1.
Palazzo Pitti
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The Palazzo Pitti, in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the side of the River Arno. The core of the present palazzo dates from 1458 and was originally the residence of Luca Pitti. The palace was bought by the Medici family in 1549 and became the residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It grew as a treasure house as later generations amassed paintings, plates, jewelry. In the late 18th century, the palazzo was used as a base by Napoleon. The palace and its contents were donated to the Italian people by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1919, the palazzo is now the largest museum complex in Florence. The principal palazzo block, often in a building of design known as the corps de logis, is 32,000 square metres. It is divided into several principal galleries or museums detailed below, the construction of this severe and forbidding building was commissioned in 1458 by the Florentine banker Luca Pitti, a principal supporter and friend of Cosimo de Medici. The early history of the Palazzo Pitti is a mixture of fact, Pitti is alleged to have instructed that the windows be larger than the entrance of the Palazzo Medici. Besides obvious differences from the architects style, Brunelleschi died 12 years before construction of the palazzo began. The design and fenestration suggest that the architect was more experienced in utilitarian domestic architecture than in the humanist rules defined by Alberti in his book De Re Aedificatoria. Though impressive, the original palazzo would have no rival to the Florentine Medici residences in terms of either size or content. Whoever the architect of the Palazzo Pitti was, he was moving against the flow of fashion. The rusticated stonework gives the palazzo a severe and powerful atmosphere, reinforced by the series of seven arch-headed apertures. The Roman-style architecture appealed to the Florentine love of the new style allantica, work stopped after Pitti suffered financial losses following the death of Cosimo de Medici in 1464. Luca Pitti died in 1472 with the building unfinished, the building was sold in 1549 by Buonaccorso Pitti, a descendant of Luca Pitti, to Eleonora di Toledo. Raised at the court of Naples, Eleonora was the wife of Cosimo I de Medici of Tuscany
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
4.
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
5.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
6.
Pitti Palace
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The Palazzo Pitti, in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the side of the River Arno. The core of the present palazzo dates from 1458 and was originally the residence of Luca Pitti. The palace was bought by the Medici family in 1549 and became the residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It grew as a treasure house as later generations amassed paintings, plates, jewelry. In the late 18th century, the palazzo was used as a base by Napoleon. The palace and its contents were donated to the Italian people by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1919, the palazzo is now the largest museum complex in Florence. The principal palazzo block, often in a building of design known as the corps de logis, is 32,000 square metres. It is divided into several principal galleries or museums detailed below, the construction of this severe and forbidding building was commissioned in 1458 by the Florentine banker Luca Pitti, a principal supporter and friend of Cosimo de Medici. The early history of the Palazzo Pitti is a mixture of fact, Pitti is alleged to have instructed that the windows be larger than the entrance of the Palazzo Medici. Besides obvious differences from the architects style, Brunelleschi died 12 years before construction of the palazzo began. The design and fenestration suggest that the architect was more experienced in utilitarian domestic architecture than in the humanist rules defined by Alberti in his book De Re Aedificatoria. Though impressive, the original palazzo would have no rival to the Florentine Medici residences in terms of either size or content. Whoever the architect of the Palazzo Pitti was, he was moving against the flow of fashion. The rusticated stonework gives the palazzo a severe and powerful atmosphere, reinforced by the series of seven arch-headed apertures. The Roman-style architecture appealed to the Florentine love of the new style allantica, work stopped after Pitti suffered financial losses following the death of Cosimo de Medici in 1464. Luca Pitti died in 1472 with the building unfinished, the building was sold in 1549 by Buonaccorso Pitti, a descendant of Luca Pitti, to Eleonora di Toledo. Raised at the court of Naples, Eleonora was the wife of Cosimo I de Medici of Tuscany
7.
House of Medici
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The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside, gradually rising until they were able to fund the Medici Bank. The bank was the largest in Europe during the 15th century, the Medici produced three Popes of the Catholic Church—Pope Leo X, Pope Clement VII, and Pope Leo XI, two regent queens of France—Catherine de Medici and Marie de Medici. In 1531, the family became hereditary Dukes of Florence, in 1569, the duchy was elevated to a grand duchy after territorial expansion. They ruled the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from its inception until 1737, the grand duchy witnessed degrees of economic growth under the earlier grand dukes, but by the time of Cosimo III de Medici, Tuscany was fiscally bankrupt. Their wealth and influence initially derived from the textile trade guided by the guild of the Arte della Lana. They, along with families of Italy—such as the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, the Este of Ferrara. The Medici Bank was one of the most prosperous and most respected institutions in Europe, there are some estimates that the Medici family were the wealthiest family in Europe for a time. From this base, they acquired political power initially in Florence and later in wider Italy, a notable contribution to the profession of accounting was the improvement of the general ledger system through the development of the double-entry bookkeeping system for tracking credits and debits. The Medici family were among the earliest businesses to use the system, the Medici family came from the agricultural Mugello region, north of Florence, being mentioned for the first time in a document of 1230. The origin of the name is uncertain, Medici is the plural of medico, also written del medico or delmedigo, meaning, medical doctor. It has been suggested that the derived from one Medico di Potrone, a castellan of Potrone in the late 11th century. The dynasty began with the founding of the Medici Bank, until the late 14th century, prior to the Medici, the leading family of Florence was the House of Albizzi. In 1293 the Ordinances of Justice were enacted, which became the constitution of the republic of Florence throughout the Italian Renaissance. The citys numerous luxurious palazzi were becoming surrounded by townhouses, built by the ever prospering merchant class. In 1298, one of the leading banking families of Europe, the main challengers to the Albizzi family were the Medicis, first under Giovanni de Medici, later under his son Cosimo di Giovanni de Medici and great-grandson, Lorenzo de Medici. The Medici controlled the Medici bank—then Europes largest bank—and an array of other enterprises in Florence, in 1433, the Albizzi managed to have Cosimo exiled. The next year, however, a pro-Medici Signoria was elected, the Medici became the citys leading family, a position they would hold for the next three centuries. Cosimo and Lorenzo rarely held official posts but were the unquestioned leaders, some examples of these families include the Bardi, Salviati, Cavalcanti, and the Tornabuoni
8.
