1.
1480s in art
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The decade of the 1480s in art involved some significant events. 1482 – Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, commissions Leonardo da Vinci to make a statue that would have been the largest in the world. A clay cast is made over sixteen years but the bronze is appropriated for use in cannons,1483 – In the Republic of Venice A competition to design a monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni is won by Andrea del Verrocchio with an equestrian design. Giovanni Bellini is named official painter to the Republic,1484 – Albrecht Dürer makes a Self-Portrait at the age of 13 in silverpoint. C. 1485-1489 – Jean Colombe completes the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry for Charles I,1487 Leonardo da Vinci creates his Vitruvian Man drawing. Bernt Notke creates his painted wooden sculpture of Saint George and the Dragon for the Storkyrkan in Stockholm,1488 - Giovanni di Stefano makes floor intarsia showing Hermes Trismegistus, Plato and Marsilio Ficino in the west entrance of Siena Cathedral
2.
1490s in art
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The decade of the 1490s in art involved some significant events. The Renaissance is in full swing during the 1490s, and Leonardo da Vinci is painting in realistic, in music, many new musical styles are being created, including the motet and madrigal, replacing an emphasis on chanting with polyphony and homophony. Christopher Columbuss explorations of the New World captivates the artistic imagination of artists and the public. 1490, July 13 – John of Kastav finishes a cycle of frescoes in the Holy Trinity Church,1496 – Juan de Flandes joins the court of Isabella I of Castile. Peters Basilica, Rome, in Carrara marble c,1490, Giovanni Bellini paints two Sacred Conversations and a presumed portrait of Bartolomeo dAlviano c. 1490–1497, Leonardo da Vinci or one of his school paints La belle ferronnière c,1495, Gerard David paints Triptych of the Sedano family c. 1490–1500, Giovanni Bellini paints the Holy Allegory and Portrait of a Gentleman c,1495, Pedro Berruguete paints Saint Dominic Presiding over an Auto-da-fe c. 1495, Jan Provoost paints a Crucifixion c, 1495–1496, Leonardo da Vinci probably draws the Portrait of a Young Fiancée for the Sforziada c.1495 and beyond, followers of Martin Schongauer paint the colossal Buhl Altarpiece c. 1496, Juan de Flandes paints Portrait of an Infanta and Herodias Revenge c,1495, Albrecht Dürer - The Holy Family with the Dragonfly 1497, Albrecht Dürer - The Four Witches c. 1498, Albrecht Dürer Apocalypse Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon The Temptation of the Idler or The Dream of the Doctor c
3.
1490s in architecture
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St Edmunds Church, Southwold in England is completed. Church of St. Valentin, Kiedrich in Hesse is completed,1490 Bara Gumbad in Delhi is built. Probable completion of rebuilding of Sherborne Abbey choir, England, with a Perpendicular style fan vault by William Smyth, all Saints Church, Wittenberg, designed by Conrad Pflüger, begun. Former Nea Ekklesia church in Constantinople destroyed by a lightning strike,1493 - Tomb of Bibi Jawindi at Uch in the Punjab region is built. 1495 - Monastery of Jesus of Setúbal in Portugal, designed by Diogo de Boitaca, is completed,1497 - Rebuilding of Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford in England is completed. 1498 - Church of St Martin, Landshut, Bavaria is completed by Hans von Burghausen,1499 Garden loggia and external spiral staircase at Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo in Venice, probably designed by Giorgio Spavento, completed. Start of construction of Abbaye de la Trinité, Vendôme, C.1495 - Diego Siloe, Spanish Renaissance architect and sculptor 1490 - William Smyth, English architect c.1493 - Enna Swarviski 1494 - Luca Fancelli, Italian architect and sculptor
4.
15th century in literature
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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in the 15th century. See also, 15th century in poetry, 14th century in literature, 16th century in literature,1403 – A guild of stationers is founded in the City of London. As the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, it continues to be a Livery Company in the 21st century, 1403–08 – The Yongle Encyclopedia is written in China. 1408–11 – An Leabhar Breac is probably compiled by Murchadh Ó Cuindlis at Duniry in Ireland, C.1410 – John, Duke of Berry, commissions the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, illustrated by the Limbourg brothers between c.1412 and 1416. 1424 – The first French royal library is transferred by the English regent of France, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford,1425 – At about this date the first Guildhall Library is established in the City of London under the will of Richard Whittington. 1434 – Japanese Noh actor and playwright Zeami Motokiyo is exiled to Sado Island by the Shogun,1443 – King Sejong the Great establishes Hangul as the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is first described in the Hunminjeongeum published on 9 October 14461444,15 June – Cosimo de Medici founds the Laurentian Library in Florence,1448 – Pope Nicholas V founds the Vatican Library in Rome. 1450 – Johannes Gutenberg has set up his movable type printing press as an operation in Mainz by this date. 14511 August – A manuscript of Dantes Divine Comedy is sold in London,1452 – Completion of the Malatestiana Library in Cesena, the first European public library, in the sense of belonging to the commune and open to all citizens. 1453 – Pageant of Coriolan staged in the piazza of Milan Cathedral,145523 February – Johannes Gutenberg completes printing of the Gutenberg Bible in Mainz, the first major book printed with movable type in the West, using a textualis blackletter typeface. 5 June – French poet François Villon is implicated in a murder, the Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi in Persia is known to be in existence. 1460 – From about this date, Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, begins to form the Bibliotheca Corviniana,1462,8 November – First known sentence written in the Albanian language, a Formula e pagëzimit by Archbishop Pal Engjëlli. Soon after this he prints the first known Biblia pauperum,1463,5 January – François Villon is reprieved from hanging in Paris but never heard of again. 146831 May – The Byzantine scholar Cardinal Basilios Bessarion donates his library to the Republic of Venice, the printers Johann and Wendelin of Speyer settle in Venice, their first book published here, Ciceros Epistolae ad familiares, appears in 1469. 1470 Johann Heynlin prints the first book in Paris, the Epistolae Gasparini of Gasparinus de Bergamo, nicolas Jensons edition of Eusebius, published in Venice, is the first book to use a roman type based on the principles of typography rather than manuscript. 1473 First book printed in Hungary, Chronica Hungarorum, the Buda Chronicle, First known printing in Poland, Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474, a wall calendar. 1474 – First book printed in Spain, Obres e trobes en lahors de la Verge María, recuyell of the Historyes of Troye is the first book to be printed in English, by William Caxton in Bruges. Rashis commentary on the Torah is the first dated book to be printed in Hebrew,147630 January – Constantine Lascariss Erotemata is the first book to be printed entirely in Greek
5.
Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
6.
Leonardo da Vinci
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He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the Universal Genius or Renaissance Man, an individual of unquenchable curiosity and feverishly inventive imagination. Much of his working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded to him by Francis I of France, Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait, Leonardos drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have survived, Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated power, an adding machine. Some of his inventions, however, such as an automated bobbin winder. A number of Leonardos most practical inventions are nowadays displayed as working models at the Museum of Vinci. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, geology, optics, and hydrodynamics, today, Leonardo is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived. Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452 at the hour of the night in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci. He was the son of the wealthy Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine legal notary, and Caterina. Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense – da Vinci simply meaning of Vinci, his birth name was Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci, meaning Leonardo. The inclusion of the title ser indicated that Leonardos father was a gentleman, little is known about Leonardos early life. He spent his first five years in the hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his mother and his father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera Amadori, who loved Leonardo but died young in 1465 without children. When Leonardo was sixteen, his father married again to twenty-year-old Francesca Lanfredini, pieros legitimate heirs were born from his third wife Margherita di Guglielmo and his fourth and final wife, Lucrezia Cortigiani. Leonardo received an education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In later life, Leonardo recorded only two childhood incidents, one, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face
7.
