Renaissance – meaning “rebirth,” the Renaissance refers to the art of Europe made between 1300–1600.

• Proto-Renaissance: 1300s.
• Early Renaissance: 1400s.
• High Renaissance: 1500s

Continuous narrative – the method for telling multiple episodes of a story within a single work of art.

Protestant Reformation – a movement that began with criticism of the Pope and the Church and resulted in the development a new branch of Christianity.

Counter Reformation – the response of Roman church to the Protestant Reformation wherein beliefs were clarified, reaffirmed, and justified.

Foreshortening – the illusion created on a flat surface in which figures and objects appear to recede or project sharply into space.

Linear perspective – a method of creating the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface (created by delineating a horizon line and multiple orthogonal lines, which recede to meet the vanishing point).

Atmospheric Perspective – method of creating the illusion of depth, or recession, in a painting or drawing by modulating colour to simulate changes effected by the atmosphere on the colours of things seen at a distance.

Mannerism – roughly 1515-1600, a style marked by a departure from High Renaissance classicism.

Humanism – A system of thought that focuses on humans and their values, capacities, and worth. b. Humanism A cultural and intellectual movement of the Renaissance that emphasized human potential to attain excellence and promoted direct study of the literature, art, and civilization of classical Greece and Rome.

Contrapposto – an asymmetrical arrangement of the human figure in which the line of the arms and shoulders contrasts with while balancing those of the hips and legs.

Chiaroscuro – an effect of contrasted light and shadow created by light falling unevenly or from a particular direction on something.

The Medici – A powerful Italian family of bankers and merchants whose members effectively ruled Florence for much of the 15th century and from 1569 were grand dukes of Tuscany.

Republic – a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.

Nave – the central part of a church building, intended to accommodate most of the congregation. In traditional Western churches it is rectangular, separated from the chancel by a step or rail, and from adjacent aisles by pillars.

Quatrefoil – an ornamental design of four lobes or leaves as used in architectural tracery, resembling a flower or four-leaf clover.

 

Italians believed in the ideas of humanism

• Emphasis on education and on expanding knowledge
• Exploration of individual potential and a desire to succeed
• Commitment to civic responsibility and moral duty.

Italy in the 1400s enjoyed an abundance of artistic talent.

• Combination of artistic genius
• Spread of humanism
• Economic prosperity nourished a significantly new and expanded artistic culture—the Renaissance.

Quest for knowledge began with the Greeks and Romans—the writings of Socrates, Plato,  and Aristotle.

Development of a literature based on the everyday language

• Many more people were able to read humanist writings.
• Invention of Gutenberg press in Germany.
• Italians embraced this new printing process.

By 1464 Subiaco (near Rome) had a printing press,

By 1469 Venice had one as well.

The first books printed in Italy using this new press was Dante’s Divine Comedy.

• Produced in 5 different cities in less than 6 years.

Wide range of subjects – botany, geology, geography, optics, medicine, and engineering.

Leonardo da Vinci’s was an expert in many fields— from art and architecture to geology, aerodynamics, hydraulics, botany, and military science, among others— still defines the modern notion of a “Renaissance man.”

Humanism

• Belief in individual potential
• Encouraged individual achievement
• Civic responsibility.
• Encouraged individual improvement
• Rewarded excellence with fame and honor.
• Working hard was rewarded

People in medieval society thought everything happened because of divine will

• Those in Renaissance Italy were more secular.

Italy was going through tremendous political and economic change.

• Condottieri (military leaders) with large numbers of troops played a major role in the struggle for power.

Courts in Urbino and Mantua

• Emerged as cultural and artistic centers

Humanism appealed to the elite and powerful

• These individuals were in the best position to commission art.
• Humanist ideas permeate Italian Renaissance art.

ANDRO BOTTICELLI, Young Man Holding a Medal of Cosimo de’ Medici, ca. 1474–1475. Tempera and gilded gesso on wood, 1’ 10 5/8” X 1’ 5 3/8”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

MEDICI PATRONAGE

The family did not restrict its collecting to any specific style or artist.

• Ranged from mythological to biblical to contemporary historical subject matter and included both paintings and sculptures.
• Collectively, the art of the Medici reveals their wide and eclectic tastes and sincere love of art and learning and makes a statement about the patrons themselves as well.

Careful businessmen that they were, the Medici were not sentimental about their endowment of art and scholarship.

• Cosimo acknowledged that his good works were not only for the honor of God but also to construct his own legacy.

Fortunately, the Medici desired to promote their own fame, and this led to the creation of many of the most cherished masterpieces in the history of Western art.

FLORENCE

High-level patronage required significant amount of wealth

• Individuals and families who were wealthy, whether princes or merchants, came to the support of artists.

The best-known Italian Renaissance art patrons were the Medici of the Republic of Florence

• The banker Giovanni de’ Medici had established the family fortune.
• Son Cosimo expanded his family’s wealth and political power.
• Early 1430s, power struggle with other elite families led to the family’s expulsion from Florence.
• 1434, Medici returned
• Used their tremendous wealth to commission art and architecture on a tremendous scale.
• Medici were incredible supporters of the arts.

Cosimo de Medici

• Became the Grand Duke of Tuscany
• Began the first public library since the ancient world
• In 30 years, he and his family spent more than $20 million for books.

The Medici family supported almost every architect, painter, sculptor, philosopher, and humanist scholar in some way.

Cosimo’s grandson Lorenzo

• nicknamed “the Magnificent,”
• Was a poet
• Surrounded himself with some the most talented people
• Developed an academy for teaching artists.
• Also took part in the Platonic Academy of Philosophy (probably an informal reading group), and spent money (the city’s) on buildings, festivals, and pageants.

Andrea Pisano designed the south doors of Florence’s baptistery between 1330 and 1335.

• The wool merchants’ guild sponsored a competition in 1401 for the second set of doors
• Required each entrant to submit a panel depicting the sacrifice of Isaac.
• Jury selected seven semifinalists.
• Only two panels have survived, one from Filippo Brunelleschi and the other from Lorenzo Ghiberti

The earliest important artistic commission in 15th-century Florence was not a Medici project but the guild-sponsored competition in 1401 for a design for the east doors of the Florence baptistery. Artists and the public considered this commission prestigious because of the placement of the doors on the building’s east side, facing the Florence Cathedral.  The baptistery is the octagonal building in the lower left.