Tuscany
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Tuscany is a region in central Italy with an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. Tuscany is known for its landscapes, traditions, history, artistic legacy, Tuscany produces wines, including Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Morellino di Scansano and Brunello di Montalcino. Having a strong linguistic and cultural identity, it is considered a nation within a nation. Tuscany is traditionally a popular destination in Italy, and the main tourist destinations by number of tourist arrivals are Florence, Pisa, Montecatini Terme, Castiglione della Pescaia and Grosseto. The village of Castiglione della Pescaia is also the most visited destination in the region. Additionally, Siena, Lucca, the Chianti region, Versilia and Val dOrcia are also internationally renowned, Tuscany has over 120 protected nature reserves, making Tuscany and its capital Florence popular tourist destinations that attract millions of tourists every year. In 2012, the city of Florence was the worlds 89th most visited city, roughly triangular in shape, Tuscany borders the regions of Liguria to the northwest, Emilia-Romagna to the north and east, Umbria to the east and Lazio to the southeast. The comune of Badia Tedalda, in the Tuscan Province of Arezzo, has an exclave named Ca Raffaello within Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany has a western coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea, containing the Tuscan Archipelago, of which the largest island is Elba. Tuscany has an area of approximately 22,993 square kilometres, surrounded and crossed by major mountain chains, and with few plains, the region has a relief that is dominated by hilly country used for agriculture. Hills make up nearly two-thirds of the total area, covering 15,292 square kilometres, and mountains. Plains occupy 8. 4% of the total area—1,930 square kilometres —mostly around the valley of the River Arno, many of Tuscanys largest cities lie on the banks of the Arno, including the capital Florence, Empoli and Pisa. The pre-Etruscan history of the area in the late Bronze and Iron Ages parallels that of the early Greeks, following this, the Villanovan culture saw Tuscany, and the rest of Etruria, taken over by chiefdoms. City-states developed in the late Villanovan before Orientalization occurred and the Etruscan civilization rose, the Etruscans created the first major civilization in this region, large enough to establish a transport infrastructure, to implement agriculture and mining and to produce vibrant art. The Etruscans lived in Etruria well into prehistory, throughout their existence, they lost territory to Magna Graecia, Carthage and Celts. Despite being seen as distinct in its manners and customs by contemporary Greeks, the cultures of Greece, one reason for its eventual demise was this increasing absorption by surrounding cultures, including the adoption of the Etruscan upper class by the Romans. Soon after absorbing Etruria, Rome established the cities of Lucca, Pisa, Siena, and Florence, endowed the area with new technologies and development, and ensured peace. These developments included extensions of existing roads, introduction of aqueducts and sewers, however, many of these structures have been destroyed by erosion due to weather. The Roman civilization in the West collapsed in the 5th century AD, in the years following 572, the Longobards arrived and designated Lucca the capital of their Duchy of Tuscia
9.
Grotto
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A grotto is a natural or artificial cave used by humans in both modern times and antiquity, and historically or prehistorically. Naturally occurring grottoes are often small caves near water that are usually flooded or liable to flood at high tide, sometimes, artificial grottoes are used as garden features. The Grotta Azzurra at Capri and the grotto at the villa of Tiberius in the Bay of Naples are examples of popular natural seashore grottoes, the word grotto comes from Italian grotta, Vulgar Latin grupta, and Latin crypta. It is also related by an accident to the word grotesque. The rooms had sunk underground over time, the Romans who discovered this historical monument found it very strange, a sentiment enhanced by the fact that it was uncovered from an underworld source. This led the Romans to give it the name grottesche, or grotesque, grottoes were very popular in Greek and Roman culture. Spring-fed grottoes were a feature of Apollos oracles at Delphi, Corinth, the Hellenistic city of Rhodes was designed with rock-cut artificial grottoes incorporated into the city, made to look natural. According to tradition, Praenestes sacred spring had a native nymph, Tiberius, the Roman emperor, filled his grotto with sculptures to create a sense of mythology, perhaps channeling Polyphemus cave in the Odyssey. The numinous quality of the grotto is still more ancient, in a grotto near Knossos in Crete, Eileithyia was venerated, even farther back in time, the immanence of the divine in a grotto is seen in the sacred caves of Lascaux. The popularity of artificial grottoes introduced Mannerist style to Italian and French gardens of the mid-16th century, two famous grottoes in the Boboli Gardens of Palazzo Pitti were begun by Vasari and completed by Ammanati and Buontalenti between 1583 and 1593. One of these grottoes originally housed the Prisoners of Michelangelo, before Boboli grotto, a garden was laid out by Niccolò Tribolo at the Medici Villa Castello, near Florence. At Pratolino, in spite of the dryness of the site, there was a Grotto of Cupid, with water tricks for the unsuspecting visitor. The Fonte di Fata Morgana at Grassina, not far from Florence, is a garden building. It is decorated with sculptures in the Giambolognan manner, the outside of garden grottoes are often designed to look like an enormous rock, a rustic porch or a rocky overhang. Damp grottoes were cool places to retreat from the Italian sun, in Kuskovo at the Sheremetev estate there is a Summer Grotto, built in 1775. Grottoes could also serve as baths, an example of this is at the Palazzo del Te, in the Casino della Grotta, courtiers once bathed in the small cascade that splashed over the pebbles and shells encrusted in the floor and walls. Grottoes have also served as chapels, or at Villa Farnese at Caprarola and they were often combined with cascading fountains in Renaissance gardens. The grotto designed by Bernard Palissy for Catherine de Medicis château in Paris, there are also grottoes in the gardens designed by André Le Nôtre for Versailles
10.
Nympheum
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A nymphaeum or nymphaion, in ancient Greece and Rome, was a monument consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs. These monuments were originally natural grottoes, which tradition assigned as habitations to the local nymphs and they were sometimes so arranged as to furnish a supply of water, as at Pamphylian Side. A nymphaeum dedicated to a water nymph, Coventina, was built along Hadrians Wall. Subsequently, artificial grottoes took the place of natural ones, the nymphaeum in Jerash, Jordan, was constructed in 191 AD. The fountain was originally embellished with marble facing on the level, painted plaster on the upper level. Water cascaded through seven carved lions heads into small basins on the sidewalk, the nymphaea of the Roman period, which extended the sacral use to purely recreational ones, were borrowed from the constructions of the Hellenistic east. The majority of them were rotundas, and were adorned with statues and they served the threefold purpose of sanctuaries, reservoirs and assembly-rooms. A special feature was their use for the celebration of marriages, such nymphaea existed in Corinth, Antioch and Constantinople, the remains of some twenty have been found in Rome and many in Africa. The so-called exedra of Herodes Atticus, the nymphaeum in the palace of Domitian, nymphaea were important in the architectural movement of mosaic from floor to walls and ceiling vaults in the 1st century. Initially they were decorated with geometrical mosaics often incorporating shells. The term nymphaeum was also applied to the fountains of water in the atrium of the Christian basilica, phiale is an equivalent Greek term. A nymphaeum for al fresco summer dining featuring artificial grottoes with waterflows was designed by Bartolomeo Ammanati, Roman gardens This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed. Plattner and T. Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of rome,1929, Nymphaeum
11.
Eleanor of Toledo
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She is credited with being the first modern first lady, or consort. She served as regent of Florence during the absence of her spouse, Eleanor was born in Alba de Tormes, Salamanca, as the second daughter of the Viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro Álvarez de Toledo, Marquis of Villafranca and Maria Osorio, 2nd Marquise of Villafranca. Her father was the son of Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo, 2nd Duke of Alba and therefore. Eleanor was remembered for her beauty, brunette with hazel eyes, eleonor was seen as an incredibly charming bride entering the Medici household. The Emperor, not wanting to antagonize Cosimo, offered him one of the daughters of the viceroy of Naples. The viceroy agreed, provided Cosimo settled a large amount of money on her as dowry and this marriage was politically beneficial as the Medici were new to their ducal status. Eleanor married Cosimo I de’ Medici in the spring of 1539 at seventeen years of age, Eleanor was married by proxy on 29 March 1539, and set sail from Naples,11 June, accompanied by her brother Garcia with seven galleys following. They arrived at Livorno on the morning of June 22 and that same morning, Eleonora left for Pisa and halfway through, met Cosimo. After a short stay in Pisa, the couple left for Florence. July 29 marked the entrance of Eleonora from the Porta al Prato to the church of San Lorenzo for the official wedding, in a grand. Eleanor and Cosimo had a long and peaceful married life, surprisingly, Cosimo was faithful to Eleanor throughout their married life. Both were religious and led their lives accordingly, the ducal couple served as an example of a traditional couple, which served to strengthen Cosimos various reforms and separate him from association with the former Duke. Eleanor and Cosimo had eleven children, including five sons who reached maturity, two of her sons, Francesco and Ferdinando, reigned as grand Dukes of Tuscany. The last of the old Medici line, Alessandro bequeathed to the Medici name a legacy and reputation of sex, scandal, alessandros distantly related successor, Cosimo I, needed to reassure the public of the stability and respectability of not only his family, but the new reign. During her marriage, despite her initial unpopularity as a Spaniard, she gained great influence in Florence, a pious woman, she encouraged the Jesuit order to settle in Florence, she also founded many new churches in the city. Eleanor was also interested in agriculture and business and she also supported unhesitatingly her husband and his policies, so much so that he consulted with her. So great was his trust in her that in his frequent absences he made her regent, a station which also established her position as more than just a pretty bearer of Medici children. As a consequence, it known that Eleanor was the key to her husband
12.
Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
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Cosimo I de Medici was the second Duke of Florence from 1537 until 1569, when he became the first Grand Duke of Tuscany. Cosimo was born in Florence, on 12 June 1519, the son of the famous condottiere Giovanni dalle Bande Nere from Forlì and he was the grandson of Caterina Sforza, the Countess of Forlì and Lady of Imola. Cosimo came to power at 17, when the 26-year-old Duke, Alessandro de Medici, was assassinated in 1537, Cosimo was from a different branch of the family, and so far had lived in Mugello, and was almost unknown in Florence. However, many of the men in the city favoured him. Several hoped to rule through him, thereby enriching themselves at the states expense, however, as Benedetto Varchi famously put it The innkeepers reckoning was different from the gluttons. Cosimo proved strong-willed, astute and ambitious, and soon rejected the clause he had signed, when the Florentine exiles heard of the death of Alessandro, they marshalled their forces with support from France and from disgruntled neighbors of Florence. During this time, Cosimo had a daughter, Bia. Toward the end of July 1537, the exiles marched into Tuscany under the leadership of Bernardo Salviati and Piero Strozzi. When Cosimo heard of their approach, he sent his best troops under Alessandro Vitelli to engage the enemy, which they did at Montemurlo, after defeating the exiles army, Vitelli stormed the fortress, where Strozzi and a few of his companions had retreated to safety. It fell after only a few hours, and Cosimo celebrated his first victory, the prominent prisoners were subsequently beheaded on the Piazza or in the Bargello. Filippo Strozzis body was found with a sword next to it and a note quoting Virgil. In June 1537 Cosimo had sent Bernardo Antonio de Medici to Charles V to gain his recognition as head of the Florentine state and that recognition came in June 1537, in exchange for help against France in the course of the Italian Wars. With this move Cosimo firmly restored the power of the Medici, the help granted to Charles V allowed him to free Tuscany from the Imperial garrisons, and to increase as much as possible its independence from the overwhelming Spanish influence in Italy. With the support of the Emperor, he defeated the Sienese at the Battle of Marciano, despite the inhabitants desperate resistance, on 17 April 1555, after a 15-month siege, the city fell, its population diminished from forty thousand to eight thousand. In 1559 Montalcino, the last redoubt of Sienese independence, was annexed to Cosimos territories, in 1569, Pope Pius V elevated him to the rank of Grand Duke of Tuscany. In the last 10 years of his reign, struck by the death of two of his sons by malaria, Cosimo gave up the rule to his son and successor Francesco I de Medici. He retreated to live in his villa, Villa di Castello, Cosimo was an authoritarian ruler and secured his position by employing a guard of Swiss mercenaries. In 1548 he managed to have his relative Lorenzino, the last Medici claimant to Florence, Cosimo also was an active builder of military structures, in an attempt to save his state from the frequent passage of foreign armies
13.
Bartolomeo Ammannati
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Bartolomeo Ammannati was an Italian architect and sculptor, born at Settignano, near Florence. He studied under Baccio Bandinelli and Jacopo Sansovino and closely imitated the style of Michelangelo and he was more distinguished in architecture than in sculpture. He worked in Rome in collaboration with Vignola and Vasari), including designs for the Villa Giulia and his design mirrored the appearance of the main external façade of Pitti. He was also named Consul of Accademia delle Arti del Disegno of Florence, in 1569, Ammanati was commissioned to build the Ponte Santa Trinita, a bridge over the Arno River. The three arches are elliptic, and though very light and elegant, has survived, when floods had damaged other Arno bridges at different times, Santa Trinita was destroyed in 1944, during World War II, and rebuilt in 1957. Ammannati designed what is considered a prototypic mannerist sculptural ensemble in the Fountain of Neptune, from 1563 and 1565, Ammannati and his assistants, among them Giambologna, sculpted the block of marble that had been chosen by Bandinelli. He took Grand Duke Cosimo I as model for Neptunes face, the statue was meant to highlight Cosimos goal of establishing a Florentine Naval force. In 1550 Ammannati married Laura Battiferri, an elegant poet and an accomplished woman, later in his life he had a religious crisis, influenced by Counter-Reformation piety, which resulted in condemning his own works depicting nudity, and he left all his possessions to the Jesuits. He died in Florence in 1592, victory, marble, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. Leda with the Swan, marble, also in Bargello, Florence, parnassus, marble, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence Allegory of Winter, stone, Villa Medici, Castello Goddess Opi, bronze, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence Bartolomeo Ammannati in the History of Art
14.
Giorgio Vasari
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Vasari was born in Arezzo, Tuscany. Recommended at an age by his cousin Luca Signorelli, he became a pupil of Guglielmo da Marsiglia. He was befriended by Michelangelo whose painting style would influence his own, in 1529, he visited Rome where he studied the works of Raphael and other artists of the Roman High Renaissance. Vasaris own Mannerist paintings were admired in his lifetime than afterwards. In 1547 he completed the hall of the chancery in Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome with frescoes that received the name Sala dei Cento Giorni and he was consistently employed by members of the Medici family in Florence and Rome, and worked in Naples, Arezzo and other places. He also helped to organize the decoration of the Studiolo, now reassembled in the Palazzo Vecchio, aside from his career as a painter, Vasari was also successful as an architect. In Florence, Vasari also built the long passage, now called Vasari Corridor, the enclosed corridor passes alongside the River Arno on an arcade, crosses the Ponte Vecchio and winds around the exterior of several buildings. He also renovated the medieval churches of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce, at both he removed the original rood screen and loft, and remodelled the retro-choirs in the Mannerist taste of his time. In Santa Croce, he was responsible for the painting of The Adoration of the Magi which was commissioned by Pope Pius V in 1566 and it was recently restored, before being put on exhibition in 2011 in Rome and in Naples. Eventually it is planned to return it to the church of Santa Croce in Bosco Marengo, in 1562 Vasari built the octagonal dome on the Basilica of Our Lady of Humility in Pistoia, an important example of high Renaissance architecture. In Rome, Vasari worked with Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola and Bartolomeo Ammanati at Pope Julius IIIs Villa Giulia, the Lives also included a novel treatise on the technical methods employed in the arts. The book was rewritten and enlarged in 1568, with the addition of woodcut portraits of artists. The work has a consistent and notorious bias in favour of Florentines, and tends to attribute to them all the developments in Renaissance art – for example, Venetian art in particular, is systematically ignored in the first edition. Between the first and second editions, Vasari visited Venice and while the edition gave more attention to Venetian art. Vasaris biographies are interspersed with amusing gossip, with a few exceptions, however, Vasaris aesthetic judgement was acute and unbiased. He did not research archives for exact dates, as art historians do, and naturally his biographies are most dependable for the painters of his own generation. Modern criticism – with new materials opened up by research – has corrected many of his traditional dates and attributions. Vasari includes a sketch of his own biography at the end of the Lives, according to the historian Richard Goldthwaite, Vasari was one of the earliest authors to use the term competition in its economic sense
15.