Chiaroscuro
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Chiaroscuro is an oil painting technique, developed during the Renaissance, that uses strong tonal contrasts between light and dark to model three-dimensional forms, often to dramatic effect. The underlying principle is that solidity of form is best achieved by the light falling against it, artists known for developing the technique include Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt. It is a mainstay of black and white photography and these in turn drew on traditions in illuminated manuscripts going back to late Roman Imperial manuscripts on purple-dyed vellum. Such works used to be called chiaroscuro drawings, but are often described in modern museum terminology by such formulae as pen on prepared paper. Chiaroscuro woodcuts began as imitations of this technique, when discussing Italian art, the term sometimes is used to mean painted images in monochrome or two colours, more generally known in English by the French equivalent, grisaille. The term broadened in meaning early on to cover all strong contrasts in illumination between light and dark areas in art, which is now the primary meaning. The invention of these effects in the West, skiagraphia or shadow-painting to the Ancient Greeks, traditionally was ascribed to the famous Athenian painter of the fifth century BC, Apollodoros. Chose her place to sit for that purpose in the alley of a goodly garden. In drawings and prints, modelling chiaroscuro often is achieved by the use of hatching, washes, stipple or dotting effects, and surface tone in printmaking are other techniques. Chiaroscuro woodcuts are old master prints in woodcut using two or more blocks printed in different colours, they do not necessarily feature strong contrasts of light and they were first produced to achieve similar effects to chiaroscuro drawings. Other printmakers to use the technique include Hans Wechtlin, Hans Baldung Grien, in Germany the technique achieved its greatest popularity around 1520, but it was used in Italy throughout the sixteenth century. Later artists such as Goltzius sometimes made use of it, in most German two-block prints, the keyblock was printed in black and the tone block or blocks had flat areas of colour. In Italy, chiaroscuro woodcuts were produced without keyblocks to achieve a different effect. Manuscript illumination was, as in areas, especially experimental in attempting ambitious lighting effects since the results were not for public display. The development of compositional chiaroscuro received an impetus in northern Europe from the vision of the Nativity of Jesus of Saint Bridget of Sweden. Hugo van der Goes and his followers painted many scenes lit only by candle or the light from the infant Christ. As with some later painters, in their hands the effect was of stillness, strong chiaroscuro became a popular effect during the sixteenth century in Mannerism and Baroque art. Divine light continued to illuminate, often rather inadequately, the compositions of Tintoretto, Veronese, tenebrism was especially practiced in Spain and the Spanish-ruled Kingdom of Naples, by Jusepe de Ribera and his followers
8.
Motet
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In western music, a motet is a mainly vocal musical composition, of highly varied form and style, from the late medieval era to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music, according to Margaret Bent, a piece of music in several parts with words is as precise a definition of the motet as will serve from the 13th to the late 16th century and beyond. In the early 20th century, it was believed the name came from the Latin movere. The Medieval Latin for motet is motectum, and the Italian mottetto was also used, if the word is from Latin, the name describes the movement of the different voices against one another. Today, however, the French etymology is favoured by reference books, in fact, the troped clausulas that were the forerunner of the motet were originally called motelli, soon replaced by the term moteti. The earliest motets arose in the 13th century from the organum tradition exemplified in the Notre Dame school of Léonin and Pérotin, the motet probably arose from clausula sections, usually strophic interludes, in a longer sequence of organum, to which upper voices were added. Usually the clausula represented a sequence in Latin which was sung as a discant over a cantus firmus. The motet took a definite rhythm from the words of the verse, the main exception is the conductus motet, in which the parts proceed in essentially homophonic rhythms. The practice of discant over a cantus firmus marked the beginnings of counterpoint in Western music, from these first motets arose a medieval tradition of secular motets. It is suspected that, for the sake of intelligibility, in performance the cantus firmus, among the trouvères, Robert de Reins La Chievre and Richart de Fournival composed motets. While it grew out of the isorhythmic motet, the Renaissance composers of the motet generally abandoned the use of a repeated figure as a cantus firmus. During this time, however, the use of cantus firmi in works such as the parody mass tended to stretch the cantus firmus out to great lengths compared to the multivoice descant above it. This tended to obscure the rhythm supplied by the cantus firmus that had been apparent in the medieval isorhythmic motet. The cascading, passing chords created by the interplay between multiple voices, and the absence of a strong or obvious beat, are the features that distinguish medieval, the texts of antiphons were frequently used as motet texts. This is the sort of composition that is most familiarly designated by the term motet, in essence, these motets were sacred madrigals. The language of the text was the feature, if it is Latin, it is a motet, if the vernacular. Religious compositions in vernacular languages were often called madrigali spirituali, spiritual madrigals, secular motets continued to be written, however. These motets typically set a Latin text in praise of a monarch, commemorating some public triumph, nevertheless, the themes of courtly love often found in the medieval secular motet were banished from the Renaissance motet
9.
Madrigal
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A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied, the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six and it is quite distinct from the Italian Trecento madrigal of the late 13th and 14th centuries, with which it shares only the name. Madrigals originated in Italy during the 1520s, unlike many strophic forms of the time, most madrigals were through-composed. In the madrigal, the composer attempted to express the emotion contained in each line, a frottola generally would consist of music set to stanzas of text, while madrigals were through-composed. However, some of the poems were used for both frottola and madrigals. The poetry of Petrarch in particular shows up in a variety of genres. In Italy, the madrigal was the most important secular form of music of its time, the madrigal reached its formal and historical zenith by the second half of the 16th century. English and German composers, too, took up the madrigal in its heyday, after the 1630s, the madrigal began to merge with the cantata and the dialogue. With the rise of opera in the early 17th century, the aria gradually displaced the madrigal, in the early 16th century, several humanistic trends converged which allowed the madrigal to form. First, there was a reawakened interest in use of Italian as a vernacular language, third, printed secular music had become widely available in Italy due to the recent invention of moveable type and the printing press. The music being written and sung, principally the frottola but also the ballata, canzonetta, and mascherata, was light and these popular music styles used repetition and soprano-dominated chordal textures, styles considerably more simple than those used by most of the resident composers of the Franco-Flemish school. Literary tastes were changing, and the more serious verse of Bembo and his school needed a means of expression more flexible and open than was available in the frottola. The first madrigals were written in Florence, either by native Florentines or by Franco-Flemish musicians in the employment of the Medici family, the madrigal did not replace the frottola right away, during the transitional decade of the 1520s, both frottole and madrigals were written and published. The first book of madrigals labeled as such was the Madrigali de diversi musici, libro de la Serena of Philippe Verdelot. Verdelot, a French composer, had written the pieces in the late 1520s and he included music by both Sebastiano and Costanzo Festa, as well as Maistre Jhan of Ferrara, in addition to his own music. They sold so well that Adrian Willaert made arrangements of some of works for single voice. Verdelot published madrigals for five and six voices as well, with the collection for six voices appearing in 1541, particularly popular was the first collection of madrigals by Jacques Arcadelt. Originally published in Venice, in 1539, it was reprinted throughout Europe for many years after, becoming the most often reprinted madrigal book of the entire era
10.
Polyphony
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Within the context of the Western musical tradition, the term polyphony is usually used to refer to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baroque forms such as fugue, which might be called polyphonic, are usually described instead as contrapuntal. In all cases the conception was probably what Margaret Bent calls dyadic counterpoint, with part being written generally against one other part. The term polyphony is also used more broadly, to describe any musical texture that is not monophonic. Such a perspective considers homophony as a sub-type of polyphony, traditional polyphony has a wide, if uneven, distribution among the peoples of the world. Most polyphonic regions of the world are in sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and it is believed that the origins of polyphony in traditional music vastly predate the emergence of polyphony in European professional music. Currently there are two approaches to the problem of the origins of vocal polyphony, the Cultural Model. Although the exact origins of polyphony in the Western church traditions are unknown,900, are usually considered the oldest extant written examples of polyphony. These treatises provided examples of two-voice note-against-note embellishments of chants using parallel octaves, fifths, rather than being fixed works, they indicated ways of improvising polyphony during performance. 1000, is the oldest extant example of notated polyphony for chant performance, European polyphony rose out of melismatic organum, the earliest harmonization of the chant. Twelfth-century composers, such as Léonin and Pérotin developed the organum that was introduced centuries earlier, the lyrics of love poems might be sung above sacred texts in the form of a trope, or the sacred text might be placed within a familiar secular melody. The oldest surviving piece of music is the English rota Sumer is icumen in. These musical innovations appeared in a context of societal change. After the first millennium, European monks decided to start translating the works of Greek philosophers into the vernacular, Western Europeans were aware of Plato, Socrates, and Hippocrates during the Middle Ages. However they had largely lost touch with the content of their surviving works because the use of Greek as a language was restricted to the lands of the Eastern Roman Empire. Once these ancient works started being translated thus becoming accessible, the philosophies had a impact on the mind of Western Europe. This sparked a number of innovations in medicine, science, art, European polyphony rose prior to, and during the period of the Western Schism. Avignon, the seat of the antipopes, was a center of secular music-making
11.