The Baptistery
There are three buildings that mark the spiritual center of Florence, the Cathedral (with its dome by Brunelleschi), the bell tower (or campanile, designed by Giotto and decorated with reliefs by Andrea Pisano), and the Baptistery. The Baptistery is a 6th or 7th century octagonal building with three entrances and was particularly beloved by the citizens of Florence, who had been baptized there for centuries.

The Commission for the Doors
In 1401, the cloth merchant’s guild decided to commission a second set of doors for the Florence Baptistery.

The major guilds of Florence had considerable power and were often responsible for maintaining and developing the city’s major public buildings – the cloth merchant’s guild was the most powerful among the guilds.

One set of doors had already been created by Andrea Pisano and were completed in 1360. Two panels survive from the competition for the second set, Brunelleschi’s entry and Ghiberti’s entry. Ghiberti won by a narrow margin.

The Historic Context
And to set the scene – just when the competition was announced, the city-state of Florence was threatened with invasion by the Duke of Milan—their powerful arch enemy. But in 1402, the Duke of Milan died suddenly, and Florence was spared.

In the aftermath, Florence experienced an enormous sense of civic pride – including pride in being a Republic where its citizens lived freely. They saw themselves as the heir to the ancient Roman republic and the golden age of Athens in the 5th century B.C.E.

FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI, Sacrifice of Isaac, competition panel for east doors, baptistery, Florence, Italy, 1401–1402. Gilded bronze, 1’ 9” x 1’ 5”. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

SACRIFICE OF ISAAC

Both artists used the same French Gothic quatrefoil frames Pisano used for the baptistery’s south doors

• Depicted the same moment from the story — the angel stopping Abraham before he kills his son.

A quatrefoil is a design of four lobes or leaves used in architecture, resembling a flower or four-leaf clover.

This biblical event centers on God’s order to Abraham that he sacrifice his son Isaac as a demonstration of Abraham’s devotion to God.

• Abraham is about to kill his son
• An angel intervenes and stops him from cutting his son’s throat.

Parallel between Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac and God’s sacrifice of his son Jesus

• The sacrifice of Isaac was often linked to the Crucifixion.
• Crucifixion and the Sacrifice of Isaac were symbols of dying in this life to being reborn in Christ; perfect for a baptistry.

Another reason the theme may been used has to do with political propaganda.

• In the late 1390s, Visconti, the first duke of Milan, began a military campaign to take over the Italy.

By 1401

• The art competition had started
• Visconti’s troops had surrounded Florence.
• Florentine officials asked the public to defend the city’s freedom.

Chancellor Salutati urged the citizens to be like ancient Romans.

• To be Florentine was to be Roman.
• Freedom was the distinguishing virtue of both republics.
• Citizens should make a sacrifice (Abraham and Isaac)

Wool merchants may have selected the subject with this in mind.

In 1402, Visconti died, ending the invasion.

Brunelleschi’s panel is emotional and full of movement.

• Abraham seems about to kill his son at God’s command.
• He leans forward, robes flying, exposing Isaac’s throat to the knife.
• The angel darts in from the left, grabbing Abraham’s arm to stop the killing.

LORENZO GHIBERTI, Sacrifice of Isaac, competition panel for east doors, baptistery, Florence, Italy, 1401–1402. Gilded bronze relief, 1’ 9” x 1’ 5”. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

Ghiberti, the youngest artist in the competition, emphasized grace and smoothness.

In Ghiberti’s panel

• Abraham appears more passive.

The figure of Isaac looks like a Greco-Roman sculpture

• Could be considered the first classical nude since antiquity.
• Ghiberti appreciated the nude male form
• Had a deep interest in how the muscular system and skeletal structure move the human body.

The Altar

• Decorating it are acanthus scrolls that were common on Roman temple friezes in Italy and Rome.

Spatial illusion.

• The rocky landscape seems to emerge from the blank panel toward the viewer
• So does the foreshortened angel.
• Brunelleschi’s image is more flat.
• Ghiberti’s training included both painting and metalwork.

Cast his panel in only two pieces

• Used less bronze
• Impressed the selection committee.

Brunelleschi’s panel consists of several cast pieces.

Ghiberti’s doors could be lighter, last longer and cost much less.

• The judges awarded the commission to the younger artist, Ghiberti.

LORENZO GHIBERTI, east doors (Gates of Paradise), baptistery, Florence, Italy, 1425–1452. Gilded bronze, 17’ high. Modern copy, ca. 1980. Original panels in Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence.

GATES OF PARADISE

Ghiberti was among the first Italian artists in the 15th century to try to present space.

1425

• Church officials commissioned him to make the East doors for the Florence baptistery.
• Michelangelo said that the doors were “so beautiful that they would do well for the gates of Paradise.”

Three sets of doors provide access to the building.

• Andrea Pisano created the first set, on the south side, between 1330 and 1335.
• Ghiberti made another (1403–1424).

In the Gates of Paradise

• Ghiberti did not use the quatrefoil pattern that the other artists used
• Used only 10 panels instead of 28
• Each panel depicts a scene from the Old Testament.

 

OR SAN MICHELE (located almost in the center of the map above)

A second major sculptural project of the early 1400s was the decoration of Or San Michele

• Early-14th-century building located on the main street connecting the Palazzo della Signoria (center of political power) and the cathedral.

Or San Michele housed a church, served as grain storage, and was the headquarters of Florence’s guilds.  City officials assigned each of the niches on the exterior to a specific guild for decoration with a sculpture of its patron saint.

1406

• Guilds had placed statues in only 5 of the 14 niches
• Officials demanded the guild finish installing the remaining statues.

In 1409, Florence is under attack again.

• Officials urged citizens to stand firm and defend their city from attack. Were able to defend themselves.

Guilds were able to rally fellow Florentines while also promoting their own importance and position in Florentine society.

1423

• Statues by Ghiberti and other leading Florentine artists filled the nine remaining niches of Or San Michele.

Donatello

Second only to Michelangelo in terms of skill and sheer greatness, Florentine sculptor Donatello left an indelible mark on the Renaissance and the future of art itself. Donatello shot to fame early on as an apprentice to Lorenzo Ghiberti and eventually became one of the most sought-after artists in Italy for his life-like, highly emotional sculptures.

Donatello first received training at a goldsmith’s shop and then with Ghiberti. He launched a solo career during the first decade of the thirteenth century and met with success after success in his eighty years. During his lifetime, Donatello completed some of the most well-known sculptures in Western art including David, Mary Magdalen and the compelling Gattamaleta. He dedicated his life to serving the church and the Medici family and today his works can be found in prestigious art museums and galleries throughout Europe.

Scant information exists regarding Donatello’s personal life; even his date of birth is disputed and the first recorded indication of his existence was not made until 1406.