Bernardo Buontalenti
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Bernardo Buontalenti, byname of Bernardo Delle Girandole, was an Italian stage designer, architect, theatrical designer, military engineer and artist. He entered the service of the Medici as a youth and remained with them the rest of his life and he executed a number of miniatures for Francesco, the son of Cosimo I. He was also a mechanic, and an excellent mathematician. In 1562 he travelled to Spain and his first known work is from 1568, the Palazzo di Bianca Cappello in Florence. In the Uffizi Palace of Florence, he built a great court stage and he designed costumes for the Medici extravaganzas. Despite his successes, his prodigality led Buontalenti to financial ruin, dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical. York St. #4, Covent Garden, London, Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18,2007, George Bell, Bernardo Buontalenti and the Grotta Grande of Boboli, Florence, Maschietto Editore,2012
16.
Arno
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The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber, the river originates on Mount Falterona in the Casentino area of the Apennines, and initially takes a southward curve. The river turns to the west near Arezzo passing through Florence, Empoli and Pisa, with a length of 241 kilometres, it is the largest river in the region. It has many tributaries, Sieve at 60 kilometres long, Bisenzio at 49 kilometres, and the Era, Elsa, Pesa, the Val di Chiana, a plain drained in the 18th century, which until then had been a marshy area tributary of the Tiber. The upper Valdarno, a valley bordered on the east by the Pratomagno massif. The Sieves basin, which flows into the Arno immediately before Florence, the middle Valdarno, with the plain including Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, Prato, and Pistoia. The lower Valdarno, with the valley of important tributaries such as the Pesa, Elsa, and Era and in which, after Pontedera, the Arno flows into the Ligurian Sea. The river has a variable discharge, ranging from about 6 cubic metres per second to more than 2,000 cubic metres per second. The mouth of the river was once near Pisa but is now several kilometres westwards and it crosses Florence, where it passes below the Ponte Vecchio and the Santa Trìnita bridge. The flow rate of the Arno is irregular and it is sometimes described as having a torrentlike behaviour, because it can easily go from almost dry to near flood in a few days. At the point where the Arno leaves the Apennines, flow measurements can vary between 0.56 and 3,540 cubic metres per second, new dams built upstream of Florence have greatly alleviated the problem in recent years. The flood on November 4,1966, collapsed the embankment in Florence, killing at least 40 people and damaging or destroying millions of works of art, new conservation techniques were inspired by the disaster, but even decades later hundreds of works still await restoration. The philologist Hans Krahe related this toponym on a paleo-European basis *Ar-n-, derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *er-, flow, move
17.
Amphitheatre
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An amphitheatre or amphitheater /ˈæmfᵻˌθiːətər/ is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ἀμφιθέατρον, from ἀμφί, ancient Roman amphitheatres were oval or circular in plan, with seating tiers that surrounded the central performance area, like a modern open-air stadium. In contrast both ancient Greek and ancient Roman theatres were built in a semicircle, with tiered seating rising on one side of the performance area. In modern usage, amphitheatre is used to describe theatre-style stages with spectator seating on only one side, theatres in the round. Natural formations of similar shape are known as natural amphitheatres. Ancient Roman amphitheatres were major public venues, circular or oval in plan and they were used for events such as gladiator combats, chariot races, venationes and executions. About 230 Roman amphitheatres have been found across the area of the Roman Empire, the earliest Roman amphitheatres date from the middle of the 1st century BC, but most were built under Imperial rule, from the Augustan period onwards. Imperial amphitheatres were built throughout the Roman empire, the largest could accommodate 40, the most elaborate featured multi-storeyed, arcaded façades and were elaborately decorated with marble, stucco and statuary. After the end of games in the 5th century and of staged animal hunts in the 6th. Their materials were mined or recycled, some were razed, and others were converted into fortifications. A few continued as convenient open meeting places, in some of these, in modern usage, an amphitheatre is a circular, semicircular or curved, acoustically vibrant performance space, particularly one located outdoors. Small-scale amphitheatres can serve to host outdoor local community performances, notable modern amphitheatres include the Shoreline Amphitheatre and the Hollywood Bowl. The term amphitheatre is used for some indoor venues such as the Gibson Amphitheatre. The term amphitheatre can also be used to naturally occurring formations which would be ideal for this purpose. Arena Stadium Thingplatz List of Roman amphitheatres List of contemporary amphitheatres List of indoor arenas List of ancient Greek theatres Roman theatre Bomgardner, the Story of the Roman Amphitheatre
18.
Hippodrome
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The hippodrome was an ancient Grecian stadium for horse racing and chariot racing. The name is derived from the Greek words hippos and dromos, the term is used in the modern French language and some others, with the meaning of horse racecourse. Hence, some horse racing tracks also include the word hippodrome in their names, such as the Hippodrome de Vincennes. The Greek hippodrome was similar to the Roman Circus, the hippodrome was not a Roman amphitheatre which was used for spectator sports, games and displays, or a Greek or Roman semi-circular theater used for theatrical performances. The Greek hippodrome was usually set out on the slope of a hill, one end of the hippodrome was semicircular, and the other end square with an extensive portico, in front of which, at a lower level, were the stalls for the horses and chariots. At both ends of the hippodrome there were posts that the turned around. This was the most dangerous part of the track, and the Greeks put an altar to Taraxippus there to show the spot where many chariots wrecked, a large ancient hippodrome was the Hippodrome of Constantinople, built between AD203 and 330. However, since it was built to a Roman design, it was actually a circus
19.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
20.
Villa Medici
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The Villa Medici is a mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome, Italy. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, a musical evocation of its garden fountains features in Ottorino Respighis Fontane di Roma. In ancient times, the site of the Villa Medici was part of the gardens of Lucullus, which passed into the hands of the Imperial family with Messalina, who was murdered in the villa. In 1564, when the nephews of Cardinal Giovanni Ricci of Montepulciano acquired the property, the new proprietors commissioned Annibale Lippi, the late architects son, to continue work. Interventions by Michelangelo are a tradition, in 1576, the property was acquired by Cardinal Ferdinando de Medici, who finished the structure to designs by Bartolomeo Ammanati. A series of grand gardens recalled the botanical gardens created at Pisa and at Florence by the Cardinals father Cosimo I de Medici, sheltered in plantations of pines, cypresses and oaks. Ferdinando de Medici had a studiolo, a retreat for study and contemplation, now these rooms look onto Borghese gardens but would then have had views over the Roman countryside. An engraving detailing the arrangement of statues prior to 1562 was documented by Galassi Alghisi, then the antiquities from the Villa Medici formed the nucleus of the collection of antiquities in the Uffizi, and Florence began to figure on the European Grand Tour. The fountain in the front of the Villa Medici is formed from a red granite vase from ancient Rome and it was designed by Annibale Lippi in 1589. The view from the Villa looking over the fountain towards St Peters in the distance has been much painted, like the Villa Borghese that adjoins them, the villas gardens were far more accessible than the formal palaces such as Palazzo Farnese in the heart of the city. For a century and a half the Villa Medici was one of the most elegant and worldly settings in Rome, the seat of the Grand Dukes embassy to the Holy See. When the male line of the Medici died out in 1737, in this manner Napoleon Bonaparte came into possession of the Villa Medici, which he transferred to the French Academy at Rome. Subsequently it housed the winners of the prestigious Prix de Rome, under distinguished directors including Ingres and Balthus, in 1656, Christina, Queen of Sweden was said to have fired one of the cannon on top of the Castel SantAngelo without aiming it first. The wayward ball hit the villa, destroying one of the Florentine lilies that decorated the facade, in 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte moved the French Academy in Rome to the Villa Medici with the intention of preserving an institution once threatened by the French Revolution. At first, the villa and its gardens were in a sad state, in this way, he hoped to retain for young French artists the opportunity to see and copy the masterpieces of antiquity and the Renaissance. The young architect Auguste-Henri-Victor Grandjean de Montigny undertook the renovation, the competition was interrupted during the first World War, and Benito Mussolini confiscated the villa in 1941, forcing the Academy of France in Rome to withdraw until 1945. The competition and the Prix de Rome were eliminated in 1968 by André Malraux, the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Institut de France then lost their guardianship of the Villa Medici to the Ministry of Culture and the French State. Between 1961 and 1967, the artist Balthus, then at the head of the Academy, carried out a vast restoration campaign of the palace and its gardens, Balthus participated “hands on” in all the phases of the construction
21.
