle’s side are the philosophers and scientists concerned with the nature of human affairs.
At the lower left, Pythagoras writes as a servant holds up the harmonic scale. In the
foreground, Heraclitus (probably a portrait of Michelangelo) broods alone. Diogenes sprawls
on the steps. At the right, students are around Euclid, who demonstrates a theorem. This group
is especially interesting; Euclid may be the portrait of the aging Bramante. At the extreme
right, just to the right of the astronomers Zoroaster and Ptolemy, both holding globes, Raphael
included his own portrait.
The figures’ self assurance and natural dignity convey the very nature of calm reason that
balance and measure the great Renaissance minds so admired as the heart of philosophy. In this
work Raphael placed himself among the mathematicians and scientists. His convincing
depiction of a vast perspective space on a two dimensional surface was the consequence of the
union of mathematics, with pictorial space, here mastered completely.
All the characters in the School of Athens, communicate moods that reflect their beliefs, and
the artist’s placement of each figure tied these moods together. From the center, Raphael
arranged groups of figures in an elliptical movement around Plato and Aristotle. It seems to
swing forward, looping around the two foreground groups on both sides and then back again to
the center. Moving through the wide opening in the foreground around the floor’s perspective
pattern, the viewer’s eye penetrates the assembly of philosophers and continues, by way of the
reclining Diogenes, up to the here reconciled leaders of the two great opposing camps of
Renaissance philosophy. The perspective’s vanishing point falls on Plato’s left hand, drawing
the viewer’s attention to Timaeus. In the works in the Stanza della Segnatura, Raphael
reconciled and harmonized not only the Platonists and Aristotelians but also paganism and
Christianity, surely a major factor in his appeal to Julius II.
Galatea
Pope Leo X (Giovanni de Medici, 1513 - 1521), the son of Lorenzo de Medici, succeeded Julius
II as Raphael’s patron. Leo was a worldly, pleasure loving prince who spent huge amounts on
the arts. Raphael moved in the highest circles of the papal court, the star of a brilliant society.
He was young, handsome, wealthy, and adulated, not only by his followers, but also by Rome
and all Italy. Genial, even tempered, generous, and high minded. Raphael's personality
contrasted with the mysterious and aloof Leonardo, or the tormented and obstinate
Michelangelo. The Pope was not Raphael’s only patron. His friend Agostino Chigi, an
immensely wealthy banker who managed the papal state’s financial affairs, commissioned
Raphael to decorate his palace, the Villa Farnesina, on the Tiber with scenes from classical
mythology. Outstanding among the frescos was Galatea, which Raphael based on
Metamorphoses, by the ancient Roman poet Ovid.
In Raphael’s fresco, Galatea flees from her uncouth lover, the Cyclops Polyphemus, on a shell
drawn by leaping dolphins. Sea creatures and playful cupids surround her. The painting erupts
in unrestrained pagan joy and exuberance, an exultant song in praise of human beauty and
zestful love. Raphael enhanced the liveliness of the composition by placing the sturdy figures
around Galatea in bounding and dashing movements that always return to her energetic center.
The cupids, skillfully foreshortened, repeat the circling motion. Raphael conceived his figures
sculpturally. Galatea’s body is strong and vigorous in motion suggesting the spiraling motion
of Hellenistic statuary, and contrasting with Botticelli’s, almost dematerialized Venus. Pagan
myth presented in monumental form, in vivacious movement, and a spirit of passionate delight
resurrects the naturalistic art and poetry of the classical world.
Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III maintained the lavish lifestyle of previous popes and was a great patron of the
arts. He commissioned a palace for himself while he was still Cardinal Farnese.
The Palazzo Farnese in Rome was designed by Antonio Da Sangallo the Younger (1483 1546) who established himself as the favorite architect of Pope Paul II and received many
commissions that might have otherwise gone to Michelangelo. Antonio was from a family of
architects and was an assistant and draftsman for Bramante. Antonio built fortifications for
almost the entire papal state and received more commissions for military than for civilian
architecture.
The Palazzo Farnese set the standard for the High Renaissance palazzo and fully expresses the
classical order, regularity, simplicity, and dignity of the High Renaissance. It was finished by
Michelangelo after Antonio’s death in 1546.