Homophony
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In music, homophony is a texture in which a primary part is supported by one or more additional strands that flesh out the harmony and often provide rhythmic contrast. This differentiation of roles contrasts with equal-voice polyphony and monophony, historically, homophony and its differentiated roles for parts emerged in tandem with tonality, which gave distinct harmonic functions to the soprano, bass and inner voices. A homophonic texture may be homorhythmic, which means all parts have the same rhythm. Chorale texture is another variant of homophony, initially, in Ancient Greece, homophony indicated music in which a single melody is performed by two or more voices in unison or octaves, i. e. monophony with multiple voices. Homophony as a term first appeared in English with Charles Burney in 1776, the choral arrangement of four voices has since become common in Western music. Homophony began by appearing in sacred music, replacing polyphony and monophony as the dominant form, however, some traditional devices, such as repeated chords, are still used. Jazz and other forms of popular music generally feature homophonic influences. Homophony has appeared in several cultures, perhaps particularly in regions where communal vocal music has been cultivated. When explorer Vasco da Gama landed in West Africa in 1497, singers normally harmonize voices in homophonic parallelism moving in parallel thirds or fourths. This type of model is also, implemented in instrumental music where voices are stacked in thirds or fourths. Homophonic Parallelism is not restricted to thirds and fourths, however all harmonic material adheres to the system the particular tune or song is based on. The use of harmony in sixths is common in areas where a scale system is used. For instance, the Fang people of Gabon use homophony in their music, in eastern Indonesia, two-part harmonies are common, usually in intervals of thirds, fourths or fifths. In melody-dominated homophony, accompanying voices provide chordal support for the lead voice, some popular music today might be considered melody-dominated homophony, voice typically taking on the lead role, while instruments like piano, guitar and bass guitar normally accompany the voice. Monody is similar to melody-dominated homophony in that one becomes the melody
12.
Christopher Columbus
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Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and those voyages and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the European colonization of the New World. Western imperialism and economic competition were emerging among European kingdoms through the establishment of routes and colonies. During his first voyage in 1492, he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named San Salvador. Over the course of three voyages, he visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America. These voyages had, therefore, an impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. He spearheaded the transatlantic trade and has been accused by several historians of initiating the genocide of the Hispaniola natives. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of spreading the Christian religion, Columbus never admitted that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies for which he had set course. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios, the name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo and, in Spanish and he was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa, though the exact location remains disputed. His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo were his brothers, Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood. He also had a sister named Bianchinetta, Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian. In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10, in 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern historians have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead and these competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars. In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro, later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part in a convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe
13.
New World
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The New World is one of the names used for the Earths Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas. The term was coined by Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci, the Americas were also referred to as the fourth part of the world. New World are meaningful in historical context and for the purpose of distinguishing the worlds major ecozones, and to classify plant and animal species that originated therein. One can speak of the New World in a context, e. g. when discussing the voyages of Christopher Columbus. For lack of alternatives, the term is still useful to those discussing issues that concern the Americas. The term New World is used in a context, when one speaks of Old World. Biological taxonomists often attach the New World label to groups of species that are exclusively in the Americas, to distinguish them from their counterparts in the Old World. New World monkeys, New World vultures, New World warblers, the label is also often used in agriculture. Common Old World crops, and domesticated animals did not exist in the Americas until they were introduced by contact in the 1490s. Other famous New World crops include the cashew, cocoa, rubber, sunflower, tobacco, and vanilla, there are rare instances of overlap, e. g. In wine terminology, New World has a different definition, Vespucci was finally convinced when he proceeded on his mapping expedition through 1501-02, covering the huge stretch of coast of eastern Brazil. But this opinion is false, and entirely opposed to the truth, Vespuccis letter was a publishing sensation in Europe, immediately reprinted in several other countries. The Venetian explorer Alvise Cadamosto had used the term un altro mundo to refer to sub-Saharan Africa, however, this was merely a literary flourish, not a suggestion of a new fourth part of the world. Cadamosto was quite aware sub-Saharan Africa was firmly part of the African continent, the Italian-born Spanish chronicler Peter Martyr dAnghiera often shares credit with Vespucci for designating the Americas as a new world. Peter Martyr used the term Orbe Novo in the title of his history of the discovery of the Americas as a whole, a year later, Peter Martyr again refers to the marvels of the New Globe and the Western hemisphere. Christopher Columbus touched the continent of South America in his 1498 third voyage, in another letter, Columbus refers to having reached a new heavens and world and that he had placed another world under the dominion of the Kings of Spain. The Vespucci passage above applied the New World label to merely the continental landmass of South America, although the proceedings of the Toro-Burgos conferences are missing, it is almost certain that Vespucci articulated his recent New World thesis to his fellow navigators there. In English usage the term New World was problematic and only accepted relatively late, while it became generally accepted after Vespucci that Columbuss discoveries were not Asia but a New World, the geographic relationship between the two continents was still unclear
14.
The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci)
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The Last Supper is a late 15th-century mural painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. It is one of the worlds most famous paintings, the painting represents the scene of The Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples, as it is told in the Gospel of John,13,21. Leonardo has depicted the consternation that occurred among the Twelve Disciples when Jesus announced that one of them would betray him. The Last Supper measures 460 cm ×880 cm and covers an end wall of the hall at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. The theme was a one for refectories, although the room was not a refectory at the time that Leonardo painted it. The main church building had recently been completed, but was remodeled by Bramante. The painting was commissioned by Sforza to be the centerpiece of the mausoleum, the lunettes above the main painting, formed by the triple arched ceiling of the refectory, are painted with Sforza coats-of-arms. The opposite wall of the refectory is covered by the Crucifixion fresco by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, Leonardo began work on The Last Supper in 1495 and completed it in 1498—he did not work on the painting continuously. The beginning date is not certain, as the archives of the convent for the period have been destroyed, one story goes that a prior from the monastery complained to Leonardo about the delay, enraging him. The Last Supper specifically portrays the reaction given by each apostle when Jesus said one of them would betray him, all twelve apostles have different reactions to the news, with various degrees of anger and shock. The apostles are identified from a manuscript with their names found in the 19th century, from left to right, according to the apostles heads, Bartholomew, James, son of Alphaeus, and Andrew form a group of three, all are surprised. Judas Iscariot, Peter, and John form another group of three, Judas is wearing green and blue and is in shadow, looking rather withdrawn and taken aback by the sudden revelation of his plan. He is clutching a bag, perhaps signifying the silver given to him as payment to betray Jesus. He is also tipping over the salt cellar and this may be related to the near-Eastern expression to betray the salt meaning to betray ones Master. He is the person to have his elbow on the table. Peter looks angry and is holding a knife pointed away from Christ, the youngest apostle, John, appears to swoon. Jesus Apostle Thomas, James the Greater, and Philip are the group of three. Thomas is clearly upset, the index finger foreshadows his incredulity of the Resurrection
15.
Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan)
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Santa Maria delle grazie is a church and Dominican convent in Milan, northern Italy, included in the UNESCO World Heritage sites list. The church contains the mural of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, the Duke of Milan Francesco I Sforza ordered construction of a Dominican convent and a church at the site of a prior chapel dedicated to the Marian devotion of St Mary of the Graces. The main architect, Guiniforte Solari, designed the convent, which was completed by 1469, construction of the church took decades. Duke Ludovico Sforza decided to have the serve as the Sforza family burial site, and rebuilt the cloister. Ludovicos wife Beatrice was buried in the church in 1497 and his name is inscribed in a piece of marble in the church vaults delivered in 1494. Some documents though mention the name Amadeo, likely Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, similarities between this church and Amadeos design for Santa Maria alla Fontana make this attribution more likely. In 1543, the Titian altarpiece depicting the Christ receives the Crown of Thorns was installed in the Chapel of Holy Crown, the painting, looted by French troops in 1797, it is now in the Louvre. This chapel is frescoed with Stories of the Passion by Gaudenzio Ferrari, in the small cloister adjacent to the tribune near the door that leads to the sacristy is a fresco by Bramantino. The church also contained frescoes depicting the Resurrection and Passion by Bernardo Zenale, during World War II, on the night of 15 August 1943, an Anglo-American aerial bombardment hit the church and the convent. Much of the refectory was destroyed, but some survived, including the one that holds the The Last Supper. Some preservation works are done to maintain it for the future and it is believed that the current and future preservation works will keep the painting safe for many centuries to come
16.