Neptune (mythology)
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Neptune was the god of freshwater and the sea in Roman religion. He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon, in the Greek-influenced tradition, Neptune was the brother of Jupiter and Pluto, the brothers presided over the realms of Heaven, the earthly world, and the Underworld. Depictions of Neptune in Roman mosaics, especially those of North Africa, are influenced by Hellenistic conventions, Neptune was likely associated with fresh water springs before the sea. Like Poseidon, Neptune was worshipped by the Romans also as a god of horses, under the name Neptunus Equester, Neptune is the creator of horses and is the god of the sea as well as the owner of a powerful weapon, the Trident. Poseidon is the greek Neptune and is one of the big three gods Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon and he accidentally created horses when he had an affair with Medusa, and also created a boy who roams the seas as a pirate past the pillar of Hercules. The etymology of Latin Neptunus is unclear and disputed, the ancient grammarian Varro derived the name from nuptus i. e. covering, with a more or less explicit allusion to the nuptiae, marriage of Heaven and Earth. Among modern scholars Paul Kretschmer proposed a derivation from IE *neptu- moist substance, similarly Raymond Bloch supposed it might be an adjectival form in -no from *nuptu-, meaning he who is moist. Georges Dumézil though remarked words deriving root *nep- are not attested in IE languages other than Vedic and he proposed an etymology that brings together Neptunus with Vedic and Avestan theonyms Apam Napat, Apam Napá and Old Irish theonym Nechtan, all meaning descendant of the waters. By using the approach the Indo-Iranian, Avestan and Irish figures would show common features with the Roman historicised legends about Neptune. Dumézil thence proposed to derive the nouns from IE root *nepot-, descendant, IE root *nebh-, having the original meaning of damp, wet, has given Sanskrit nábhah, Hittite nepis, Latin nubs, nebula, German Nebel, Slavic nebo etc. The concept would be close to that expressed in the name of Greek god Όυράνος, derived from IE root *h2wórso-, to water, irrigate and *h2worsó- and this etymology would be more in accord with Varros. The district was connected to the cult of the god, Messapus and Halesus. Messapus led the Falisci and others to war in the Aeneid, nepi and Falerii have been famed since antiquity for the excellent quality of the water of their springs, scattered in meadows. Nepet is considered a hydronymic toponym of preIndoeuropean origin widespread in Europe and from an appellative meaning damp wide valley, plain, cognate with pre-Greek νάπη, such an identification may well be grounded in the strict relationship between the Latin and Greek theologies of the two deities. Servius the grammarian also explicitly states Neptune is in charge of all the rivers, springs and he also is the lord of horses because he worked with Minerva to make the chariot. He may find a parallel in Irish god Nechtan, master of the well from all the rivers of the world flow out. Poseidon on the other hand underwent the process of becoming the main god of the sea at an earlier time. For a time he was paired with Salacia, the goddess of the salt water, Neptune was also considered the legendary progenitor god of a Latin stock, the Faliscans, who called themselves Neptunia proles
22.
Stoldo Lorenzi
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Stoldo Lorenzi was an Italian Mannerist sculptor. Born at Settignano, he studied in Florence and was influenced by such as Giambologna. His masterwork in Florence is considered the Fountain of Neptune in the Boboli Gardens, later he worked in other areas of Italy. In Milan he provided sculptures for the façade of Santa Maria presso San Celso. In Pisa he executed an Angel for the Duomo and he died in Pisa after 1583
23.
Giulio Parigi
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Giulio Parigi was an Italian architect and designer. He was the member of a family of architects and designers working for the Grand Ducal court of the Medici. His father, Alfonso Parigi the Elder, was an architect, through his fathers collaborations under the court architect Bernardo Buontalenti, Giulio Parigi was trained in the practice of architecture. Giulio worked on the Boboli Gardens, constructing the Grotto of Vulcan and laying out the second axis of the Boboli Gardens, at angles to the first. His is also the stairs of Palazzo Gianni-Lucchesini-Vegni. Giulios son, Alfonsos grandson, Alfonso Parigi the Younger was also an architect, arthur Blumenthal, Giulio Parigis Stage Designs, Florence and the Early Baroque Spectacle, PhD, New York University,1984. Arthur Blumenthal, Theatre Art of the Medici, Dartmouth,1980 Berto, media related to Giulio Parigi at Wikimedia Commons
24.
Bosquet
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Bosquets are traditionally paved with gravel, as the feature predates Buddings invention of the lawnmower, and since the maintenance of turf under trees is demanding. The shade of paired bosquets flanking a parterre affords both relief from the glare and the pleasure of surveying sunlit space from shade, another Achemenid invention. As they mature, the trees of the form an interlacing canopy overhead. Lower trunks may be given a wash to a selected height. Clipped outer faces of the trees may be pleached, within a large wood a bosquet in another, closely related sense can be set out as a formal room, a cabinet de verdure cut into the formal woodland, a major ingredient of André Le Nôtres Versailles. These intimate areas defined by clipped walls of shrubs and trees offered privacy and relief from the grand scale, often a single path with a discreet curve or dogleg provided the only access. Inside the bosquet, privacy was assured, there virtuoso jeux deau and sculpture provided allegorical themes, the bosquets were altered often during the years Le Nôtre worked at Versailles. The bosquets of Versailles were examples of a matured tradition, in Alexandre Francinis engravings of the royal gardens at Fontainebleau and Saint Germain-en-Laye, compartments of bosquets are already in evidence. In Jacques Boyceaus posthumous Traité du iardinage selon les raisons de la nature et de lart, in the eighteenth-century, bosquets flanked the Champs-Elysées, Paris. In Paris, bosquets set in gravel may still be enjoyed in the Jardin des Tuileries, after a century of naturalistic landscape gardening and two generations of revived pattern planting some bosquets re-entered garden design at the turn of the twentieth century. Bosquets, unfamiliar in American gardens, but introduced in the Beaux-Arts gardens of Charles A. Platt, were planted along the Fifth Avenue front of the Metropolitan Museum in 1969-70, typical trees employed for bosquets are fine-scaled in leaf, such as linden, hornbeam or hazelnut. Gardens of the French Renaissance Garden à la française Stand level modelling Lisa L. Moore, What gardens mean, the Formal Garden, Traditions of Art and Nature Chapter 2, Baroque Gardens, The Age of Parterre and Bosquet The Salle des Antiques at Versailles
25.