Early years:
Donatello was born around 1386 to Florentine Woolcombers Guild member Nicolo di Betto Bardi. Christened Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi, his friends and family adopted the nickname by which he is known today – Donatello. His first educational setting was the shop of a goldsmith, where he presumably learned the craft and developed an interest in manipulating metals and other substances. He later worked for a short time in the studio of his mentor, Lorenzo Ghiberti.

In 1402 Ghiberti won a competition to design the North Baptistery gates, beating other notable artists Brunelleschi and Jacopo della Quercia (Donatello was too young to participate). Afterwards, when a brooding, disappointed Brunelleschi departed for Rome to study the remnants of classical art, Donatello tagged along and the two began a lifelong friendship and professional rivalry.

In Rome, the two young men gained a reputation as treasure seekers for their excavations in classic soil while they worked in various goldsmiths’ shops to support themselves. The Roman years brought Donatello his understanding of ornamentation and classic forms, pivotal knowledge that would eventually change the face of fifteenth-century Italian art.

Both Donatello and Brunelleschi would become the leading artistic lights of the early Renaissance – Brunelleschi for architecture and Donatello for sculpture.

Donatello received his first recorded payment as an independent sculptor in 1406, though the work for which he was paid is unknown. He completed the world-famous David in 1408, followed by the Orsanmichele St. Mark in 1413 and St. John the Evangelist in 1415.

Donatello’s imposing, larger-than-life figures cemented his reputation for innovation and extraordinary skill. He finished up his third decade with the mold-breaking St. George in 1417; that same year, he completed the miniature relief St. George and the Dragon.

Middle years:
Donatello’s professional success continued unabated throughout his middle years, which were punctuated with such illustrious works as Feast of Herod, Annunciation and Singing Gallery. In 1425, Donatello began a partnership with architect and sculptor Michelozzo and together they journeyed to Rome in around 1429.

While in Rome, the two collaborated on the tomb of Pope John XXIII in the Baptistery in Florence and the tomb of Cardinal Brancacci in St. Angelo in Naples. Donatello’s innovations in burial chambers would later influence many other Florentine tombs.

Advanced years:
The decade between 1443 and 1453 was spent in Padua, where Donatello completed one of his best-known and most admired works, the Gattamelata. Somewhat controversial at the time, the Gattamelata was an equestrian statue created in the image of Venetian condottiere Erasmo da Nami. Typically, equestrian statues of this kind were reserved for rulers and kings. The statue can still be seen today in the Piazza del Santo.

During his time in Padua, Donatello also completed the high altar of St. Antonio: four oversized reliefs narrating the life of St. Antonio, several smaller reliefs, and seven bronze life-sized sculptures (including the Madonna and Child and the Crucifixion). This accomplishment brought yet more acclaim for Donatello’s revolutionary experimentation with illusions of and other ideas about space.

By 1455 Donatello had returned to Florence and completed the haggard-looking but renowned Mary Magdalen, which was later placed in the Baptistery.

Donatello maintained a lifelong friendship with the wealthy and famous de Medici family and upon his retirement received from them an allowance to live on for the rest of his life.

The artist died on December 13, 1466 of unknown causes. Donatello’s unfinished work in Saint Lorenzo, Florence was completed by his student, Bertoldo di Giovanni. The works – two bronze pulpits – remain today as evidence of Donatello’s deep understanding of suffering, darkness and the human experience.

DONATELLO, Saint Mark, Or San Michele, Florence, Italy, 1411–1413. Marble, 7’ 9” high. Modern copy in exterior niche. Original sculpture in museum on second floor of Or San Michele,  Florence.

Donato di Niccolo Bardi, or Donatello (ca. 1386–1466)

• Saint Mark, made for the guild of linen drapers.

The Sculpture

• Donatello reintroduces the classical idea of contrapposto, a shift in weight at the hips
• Greek sculptors of the fifth century BCE were the first to understand that standing isn’t perfect.
• Recognized that the human body is not a rigid but flexible
• Moves by continuously shifting weight from one supporting leg to the other.

Donatello reintroduced this concept into Renaissance statuary.

• As the saint’s body “moves,” his garment “moves” with it
• Hanging and folding naturally from and around different body parts
• Donatello’s Saint Mark is the first Renaissance statue whose clothing does not hide his body. 

DONATELLO, Feast of Herod, panel on the baptismal font of Siena Cathedral, Siena, Italy, 1423–1427. Gilded bronze , 1’ 11 1/2 ”  x 1’ 11 1/2”.

Feast of Herod, by Donatello,

Bronze relief on the baptismal front in Siena Cathedral.

Dancing Salome (right)

• the daughter of Herodias, who danced before her stepfather Herod Antipas. Given a choice of reward for her dancing, she asked for the head of St. John the Baptist and thus caused him to be beheaded.

In Donatello’s relief, Salome has already delivered the severed head of John the Baptist

• Kneeling executioner offers to King Herod.

The other figures are shocked.

• At the right, one man covers his face with his hand.
• At the left, Herod and two terrified children turn away.

Incredible depth

• • Here he employed the new mathematically based science of linear perspective to depict two arched courtyards and the groups of attendants in the background.

RENAISSANCE PERSPECTIVE

In the image above, the top image is based on 1 point perspective while the bottom image uses 2 points.  If you’re interested in drawing comics or any other type of realistic drawing, a mastery of perspective is a must.

In the 14th century

Italian artists

• Duccio and the Lorenzetti brothers used several devices to indicate distance

Development of linear perspective helped artists illustrate 3d space on a flat surface

• Discovery was enormously important.
• Space could be illustrated mathematically.
• People were interested in both math and science
• Artists used perspective to order and clarify their compositions.
• According to Plato, math is the basis of beauty, and Classical Greek art reflects this belief.

In the Renaissance

• Humanists rediscovered Plato and eagerly read his works
• Mathematical truth and formal beauty united in the minds of Renaissance artists.

Linear and Atmospheric Perspective
Linear perspective refers to the type of perspective seen in the image above.  You can see this type of perspective when you stand next to a building and see the roof and ground line start to meet on the horizon line (eye level).  Atmospheric perspective is based on the idea that as objects get further away they become less saturated; their color loses intensity and the details are loss.  It’s why the mountains furthest away appear blue.

