1.
1440s in art
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The decade of the 1440s in art involved some significant events. 1440, Donatello completes his series of sculptures for Prato Cathedral,1440, Luca della Robbia invents new techniques in terra cotta sculpting at about this date. 1440, Rogier van der Weyden begins his travels through the Italian city-states,1445, Fra Angelico is summoned by the Pope to paint frescoes in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in St. Peters Basilica. 1445, Piero della Francesca is commissioned by the Compagnia della Misericordia in Sansepolcro to paint the Madonna della Misericordia,1448, Giovanni dAlemagna the elder, Antonio Vivarini, Niccolò Pizzolo and Andrea Mantegna are commissioned to decorate the Ovetari Chapel of the Church of the Eremitani in Padua. Anthony and St. 1440s, Master I. A. M. of Zwolle, anonymous Dutch goldsmith and engraver c
2.
Art
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In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art. The oldest documented forms of art are visual arts, which include creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature, until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. Art may be characterized in terms of mimesis, expression, communication of emotion, during the Romantic period, art came to be seen as a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science. Though the definition of what art is disputed and has changed over time, general descriptions mention an idea of imaginative or technical skill stemming from human agency. The nature of art, and related such as creativity. One early sense of the definition of art is related to the older Latin meaning. English words derived from this meaning include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, however, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology. Several dialogues in Plato tackle questions about art, Socrates says that poetry is inspired by the muses, and is not rational. He speaks approvingly of this, and other forms of divine madness in the Phaedrus, and yet in the Republic wants to outlaw Homers great poetic art, in Ion, Socrates gives no hint of the disapproval of Homer that he expresses in the Republic. For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, the forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is an imitation of men worse than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation—through narrative or character, through change or no change, Aristotle believed that imitation is natural to mankind and constitutes one of mankinds advantages over animals. The second, and more recent, sense of the art as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art emerged in the early 17th century. The creative arts are a collection of disciplines which produce artworks that are compelled by a drive and convey a message, mood. Art is something that stimulates an individuals thoughts, emotions, beliefs, works of art can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted on the basis of images or objects. Often, if the skill is being used in a common or practical way, likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it may be considered commercial art instead of fine art. On the other hand, crafts and design are considered applied art
3.
Filippo Lippi
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Fra Filippo Lippi, O. Carm. also called Lippo Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento. Lippi was born in Florence in1406 to Tommaso, a butcher, when he was still a small child, both his parents died. He was sent to live with his aunt Mona Lapaccia, however because she was too poor to rear him and he was 8 years old when he left for the convent and started his education there. In 1420 he was admitted to the community of Carmelite friars of the Priory of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Florence, taking vows in the Order the following year. He was ordained as a priest in approximately 1425, and remained in residence of that priory until 1432, georgio Vasari, the first art historian of the renaissance, writes that Lippi was inspired to become a painter by watching Masaccio at work in the Carmine church. Lippis early work, notably the Tarquinia Madonna show that influence from Masaccio, in his Lives of the Artists, Vasari says, Instead of studying, he spent all his time scrawling pictures on his own books and those of others. Due to his interest, the decided to give him the opportunity to learn painting. Lippi then went on to visit to Ancona and Naples, where he was captured by Barbary pirates and his skill in portrait-sketching helped to eventually release him. Louis Gillet, writing for the Catholic Encyclopedia, considers this account assuredly nothing, with his return to Florence in 1432 is paintings had became popular, warranting the support of the Medici family, who commissioned of The Annunciation and the Seven Saints. Cosimo de Medici had to him up in order to compel him to work. His escapades threw him into financial difficulties from which he did not hesitate to extricate himself by forgery and his life included many similar tales of lawsuits, complaints, broken promises and scandal. In 1441 Lippi painted an altarpiece for the nuns of S. Ambrogio which is now a prominent attraction in the Academy of Florence and it represents the coronation of the Virgin among angels and saints, including many Bernardine monks. In 1452 he was appointed chaplain to the nuns at the Monastery of St. Mary Magdalene in Florence, in June 1456 Fra Filippo is recorded as living in Prato to paint frescoes in the choir of the cathedral. Lippi asked that she might be permitted to sit for the figure of the Madonna, under that pretext, Lippi engaged in sexual relations with her, abducted her to his own house, and kept her there despite the nuns efforts to reclaim her. This relationship resulted in their son, Filippino Lippi, who became a famous painter following his father, Vasari accounts for this relationship in his publication of The Lives, which was published soon after. In 1457 he was appointed commendatory Rector of S. Quirico in Legania, despite these profits, Lippi struggled to escape poverty throughout his life. The close of Lippis life was spent at Spoleto, where he had commissioned to paint scenes from the life of the Virgin for the apse of the cathedral. In the semidome of the apse is the Christ Crowning the Madonna, with angels, sibyls and this series, which is not wholly equal to the one at Prato, was completed by one of his assistants, his fellow Carmelite, Fra Diamante, after Lippis death
4.