Giambologna
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Giambologna — born Jean Boulogne — was a Flemish sculptor based in Italy, celebrated for his marble and bronze statuary in a late Renaissance or Mannerist style. Giambologna was born in Douai, Flanders, in 1529, after youthful studies in Antwerp with the architect-sculptor Jacques du Broeucq, he moved to Italy in 1550, and studied in Rome. Giambologna made detailed study of the sculpture of classical antiquity and he was also much influenced by Michelangelo, but developed his own Mannerist style, with perhaps less emphasis on emotion and more emphasis on refined surfaces, cool elegance and beauty. Pope Pius IV gave Giambologna his first major commission, the colossal bronze Neptune, Giambologna spent his most productive years in Florence, where he had settled in 1553. He was interred in a chapel he designed himself in the Santissima Annunziata, Giambologna became well known for a fine sense of action and movement, and a refined, differentiated surface finish. Among his most famous works are the Mercury, poised on one foot, the god raises one arm to point heavenwards, in a gesture borrowed from the repertory of classical rhetoric that is characteristic of Giambolognas maniera. His other most famous work is the Rape of the Sabine Women a marble sculpture which is featured prominently in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florences Piazza della Signoria and this impressive sculpture which includes three full figures was carved from a single piece of marble. Giambologna carved it without a subject in mind, and the name Rape of the Sabine Women was given after it was in place in the Loggia, the sculpture was produced for Francesco Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Another of his marbles, Hercules Slaying a Centaur was also placed in the Loggia dei Lanzi in 1599 and he created allegories strongly promoting Medicean political propaganda, such as Florence defeating Pisa and, less overtly, Samson Slaying a Philistine, for Francesco de Medici. The equestrian statue of Cosimo I de Medici also in Florence, was completed by his studio assistant Pietro Tacca. Giambologna provided as well as sculptures for garden grottos and fountains in the Boboli Gardens of Florence and at Pratolino. For the grotto of the Villa Medicea of Castello he sculpted a series of studies of animals, from life. Small bronze reductions of many of his sculptures were prized by connoisseurs at the time and ever since, italian Art, Florence, Giunti Gruppo Editoriale,2000, ISBN 88-09-01771-4. Giambologna, 1529-1608, sculptor to the Medici, an exhibition organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain etc. catalogue edited by Charles Avery, london, Arts Council of Great Britain,1978, ISBN 0-7287-0180-4. Biography with a portrait on kfki. hu Giambologna on mega. it Model of a River God, archived from the original on 2009-07-09. Archived from the original on 2011-03-12, a Tour of the location of Giambolognas major works in Florence
26.
Mannerism
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Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, lasting until about 1580 in Italy, when the Baroque style began to replace it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century, stylistically, Mannerism encompasses a variety of approaches influenced by, and reacting to, the harmonious ideals associated with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and early Michelangelo. Where High Renaissance art emphasizes proportion, balance, and ideal beauty, Mannerism exaggerates such qualities, Mannerism is notable for its intellectual sophistication as well as its artificial qualities. Mannerism favors compositional tension and instability rather than the balance and clarity of earlier Renaissance painting, Mannerism in literature and music is notable for its highly florid style and intellectual sophistication. The definition of Mannerism and the phases within it continue to be a subject of debate among art historians, for example, some scholars have applied the label to certain early modern forms of literature and music of the 16th and 17th centuries. The term is used to refer to some late Gothic painters working in northern Europe from about 1500 to 1530. Mannerism also has been applied by analogy to the Silver Age of Latin literature, the word mannerism derives from the Italian maniera, meaning style or manner. Like the English word style, maniera can either indicate a type of style or indicate an absolute that needs no qualification. Vasari was also a Mannerist artist, and he described the period in which he worked as la maniera moderna, james V. Mirollo describes how bella maniera poets attempted to surpass in virtuosity the sonnets of Petrarch. This notion of bella maniera suggests that artists thus inspired looked to copying and bettering their predecessors, in essence, bella maniera utilized the best from a number of source materials, synthesizing it into something new. As a stylistic label, Mannerism is not easily defined, “High Renaissance” connoted a period distinguished by harmony, grandeur and the revival of classical antiquity. The term Mannerist was redefined in 1967 by John Shearman following the exhibition of Mannerist paintings organised by Fritz Grossmann at Manchester City Art Gallery in 1965. The label “Mannerism” was used during the 16th century to comment on social behaviour, however, for later writers, such as the 17th-century Gian Pietro Bellori, la maniera was a derogatory term for the perceived decline of art after Raphael, especially in the 1530s and 1540s. From the late 19th century on, art historians have used the term to describe art that follows Renaissance classicism. By the end of the High Renaissance, young artists experienced a crisis, no more difficulties, technical or otherwise, remained to be solved. The young artists needed to find a new goal, and they sought new approaches, at this point Mannerism started to emerge. The new style developed between 1510 and 1520 either in Florence, or in Rome, or in both cities simultaneously and this period has been described as a natural extension of the art of Andrea del Sarto, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Michelangelo from an early age had developed a style of his own, one of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and subsequent artists attempted to imitate it
27.
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
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Pope Julius II
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Pope Julius II, nicknamed The Fearsome Pope and The Warrior Pope, born Giuliano della Rovere, was Pope from 1 November 1503 to his death in 1513. In addition to a military policy, he personally led troops into battle on at least two occasions. There is disagreement about Juliuss year of birth, for some sources put it as late as 1453, Giuliano della Rovere was the son of Rafaello della Rovere. Francesco della Rovere was his uncle and he was educated among the Franciscans by his uncle, who took him under his special charge and later sent him to a Franciscan friary in Perugia with the purpose of obtaining knowledge of the sciences. After his uncle was elected Pope Sixtus IV, della Rovere was promoted to be cardinal, taking the title as that formerly held by his uncle. With his uncle he obtained great influence, and in addition to the archbishopric of Avignon he held no fewer than eight bishoprics, including Lausanne from 1472. In June 1474, della Rovere led an army to Todi and Spoleto, around this time, in 1483, an illegitimate daughter was born, Felice della Rovere. Della Rovere, jealous and angry, accused Borgia of being elected over him, in 1494 he joined Charles VIII of France who was undertaking a military expedition into Italy. This was, in Andrew Greeleys view, almost certainly by means of bribery with money, but also, per Ott, Ullman, and Hughes, with promises. Giuliano Della Rovere thenceforth took the name of his fourth century predecessor, Julius I, indeed, on the day of his election, he declared I will not live in the same rooms as the Borgias lived. He desecrated the Holy Church as none before and he usurped the papal power by the devils aid, and I forbid under the pain of excommunication anyone to speak or think of Borgia again. His name and memory must be forgotten and it must be crossed out of every document and memorial. All paintings made of the Borgias or for them must be covered over with black crepe, all the tombs of the Borgias must be opened and their bodies sent back to where they belong—to Spain. The Borgias apartments remained sealed until the 19th Century, the combination was, however, at first little more than nominal, and was not immediately effective in compelling the Venetians to deliver up more than a few unimportant places in the Romagna. With a campaign in 1506, he led an army to Perugia and Bologna. The refusal of Pope Clement VII to grant the annulment led to the English Reformation, the same year, he founded the Swiss Guard to provide a constant corps of soldiers to protect the Pope. On Palm Sunday,1507, Julius II entered Rome, both as a second Julius Caesar, heir to the majesty of Romes imperial glory, and in the likeness of Christ, whose vicar the pope was, and who in that capacity governed the universal Roman Church. Julius, who modelled himself after his namesake Caesar, would lead his army across the Italian peninsula under the imperial war-cry
29.