Holy Trinity Church (Hrastovlje)
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Holy Trinity Church is a historical building in Hrastovlje, a village in southwestern Slovenia. There are two hypotheses about its origin, according to the first, it is a Romanesque church from the 12th century. According to the second, it is an example of the Istrian variant of Early Venetian Renaissance architecture from the 15th century, the church stands behind a wall that the local population built to protect itself from Turkish attacks in the 16th century. Such defensive architectures are found throughout the territory settled by Slovenians and are called tabor, the church and wall were built on bare rock, and for this reason do not have deep foundations. The church is mostly out of stone, as is typical for the entire coastal region. The stones were never covered in an outer layer of plaster. One can see that top of the spire was rebuilt at some time. The church is topped with tiles made of thick plates and these are characteristic for older roofs in the Mediterranean region. The church has only 2 windows as a result of the weather conditions. In summer, a room with a window was protected from the sun. Because of the low number of windows, the inside of the church is very dark. In 1896, a hole was knocked in the wall to create a new window. Despite the lack of windows, the church used to be better lit than it is today. This is the result of the addition of the outer wall. Because of its height, the church is classed as a multi-layered church, the church in Hrastovlje differs from all other pilgrim churches in that its bell-tower is located on the western side and in that all other pilgrim churches have small wooden towers. The church is 11.7 metres long and 6.05 metres wide and it is not even as large as the average village church. Some claim that the church is an example of Istrian Renaissance architecture from the half of the 15th century. The appearance of the entrance to the church, as known today
17.
Slovenia
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Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a nation state in southern Central Europe, located at the crossroads of main European cultural and trade routes. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and it covers 20,273 square kilometers and has a population of 2.06 million. It is a republic and a member of the United Nations, European Union. The capital and largest city is Ljubljana, additionally, the Dinaric Alps and the Pannonian Plain meet on the territory of Slovenia. The country, marked by a significant biological diversity, is one of the most water-rich in Europe, with a river network, a rich aquifer system. Over half of the territory is covered by forest, the human settlement of Slovenia is dispersed and uneven. Slovenia has historically been the crossroads of South Slavic, Germanic, Romance, although the population is not homogeneous, the majority is Slovene. South Slavic language Slovene is the language throughout the country. Slovenia is a largely secularized country, but its culture and identity have been influenced by Catholicism as well as Lutheranism. The economy of Slovenia is small, open, and export-oriented and has strongly influenced by international conditions. It has been hurt by the Eurozone crisis, started in the late 2000s. The main economic field is services, followed by industry and construction, Historically, the current territory of Slovenia was part of many different state formations, including the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, followed by the Habsburg Monarchy. In October 1918, the Slovenes exercised self-determination for the first time by co-founding the State of Slovenes, Croats, in December 1918, they merged with the Kingdom of Serbia into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. During World War II, Slovenia was occupied and annexed by Germany, Italy, and Hungary, with a tiny area transferred to the Independent State of Croatia, in June 1991, after the introduction of multi-party representative democracy, Slovenia split from Yugoslavia and became an independent country. Present-day Slovenia has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and there is evidence of habitation from around 250,000 years ago. A pierced cave bear bone, dating from 43100 ±700 BP, in the 1920s and 1930s, artifacts belonging to the Cro-Magnon such as pierced bones, bone points, and needle were found by archaeologist Srečko Brodar in Potok Cave. It shows that wooden wheels appeared almost simultaneously in Mesopotamia and Europe, in the transition period between the Bronze age to the Iron age, the Urnfield culture flourished. Archaeological remains dating from the Hallstatt period have been found, particularly in southeastern Slovenia, among them a number of situlas in Novo Mesto, in the Iron Age, present-day Slovenia was inhabited by Illyrian and Celtic tribes until the 1st century BC
18.
Juan de Flandes
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Jan Sallaert, who became a master in Ghent in 1480, has also been suggested. He was born around 1460 in Flanders and he evidently trained in his home country, most likely in Ghent, as his work shows similarities to that of Joos van Wassenhove, Hugo van der Goes and other Ghent artists. He is only documented after he became an artist at the court of Queen Isabella I of Castile and he is described as court painter by 1498 and continued in the queens service until her death in 1504. He mostly painted portraits of the family, but also the majority of a large series of small panels for a polyptych altarpiece for the queen. The panels have been dispersed and the largest number of panels is in the collection in Madrid. After Isabellas death in 1504 Juan de Flandes turned to ecclesiastical commissions from Spanish churches and he was later based in Palencia, where there is a large reredos in the Cathedral. In Palencia his wife was described as a widow in December 1519, the overwhelming majority of his work held in collections outside Spain dates from this later period during which he concentrated on religious themes. Panels from an altarpiece from a Palencian church are divided between the Prado and National Gallery of Art, Washington, who have four panels each. His works show the Early Netherlandish style of Ghent adapted to the Spanish taste and landscape, hand & M. van Elslande, Juan de Flandes met name Jan van der Straten, in, Brugs Ommeland, 26ste jg
19.
Isabella I of Castile
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Isabella I was Queen of Castile. She was married to Ferdinand II of Aragon and their marriage became the basis for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Her reforms and those she made with her husband had an influence that extended well beyond the borders of their united kingdoms, Isabella was granted the title Servant of God by the Catholic Church in 1974. Isabella was born in Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Ávila, to John II of Castile, at the time of her birth, she was second in line to throne after her older half-brother Henry. Henry was 26 at that time and married but childless and her younger brother Alfonso was born two years later on 17 November 1453, lowering her position to third in line. When her father died in 1454, her half-brother ascended to the throne as Henry IV, Isabella and Alfonso were left in Henrys care. She, her mother and her brother Alfonso then moved to Arévalo and these were times of turmoil for Isabella. Living conditions in their castle in Arévalo were poor, and they suffered from a shortage of money, even though living conditions were lackluster, under the careful eye of her mother, Isabella was instructed in lessons of practical piety and in a deep reverence for religion. Alfonso was placed in the care of a tutor while Isabella became part of the Queens household, some of Isabellas living conditions improved in Segovia. She always had food and clothing and lived in a castle that was adorned with gold, Isabellas basic education consisted of reading, spelling, writing, grammar, mathematics, art, chess, dancing, embroidery, music, and religious instruction. She and her ladies-in-waiting entertained themselves with art, embroidery, and she lived a relaxed lifestyle, but she rarely left Segovia as Henry forbade this. Her half-brother was keeping her from the political turmoils going on in the kingdom, though Isabella had full knowledge of what was going on, the noblemen, anxious for power, confronted King Henry, demanding that his younger half brother Infante Alfonso be named his successor. They even went so far as to ask Alfonso to seize the throne, the nobles, now in control of Alfonso and claiming that he was the true heir, clashed with Henrys forces at the Second Battle of Olmedo in 1467. Henry agreed to recognise Alfonso as heir presumptive, provided that he would marry his daughter, soon after he was named Prince of Asturias, Alfonso died in July 1468, likely of the plague. The nobles who had supported him suspected poisoning, as she had been named in her brothers will as his successor, the nobles asked Isabella to take his place as champion of the rebellion. However, support for the rebels had begun to wane, the question of Isabellas marriage was not a new one. Indeed, she had made her debut in the market at the tender age of six, with a betrothal to Ferdinand. At that time, the two kings, Henry and John, were eager to show their love and confidence
20.