Fresco
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Fresco is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly-laid, or wet lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the fresco technique has been employed since antiquity and is closely associated with Italian Renaissance painting. Buon fresco pigment mixed with water of temperature on a thin layer of wet, fresh plaster, for which the Italian word for plaster. Because of the makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required, as the pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the intonaco. The pigment is absorbed by the wet plaster, after a number of hours, many artists sketched their compositions on this underlayer, which would never be seen, in a red pigment called sinopia, a name also used to refer to these under-paintings. Later, new techniques for transferring paper drawings to the wall were developed. The main lines of a drawing made on paper were pricked over with a point, the paper held against the wall, if the painting was to be done over an existing fresco, the surface would be roughened to provide better adhesion. This area is called the giornata, and the different day stages can usually be seen in a large fresco, buon frescoes are difficult to create because of the deadline associated with the drying plaster. Once a giornata is dried, no more buon fresco can be done, if mistakes have been made, it may also be necessary to remove the whole intonaco for that area—or to change them later, a secco. An indispensable component of this process is the carbonatation of the lime, the eyes of the people of the School of Athens are sunken-in using this technique which causes the eyes to seem deeper and more pensive. Michelangelo used this technique as part of his trademark outlining of his central figures within his frescoes, in a wall-sized fresco, there may be ten to twenty or even more giornate, or separate areas of plaster. After five centuries, the giornate, which were nearly invisible, have sometimes become visible, and in many large-scale frescoes. Additionally, the border between giornate was often covered by an a secco painting, which has fallen off. One of the first painters in the period to use this technique was the Isaac Master in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. A person who creates fresco is called a frescoist, a secco or fresco-secco painting is done on dry plaster. The pigments thus require a medium, such as egg. Blue was a problem, and skies and blue robes were often added a secco, because neither azurite blue nor lapis lazuli. By the end of the century this had largely displaced buon fresco
5.
Stories of St. Stephen and St. John the Baptist
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The Stories of St. Stephen and St. John the Baptist is a fresco cycle by the Italian Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi and his assistants, executed between 1452 and 1465. It is located in the Great Chapel of the Cathedral of Prato, geminiano Inghirami, the preposto of the Cathedral of Prato, then capitular church, was at the time an influential man in culture and politics, with important friendships in Rome and Florence. He himself a humanist, he often commissioned artworks to Renaissance artists, the city decided to decorate the Great Chapel in the church in 1440, allocating a budget of 1200 gold florins for the work. Inghirami asked archbishop Antonino Pierozzi to call Fra Angelico, however, the aging friar, perhaps due to the extent of the work or because he was already committed to other works, declined the offer. Next was Fra Filippo Lippi, who accepted and established himself in Prato in 1452, collaborators he brought with him included Fra Diamante, who had been his companion in noviciate. Her name was Lucrezia Buti, after acting as his model for some paintings, the two lived together in a house near the citys Duomo. Once the scandal broke out, Lippi and Buti fled from the city and it was however Pope Pius II that granted them the dispensation allowing them to marry. The frescoes were finished in 1465 under the supervision of the new preposto Carlo di Cosimo de Medici, the following year Lippi moved to Spoleto, with his son Filippino and his apprentice Sandro Botticelli, where he died four years later. In October 1993 the paintings were vandalized with a pen by Pietro Cannata who had already performed vandalistic acts on other works of art among which the David of Michelangelo in 1991. They were restored starting from 2001, the chapel being reopened to public in 2007, the cycle occupies the two lateral walls and the end wall of the Cappella Maggiore, covering a surface of 400 m2 in total. At the left are the Stories of St. Stephen, the saint of the church and patron saint of Prato, at the right are the Stories of St. John the Baptist. The end wall, at the side of the glass window are two saints in painted niches and, below, bent around the corners, are the martyrdoms of St. Stephen. At the top, in the pendentives of the cross-vaults, are the four Evangelists, the two saints stories are to be read from the top to the bottom, and mirror each other on the opposite walls. The Stories of St. Stephen include, Kidnapping of Newborn St. Stephen, at the right is the meeting between the young St. Stephen and Bishop Julian, who, according to the legend, took care of him during his adolescence. It shows the saint leaving Julian to being his mission in Cilicia, stoning of St. Stephen Funeral of St. Stephen. Set in a Palaeo-Christian basilica, it shows numerous characters taking part in St. Stephens funeral. They include portrait of true people Lippis time, such as a red-dressed Pope Pius II, Carlo di Cosimo de Medici behind him, and, next to them, the Joyous Friar — the Story of Fra Filippo Lippi. Disposition as a tool, Fra Fillipo, Mantegna, Piero della Francesca
6.