The Last Judgment
Many of Pope Paul III’s commissions were part of an orchestrated campaign to restore the
prominence of the Catholic Church in wake of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation
was the result of widespread dissatisfaction with the leadership and practices of the Catholic
Church. Led by Clerics such as Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) and John Calvin (1509 - 1564) the
Reformation directly challenged papal authority. The disgruntled Catholics voiced concerns
about the sale of indulgences, nepotism, and high Church officials pursuing personal wealth.
This reform movement resulted in the establishment of Protestantism, with sub groups such as
Lutheranism and Calvinism. Central to Protestantism is a belief in personal faith rather than
adherence to decreed Church practices and doctrines. This personal relationship between an
individual and God, in essence eliminated the need for Church intercession central to
Catholicism.
The Catholic Church, in response, mounted a full fledged campaign to counteract the defection
of its members to Protestantism. The Council of Orant which met intermittently from 1545
through 1563 dealt with issues of Church doctrine including the Protestant concerns.
The papal commissions of the period were an integral part of the Catholic Church’s strategy to
counter the Reformation. Aware of the persuasive power of imagery, the Pope commissioned
Michelangelo to paint another giant fresco on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. The Last
Judgment depicts Christ as a stern and fearsome Judge. The choirs of Heaven surrounding him
pulse with anxiety and awe. Crowded into the space below are trumpeting angels, the
ascending figures of the just, and the downward hurling figures of the damned into demon
inhabited Hell.
This terrifying view of the Judgment surpasses even Signorelli’s gruesome images. Martyrs
who suffered agonizing deaths couch below the Judge. One of them, Saint Bartholomew, who
was skinned alive, holds the flaying knife and the skin, its face a grotesque self portrait of
Michelangelo. The figures are huge and violently twisted with small heads and contorted
features. Even with this vivid depiction of wrath there is hope. A group of saved souls - the
elect - crowd around Christ, and on the far right appears a figure with a cross, most likely the
Good Thief that was crucified with Christ, or a martyred saint.
Capitoline Hill
While executing the Last Judgment Michelangelo was given another flattering commission
from Pope Paul III. In 1537 Michelangelo was asked to reorganize the Capitoline Hill in Rome
which had been the site of the Roman Empire’s largest Temple to Jupiter. It was to become the
symbol of the power of the new Rome of the Popes. He had to incorporate two existing
buildings into the design, the medieval Palazzo dei Senatori and the 15th century Palazzo dei
Conservatori. Michelangelo converted what seemed a limitation into the most impressive
design for a civic unit formulated during the Renaissance.
Michelangelo stated “it is an established fact that the members of architecture resemble the
members of man. Whoever neither has been nor is a master at figures, and especially at
anatomy, cannot really understand architecture.” This belief that architecture and the human
form are interconnected guided him as he organized the design in symmetrical units around a
central and unique axis as arms to a torso. It must have been with such arguments that
Michelangelo convinced his sponsors of the need to balance the Palazzo dei Conservatori,
whose facade he was to redesign, with a similar unit on the square’s North side. To achieve
balance and symmetry in design, Michelangelo placed the new building (the Muso Capitolino,
originally planned only as a portico with single rows of offices above and behind it) so that it
stood at the same angle to the Palazzo dei Senatori as the Palazzo dei Conservatori. This
yielded a trapezoidal plan, rather than a rectangular one, for the piazza. The ancient statue of
Marcus Aurelius became the focal point of the whole design. The pope ordered the statue to the
Capitoline Hill against Michelangelo’s advice who preferred to carve his own. The symbolic
significance of the famous monument must have appealed to Paul III. Although 15th century
humanists had discovered the statue’s true identity (by comparison with Roman coins), the
medieval identification of the portrait as Constantine the Great, still lingered and was an integral
part of its fabled history. In the 16th century the statue had double significance. It was the
ultimate symbol of the pagan Roman Empire over which Christianity had triumphed, but
Italians also associated it with Constantine, Saint Peter, and the establishment of the papacy
To connect this central monument with the surrounded buildings, Michelangelo provided it with
an oval base and placed it centrally in an oval pavement design. The oval was considered an
unstable geometric figure by Renaissance architects, but Michelangelo deemed the oval best
suited to relate the designs various elements to one another. Later artists during the Baroque
period adopted the oval as their favorite geometric figure.