Tilman Riemenschneider
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Tilman Riemenschneider was a German sculptor and woodcarver active in Würzburg from 1483. He was one of the most prolific and versatile sculptors of the period between late Gothic and Renaissance, a master in stone and limewood. Tilman Riemenschneider was born around the year 1460 at Heiligenstadt im Eichsfeld in present-day Thuringia, when Riemenschneider was about five years old, his father was involved in a violent political conflict, the Mainzer Stiftsfehde, so the family had to leave Heiligenstadt and all their possessions. They resettled in Osterode, where his father became Master of the Mint, Riemenschneider likely came to Würzburg for the first time at the age of 18 in 1478/9. His uncle served as notary and financial advisor to the bishop there, around 1473, Riemenschneider learned the trade of sculpting and woodcarving, likely in Swabia or the Upper Rhine — possibly in Strasbourg and/or Ulm. At that time, the statutes of the guild of sculptors required that a travel to many different workshops to gain experience. Very little is known about this period of his life, but he came in contact with the work of Martin Schongauer. In 1483, he settled in Würzburg, on 7 December 1483, he joined the Saint Lukes Guild of painters, sculptors, and glass workers as a painters assistant. On 28 February 1485, he married Anna Schmidt, a widow of a goldsmith with three sons. This marriage not only brought him property, but it meant that he could end his apprenticeship. Also in 1485, Riemenschneider became a citizen of Würzburg, which made it possible to attain the status of master craftsman and his earliest confirmed work is the gravestone of Eberhard von Grumbach in the Pfarrkirche at Rimpar. This may be the type of work he started out with before obtaining large church commissions and he started to receive numerous orders from the town councils of Würzburg and neighboring towns. In 1490, the council of Münnerstadt ordered an altarpiece for the altar of St Maria Magdalena, the parish church. In 1491, the council of Würzburg ordered two life-sized stone figures of Adam and Eve for the south portal of the councils church. In 1494, Riemenschneiders first wife died, leaving him with three stepsons and a daughter, in keeping with the times and his status, he remarried in 1497, Anna Rappolt. She bore him two daughters and three sons, all of whom seem to have inherited their fathers artistic talent, in 1495, he created the statue of Mary with child. More high-profile work followed, In 1496 Riemenschneider received the order to carve the tomb of Prince-Bishop Rudolf von Scherenberg at Würzburg Cathedral and it was delivered in 1499, the same year in which an order arrived for the Imperial tomb at Bamberg Cathedral. By 1500, he had developed a reputation as an artist and had become a wealthy Würzburg citizen
21.
Andrea del Verrocchio
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Andrea del Verrocchio, born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de Cioni, was an Italian painter, sculptor, and goldsmith who was a master of an important workshop in Florence. He became known by his nickname Verrocchio, from vero occhio, which in Italian means true eye, few paintings are attributed to him with certainty, but a number of important painters were trained at his workshop. His pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi and his greatest importance was as a sculptor and his last work, the Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, is generally accepted as a masterpiece. Verrocchio was born in Florence in around 1435 and his father, Michele di Francesco Cioni, initially worked as a tile and brick maker, then later as a tax collector. Verrocchio never married, and had to provide support for some members of his family. He was at first apprenticed to a goldsmith and it has been suggested that he was later apprenticed to Donatello, but there is no evidence of this and John Pope-Hennessy considered that it is contradicted by the style of his early works. It has been suggested that he was trained as a painter under Fra Filippo Lippi, little is known about his life. His main works are dated in his last twenty years and his advancement owed much to the patronage of Lorenzo de Medici and his workshop was in Florence where he was a member of the Guild of St Luke. At the end of his life he opened a new workshop in Venice where he was working on the statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni and he died in Venice in 1488. Despite the importance of Verrocchios workshop in the training of younger painters, very few paintings are universally recognised as his own work, a painting of the Madonna with seated child in tempera on panel is considered an early work of 1468-70. It is a work which has formerly been attributed to Pollaiuolo. Covi thinks that it was painted with assistance from Ghirlandaio. It is now in London at the National Gallery, the Baptism of Christ, now in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, was painted in 1474–75. In this work Verrocchio was assisted by Leonardo da Vinci, then a youth and a member of his workshop, who painted the angel on the left and the part of the background above. According to Vasari, Andrea resolved never to touch the brush again because Leonardo, his pupil, had far surpassed him, the Madonna enthroned with John the Baptist and St Donato is in the Pistoia Cathedral. It had been left unfinished and was completed by Lorenzo di Credi when Verrocchio was in Venice near the end of his life, around 1465 he is believed to have worked on the lavabo of the Old Sacristy in San Lorenzo, Florence. He therefore had the problem of placing two statues in a tabernacle originally intended for one, as Covi says, the problem was resolved in a most felicitous manner. The work was placed in position in 1483 and has been acclaimed since the day of its unveiling, in 1468 Verrocchio made a bronze candlestick, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, for the Signoria of Florence
22.
Alessandro Leopardi
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Alessandro Leopardi was a Venetian sculptor, bronze founder and architect. Leopardi was born and died in Venice and he is first heard of in 1482 and is said to have worked at the mint. In 1479 he submitted a model for the competition initiated by the Signoria in Venice to find a sculptor for a monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni. Three sculptors submitted models including Andrea Verrocchio to whom the contract was awarded, verocchio, having made the clay model in Venice, had died in 1488, before it had been cast in bronze. His name is inscribed on the horses girth, ALEXANDER, V. P. OPUS, so that early authorities thought that the work was entirely his. The work is admired, though John Pope-Hennessy thought that, if Verrrochio had finished it himself. Leopardi worked between 1503 and 1505 on the chapel of Cardinal Zeno at St. Marks, which was finished by 1515 by Antonio Lombardo and Tullio Lombardo. In 1505 he designed and cast the bronze bases, decorated in high relief, each base is different and that in the centre has on a medallion a profile of the doge, Leonardo Loredan. Later, he was engaged on the new church of Santa Giustina in Padua, after the disastrous fire at the Rialto in January 1514 he was one of the four architects who submitted models for the rebuilding of the area, but the contract was given to Scarpagnino. Pope-Hennessy, John, Italian Renaissance Sculpture Alessandro Leopardi in Enciclopedie on line bei treccani. it
23.
Venice
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Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and these are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, the lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a World Heritage Site. In 2014,264,579 people resided in Comune di Venezia, together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, with a total population of 2.6 million. PATREVE is a metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC, the city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the La Dominante, Serenissima, Queen of the Adriatic, City of Water, City of Masks, City of Bridges, The Floating City, and City of Canals. The City State of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center which gradually emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century and this made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period, Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi. Venice has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world as of 2016, the name Venetia, however, derives from the Roman name for the people known as the Veneti, and called by the Greeks Eneti. The meaning of the word is uncertain, although there are other Indo-European tribes with similar-sounding names, such as the Celtic Veneti, Baltic Veneti, and the Slavic Wends. Linguists suggest that the name is based on an Indo-European root *wen, so that *wenetoi would mean beloved, lovable, a connection with the Latin word venetus, meaning the color sea-blue, is also possible. The alternative obsolete form is Vinegia, some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen on the islands in the original marshy lagoons. They were referred to as incolae lacunae, the traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto — said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421. Beginning as early as AD166 to 168, the Quadi and Marcomanni destroyed the center in the area. The Roman defences were again overthrown in the early 5th century by the Visigoths and, some 50 years later, New ports were built, including those at Malamocco and Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The tribuni maiores, the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the Lagoon, the traditional first doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was actually Exarch Paul, and his successor, Marcello Tegalliano, was Pauls magister militum. In 726 the soldiers and citizens of the Exarchate rose in a rebellion over the controversy at the urging of Pope Gregory II
24.
Michelangelo
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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered to be the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since described as one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of Michelangelos works of painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence and he sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty. As an architect, Michelangelo pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library, at the age of 74, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peters Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan so that the end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification. Michelangelo was unique as the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive, in his lifetime he was often called Il Divino. One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, the attempts by subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelos impassioned and highly personal style resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance. Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, at the time of Michelangelos birth, his father was the Judicial administrator of the small town of Caprese and local administrator of Chiusi. Michelangelos mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena, the Buonarrotis claimed to descend from the Countess Mathilde of Canossa, this claim remains unproven, but Michelangelo himself believed it. Several months after Michelangelos birth, the returned to Florence. There Michelangelo gained his love for marble, as Giorgio Vasari quotes him, If there is good in me. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, as a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches, the city of Florence was at that time the greatest centre of the arts and learning in Italy. Art was sponsored by the Signoria, by the merchant guilds and by patrons such as the Medici. The Renaissance, a renewal of Classical scholarship and the arts, had its first flowering in Florence, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti had laboured for fifty years to create the bronze doors of the Baptistry, which Michelangelo was to describe as The Gates of Paradise. The exterior niches of the Church of Orsanmichele contained a gallery of works by the most acclaimed sculptors of Florence – Donatello, Ghiberti, Andrea del Verrocchio, and Nanni di Banco. The interiors of the churches were covered with frescos, begun by Giotto. During Michelangelos childhood, a team of painters had been called from Florence to the Vatican, among them was Domenico Ghirlandaio, a master in fresco painting, perspective, figure drawing, and portraiture who had the largest workshop in Florence at that period
25.