Fountain of Neptune, Florence
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The Fountain of Neptune is a fountain in Florence, Italy, situated on the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. The fountain was commissioned in 1565 and is the work of the sculptor Bartolomeo Ammannati, Ammannati and his assistants, such as Giambologna, were commissioned to design and complete the work on the occasion of the wedding of Francesco I de Medici with Joanna of Austria in 1565. The assignment had first been given to Baccio Bandinelli, who designed the model, the Neptune figure, whose face resembles that of Cosimo I de Medici, was meant to be an allusion to the dominion of the Florentines over the sea. The figure stands on a pedestal in the middle of an octagonal fountain. The pedestal is decorated with the figures of Scylla and Charybdis. The statue of Neptune is a made in the nineteenth century. However, when the work was finished, it was not appreciated in particular by the Florentines, work continued on this fountain during the next ten years. The monumental marble and the dynamic bronzes give nevertheless a coherent impression, the fountain served as an example for future fountain-makers. The fountain has suffered a great deal of damage during the centuries and it was used as a washbasin for laundry at the end of the 16th century. It was vandalized on January 25,1580, a satyr was stolen during the carnival in 1830. It was damaged again by the Bourbon bombardments of 1848, consequently, it has been the object of several restorations and substitutions. On August 4,2005, the statue was the target of three vandals who climbed it, damaging one of the hands and the trident of Neptune, the act was recorded by security cameras. The statue was restored by 2007, since then, security on the fountain has been taken very seriously. In late 2007, the statue was the target of attempted vandalism by four teens, the security cameras and nearby police ensured that no damage came to the fountain again and the four were arrested. As would be expected, the Sea-God, Neptune is a frequent theme for fountains, in Florence, there is another fountain of Neptune is found in the Boboli Gardens, behind the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Giambologna sculpted a statue for the similar fountain in Bologna in the 1560s. Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli created a nearly contemporary fountain in Messina, Sicily
30.
Avenue (landscape)
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In most cases, the trees planted in an avenue will be all of the same species or cultivar, so as to give uniform appearance along the full length of the avenue. The avenue is one of the oldest ideas in the history of gardens, an avenue of sphinxes still leads to the tomb of the pharaoh Hatshepsut, see the entry Sphinx. Avenues similarly defined by stone lions lead to the Ming tombs in China. British archaeologists have adopted highly specific criteria for avenues within the context of British archaeology, in order to enhance the approach to mansions or manor houses, avenues were planted along the entrance drive. Sometimes the avenues are in rows on each side of a road. Trees preferred for alleys were selected for their height and speed of growth, such as poplar, beech, lime, in the American antebellum era South, the southern live oak was typically used, because the trees created a beautiful shade canopy. Sometimes tree avenues were designed to direct the eye toward some distinctive architectural building or feature, such as a chapels, gazebos, in Garden à la française Baroque landscape design, avenues of trees that were centered upon the dwelling radiated across the landscape. See the avenues in the Gardens of Versailles or Het Loo. C, avenues will typically be the main roads. In Washington, DC the avenues radiate from the centre running diagonally across the grid of streets, which follows typical French usage of the name
31.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
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Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was born in Paris on July 16,1796, in a house at 125 Rue du Bac, now demolished. After his parents married, they bought the shop where his mother had worked. The store was a destination for fashionable Parisians and earned the family an excellent income. Corot was the second of three born to the family, who lived above their shop during those years. Corot received a scholarship to study at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen and he was not a brilliant student, and throughout his entire school career he did not get a single nomination for a prize, not even for the drawing classes. Unlike many masters who demonstrated early talent and inclinations toward art, during those years he lived with the Sennegon family, whose patriarch was a friend of Corots father and who spent much time with young Corot on nature walks. It was in this region that Corot made his first paintings after nature, at nineteen, Corot was a big child, shy and awkward. Before the beautiful ladies who frequented his mothers salon, he was embarrassed and fled like a wild thing, emotionally, he was an affectionate and well-behaved son, who adored his mother and trembled when his father spoke. When Corots parents moved into a new residence in 1817, the 21-year-old Corot moved into the room on the third floor. Later Corot stated, I told my father that business and I were simply incompatible, the business experience proved beneficial, however, by helping him develop an aesthetic sense through his exposure to the colors and textures of the fabrics. Perhaps out of boredom, he turned to oil painting around 1821 and he immediately rented a studio on quai Voltaire. In both approaches, landscape artists would typically begin with outdoor sketching and preliminary painting, with finishing work done indoors, michallon had a great influence on Corots career. Though this school was on the decline, it held sway in the Salon. Corot later stated, I made my first landscape from nature. under the eye of this painter, the lesson worked, since then I have always treasured precision. Though holding Neoclassicists in the highest regard, Corot did not limit his training to their tradition of allegory set in imagined nature and his notebooks reveal precise renderings of tree trunks, rocks, and plants which show the influence of Northern realism. Throughout his career, Corot demonstrated an inclination to apply both traditions in his work, sometimes combining the two, a condition by his parents before leaving was that he paint a self-portrait for them, his first
32.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
33.
Tourism in Italy
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With 48.6 million tourists a year, Italy is the fifth most visited country in international tourism arrivals. People mainly visit Italy for its art, cuisine, history, fashion and culture, its beautiful coastline and beaches, its mountains. Italy also contains more World Heritage Sites than any country in the world. Tourism is one of Italys fastest growing and most profitable industrial sectors, traders and merchants came to Italy from several different parts of the world. Pilgrims, for centuries and still today, would come to the city, the trade empires of Venice, Pisa and Genoa meant that several traders, businessmen and merchants from all over the world would also regularly come to Italy. In the 16th and early 17th century, with the height of the Renaissance, several came to Italy to study Italian architecture. Real tourism only affected in Italy in the half of the 17th century. This was a period in which European aristocrats, many of whom were British, visited parts of Europe, Italy, Greece and this was in order to study ancient architecture and the local culture. The Grand Tour was in essence triggered by the book Voyage to Italy, by Roman Catholic priest Richard Lassels, due to the Grand Tour, tourism became even more prevalent - making Italy one of the most desired destinations for millions of people. Once inside what would be modern-day Italy, these tourists would begin by visiting Turin for a short while. On the way there, Milan was also a stop, yet a trip to the city was not considered essential. If a person came via boat, then they would remain a few days in Genoa, yet, the main destination in Northern Italy was Venice, which was considered a vital stop, as well as cities around it such as Verona, Vicenza and Padua. Tourists rarely, yet occasionally, got to Trieste, as the Tour went on, Tuscan cities were also very important itinerary stops. Florence was an attraction, and other Tuscan towns, such as Siena, Pisa, Lucca. The most prominent stop in Central Italy, however, was Rome, later, they would go down to the Bay of Naples, and after their discovery in 1756, Pompeii and Herculaneum were popular too. Sicily was considered a significant part of the trail, and several, such as Goethe, throughout the 17th to 18th centuries, the Grand Tour was mainly reserved for academics or the elite. Nevertheless, circa 1840, rail transport was introduced and the Grand Tour started to fall out of vogue, hence. The 1840s saw the period in which the Victorian middle classes toured the country, several Americans were also able to visit Italy, and many more tourists came to the peninsula
34.