Saint Peter’s
The last project Michelangelo undertook his last project for Pope Paul III in 1546, the building
of the new Saint Peter’s. With the challenges facing the Church from the Reformation,
Paul III, felt a sense of urgency about the completion of the project. Michelangelo’s work on
Saint Peter’s became a long term show of dedication, thankless and without pay.
Michelangelo struggled with the preservation of Bramante’s original plan, which he praised and
modified. Michelangelo reduced the central component of Bramante’s plan from a number of
interlocking crosses to a compact domed Greek cross inscribed in a square and fronted with a
double columned portico. Without destroying the centralized features of Bramante’s plan,
Michelangelo converted its snowflake complexity into a massive cohesive unity.
On the exterior Michelangelo used the colossal order as the giant pilasters seem to march
around the undulating wall surfaces, confining movement without interrupting it. The
architectural sculpturing here extends up from the ground through attic stories and into the drum
and the dome, unifying the whole building. Baroque artists later learned much from this kind of
integral design which Michelangelo based on his conviction that architecture is one with the
organic beauty of the human form.
The Dome, that has been influential on architecture for centuries, was not as Michelangelo
planned it. Originally he designed a dome with ogival sections like that of the Florence
Cathedral. But in his final version he decided on a hemispheric dome to temper the verticality
of the design of the lower stories and to establish a balance between dynamic and static
elements. Giacomo Della Porta (1533 - 1602) executed the dome after Michelangelo’s death
and restored Michelangelo’s original ogival dome design because of greater stability and ease of
construction. The dome seems to rise from the base and not just rest on it, an effect
Michelangelo might not have approved.
Michelangelo’s art began in the style of the 15th century, and developed into the epitome of
High Renaissance art, and in the end toward Mannerism and the Baroque. He was 89 when he
died in 1564, still working on the Capitoline Hill and Saint Peter’s. Few artists, then as now,
could escape his influence, and variations of his style provided the foundation of art production
for centuries.
Early 16th Century Venetian Art
Venice and the Papal States were the only Italian sovereignties to retain their independence
during the century of strife; either France or Spain dominated all others. The discovery of the
New World and the economic shift from Italy to the Netherlands were largely responsible for
the decline of Venice as did other more immediate and pressing events. After the conquest of
Constantinople, the Turks began to vie with Venice for control of the Eastern Mediterranean
and evolved into a constant threat to Venice. Early in the century, the European powers of the
League of Cambrai also attacked Venice. Formed and led by Pope Julius II, who coveted
Venetian holdings, the League included Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Emperor, in
addition to the Papal States. Despite these challenges, Venice developed a flourishing,
independent, and influential school of artists.
Venice had a soft colored light that was of particular interest to artists. Giovanni Bellini (1430
- 1516) played an important role in developing the evocative use of color and contributed
significantly to creating what was known as the Venetian Style. Trained in the International
Style, by his father Jacopo, a student of Gentile da Fabriano, Bellini worked in the family shop
and did not develop his own still until his father’s death in 1470. His brother in law was Andrea
Mantegna, who had some influence on his style, but it was the Sicilian born painter Antonio da
Messina (1430 - 1479) which impressed him. Antonello received his early training in Naples
where he must have come in close contact with Flemish painting and mastered using mixed oil.
This more flexible medium is wider in coloristic range than either tempera or fresco. Antonello
arrived in Venice and during his two year stay introduced his Venetian colleges to the
possibilities the new oil technique offered. As a direct result of this contact, Bellini abandoned
Mantegna's harsh linear style and developed a sensuous coloristic style that was to characterize
Venetian painting for the late 15th and 16th centuries.
Bellini earned great recognition for his many Madonnas which he painted in many sizes from
personal devotion to monumental altarpieces. One subject for these large altarpieces was
referred to as the sacra conversazoine (Holy Conversation) type, which became popular from
the middle 15th century on. It is a unified space that joins saints from different epochs who
seem to converse with each other or with the audience. (Raphael did the same thing when he
gathered Greek philosophers of different eras in his School of Athens). In Bellini’s San
Zaccaria Altarpiece, he used this device. He refined many of the compositional elements of
his earlier altarpieces. As was conventional, the Virgin Mary sits enthroned, holding Christ and
flanked by saints. Her attributes aid in the identification of all the saints except Saint Lucy. Saint Peter has his key and book - Saint Catherine with the palm of martyrdom and the broken
wheel - Saint Jerome has his Latin translation of the Bible - An angel sits at the foot of the
throne playing a viola. The group is placed in a carefully painted shrine. The painting radiates
a feeling of serenity and spiritual calm. Viewers derive this sense of calm less from the figures
and more from the harmonious and balanced presentation of light. Bellini’s method of painting
is soft and luminous. Line is not the chief agent of form, with outlines almost dissolving in
light and shadow. The impact of the work is due to largely to glowing color - a soft radiance
that envelops the forms with atmospheric haze and enhances the majestic serenity.