St. Peter's Basilica
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The Papal Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican, or simply St. Peters Basilica, is an Italian Renaissance church in Vatican City, the papal enclave within the city of Rome. While it is neither the church of the Catholic Church nor the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome. It has been described as holding a position in the Christian world. Catholic tradition holds that the Basilica is the site of Saint Peter, one of Christs Apostles. Saint Peters tomb is supposedly directly below the altar of the Basilica. For this reason, many Popes have been interred at St. Peters since the Early Christian period, construction of the present basilica, which would replace Old St. Peters Basilica from the 4th century AD, began on 18 April 1506 and was completed on 18 November 1626. St. Peters is famous as a place of pilgrimage and for its liturgical functions. The Pope presides at a number of liturgies throughout the year, drawing audiences of 15,000 to over 80,000 people, either within the Basilica or the adjoining St. Peters Square. St. Peters has many associations, with the Early Christian Church, the Papacy. As a work of architecture, it is regarded as the greatest building of its age, St. Peters is one of the four churches in the world that hold the rank of Major Basilica, all four of which are in Rome. Contrary to popular misconception, it is not a cathedral because it is not the seat of a bishop, St. Peters is a church built in the Renaissance style located in the Vatican City west of the River Tiber and near the Janiculum Hill and Hadrians Mausoleum. Its central dome dominates the skyline of Rome, the basilica is approached via St. Peters Square, a forecourt in two sections, both surrounded by tall colonnades. The first space is oval and the second trapezoid, the basilica is cruciform in shape, with an elongated nave in the Latin cross form but the early designs were for a centrally planned structure and this is still in evidence in the architecture. The central space is dominated both externally and internally by one of the largest domes in the world, the entrance is through a narthex, or entrance hall, which stretches across the building. One of the bronze doors leading from the narthex is the Holy Door. The interior is of vast dimensions when compared with other churches and this in its turn overwhelms us. The nave which leads to the dome is in three bays, with piers supporting a barrel-vault, the highest of any church. The nave is framed by wide aisles which have a number of chapels off them, there are also chapels surrounding the dome
26.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
27.
Carrara
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Carrara is a city and comune in the Province of Massa and Carrara, notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some 100 kilometres west-northwest of Florence and its motto is Fortitudo mea in rota. There were known settlements in the area as early as the 9th century BC, the current town originated from the borough built to house workers in the marble quarries created by the Romans after their conquest of Liguria in the early 2nd century BC. Carrara has been linked with the process of quarrying and carving marble since the Roman Age, Marble was exported from the nearby harbour of Luni at the mouth of river Magra. The Bishops acquired it again in 1230, their ending in 1313. Later it was acquired by Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan, Carrara and Massa formed the Duchy of Massa and Carrara from the 15th to the 19th century. Under the last Malaspina, Maria Teresa, who had married Ercole III dEste, after the short Napoleonic rule of Elisa Bonaparte, it was given back to Modena. During the unification of Italy age, Carrara was the seat of a revolt led by Domenico Cucchiari. At the end of the 19th century Carrara became the cradle of anarchism in Italy, the quarry workers, including the stone carvers, had radical beliefs that set them apart from others. Ideas from outside the city began to influence the Carrarese, anarchism and general radicalism became part of the heritage of the stone carvers. According to a New York Times article of 1894 many violent revolutionists who had expelled from Belgium and Switzerland went to Carrara in 1885. Carrara has remained a hotbed of anarchism in Italy, with several organizations located openly in the city. The Anarchist marble workers were also the force behind organising labour in the quarries. They were also the protagonists of the Lunigiana revolt in January 1894. In 1929, the municipalities of Carrara, Massa and Montignoso were merged in a single municipality, in 1945 the previous situation was restored. Carrara is the birthplace of the International Federation of Anarchists, formed in 1968, as a titular Duke of Modena, the current holder of the title of Prince of Carrara would be Prince Lorenz of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este. Ducal Palace, now the seat of the Fine Arts Academy, built over pre-existing Lombard fortification, it dates to the reign of Guglielmo Malaspina, becoming in 1448 the permanent seat of the dynasty. It includes two distinct edifices, the Castello Malaspiniano, dating to the 13th century, and the Renaissance palace, under the medieval loggia are exposed several ancient Roman findings
28.
Domenico Ghirlandaio
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Domenico Ghirlandaio was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Florence. Ghirlandaio was part of the third generation of the Florentine Renaissance, along with Verrocchio. Many apprentices passed through Ghirlandaios workshop, including the famous Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio was born Domenico di Tommaso di Currado di Doffo Bigordi. Tommaso had two children by his second wife, also named Antonia, whom he married in 1464. Domenicos half-sister Alessandra married the painter Bastiano Mainardi in 1494, both Ghirlandaios father and his uncle, Antonio, were setaiuolo a minuto. Giorgio Vasari reported that Domenico was at first apprenticed to his father, the nickname Il Ghirlandaio came to Domenico from his father, who was famed for creating the metallic garland-like headdresses worn by Florentine women. He was eventually apprenticed to Alesso Baldovinetti to study painting and mosaic, according to the art historian Günter Passavent, he was apprenticed in Florence to Andrea del Verrocchio. He maintained an association with other Florentine painters including Botticelli. Ghirlandaio excelled in the painting of frescos and it is for his fresco cycles that he is best known, an early commission came to him in the 1470s from the Commune of San Gimignano to decorate the Chapel of Santa Fina in the Collegiate Church of that city. The frescos, executed from 1477 to 1478, depict two miraculous events associated with the death of Saint Fina, in 1480, Ghirlandaio painted St. Jerome in His Study as a companion piece to Saint Augustine in His Study by Botticelli in the Church of Ognissanti, Florence. He also painted a life-sized Last Supper in its refectory, from 1481 to 1485, he was employed on frescoes at the Palazzo Vecchio, painting among other works an Apotheosis of St. Ghirlandaio painted the Vocation of the Apostles. He also painted the now lost Resurrection of Christ, the Crossing of the Red Sea has also been attributed to him, but is consistent with the style of Cosimo Roselli who was also part of the commission. Ghirlandaio is known to have created works in Rome, now lost. The first of these paintings contains portraits of Lorenzo de Medici, Sassetti and Lorenzos children with their tutor, the Resuscitation shows the painters own likeness. In 1483, there arrived in Florence a masterpiece of the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes, now known as the Portinari Altarpiece, it was an Adoration of the Shepherds, commissioned by Tommaso Portinari, an employee of the Medici Bank. The painting was in oil paint, not the tempera employed in Florence, the aspect of the painting that had a profound effect on Ghirlandaio was the naturalism with which the shepherds were depicted. Ghirlandaio painted the altarpiece of the Sassetti chapel, an Adoration of the Shepherds and it is in this painting that he particularly shows his indebtedness to the Portinari Altarpiece. The shepherds, among whom is a portrait of the artist himself, are portrayed with a realism that was an advance in Florentine painting at that time, the altarpiece is still in position in Santa Trinita, surrounded by the frescos of which it was the centrepiece
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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
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Tornabuoni Chapel
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The Tornabuoni Chapel is the main chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy. It is famous for the extensive and well-preserved fresco cycle on its walls, one of the most complete in the city, the main chapel of Santa Maria Novella was first frescoed in the mid-14th century by Andrea Orcagna. Remains of these paintings were found during restorations in the 1940s, some of these were detached and can be seen today in the Museum of the church. By the late 15th century, Orcagnas frescoes were in poor condition, however, the Ricci had never recovered from their bankruptcy in 1348, and so they arranged to sell their rights to the choir to the Sassetti. Francesco Sassetti wanted the new frescoes to portray stories of St. Francis of Assisi, however, Sassetti therefore moved the commission to the church of Santa Trinita, where Ghirlandaio executed one of his masterworks, the Sassetti Chapel. The rights to the chapel in Santa Maria Novella that were lost by the Sassetti were then sold by the Ricci to Giovanni Tornabuoni, John the Baptist, patron of Tornabuoni and of the city of Florence. It is possible that the new scenes followed the pattern as Orcagnas. The windows were executed according to Ghirlandaios design. The complex was completed by an altarpiece portraying the Madonna del Latte in Glory with Angel and Saints, on the recto a Resurrection of Christ was painted. This work is now divided between the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin and the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. The cycle portrays on three walls the Life of the Virgin and the Life of St John the Baptist, the saint of Florence. The left and right walls each have three rows, each divided into two rectangular scenes framed by fictive architecture, and surmounted by a large lunette beneath the vault, each side wall has a total of seven narrative scenes which are read beginning from the bottom. The chancel wall has a mullioned window of three lights with stained glass, provided in 1492 by Alessandro Agolanti after Ghirlandaios design. On the lower part of the wall is a portrait of Giovanni Tornabuoni and his wife Francesca Pitti. Above the window is another large lunette, containing the Coronation of the Virgin, in the vault are depicted the Four Evangelists. The first episode represents the expulsion of Joachim, the father of Mary, a ceremony is taking place in which several figures are carrying lambs for sacrifice. However, Joachim was banned from attending due to his alleged sterility, Ghirlandaio set the scene in a sumptuous loggia of Greek cross plan, with a sequence of arches in the background and an octagonal altar in the middle, where the sacrificial fire is lit. The characters are illuminated from above, as if by the lighting from the real chapel windows