Prato Cathedral
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It is dedicated to Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr. It is one of the most ancient churches in the city and it was built in several successive stages in the Romanesque style. The church contains a number of works of art, in particular fine sculpture. The church of Saint Stephen was built in a meadow after an appearance of the Virgin Mary near the village of Borgo al Cornio. The first building was a parish church. Which the earliest document dates from AD994, the expansion of the church began in the 15th century and transformed the modest building into one of the most lovely Gothic-Romanesque buildings in Tuscany. The cathedral is documented as early as the 10th century as the Pieve di Santo Stefano, located in the Borgo al Cornio, the first settlement in Prato. The current structure dates from the Romanesque period of the 12th century, the upper stage of the bell tower was constructed in 1356. During the 14th century the cathedral acquired an important relic, the Sacra Cintola or Belt of the Holy Virgin. This brought about the enlargement of the edifice by the addition of a transept which is attributed to Giovanni Pisano, the Cintola Chapel was also built at this time to house the relic. In the early 15th century, a new façade or west front was added in the International Gothic style, in the space between the two was created a narthex or corridor leading to the external pulpit, built by Michelozzo and decorated by Donatello between 1428 and 1438. The seven original reliefs of the parapet were removed from the pulpit in 1967, the façade is divided into three sections by shallow buttresses or pilasters. The façade has a central portal with a lintelled doorway surmounted by a Gothic arch. In the lunette over the door is a terracotta sculpture by Andrea della Robbia depicting the Madonna with Saints Stephen. Below the central gable, a clock is set into the façade. It is surrounded by segments of the marble and forms part of the harmonious design. The frescoes of the chapel are also of the 15th century. Internally, the church, built on a Latin cross ground plan, has a nave and they are separated by elegant columns of green serpentine, the capitals being attributed to Guidetto
7.
Piero della Francesca
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Piero della Francesca was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting is characterized by its humanism, its use of geometric forms. His most famous work is the cycle of frescoes The History of the True Cross in the church of San Francesco in the Tuscan town of Arezzo. He was most probably apprenticed to the local painter Antonio di Giovanni dAnghiari, because in documents about payments it is noted that he was working with Antonio in 1432 and May 1438. Besides, he took notice of the work of some of the Sienese artists active in San Sepolcro during his youth. In 1439 Piero received, together with Domenico Veneziano, payments for his work on frescoes for the church of SantEgidio in Florence, in Florence he must have met leading masters like Fra Angelico, Luca della Robbia, Donatello and Brunelleschi. The classicism of Masaccios frescoes and his figures in the Santa Maria del Carmine were for him an important source of inspiration. Dating of Pieros undocumented work is difficult because his style does not seem to have developed over the years, in 1442 he was listed as eligible for the City Council of San Sepolcro. Three years later, he received the commission for the Madonna della Misericordia altarpiece for the church of the Misericordia in Sansepolcro, in 1449 he executed several frescoes in the Castello Estense and the church of SantAndrea of Ferrara, also lost. His influence was strong in the later Ferrarese allegorical works of Cosimo Tura. Two years later he was in Rimini, working for the condottiero Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, in this sojourn he executed in 1451 the famous fresco of St. Sigismund and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta in the Tempio Malatestiano, as well as Sigismondos portrait. Thereafter Piero was active in Ancona, Pesaro and Bologna, in 1454 he signed a contract for the Polyptych of Saint Augustine in the church of SantAgostino in Sansepolcro. The central panel of this polyptic is lost and the four panels of the wings, a few years later, summoned by Pope Nicholas V, he moved to Rome, here he executed frescoes in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, of which only fragments remain. Two years later he was again in the Papal capital, for frescoes in Vatican Palace which have also been destroyed, the Baptism of Christ, in The National Gallery in London, was executed around 1460 for the high altar of the church of the Priory of S. Other notable works of Piero della Francescas maturity are the frescoes of the Resurrection of Christ in Sansepolcro, in 1452, Piero della Francesca was called to Arezzo to replace Bicci di Lorenzo in painting the frescoes of the basilica of San Francesco. The work was finished before 1466, probably between 1452 and 1456, the cycle of frescoes, depicting the Legend of the True Cross, is generally considered among his masterworks and those of Renaissance painting in general. The story in these frescoes derives from medieval sources as to how timber relics of the True Cross came to be found
8.