Brunelleschi and the Rediscovery of Linear Perspective
Before looking at painting in the Early Renaissance, we need to learn about the discovery or rediscovery of linear perspective sometime close to 1420 by Filippo Brunelleschi (rediscovery, because the ancient Greeks and Romans may have understood linear perspective too, but if so, knowledge of it was lost during the Middle Ages). Linear perspective is a way of creating a convincing, perfect illusion of space on a flat or two-dimensional surface. Nearly every Renaissance artist wanted linear perspective—a way of creating an accurate illusion of space that could match the new naturalism then being applied to human figure.

When Brunelleschi (re)discovered linear perspective circa 1420, Florentine painters and sculptors became obsessed with it, especially after detailed instructions were published in a painting manual written by a fellow Florentine, Leon Battista Alberti, in 1435. John Berger, an art historian, notes that the convention of perspective fits within Renaissance Humanism because “it structured all images of reality to address a single spectator who, unlike God, could only be in one place at a time.” In other words, linear perspective eliminates the multiple viewpoints that we see in medieval art, and creates an illusion of space from a single, fixed viewpoint. This suggests a renewed focus on the individual viewer, and we know that individualism is an important part of the Humanism of the Renaissance.

DONATELLO, David, late 1440–1460. Bronze, 5’ 2 1/4” high. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

David by Donatello

• Revival of the free standing nude statue.
• The first Renaissance sculptor to portray the nude male figure in statuary was Donatello.
• The date of his bronze David is unknown
• Probably cast it sometime between 1440 and 1460 for display in the courtyard of the Medici palace in Florence.

In the Middle Ages

• Clergy regarded nude statues as both indecent and idolatrous
• Nudity was rare in art
• Only in biblical or moral stories, such as the story of Adam and Eve or depictions of sinners in Hell.

With David, Donatello reinvented the classical nude.

• His subject was not a pagan god, hero, or athlete
• David, the young person who killed Goliath
• Had become the symbol of Florence
• Ideal choice for the residence of the most powerful family in Florence.

Donatello’s created an earlier David for Florence’s town hall.

Medici saw it and wanted their own.

ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO, David, ca. 1465–1470. Bronze, 4’ 1 1/2” high. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

VERROCCHIO

Another David by Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–1488), one of the most important sculptors during the second half of the century, reaffirms the Medici family’s identification with Florence.

• Painter as well as a sculptor
• Directed a flourishing bottega (studio-shop) in Florence that attracted many students, among them Leonardo da Vinci.

His David is even more realistic than Donatello’s.

• Verrocchio’s David is a sturdy, wiry, young apprentice with a leather vest
• Stands with pride.

Goliath’s head lies at David’s feet.

• Poses like a hunter with his kill.

 Medici eventually sold Verrocchio’s bronze David to the Florence government.

ANTONIO DEL POLLAIUOLO, Hercules and Antaeus, ca. 1470–1475. Bronze, 1′ 6” high with base. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

POLLAIUOLO

Revival of Greco-Roman mythological themes.

Medici were leading patrons in this sphere as well.

Around 1470

• Antonio del Pollaiuolo (ca. 1431–1498)
• Important as a painter and engraver
• Received a Medici commission to produce a small-scale sculpture, Hercules and Antaeus.

The state seal of Florence had Hercules on it since the end of the 13th century.

Pollaiuolo’s Hercules and Antaeus exhibits the stress and strain of the human figure in violent action.

• Only 18 inches high
• Shows lots of emotion and movement
• Illustrates the wrestling match between Antaeus (Antaios), a giant and son of the goddess Earth, and Hercules (Herakles).

According to the Greek myth, each time Hercules threw him down, Antaeus sprang up again, his strength renewed by contact with the earth.  Finally, Hercules held him in the air so that he could not touch the ground, and strangled him around the waist.

ANTONIO DEL POLLAIUOLO, Battle of the Ten Nudes, ca. 1465. Engraving. 1 3 1/8” x 1’ 11 1/4”. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (bequest of Joseph Pulitzer, 1917).

Battle of the Ten Nudes

• variety of poses and from numerous viewpoints
• This illustrates how well he could draw the nude
• Figures are fighting
• seem stiff and frozen
• depicted all the muscle groups at maximum tension.
• human figures in action.
• Took delight in showing violent action.
• Conceived the body as a powerful machine and liked to display its mechanisms
• Knotted muscles and taut sinews that activate the skeleton as ropes pull levers.
• developed a figure so lean and muscular that it appears écorché (as if without skin)

Imitation
Imitation was the starting point in a young artist’s training.  Italian Renaissance artists believed that the best way to learn was to copy the works of masters.  Leonardo da Vinci filled his sketchbooks with drawings of well known sculptures and frescoes.  Michelangelo spent days sketching artworks in churches around Florence and Rome.

Emulation
The next step was emulation, which involved modeling one’s art after that of another artist. Tried to improve on established and recognized masters.  Compared their work to the master.  Competed with their peers.  To evaluate the “improved” artwork, viewers had to know the original “model.”

Renaissance artists believed that developing artists would ultimately arrive at their own unique style through this process of imitation and emulation.

GENTILE DA FABRIANO, Adoration of the Magi, altarpiece from Strozzi Chapel, Santa Trinità, Florence, Italy, 1423. Tempera on wood, approx. 9’ 11” x 9’ 3”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Gentile da Fabriano

• Leading Florentine master of the International Style (Later Gothic art the spread rapidly)
• 1423 painted Adoration of the Magi
• Altarpiece for the family chapel of Palla Strozzi in the church of Santa Trinità in Florence.
• The Strozzi family was the wealthiest in Florence in the 1400’s

Altarpiece

• Testimony to Strozzi’s expensive tastes.

Painting

• Costumed kings and exotic animals.
• Lots of color, lots of gold
• Declaring the King and Queen Holy in front of Mary and Christ.
• Depicted animals from a variety of angles
• Foreshortened their bodies (horse at the far right).
• Gentile did the same with human figures (kneeling man)
• May be the very first nighttime Nativity with Christ as the light source.

Tommaso di ser Giovanni di Mone Cassai, known as Masaccio (1401–1428).

• Teacher, Masolino da Panicale worked in the International Style (Later Gothic art the spread rapidly)
• Masaccio decided to do his own thing, which was not common.
• His style changed a lot in six years.
• Contributed the most to a new style in a short period of time
• Died when he was 27

MASACCIO, Tribute Money, Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy, ca. 1427. Fresco, 8’ 4 1/8” x 19’ 7 1/8”.