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Santa Maria Novella
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Santa Maria Novella is a church in Florence, Italy, situated just across from the main railway station named after it. Chronologically, it is the first great basilica in Florence, and is the citys principal Dominican church, the church, the adjoining cloister, and chapter house contain a multiplicity of art treasures and funerary monuments. Especially famous are frescoes by masters of Gothic and early Renaissance and they were financed by the most important Florentine families, who ensured themselves funerary chapels on consecrated ground. This church was called Novella because it was built on the site of the 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria delle Vigne, when the site was assigned to Dominican Order in 1221, they decided to build a new church and adjoining cloister. The church was designed by two Dominican friars, Fra Sisto Fiorentino and Fra Ristoro da Campi, building began in the mid-13th century, and was finished about 1360 under the supervision of Friar Iacopo Talenti with the completion of the Romanesque-Gothic bell tower and sacristy. At that time, only the part of the Tuscan gothic façade was finished. This same design continues in the wall around the old churchyard. The church was consecrated in 1420, alberti had also designed the façade for the Rucellai Palace in Florence. The four columns with Corinthian capitals on the part of the façade were also added. The pediment and the frieze are clearly inspired by antiquity, but the S-curved scrolls in the part are new. The scrolls, found in all over Italy, all draw their origins from the design of this church. The frieze below the pediment carries the name of the patron, the vast interior is based on a basilica plan, designed as a Latin cross, and is divided into a nave, two aisles with stained-glass windows and a short transept. The large nave is 100 metres long and gives an impression of austerity, there is a trompe loeil effect by which towards the apse the nave seems longer than its actual length. The slender compound piers between the nave and the aisles are progressively closer the deeper the observer moves into the nave, the ceiling in the vault consists of pointed arches with the four diagonal buttresses in black and white. The interior also contains Corinthian columns that were inspired by Greek, the stained-glass windows date from the 14th and 15th century, such as 15th century Madonna and Child and St. John and St. Philip, both in the Filippo Strozzi Chapel. Some stained glass windows have been damaged in the course of centuries and have been replaced, the one on the façade, a depiction of the Coronation of Mary, dates from the 14th century, and is based on a design of Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze. The pulpit, commissioned by the Rucellai family in 1443, was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi and this pulpit has a particular historical significance, since it was from this pulpit that the first verbal attack was made on Galileo Galilei, leading eventually to his indictment. The Holy Trinity, situated almost halfway along the aisle, is a pioneering early Renaissance work of Masaccio, showing his new ideas about perspective
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Florence
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Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants, Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, from 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Historic Centre of Florence attracts 13 million tourists each year and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, the city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florences artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe, the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as the Italian language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War and they similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European historys most important noble families, Lorenzo de Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, catherine de Medici married king Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future king Louis XIII, the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The Etruscans initially formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole and it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to again and commerce prospered
33.
Lady with an Ermine
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Lady with an Ermine is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci from around 1489–1490. The subject of the portrait is Cecilia Gallerani, painted at a time when she was the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Leonardo was in the service of the duke. The painting is one of four portraits of women painted by Leonardo, the others being the Mona Lisa, the portrait of Ginevra de Benci. The small portrait generally called The Lady with the Ermine was painted in oils on wooden panel, at the time of its painting, the medium of oil paint was relatively new to Italy, having been introduced in the 1470s. The subject has been identified with certainty as Cecilia Gallerani. Cecilia Gallerani was a member of a family that was neither wealthy nor noble. Her father served for a time at the Dukes court, at the time her portrait was painted, she was about 16 years old and was renowned for her beauty, her scholarship, and her poetry. She was married at age six to a young nobleman of the house of Visconti, but she sued to annul the marriage in 1487 for undisclosed reasons. Cecilia became the mistress of the Duke and bore him a son, even after his marriage to another woman 11 years previously, Beatrice was promised to the Duke when she was only 5, and married him when she was 16 in 1491. After a few months, she discovered the Duke was still seeing Cecilla, the painting shows a half-length figure, the body of a woman turned at a three-quarter angle toward her right, but her face turned toward her left. Her gaze is directed neither straight ahead, nor toward the viewer, in her arms, Gallerani holds a small white-coated stoat, known as an ermine. Galleranis dress is comparatively simple, revealing that she is not a noblewoman and her coiffure, known as a coazone, confines her hair smoothly to her head with two bands of hair bound on either side of her face and a long plait at the back. Her hair is held in place by a gauze veil with a woven border of gold-wound threads, a black band. There are several interpretations of the significance of the ermine in her portrait, the ermine, a stoat in its winter coat, was a traditional symbol of purity because it was believed an ermine would face death rather than soil its white coat. He repeats this idea in another note, Moderation curbs all the vices, the ermine prefers to die rather than soil itself. Ermines were kept as pets by the aristocracy and their pelts were used to line or trim aristocratic garments. For Ludovico il Moro, the ermine had a personal significance in that he had been in the Order of the Ermine in 1488. The association of the ermine with Cecilia Gallerani could have intended to refer both to her purity and to make an association with her lover
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Portrait of a Musician
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Portrait of a Musician is an oil on wood painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci by some scholars. It was probably painted in 1490, the man in the painting was at one time thought to be Franchino Gaffurio, who was the maestro di cappella of the Milanese Cathedral. Although some believe it to be a portrait of Gaffurio, others think the man is anonymous, the piece of paper he holds is at least one part of a musical score, it has notes written on it. The painting was restored and repainted, and Leonardo probably left the portrait unfinished. The man is positioned in a position and he is holding a partition sheet. The musician stares at something outside the field of vision. Compared to the face of the musician, the red hat, his tunic. Art historians have recognized the fine art of da Vinci in the mans face, though the partition sheet. Siegfried Woldhek, a Dutch illustrator, has claimed that Portrait of a Musician is one of three self-portraits by Leonardo, Leonardo da Vincis Portrait of a Musician Leonardo da Vincis self-portrait
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Giovanni Bellini