Gutenberg Bible
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The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the Gutenberg Revolution and the age of the book in the West. Widely praised for its aesthetic and artistic qualities, the book has an iconic status. Written in Latin, the Catholic Gutenberg Bible is an edition of the Vulgate, printed by Johannes Gutenberg, in Mainz, in present-day Germany, in the 1450s. Since its publication,49 copies have survived, and they are considered to be among the most valuable books in the even though no complete copy has been sold since 1978. In March 1455, the future Pope Pius II wrote that he had seen pages from the Gutenberg Bible, being displayed to promote the edition and it is not known how many copies were printed, with the 1455 letter citing sources for both 158 and 180 copies. The 36-line Bible, believed to be the second printed version of the Bible, is sometimes referred to as a Gutenberg Bible. The Gutenberg Bible, an edition of the Vulgate, contains the Latin version of the Hebrew Old Testament and it is mainly the work of Jerome who began his work on the translation in 380 AD, with emendations from the Parisian Bible tradition, and further divergences. The Bible was not Gutenbergs first work, preparation of the Bible probably began soon after 1450, and the first finished copies were available in 1454 or 1455. It is not known exactly how long the Bible took to print, the first precisely datable printing is the Gutenbergs 31-line Indulgence which is known to already exist on 22 October 1454. Gutenberg made three significant changes during the printing process, the first sheets were rubricated by being passed twice through the printing press, using black and then red ink. This was soon abandoned, with spaces being left for rubrication to be added by hand, some time later, after more sheets had been printed, the number of lines per page was increased from 40 to 42, presumably to save paper. Therefore, pages 1 to 9 and pages 256 to 265, page 10 has 41, and from there on the 42 lines appear. The increase in number was achieved by decreasing the interline spacing. Finally, the print run was increased, necessitating resetting those pages which had already been printed, the new sheets were all reset to 42 lines per page. Consequently, there are two settings in folios 1-32 and 129-158 of volume I and folios 1-16 and 162 of volume II. The most reliable information about the Bibles date comes from a letter, in March 1455, the future Pope Pius II wrote that he had seen pages from the Gutenberg Bible, being displayed to promote the edition, in Frankfurt. It is not known how many copies were printed, with the 1455 letter citing sources for both 158 and 180 copies
9.
Movable type
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Movable type is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document usually on the medium of paper. In 1377, currently the oldest extant movable metal print book, the diffusion of both movable-type systems was, however, limited. Around 1450 Johannes Gutenberg made another version of a metal printing press in Europe, along with innovations in casting the type based on a matrix. The more limited number of characters needed for European languages was an important factor, Gutenberg was the first to create his type pieces from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony—and these materials remained standard for 550 years. For alphabetic scripts, movable-type page setting was quicker than woodblock printing, the metal type pieces were more durable and the lettering was more uniform, leading to typography and fonts. The high quality and relatively low price of the Gutenberg Bible established the superiority of movable type in Europe, the printing press may be regarded as one of the key factors fostering the Renaissance and due to its effectiveness, its use spread around the globe. The 19th-century invention of hot metal typesetting and its successors caused movable type to decline in the 20th century, the technique of imprinting multiple copies of symbols or glyphs with a master type punch made of hard metal first developed around 3000 BC in ancient Sumer. These metal punch types can be seen as precursors of the letter punches adapted in later millennia to printing with metal type. Cylinder seals were used in Mesopotamia to create an impression on a surface by rolling the seal on wet clay and they were used to sign documents and mark objects as the owners property. By 650 BC the ancient Greeks were using larger diameter punches to imprint small page images onto coins and tokens, seals and stamps may have been precursors to movable type. A few authors even view the disc as technically meeting all definitional criteria to represent an early incidence of movable-type printing, recently it has been alleged by Jerome Eisenberg that the disk is a forgery. The Prüfening dedicatory inscription is medieval example of movable type stamps being used, yet copying books by hand was still labour-consuming. Not until the Xiping Era, towards the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty did sealing print and it was soon used for printing designs on fabrics, and later for printing texts. Woodblock printing, invented by about the 8th century during the Tang Dynasty, then carvers cut away the parts of the board that were not part of the character, so that the characters were cut in relief, completely differently from those cut intaglio. When printing, the characters would have some ink spread on them. With workers’ hands moving on the back of paper gently, characters would be printed on the paper, by the Song Dynasty, woodblock printing came to its heyday. Although woodblock printing played a role in spreading culture, there remained some apparent drawbacks. Firstly, carving the printing plate required considerable time, labour and materials, secondly, it was not convenient to store these plates, with woodblock printing, one printing plate could be used for tens of hundreds of books, playing a magnificent role in spreading culture