Tribute Money – brings together innovations in 15th century painting — trailblazer whose work influenced other artists

• Linear perspective
• Aerial perspective
• Classical body types (blend of realism with idealizing the human form)
• Chiaroscuro to create a more realistic picture, single light source from the right, modeling the human anatomy to give figures weight
• Balanced, symmetrical composition

Tribute Money

• Painted shortly before his death
• Gospel of Matthew (17:24–27).
• Tax collector confronts Christ at the entrance to the Roman town of Capernaum
• Christ directs Saint Peter to the shore of Lake Galilee.
• Peter finds the tribute (tax) coin in the mouth of a fish and returns to pay the tax. (Render unto Caesar what is Caesars)

Art historians have debated why Felice Brancacci, the chapel’s patron, selected this piece of scripture.  Some scholars think the painting shows approval, because Christ was showing approval, of a new tax being implemented in Florence.  Brancacci was rich and probably did  not want to pay a higher tax.  Placed in a private chapel, was not open to the public.

Divided the story into three episodes within the fresco.

Center

• Christ, surrounded by his disciples, tells Saint Peter to retrieve the coin from the fish, while the tax collector stands in the foreground, his back to spectators and hand extended, awaiting payment.

Left

• In the background, Saint Peter takes the coin from the fish’s mouth, and, at the right, he puts the coin into the tax collector’s hand.

Light comes from the right, creating shadows on the left.

Realism

• We see bones, muscles, and the pressures and tensions of joints.
• Figures do not appear as a stiff screen in the foreground.

Perspective

• Building is one-point perspective
• Vanishing point is at Christ’s head.
• Atmospheric perspective.  The mountains in the background are lighter than the ones closest to the action.
• Roman painters used atmospheric perspective, medieval artists abandoned it.
• Not many artists were doing it until Masaccio and his contemporaries rediscovered it.

The Tribute Money is one of many frescos painted by Masaccio (and a lesser artist Masolino) in the Brancacci chapel. All of the frescos tell the story of the life of St. Peter (considered to be the first Pope). The story of the Tribute Money is told in three separate scenes within the same fresco. This way of telling an entire story in one painting is called a continuous narrative.

A story unfolds
In this fresco, a Roman tax collector (in a short orange tunic and no halo) demands tax money from Christ and the twelve apostles who don’t have the money to pay. Christ (centrally located, wearing a pink robe gathered in at the waist, with a blue toga-like wrap) points to the left, and says to Peter “so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.” Christ has performed a miracle by making the money needed to pay the tax collector appear in the mouth of a fish. These two things are shown in the same image, even though they happen at different moments. Thus, in the center of the fresco (scene 1), we see the tax collector demanding the money, and Christ instructing Peter. On the far left (scene 2), we see Peter kneeling down and removing money from the mouth of a fish, and on the far right (scene 3), St. Peter pays the tax collector.

In the fresco, the tax collector appears twice, and St. Peter appears three times (you can find them easily if you look for their clothing).

We are so used to one moment appearing in one frame (think of a comic book, for example) that the unfolding of the story within one image (and out of order!) seems very strange to us. But with this technique, which was also used by the ancient Romans, Masaccio is able to make an entire drama unfold on the wall of the Brancacci chapel.

In the central, first scene, the tax collector points down with his right hand, and holds his left palm open, impatiently insisting on the money from Christ and the apostles. He stands with his back to us, which creates the illusion of three dimensional space in the image. Like Donatello’s St. Mark from Orsanmichele in Florence, he stands naturally, in contrapposto, with his weight on his left leg, and his right knee bent. The apostles (Christ’s followers) look worried and anxiously watch to see what will happen. St. Peter (wearing a large deep orange colored toga draped over a blue shirt) is confused, as he seems to be questioning Christ and pointing over to the river, but he also looks like he is willing to believe Christ.

The gestures really help to tell the story. Peter seems confused. Christ is saying, go to the lake and get the money from the mouth of a fish to pay the tax collector, and Peter looks like he is in total disbelief.

And the tax collector looks upset. He stands in contrapposto and seems to say, “look, no special deals for you guys. You have to pay your taxes right now.” He has his back turned to us (which helps to create an illusion of space) and you can see his mouth open and palm out, like he wants the money!

Only Christ is completely calm because he is performing a miracle.Look down at the feet — how the light travels through the figures, and is stopped when it encounters the figures, and so the figures cast shadows (do you see them there on the ground?).Masaccio is the first artist since classical antiquity to paint cast shadows. What that does is make the fresco so much more real — it is like the figures are really standing out in a landscape, with the light coming from one direction, and the sun in the sky, hitting all the figures from the same side and casting shadows on the ground. For the first time, there is almost a sense of weather!

MASACCIO, Holy Trinity, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy, ca. 1424–1427. Fresco,  21’ 10’ 5/8” x 10’ 4 3/4”.

Holy Trinity by Masaccio

Used mathematics to depict space.  Painted the composition on two levels of unequal height.

Top

• Coffered (squares) barrel-vaulted chapel reminiscent of a Roman arch
• Virgin Mary and Saint John appear on either side of Christ.
• God the Father emerges from behind Christ
• Supports the arms of the cross and presents his Son to the worshiper as a devotional object.
• Dove of the Holy Spirit hovers between God’s head and Christ’s head.

Masaccio included portraits of the donors of the painting.  Lorenzo Lenzi and his wife kneel just in front of the pilasters that frame the chapel’s entrance.

Below, the artist painted a tomb containing a skeleton.

Inscription in Italian painted above the skeleton says “I was once what you are, and what I am you will become.”

Demonstrates the principles of Brunelleschi’s perspective.

• The vanishing point of the composition is at the foot of the cross.
• Spectators look up at the Trinity and down at the tomb.
• About five feet above the floor level, the vanishing point pulls the two views together, creating the illusion of an actual structure that transects the wall’s vertical plane.
• Whereas the tomb appears to project forward into the church, the chapel recedes visually behind the wall and appears as an extension of the spectator’s space.

Masaccio was the first painter in the Renaissance to incorporate Brunelleschi’s discovery in his art. He did this in his fresco called The Holy Trinity, in Santa Maria Novella, in Florence.  Have a close look at the painting. Can you see the orthogonals (look for diagonal lines that appear to recede into the distance)? Because Masaccio painted from a low viewpoint — as though we were looking up at Christ — we see the orthogonals in the ceiling, and if we traced all of the orthogonals the vanishing point would be below the base of the cross.  My favorite part of this fresco is God’s feet. Actually, you can only really see one of them. Why, you may ask, do I have a thing for God’s feet (or foot)? 