With Bellini, Venetian art became the great complement of the schools of Florence and Rome.
The Venetian’s instrument was color; that of the Florentines and Rome was sculpturesque
form. Whereas most central Italian artists emphasized careful design preparation based
on preliminary drawings, Venetians artists focused on color and the process of paint
application. The general thematic focus of their work also differed Venetian artists
painted the poetry of the senses and delighted in nature’s beauty and the pleasures of
humanity. Artist in Florence and Rome gravitated toward more esoteric, intellectual
themes - the epic of humanity, the masculine virtues, the grandeur of the ideal, and the
lofty conceptions of religion involving the heroic and sublime. Much of the history of later
western art involved a dialogue between these traditions.
Venetian art has been described as poetic and painting was meant to operate in a manner similar
to poetry. Both classical and Renaissance poetry inspired Venetian artists and their painting
focused on the lyrical and sensual. Thus in many Venetian artworks, discerning concrete
narratives of subjects (in the traditional sense) is virtually impossible.
Giorgione
A Venetian artist who deserves much credit for developing this poetic manner in painting was
Giorgione Da Castel Franco (1477 - 1510). Giorgione’s so called Pastoral Symphony,
which some believe to be an early work of his student Titian, exemplifies this poetic manner.
Out of the dense shadow emerge the soft figures and landscape. The theme is as enigmatic as
the lighting. Two nude women, accompanied by two clothed young men, occupy the rich,
abundant landscape through which the shepherd passes. A villa crowns the hill in the distance.
The pastoral mood is eloquently presented that the viewer does not find the picture’s precise
meaning distressing; the mood is enough. The shepherd symbolizes the poet; the pipes and lute
symbolize his poetry. The two women accompanying the men may be their invisible
inspiration, their muses. One turns to lift water from the sacred well of inspiration. The
voluptuous bodies of the women, softly modulated by smoky shadow, became the standard in
Venetian art. The fullness of their figures contributes to their effect as poetic personifications
of nature’s abundance.
Titian
Giorgione’s great student was Tiziano Vecelli, whose name has been anglicized into Titian
(1490 - 1576). Titian was the most extraordinary and prolific of the great Venetian painters, a
supreme colorist who cultivated numerous paintings. An important change occurring in
Titian time was the almost universal adoption of canvas, with its rough textured surface in
place of wood panels for paintings. Titian’s works established oil color on canvas as the
typical medium of pictorial tradition thereafter.
It is believed that Titian completed several of his teacher’s, Bellini and Giorgione, unfinished
paintings. On Giovanni’s death in 1516, the Republic of Venus appointed Titian as its official
painter. Shortly after Titian was commissioned to paint Madonna of the Pesaro Family,
which the patron, Bishop Jacopo Pesaro, presented to the church of the Frari. Pesaro, bishop of
Paphos in Cyprus and commander of the Papal fleet, had led a successful expedition in 1502
against the Turks and commissioned this painting in gratitude. In a stately sunlit setting, the
Madonna receives the commander, who kneels dutifully at the foot of her throne. A soldier
(Saint George?) behind the commander carries a banner with the shields with the coat of arms
of the Borgia (Pope Alexander VI) and of Pesaro. Behind him is a turbaned Turk, a prisoner of
war of the Christian forces. Saint Peter appears on the steps of the throne, and Saint Francis
introduces other Pesaro family members (all male - Italian depictions of donors in this era
typically excluded women and children), who kneel solemnly in the right foreground.
