Italian Renaissance sculpture
Italian Renaissance sculpture was an important part of the art of the Italian Renaissance, in the early stages arguably representing the leading edge. The example of Ancient Roman sculpture hung very heavily over it, both in terms of style and the uses to which sculpture was put. In complete contrast to painting, there were many surviving Roman sculptures around Italy, above all in Rome, and new ones were being excavated all the time, and keenly collected. Apart from a handful of major figures, especially Michelangelo and Donatello, it is today less well-known than Italian Renaissance painting, but this was not the case at the time.
Painting of the Piazza della Signoria and Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, 1830, Carlo Canella. From left, Fountain of Neptune, Rape of the Sabine by Giambologna, David by Michelangelo, one of the Medici Lions, Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini, hiding Hercules and Cacus by Baccio Bandinelli. Away from the loggia wall, the Medici Pasquino Group, copying an ancient Roman subject.
Francesco Laurana, A Princess of the House of Aragon, c. 1475
Michelangelo's Pietà, completed in 1499.
Luca della Robbia, Resurrection, glazed terracotta, 1445.
The Italian Renaissance was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Western Europe and marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity. Proponents of a "long Renaissance" argue that it started around the year 1300 and lasted until about 1600. In some fields, a Proto-Renaissance, beginning around 1250, is typically accepted. The French word renaissance means "rebirth", and defines the period as one of cultural revival and renewed interest in classical antiquity after the centuries during what Renaissance humanists labelled as the "Dark Ages". The Italian Renaissance historian Giorgio Vasari used the term rinascita ("rebirth") in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects in 1550, but the concept became widespread only in the 19th century, after the work of scholars such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt.
Portrait of Dante Alighieri by Cristofano dell'Altissimo, Uffizi Gallery Florence, 1552–1568
Pandolfo Malatesta (1417–1468), lord of Rimini, by Piero della Francesca. Malatesta was a capable condottiere, following the tradition of his family. He was hired by the Venetians to fight against the Turks (unsuccessfully) in 1465, and was the patron of Leone Battista Alberti, whose Tempio Malatestiano at Rimini is one of the first entirely classical buildings of the Renaissance.
Portrait of Cosimo de' Medici by Jacopo Pontormo (ca. 1518–1520)
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Renaissance Man, 1512