Well, think about it for a minute. God is standing in this painting. Doesn’t that strike you as odd just a little bit? This may not strike you all that much when you first think about it because our idea of God, our picture of him in our minds eye — as an old man with a beard, is very much based on Renaissance images of God. So, here Masaccio imagines God as a man. Not a force or a power, or something abstract like that, but as a man. A man who stands — his feet are foreshortened, and he weighs something and walks.  

In medieval art, God was often represented by a hand, just a hand, as though God was an abstract force or power in our lives, but here he seems so much like a flesh and blood man. This is a good indication of Humanism in the Renaissance.  Masaccio’s contemporaries were struck by the palpable realism of this fresco, as was Vasari who lived over one hundred years later.  Vasari wrote that “the most beautiful thing, apart from the figures, is the barrel-vaulted ceiling drawn in perspective and divided into square compartments containing rosettes foreshortened and made to recede so skilfully that the surface looks as if it is indented.

The Architecture

One of the other amazing things about this painting is the use of classical architecture (from ancient Greece and Rome).  Masaccio borrowed much of what we see from ancient Roman architecture, and may have been helped by Brunelleschi.  See if you can spot the architectural elements listed below.

Coffers – the indented squares that decorate the ceiling
Column – a round, supporting element in architecture. In this painting we see an attached column.
Pilasters – a shallow, flattened out columns attached to a wall — it is only decorative, and has no supporting function
Barrel Vault – vault means ceiling, and a barrel vault is a ceiling in the shape of a round arch
Iconic and Corinthian Capitals – a capital is the decorated top of a column or pilaster. An ionic capital has a scroll shape (like the ones on the attached columns in the painting), and a Corinthian capital has leaf shapes.
Flutung – the vertical, idented lines or grooves that decorated the pilasters in the painting. Fluting could also be used on a column

SANDRO BOTTICELLI

• Medici employed
• Pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi
• Taught him the method of using firm, pure outlines with light shading within the contours
• Recognized as one of the great masters of line
• A brilliant colorist as well

Primavera

• One of the most popular paintings in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence
• The precise meaning is not known
• Created for Lorenzo di Pier francesco de’ Medici, one of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s cousins
• Features a frieze like series of classically inspired figures in the foreground
• Lush backdrop of orange trees in honor of the patron

Venus stands just to the right of center with her son Cupid hovering above her head

• trees form a halo around her head

To Venus’s right

• Target of Cupid’s arrow
• dancing Three Graces, goddesses of charm, beauty and creativity
• Blue ice-cold Zephyrus (far right)
• The west wind is about to carry off and marry the nymph Chloris who transforms into Flora, goddess of spring.

At the far left

• Mercury turns away from all the others and reaches up with his distinctive staff, the caduceus (associate with healing), to get rid of storm clouds. 

SANDRO BOTTICELLI, Birth of Venus, ca. 1484–1486. Tempera on canvas, approx. 5’ 9” x 9’ 2”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

BIRTH OF VENUS

• Tempera on canvas
• Created for the Medici family.

Theme was the subject of a poem by Angelo Poliziano, a leading humanist of the day.

• Zephyrus, carrying Chloris, blows Venus, born of sea foam and carried on a cockle shell, to her sacred island, Cyprus.
• The nymph Pomona runs to meet her with wrap to cover her body.

In this painting Botticelli depicted Venus as nude.

• As noted earlier, the nude, especially the female nude, was exceedingly rare during the Middle Ages.
• An artist who used the nude Venus statue as a model might be called a pagan.
• But in the Renaissance culture and under protection of the powerful Medici, the depiction went unchallenged.

Ignored perspective and anatomy

• For example, the seascape in Birth of Venus is a flat backdrop devoid of atmospheric perspective.

Expression of Christian virtues through Pagan symbolism

Get an up close view of the Birth of Venus through Google’s Art Project.

Additional information –

Among the Florentine artists of the second half of the fifteenth century who strove for a solution to this question, expressing the nature of religion, was the painter Sandro Botticelli (1446-1510).  One of his most famous pictures represents not a Christian legend but a classical myth – the birth of Venus.

The classical poets had been known all through the Middle Ages, but only at the time of the Renaissance, when the Italians tried so passionately to recapture the former glory of Rome, did the classical myths become popular among educated laymen. To these men, the mythology of the admired Greeks and Romans represented something more than gay and pretty fairy-tales. They were so convinced of the superior wisdom of the ancients that they believed these classical legends must contain some profound and mysterious truth.

The patron who commissioned the Botticelli painting for his country villa was a member of the rich and powerful family of the Medici. Either he himself, or one of his learned friends, probably explained to the painter what was known of the way the ancients had represented Venus rising from the sea. To these scholars the story of her birth was the symbol of mystery through which the divine message of beauty came into the world. One can imagine that the painter set to work reverently to represent this myth in a worthy manner. The action of the picture is quickly understood. Venus has emerged from the sea on a shell which is driven to the shore by flying wind-gods amidst a shower of roses. As she is about to step on to the land, one of the Hours or Nymphs receives her with a purple cloak.

Botticelli has succeeded where Pollaiuolo failed. His picture forms, in fact, a perfectly harmonious pattern. But Pollaiuolo might have said that Botticelli had done so by sacrificing some of the achievements he had tried so hard to preserve. Botticelli’s figures look less solid. They are not so correctly drawn as Pollaiuolo or Masaccio’s. The graceful movements and melodious lines of his composition recall the Gothic tradition of Ghiberti and Fra Angelico, perhaps even the art of the fourteenth century – works such as Simone Martini’s Annunciation.

Botticelli’s Venus is so beautiful that we do not notice the unnatural length of her neck, the steep fall of her shoulders and the queer way her left arm is hinged to the body. Or, rather, we should say that these liberties which Botticelli took with nature in order to achieve a graceful outline add to the beauty and harmony of the design because they enhance the impression of an infinitely tender and delicate being, wafted to our shores as a gift from Heaven.

This secular work was painted onto canvas, which was a less expensive painting surface than the wooden panels used in church and court pictures. A wooden surface would certainly be impractical for a work on such a scale. Canvas is known to have been the preferred material for the painting of non-religious and pagan subjects that were sometimes commissioned to decorate country villas in 15th-century Italy.

Upper-Left: The West Wind

Zephyr and Chloris fly with limbs entwined as a twofold entity: the ruddy Zephyr (his name is Greek for “the west wind”) is puffing vigorously; while the fair Chloris gently sighs the warm breath that wafts Venus ashore. All around them fall roses–each with a golden heart–which, according to legend, came into being at Venus’ birth.