The High Renaissance was characterized by the massing of monumental figures singly and
in groups, within a weighty and majestic architecture. But Titian did not compose a
horizontal and symmetrical arrangement, as did Leonardo in Last Supper and Raphael’s School
of Athens. Rather he placed figures on a steep diagonal, positioning the Madonna, well off the
central axis, yet still the focus of the work. Titian drew the viewer’s attention to her with
perspective lines, inclination of the figures, and the directional lines of gaze and gesture. The
banner inclining toward the left beautifully brings the design into equilibrium, balancing the
rightward and upward tendencies of the main direction.
This kind of composition is more dynamic than those in the High Renaissance shown thus far
and presaged a new kind of pictorial design - one built on movement rather than rest. Titian
gave a dazzling display of color in all its nuances to render rich surface textures. He
intertwined the human scene with the heavenly, depicting the Madonna and saints honoring the
achievements of a specific man in this particular world.
Titian's painting, Meeting of Bacchus and Ariadne, was created for Alphonso d’Este, Duke of
Ferrara for a room in his palace. He had originally requested 4 paintings of Bacchanalian
scenes, one each from Titian, Bellini, Raphael, and Fra Bartolommeo. Fra Bartolommeo and
Raphael died before fulfilling the commission. Bellini ended up painting one scene and Titian
three. Bacchus, with a rowdy group to rescue Ariadne who was left abandoned on the island of
Naxos by Theseus.
In 1538 at the height of his powers, Titian painted the so called Venus of Urbino for
Guidobaldo II, Duke of Urbino. The name was given to the painting later. The title elevates to
the status of classical mythology what probably merely represents a courtesan in her bed
chamber. No evidence exists that suggests that this was nothing more than a female nude for
the patron’s private enjoyment. This painting is based on an earlier one by Giorgione. Titian's
Venus established the compositional elements and standard for paintings of reclining female
nudes, regardless of the many variations.
Mannerism
Mannerism is a style that emerged in Italy during the 16th century. The term is derived from
the Italian word maniera, meaning style or manner. It is difficult to define the style or specific
dates. It seems to have emerged in the 1520’s and overlapped considerably with the High
Renaissance. In art history, style is usually referred to as a characteristic or representative
mode, especially of an artist or period (Gothic). Style can also refer to an absolute quality or
fashion (someone has style). Mannerisms style is characterized by style.
Among the features of Mannerism is artifice (the skillful use of tricks, especially to deceive
someone; a trick used to deceive someone). Actually, all art involves artifice, in the sense that
it is a representation of a scene or idea. Many artists, including those of the High Renaissance,
chose to conceal artifice by using such devices as perspective and shading to make their art look
natural. In contrast Mannerist artists consciously revealed the constructed nature of their art.
Whereas Renaissance artists strived to make their art look natural, Mannerist artists were less
inclined to disguise the contrived nature of art production. The conscious display of artifice in
Mannerism often reveals itself in imbalanced compositions and unusual complexities, both
visual and conceptual. Ambiguous space, departures from expected conventions, and
unique presentations of traditional themes also surface frequently in mannerist art and
architecture. The stylishness of Mannerism often inspired artists to focus on themes of
courtly grace and cultured sophistication.
Descent from the Cross by Jacopo Da Pontormo (1494 - 1557) exhibits almost the entire
stylish features characteristic of Mannerism’s early phase in painting. This subject had
frequently been depicted in art, and Pontormo exploited the familiarity that viewers at the time
would have had by playing off their expectations. Rather than presenting the action as taking
place across the perpendicular picture plane, as Raphael and Rogier Van Der Weyden had done
in their paintings of this scene, Pontormo rotated the conventional figural groups along a
vertical axis. As a result, the Virgin Mary falls back away from the viewer as she releases her
dead Son’s hand. In contrast with High Renaissance artists who had concentrated their masses
in the center of the painting, Pontormo here leaves a void. This accentuates the grouping of
hands that fill that hole, calling attention to the void - symbolic of loss and grief.
The artist enhanced the paintings ambiguity with the curiously anxious glances the figures cast
in all directions. Athletic bending and twisting characterize many of the figures with
distortions, elastic elongation of the limbs, and heads rendered in as uniformly small and oval.
The contrasting colors, primarily pinks and light blues, add to the dynamism and complexity of
the work. The painting represents a departure from the balanced harmoniously structured
compositions of the earlier Renaissance.