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Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini and he is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it towards a more sensuous and colouristic style. Through the use of clear, slow-drying oil paints, Giovanni created deep, rich tints and his sumptuous coloring and fluent, atmospheric landscapes had a great effect on the Venetian painting school, especially on his pupils Giorgione and Titian. Giovanni Bellini was born in Venice and he was brought up in his fathers house, and always lived and worked in the closest fraternal relation with his brother Gentile. Up until the age of nearly thirty we find in his work a depth of religious feeling and his paintings from the early period are all executed in the old tempera method, the scene is softened by a new and beautiful effect of romantic sunrise color. Giovannis early works have often been linked both compositionally and stylistically to those of his brother-in-law, Andrea Mantegna, none of the masters works of this kind, whether painted for the various schools or confraternities or for the ducal palace, have survived. As is the case with a number of his brother, Gentiles public works of the period, the still more famous altar-piece painted in tempera for a chapel in the church of S. Giovanni e Paolo, where it perished along with Titians Peter Martyr, after 1479–1480 much of Giovannis time and energy must also have been taken up by his duties as conservator of the paintings in the great hall of the Doges Palace. Of the other, the class of his work, including both altar-pieces with many figures and simple Madonnas, a considerable number have fortunately been preserved. The old intensity of pathetic and devout feeling gradually fades away and gives place to a noble, if more worldly, serenity, the full splendour of Venetian color invests alike the figures, their architectural framework, the landscape and the sky. An interval of years, no doubt chiefly occupied with work in the Hall of the Great Council, seems to separate the San Giobbe Altarpiece. Formally, the works are similar, so a comparison between serves to illustrate the shift in Bellinis work over the last decade of the 15th century. Both pictures are of the Holy Conversation type, both show the Madonna seated on a throne, between classicizing columns. Both place the holy figures beneath a golden mosaicked half dome that recalls the Byzantine architecture in the basilica of St. Mark. Stylistically, the lighting in the San Zaccaria piece has become so soft, Giovannis use of the oil medium had matured, and the holy figures seem to be swathed in a still, rarefied air. The San Zaccaria is considered perhaps the most beautiful and imposing of all Giovannis altarpieces, and is dated 1505, the last ten or twelve years of the masters life saw him besieged with more commissions than he could well complete. In 1505 she endeavoured through Cardinal Bembo to obtain from him another picture, what the subject of this piece was, or whether it was actually delivered, we do not know. In 1513 Giovannis position as master in charge of the paintings in the Hall of the Great Council was threatened by one of his former pupils
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Gerard David
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Gerard David was an Early Netherlandish painter and manuscript illuminator known for his brilliant use of color. Only a bare outline of his survives, although some facts are known. He may have been the Meester gheraet van brugghe who became a master of the Antwerp guild in 1515 and he was very successful in his lifetime and probably ran two workshops, in Antwerp and Bruges. His reputation diminished in the 17th century until he was rediscovered in the 19th century and he was born in Oudewater, now located in the province of Utrecht. His year of birth is approximated as c.1460 on the basis that he looks to be around 50 years in the 1509 self-portrait found in his Virgin among the Virgins and he spent his mature career in Bruges, where he was a member of the painters guild. Upon the death of Hans Memling in 1494, David became Bruges leading painter and he moved to Bruges in 1483, presumably from Haarlem, where he had formed his early style under Albert van Oudewater, and joined the Guild of Saint Luke at Bruges in 1484. He became dean of the guild in 1501, and in 1496 married Cornelia Cnoop, David was one of the towns leading citizens. Ambrosius Benson served his apprenticeship with David, but they came into dispute around 1519 over a number of paintings and drawings Benson had collected from other artists, because of a large debt owed to him by Benson, David had refused to return the material. Benson pursued the matter legally and won, leading to David serving time in prison and he died on 13 August 1523 and was buried in the Church of Our Lady at Bruges. Davids surviving work consists of religious scenes. They are characterised by an atmospheric, timeless, and almost dream like serenity, achieved through soft, warm and subtle colourisation and he is innovative in his recasting of traditional themes and in his approach to landscape, which was then only an emerging genre in northern European painting. His ability with landscape can be seen in the foliage of his Triptych of the Baptism. In his early work David followed Haarlem artists such as Dirk Bouts, Albert van Oudewater and Geertgen tot Sint Jans, to this early period belong the St John of the Richard von Kaufmann collection in Berlin and the Saltings St Jerome. In Bruges came directly under the influence of Memling, the master whom he followed most closely and it was from him that David acquired a solemnity of treatment, greater realism in the rendering of human form, and an orderly arrangement of figures. He visited Antwerp in 1515 and was impressed with the work of Quentin Matsys, who had introduced a greater vitality and intimacy in the conception of sacred themes. Only a few of his works have remained in Bruges, The Judgment of Cambyses, The Flaying of Sisamnes and the Baptism of Christ in the Groeningemuseum, even in his best work he had only given newer variations of the art of his predecessors and contemporaries. His rank among the masters was renewed, however, when a number of his paintings were assembled at the seminal 1902 Gruuthusemuseum, several of his drawings also survive, and elements from these appear in the works of other painters and illuminators for several decades after his death. At the time of Davids death, the glory of Bruges and its painters was on the wane, of Davids pupils in Bruges, only Isenbrant, Albert Cornelis and Ambrosius Benson achieved importance
37.
Triptych of the Sedano family
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Triptych of the Sedano family is an oil-on-panel triptych altarpiece by the Early Nethlandish painter Gerard David, usually dated between 1490 and 1498, probably c. It is noted for its framing and for its rendering of the decorative oriental carpet seen at Marys feet. The work, commissioned by the Castilian merchant Jean de Sedano, features the Virgin, each wing shows a donor kneeling in prayer accompanied by a saint, John the Baptist is seen to the left, John the Evangelist to the right. The panels are unified by the background landscape of green fields. When the wings are closed, the exterior shows Adam and Eve, specifically, the figures are painted in a manner similar to Jan van Eycks work, while the overall design and composition seem derived from Hans Memling. Maryan Ainsworth of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sees this as a decision of the artits to align. In 1503, de Sedano joined the Confraternity of the Holy Blood, the donor appears kneeling in prayer in the left wing, being blessed by John the Baptist, with his young son by his side. His much younger wife is shown in the panel, presented to the Virgin by John the Evangelist. In the year he joined the Confraternity, de Sedano commissioned David to produce a painting of the Marriage at Cana, the triptych was purchased by the Louvre in 1890. Implications of Revised Attributions in Netherlandish Painting, Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol.27,1992 Van Der Elst, Baron. The Last Flowering of the Middle Ages, ISBN 1-4191-3806-5 Ainsworth, Maryan W. Gerard David, purity of vision in an age of transition. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Louvre page The Louvres image of the exterior
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Holy Allegory
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The Holy Allegory is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, dating from c.1490 to 1500. It is in the Uffizi gallery in Florence, Italy, there is no documentation about the commission and the original location of the work, which is known to have been part of the Austrian Imperial collections in Vienna in the 18th century. In 1793 the director of the Uffizi, Luigi Lanzi, exchanged it with work in order to improve the Venetian Renaissance presence in the museum. At the time, it was attributed to Giorgione, the Italian art historian Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle was the first to identify it as a Bellini. Today his attribution is widely recognized, although another name mentioned is that of Marco Basaiti. The scene is set on a terrace with a polychrome marble pavement, in perspective. On the left Mary is enthroned, under a baldachin whose support is in cornucopia shape, the baldachin has four steps, and on its side is a frieze with scenes of the myth of Marsyas, interpreted as a parallel with Jesus Passion. Near to Mary are two unidentified female figures, which could represent two saints or two virtues, one of them looks to be floating in the air, although the effect could stem from a loss of color near her legs and feet. In the middle of the scene are four children playing with a tree and its silver fruits, perhaps a symbol of the knowledge tree. On the right are Job and St. Sebastian, outside the parapet, are St. Joseph and St. Paul, the latter with his attribute of a sword. He is advancing to the left, where a man with a turban perhaps symbolizes an infidel, in the background, beyond a large lake, is a landscape with rocky spurs with men and animals. On the shores are a shepherd in a grotto, and a centaur, the exact meaning of the painting had not been yet completely understood, although several hypotheses have been made by art historians. What is sure is that the painting was made for a refined élite, in the early 20th century, Ludwig interpreted it as a pictoral transcription of the early 14th French poem Le Pèlerinage de lÂme, by Guillaume de Deguileville. According to him, the painting represents the path of purification of the soul. The terrace would represent the Paradise Garden, where the souls in Purgatory, symbolized by the children, Mary, advocate of the men before God, judges the souls with the help of the crowned Justice coronata. Amongst the children, who are playing with the mystic fruits, the two saints standing on the left would be the patrons, perhaps connected to the works commissioners, while the two behind the parapet would be Peter and Paul, who guard the gate of Paradise. The river in the background would be Lethe, which surrounds Paradise, the animals would represent the hermits virtue, the mule for the patience, and the sheep for humility. According to other scholars, the painting would represent a common holy conversation or a vision of the Paradise, some see Jesus in the children on the cushion, giving to the work the meaning of a meditation about incarnation and redemption
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