Upper-Right: The Wooded Shore

The trees form part of a flowering orange grove–corresponding to the sacred garden of the Hesperides in Greek myth–and each small white blossom is tipped with gold. Gold is used throughout the painting, accentuating its role as a precious object and echoing the divine status of Venus. Each dark green leaf has a gold spine and outline, and the tree trunks are highlighted with short diagonal lines of gold.

Right: Nymph

The nymph may well be one of the three Horae, or “The Hours”, Greek goddesses of the seasons, who were attendants to Venus. Both her lavishly decorated dress and the gorgeous robe she holds out to Venus are embroidered with red and white daisies, yellow primroses, and blue cornflowers–all spring flowers appropriate to the theme of birth. She wears a garland of myrtle–the tree of Venus–and a sash of pink roses, as worn by the goddess Flora in Botticelli’s Primavera.

Center: The Shell

Botticelli portrays Venus in the very first suggestion of action, with a complex and beautiful series of twists and turns, as she is about to step off her giant gilded scallop shell onto the shore. Venus was conceived when the Titan Cronus castrated his father, the god Uranus–the severed genitals falling into the sea and fertilizing it. Here what we see is actually not Venus’ birth out of the waves, but the moment when, having been conveyed by the shell, she lands at Paphos in Cyprus.

Architecture

Filippo Brunelleschi’s linear perspective derived from his skill as an architect.  Brunelleschi turned to architecture, he continued to work as a sculptor for several years and received commissions for sculpture as late as 1416.  Brunelleschi’s interest turned increasingly toward architecture

Several trips to Rome

• Ruins of the ancient city captivated him

Study of Roman monuments and effort to make an accurate record led Brunelleschi to develop geometric linear perspective.

FLORENCE CATHEDRAL

Brunelleschi

• Broad knowledge of Roman construction
• No one else could figure out how to build a dome so large
• The challenge was the design and construction of a dome for the unfinished Florence Cathedral.
• The space was too wide to use wooden structure.
• 140 ft
• Was not possible to support the dome with buttressed walls.

Brunelleschi began work in 1417.  In 1420 officials awarded Brunelleschi and Ghiberti a joint commission.  Ghiberti retired from the project.

FILIPPO BRUNELLLESCHI, cutaway view of the dome of Florence Cathedral, Florence, Italy, 1420-1436 (after Piero Sanpaolesi).

Brunelleschi

• Discarded traditional building methods
• Devised new ones
• Invented the machinery necessary for the job.

Roman domes were usually half a circle, his is pointed

• Designed it around an ogival (pointed arch) section
• More stable because it reduces the outward thrust around the dome’s base.

To minimize the structure’s weight:

• Designed a relatively thin double shell (the first in history) around a skeleton of 24 ribs.
• The eight most important are visible on the exterior.

Brunelleschi anchored the structure at the top with a heavy lantern

• Built after his death but from his design.

FILIPPO BRUNELLLESCHI, Dome of Florence Cathedral, Florence, Italy, 1420-1436 (after Piero Sanpaolesi).

In 1418-19, Brunelleschi won the competition sponsored by the Arte della Lana (wool merchants guild) to finish Florence’s cathedral (begun by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1296). The principle concern was designing a dome that could span the 140 foot octogonal barrel already built to support it. No dome then existed that was this wide except the ancient Roman Pantheon which spans 142 feet but is made of concrete and is supported on massive walls. In the end, Brunelleschi’s ingenious design would allow the lantern above the dome to rise 375 feet above the pavement (the Pantheon’s dome is 125 feet high and well as wide) and would be built without the Pantheon’s massive walls or the buttressing that medieval architects had relied upon to counter the huge outward thrust created by arches (and domes) of this size.

Key dates:
1296 cathedral begun by Arnolfo di Cambio
1355-57 Francesco Talenti enlarges the east end of the Duomo, including the dome base
1418-19 Arte della Lana competition
1420 Brunellschi’s solution accepted
1439-45 construction of exedrae
1446-61 construction of dome and lantern

LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI BERNARDO ROSSELLINO, Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, Italy, ca. 1452–1470.

LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI

Became an architect later in life

• first Renaissance architect to seriously study ancient Roman architecture
• advocated a system of ideal proportions
• believed that the central plan was the ideal form for a Christian church.
• though columns and arches should be part of the wall

PALAZZO RUCELLAI

• designed the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence, although his pupil and collaborator, Bernardo Rossellino (1409–1464), actually constructed the building using Alberti’s plans and sketches.
• classical cornice on top.
• Pilasters define each story
• even wall surfaces.
• different capitals for each story.

Modeled after the Colosseum

• Tuscan (the Etruscan variant of the Greek Doric order) for the ground floor
• Composite (the Roman combination of Ionic volutes with the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian for the second story
• Corinthian for the third floor.

LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI, west facade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy, ca. 1456–1470.

SANTA MARIA NOVELLA

Rucellai family commissioned Alberti to design the front of the 13th-century Gothic church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence.

Designed a small pseudoclassical, pediment-capped temple front for the facade’s upper part

• supported it with a pilaster-framed arcade
• incorporates the six tombs and three doorways of the Gothic building.

The height equals its width

• square.
• used numerical ratios to give proportion
• cornice separating the two levels divides the major square in half
• lower portion of the building is a rectangle twice as wide as it is high.

Alberti

• wrote about how important it was to use harmonic proportions to achieve beautiful buildings.
• shared this belief with Brunelleschi
• believed that numerical ratios are the source of beauty.

Florentine humanist Giannozzo Manetti argued that Christianity possessed the order and logic of mathematics.

This facade introduced a very important feature; the scrolls on the sides that bring together the bottom and top.

Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) was an Italian Dominican friar and preacher active in Renaissance Florence, and known for his prophecies of civic glory and calls for Christian renewal. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule and the exploitation of the poor. He prophesied the coming of a biblical flood and a new Cyrus from the north who would reform the Church. This seemed confirmed when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and threatened Florence. While Savonarola intervened with the king, the Florentines expelled the ruling Medici and, at the friar’s urging, established a popular republic. Declaring that Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the world center of Christianity and “richer, more powerful, more glorious than ever”, he instituted a puritanical campaign, enlisting the active help of Florentine youth.

In 1495 when Florence refused to join Pope Alexander VI’s Holy League against the French, Savonarola was summoned to Rome. He disobeyed and further defied the pope by preaching under a ban, highlighting his campaign for reform with processions, bonfires of the vanities, and pious theatricals. In retaliation, the Pope excommunicated him and threatened to place the city under an interdict. A trial by fire proposed by a rival Florentine preacher to test Savonarola’s divine mandate was a fiasco and popular opinion turned against him. Savonarola and two lieutenants were imprisoned. Under torture, Savonarola confessed that he had invented his visions and prophecies. On May 23, 1498 the three friars were condemned, hanged and burned in the main square of Florence. Savonarola’s devotees, the Piagnoni, kept his cause of republican freedom and religious reform alive well into the next century, although the Medici – restored to power with the help of the papacy – eventually broke the movement.