Mannerist Sculpture
A brilliant young Netherlandish sculptor Jean de Boulogne was drawn to Italy where he
practiced his art under the Italian equivalent name of Giovanni Da Bologna (1529 - 1608). His
sculpture, Abduction of the Sabine Women, exemplifies Mannerist Principles in sculpture.
The three figures interlock on a vertical axis, creating an ascending spiral movement. To fully
appreciate the sculpture, the viewer must walk around it, because the work changes radically
according to the viewing point. One contributing factor of the shifting imagery is the
prominence of open spaces that pass through the masses, which leave as great an effect as the
solids. This sculpture was the first large scale group since classical antiquity designed to
be seen from multiple points of view. Giovanni’s figures do not break out of the spiral vortex
but remain as if contained in a cylinder. Yet the Michelangeloesque potential for action and the
athletic flexibility's of the figures are there.
Mannerist Architecture
Mannerist painting and sculpture has been studied extensively since the early decades of the
twentieth century. Only in the 1930’s did scholars discover that the term also described much
of 16th century architecture. As in painting, the architecture is difficult to characterize. That
Michelangelo used classical architectural elements in a highly personal and unorthodox manner
does not necessarily make him a mannerist architect. In designs for Saint Peter’s he still strove
for the effects of mass, balance, order, and stability that were hallmarks of High Renaissance
design. Other architects, however, utilized classical elements in an unorthodox fashion
with the specific aim of revealing the contrived nature of architectural design. Such was
the goal of Giulio Romano (1492 - 1546), when he created the Palazzo del Te in Mantua and,
with it formulated almost the entire architectural vocabulary of mannerism.
The Mannerist style is exhibited in the facades that face the palace’s interior courtyard, where
the divergences from architectural convention are so pronounced that they constitute an
enormous parody of Bramante's classical style, thereby announcing the artifice of the palace
design. In a building laden with structural surprises and contradictions, the designs of these
facades seem most unconventional of all. The keystones either have not fully settled or are
slipping from the arches. Still, more eccentric, Giulio placed voussoirs in the pediments over
the rectangular niches, where no arches exist. The massive Tuscan columns that flank these
niches carry incongruously narrow architraves. That these architraves break midway between
the columns stresses their apparent structural insufficiency and they seem unable to support the
weight of the triglyphs above which threaten to crash down on anyone foolish enough to stand
below them. Appreciating Giulio’s witticism requires a highly sophisticated audience, and
recognizing some quite subtle departures from the norms presupposes a thorough familiarity
with the established rules of classical architecture.
Tintoretto
Venetian painting in the later 16th century built on established Venetian ideals. Tintoretto
(1518 - 1594), claimed to be a student of Titian and aspired to combine Titian’s color with
Michelangelo’s drawing. Tintoretto is acknowledged by art historians as the outstanding
Venetian representative of Mannerism
Toward the end of Tintoretto's life, his art became spiritual, as solid forms melt away into
swirling clouds of dark shot though with fitful light. Last Supper, painted for the interior of
Andrea Palladio’s church of San Giorgio Maggiore, the figures appear in a dark interior
illuminated by a single light in the upper left of the image. Shimmering halos convey the
Biblical nature of the event.
The Last Supper is an imbalanced composition of visual complexity, as was characteristic of
mannerism. Leonardo’s Last Supper was balanced, symmetrical, parallel to the picture plane,
and in a geometrically organized and closed space, with the figure of Christ centered. . In
Tintoretto’s version, Christ is above and beyond the converging perspective lines that race
diagonally away from the picture surface, creating disturbing effects of limitless space and
motion. Christ is located by the light flaring out of the darkness. The contrast of the two works
reflects the direction Renaissance painting took in the 16th century, as it moved away from
architectonic clarity of space and neutral lighting toward dynamic perspectives and dramatic
chiaroscuro of the coming Baroque.
Veronese
Among the great Venetian masters was Paolo Cagliari, called, Paolo Veronese (1528 - 1588).
Whereas Tintoretto gloried in monumental drama and deep perspectives, Veronese specialized
in splendid pageantry painted in superb color and set within majestic classical architecture.
Veronese painted on a huge scale, with canvases often as large as 20’ x 30’ feet or more.
Christ in the House of Levi, originally called Last Supper, was one of these works. Here in a
great open loggia framed by three monumental arches, Christ sits at the center of the splendidly
garbed elite of Venice. In the foreground with courtly gesture, the chief steward welcomes
guests, while robbed lords, their colorful retainers, clowns, dogs, and dwarfs, crowd into the
spacious loggia. Painted during the Counter Reformation, this depiction prompted criticism
from the Catholic Church. The Holy Office of the Inquisition accused Veronese of impiety for
painting such creatures so close to the Lord, and it ordered him to make changes at his own
expense. Reluctant to do so, he simply changed the paintings title, converting the subject to a
less solemn one. Veronese returned to High Renaissance composition, with its symmetrical
balance and ordered architectonics.
The Venetian Republic employed Tintoretto and Veronese to decorate the grand chambers and
council room of the Doge’s Palace. Veronese revealed himself to be a master of imposing
illusionistic ceiling compositions, such as, Triumph of Venus. Here within an oval frame, he
presented Venice, crowned by Fame, enthroned among two great twisted columns in a
balustraded loggia, garlanded with clouds, and attended by figures symbolic of its glories.
Veronese perspective is not projected directly up from below, as was Mantegna’s. Rather it is a
projection of a scene at a 45 degree angle to the spectator, a technique used by many later
Baroque decorators.
Later 16th Century Venetian Architecture
Andrea Palladio (1508 - 1580) was a chief architect of the Venetian Republic. Beginning as a
stonemason and decorative sculptor, at age 30 Palladio turned to architecture, the ancient
literature on architecture, engineering, topography, and military science. Palladio became a
specialist. He made several trips to Rome to study buildings firsthand. He wrote his own book
on architecture The Four Books of Architecture, originally published in 1570, which had a
wide ranging influence on succeeding generations of architects throughout Europe. Palladio’s
influence outside Italy, most significantly in England and in colonial America, was
stronger and more lasting than that of any other architect.
Palladio accrued his significant reputation from his many designs for villas, built on the
Venetian mainland. Nineteen still stand and they especially influenced later architects. The
countryside villa that the Romans so desired, found a resurgent boom in the 16th century.
Venice with its limited space must have been more congested than any ancient city. Along with
declining fortunes, Venetians were encouraged to develop their mainland possessions with new
land investment and reclamation projects. Citizens who could afford it set themselves up as
aristocratic farmers and developed swamps into agricultural land. Wealthy families could look
on their villas as potential investments. The villas were thus aristocratic farms (like the much
later American plantations, which were influenced by Palladio’s architecture) surrounded by
service outbuildings. Palladio generally arranged the out buildings in long, low wings
branching out from the main building and enclosing a large rectangular court area.
Although it is his most famous, Villa Rotonda, near Vicenza, is not really typical os Palladio’s
villa style. He did not construct it for a gentleman farmer, but for a retired monsignor who
wanted a villa for social events. Palladio planned and designed Villa Rotonda as a kind of
belvedere (literally “beautiful view”: in architecture a residence on a hill), without the usual
wings of secondary buildings. Its central plan with four identical facades and projecting
porches is therefore both sensible and functional. Each of the porches can be used as a platform
for enjoying a different view of the surrounding landscape. In this design, the central dome
covered rotonda logically functions as a kind of circular platform from which visitors may turn
in any direction for the preferred view. The result is a building with functional parts
systematically related to one another in terms of calculated mathematical relationships. Villa
Rotonda embodies all the qualities of self sufficiency and formal completeness sought by most
Renaissance artists. Each facade of his Villa Rotonda resembles a Roman temple. In placing a
traditional temple porch in front of a dome covered interior, Palladio undoubtedly had the
Pantheon in mind as a model. By 1550 he had developed his personal style, which mixed
elements of Mannerism with the clarity and lack of ambiguity that characterized classicism at
its most “correct.”
Conclusion
The 16th century in Italy is often referred to as the High Renaissance because artists developed
further many of the ideas that occupied earlier painters, sculptors, and architects. Interest in
classical cultures, was captivated by humanists of earlier centuries, became a mainstay of High
Renaissance art. Religious art seemed to have a particular urgency; in the interest of promoting
Counter Reformation ideals. The 16th century also saw the development of Mannerism, which
contrasted with the rationality pervading much of the High Renaissance art and architecture and
paved the way for the complexity of the Baroque in 17th century Italy.