Bonfire of the Vanities

Burned objects that were deemed to be occasions of sin.

The most famous one took place on 7 February 1497

• Supporters of the Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola collected and publicly burned thousands of objects
• cosmetics, art, and books in Florence, Italy.

Any object that might tempt one tosin, including items such as mirrors, cosmetics, fine dresses, paintings, playing cards, and even musical instruments were burned.  Other targets included books that were deemed to be “immoral,” such as works by Boccaccio, and manuscripts of secular songs, as well as artworks, including paintings and sculpture.  Botticelli may have given up painting and even burned some of his own because the guilt he felt for painting Pagan images.  After he stopped painting, he became incredibly depressed.

Urbino

• Under the patronage of Federico da Montefeltro (1422–1482)
• Urbino became an important center of Renaissance art and culture.

Frederico was was an incredible support of the arts, similar to Cosimo de’ Medici

Italian Princely Courts and Artistic Patronage

Art was taking off all over Italy, not just Florence

The Pope in Rome and the princely courts in Mantua and Urbino deserve credit for creating Renaissance art.  These courts consisted of the prince (whose title varied from city to city), his consort and children, courtiers, household staff, and administrators.

Considerable wealth

• desire for recognition, fame, and power
• major art commissions.

No single person ruling all of Italy

• City-states were fragmented
• Many people sought power

Expansion of princes and their courts

• A prince was the lord of a territory
• generic title
• could be a duke, tyrant, cardinal, or pope.

Major princely courts emerged in papal Rome, Milan, Naples, Ferrara, Savoy, Urbino, and Mantua.  The term “princely court” refers to a power relationship between the prince and the people who lived on his land.  Each prince worked to expand his control.  Each prince employed counts, nobles, cooks, waiters, stewards, footmen, stable hands, and ladies-in-waiting to dog handlers, leopard keepers, pages, and runners.  Each prince also needed people to oversee political, economic, and military operations.  The prince also felt responsible for cultural life.

Art was a major component.

• Served partly as propaganda
• Lots of money meant lots of new commissions.

Art served several functions

• evidence of sophistication and culture
• form of prestige
• public education and propaganda
• demonstration of wealth
• source of visual pleasure.

Princes researched the artist’s reputation.  Some artists became “court artist” and would paint only for the prince

• guaranteed salary
• lived in the palace
• did not have to follow the guild
• some were knighted

Princes demanded a great deal from court artists.

• created frescoes, portraits and sculptures
• designed tapestries, seat covers, costumes, masks, and decorations for various court festivities.

Artists even created gifts for visiting nobles and potentates using gold and gemstones.

PERUGINO, Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to Saint Peter, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome, Italy, 1481–1483. Fresco, 11’ 5 1/2” x 18’ 8 1/2”.

Rome and the Papal States

• The pope in Rome was the head of a court with enormous wealth at his disposal.
• In the 16th and 17th centuries
• Popes became the major patrons of art and architecture in Italy

PERUGINO

Between 1481 and 1483, Pope Sixtus IV summoned a group of artists, including Botticelli and Ghirlandaio, to Rome to decorate the walls of the newly completed Sistine Chapel.  Perugino was one of the painters.  Painted Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to Saint Peter in the Sistine Chapel

The Pope was infallible and had total authority over the Roman Catholic Church.  This power is based on the story of Christ giving the keys to the Church to St. Peter.

• Christ hands the keys to Saint Peter
• Stands with the 12 apostles and people from the Renaissance.
• triumphal arches on both sides.
• Arches illustrate the close ties between Saint Peter and Constantine (Arch of Constantine)
• Constantine was the first Christian emperor.
• Christ and Peter in the center

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA, Flagellation of Christ, ca. 1455-1465. Oil and tempera on wood, 1’ 11 1/8” X 2’ 8 ¼”. Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino.

Flagellation of Christ

• small panel painting.
• setting is the portico of Pontius Pilate’s palace in Jerusalem.
• the focus of the composition is not Christ but the group of three large figures in the foreground
• not sure who these men are.

Bearded man may be a Turk

• may allude to the capture in 1453 of Christian Constantinople by the Muslims

May be three biblical figures such as the Old Testament’s King David, who predicted the conspiracy against Christ.  Appear to be talking about the event in the background.

Pilate

• Seated judge
• Watches, Christ, bound to a column topped by a classical statue, about to be whipped

Perspective is so accurate that the floor pattern can be reconstructed perfectly.

The Flagellation of Christ (probably 1455–1460) is a painting by Piero della Francesca in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino, Italy. Called by one writer an “enigmatic little painting,” The composition is complex and unusual, and its iconography has been the subject of widely differing theories. Kenneth Clark placed The Flagellation in his personal list of the best ten paintings, calling it ‘the greatest small painting in the world’.

The theme of the picture is the Flagellation of Christ by the Romans during his Passion. The biblical event takes place in an open gallery in the middle distance, while three figures in the foreground on the right-hand side apparently pay no attention to the event unfolding behind them. The panel is much admired for its use of linear perspective and the air of stillness that pervades the work, and it has been given the epithet “the Greatest Small Painting in the World” by the art historian Kenneth Clark.

The painting is signed under the seated emperor OPVS PETRI DE BVRGO S[AN]C[T]I SEPVLCRI – “the work of Piero of Borgo Santo Sepolcro” (his native town).

The Flagellation is particularly admired for the realistic rendering of the hall in which the flagellation scene is situated in relation to the size of the figures and for the geometrical order of the composition. The portrait of the bearded man at the front is considered unusually intense for Piero’s time.

ANDREA MANTEGNA, Foreshortened Christ, ca. 1500. Tempera on canvas, 2’ 2 3/4” x 2’ 7 7/8”. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.

FORESHORTENED CHRIST

One of Mantegna’s later paintings

• another example of perspective.

Known as Dead Christ

• Recorded under the name Foreshortened Christ at the time of his death.

If Christ were to stand up, his head and chest would be impossibly large while his feet would be tiny.  He is not painted correctly.  If he were, his feet would be much larger, but would then obstruct our view of Christ’s body.  Mantegna has intentionally adjusted perspective to emphasize the importance of Christ’s body.