Florence Cathedral
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The Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore is the main church of Florence, Italy. The exterior of the basilica is faced with marble panels in various shades of green. The cathedral complex, located in Piazza del Duomo, includes the Baptistery and these three buildings are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site covering the historic centre of Florence and are a major attraction to tourists visiting Tuscany. The basilica is one of Italys largest churches, and until development of new materials in the modern era. It remains the largest brick dome ever constructed, the cathedral is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Florence, whose archbishop is currently Giuseppe Betori. Santa Maria del Fiore was built on the site of a cathedral dedicated to Saint Reparata. The new church was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio and approved by city council in 1294, di Cambio was also architect of the church of Santa Croce and the Palazzo Vecchio. He designed three wide naves ending under the dome, with the middle nave covering the area of Santa Reparata. The first stone was laid on September 9,1296, by Cardinal Valeriana, the building of this vast project was to last 140 years, Arnolfos plan for the eastern end, although maintained in concept, was greatly expanded in size. After Arnolfo died in 1310, work on the cathedral slowed for thirty years, when the relics of Saint Zenobius were discovered in 1330 in Santa Reparata, the project gained a new impetus. In 1331, the Arte della Lana, the guild of merchants, took over patronage for the construction of the cathedral. Assisted by Andrea Pisano, Giotto continued di Cambios design and his major accomplishment was the building of the campanile. When Giotto died in 1337, Andrea Pisano continued the building work was halted due to the Black Death in 1348. In 1359, Talenti was succeeded by Giovanni di Lapo Ghini who divided the nave in four square bays. Other architects were Alberto Arnoldi, Giovanni dAmbrogio, Neri di Fioravante, by 1375, the old church Santa Reparata was pulled down. The nave was finished by 1380, and by 1418, only the dome remained incomplete, on 18 August 1418, the Arte della Lana announced an architectural design competition for erecting Neris dome. The two main competitors were two master goldsmiths, Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi, the latter of whom was supported by Cosimo de Medici. Ghiberti had been the winner of a competition for a pair of doors for the Baptistery in 1401
35.
San Lorenzo, Florence
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It is one of several churches that claim to be the oldest in Florence, when it was consecrated in 393 it stood outside the city walls. For three hundred years it was the cathedral before the official seat of the bishop was transferred to Santa Reparata. San Lorenzo was also the church of the Medici family. In 1419, Giovanni di Bicci de Medici offered to finance a new church to replace the 11th-century Romanesque rebuilding, though considered a milestone in the development of Renaissance architecture, S. Lorenzo has a complicated building history. Even though it was at least partially built under the direction of Filippo Brunelleschi, the project was begun around 1419, but lack of funding slowed the construction and forced changes to the original design. By the early 1440s, only the sacristy had been worked on as it was being paid for by the Medici, in 1442, the Medici stepped in to take over financial responsibility of the church as well. Brunelleschi died in 1446, however, and the job was handed either to Antonio Manetti or to Michelozzo, scholars are not certain. Though the building was “completed” in 1459 in time for a visit to Florence by Pius II, by the time the building was done, many aspects of its layout, not to mention detailing, no longer corresponded to the original plan. Despite its history, the building is seen as one of the examples of the new style. Its more notable include, the attempt to create a proportional relationship between nave and aisle. The articulation of the structure in pietra serena, the use of an integrated system of column, arches, entablatures. There are significant problems in the design, most, however, already Giorgio Vasari thought that the columns along the nave should have been elevated on plinths. That the pilasters along the wall of the side aisles rest on a floor that is three steps higher than the nave, is considered an error. San Lorenzo is often compared with Santo Spirito, also in Florence, Santo Spirito, which Brunelleschi began somewhat later, is considered to have been constructed more or less in conformity with his ideas, even though Brunelleschi died before most of it was built. The Medici Pope Leo X gave Michelangelo the commission to design a façade in white Carrara marble in 1518, Michelangelo did, however, design and build the internal facade, seen from the nave looking back toward the entrances. It comprises three doors between two pilasters with garlands of oak and laurel and a balcony on two Corinthian columns, in recent years, the association of “Friends of the Elettrice Palatina” and the Comune of Florence re-visited the question of completing the outer facade according to Michelangelos designs. To assist with the debate, a computerized reconstruction was projected onto the plain brick facade in February 2007. As yet, no decision has made on the project
36.
Medici Chapel
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The Sagrestia Nuova, was designed by Michelangelo. The larger Cappella dei Principi, though proposed in the 16th century, was not begun until the early 17th century, the Sagrestia Nuova was intended by Cardinal Giulio de Medici and his cousin Pope Leo X as a mausoleum or mortuary chapel for members of the Medici family. The Sagrestia Nuova was entered by an entrance in a corner of San Lorenzos right transept. By order of Cosimo I, Giorgio Vasari and Bartolomeo Ammannati finished the work by 1555, there were intended to be four Medici tombs, but those of Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano were never begun. The result is that the two magnificent existing tombs are those of comparatively insignificant Medici, Lorenzo di Piero, Duke of Urbino and Giuliano di Lorenzo and their architectural components are similar, their sculptures offer contrast. A concealed corridor with drawings on the walls by Michelangelo was discovered under the New Sacristy in 1976, the octagonal Cappella dei Principi surmounted by a tall dome,59 m. high, is the distinguishing feature of San Lorenzo when seen from a distance. It is on the axis as the nave and chancel to which it provides the equivalent of an apsidal chapel. Its entrance is from the exterior, in Piazza Madonna degli Aldobrandini, the opulent Cappella dei Principi, an idea formulated by Cosimo I, was put into effect by Ferdinand I de Medici. A true expression of art, it was the result of collaboration among designers. For the execution of its astonishing revetment of marbles inlaid with colored marbles and semi-precious stone, the Grand Ducal hardstone workshop, the Opificio delle Pietre Dure was established. The art of commessi, as it was called in Florence, the result was disapproved of by 18th and 19th century visitors, but has come to be appreciated for an example of the taste of its time. Six grand sarcophagi are empty, the Medici remains are interred in the crypt below, in sixteen compartments of the dado are coats-of-arms of Tuscan cities under Medici control. In the niches that were intended to hold sculptures of Medici. The lantern at the top of the Medici Chapel is made out of marble and has an “…. unusual polyhedron mounted on the peak of the conical roof, the orb that is on top of the lantern has seventy-two facets and is about two feet in diameter. But because it is on a mausoleum, the Medici family is promoting their own personal power with the orb and cross, laurel wreath and lion heads. The lantern that holds up the orb helps to accentuate the height and size of the chapel, the lantern is a bit less than seven meters tall and, “…is equal to the height of the dome it surmounts, ”. The lantern metaphorically expresses the themes of death and resurrection, the lantern is where the soul could escape and go from “…death to the afterlife. ”. ISBN 5-98856-012-1 Peter Barenboim, Sergey Shiyan, Michelangelo, Mysteries of the Medici Chapel, SLOVO, ISBN 5-85050-825-2 Peter Barenboim, Sergey Shiyan, Michelangelo in the Medici Chapel, Genius in details
37.
Santa Croce, Florence
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The Basilica di Santa Croce is the principal Franciscan church in Florence, Italy, and a minor basilica of the Roman Catholic Church. It is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about 800 metres south-east of the Duomo, the site, when first chosen, was in marshland outside the city walls. The Basilica is the largest Franciscan church in the world and its most notable features are its sixteen chapels, many of them decorated with frescoes by Giotto and his pupils, and its tombs and cenotaphs. Legend says that Santa Croce was founded by St Francis himself, the construction of the current church, to replace an older building, was begun on 12 May 1294, possibly by Arnolfo di Cambio, and paid for by some of the citys wealthiest families. It was consecrated in 1442 by Pope Eugene IV, the buildings design reflects the austere approach of the Franciscans. The floorplan is an Egyptian or Tau cross,115 metres in length with a nave, to the south of the church was a convent, some of whose buildings remain. The Primo Chiostro, the cloister, houses the Cappella dei Pazzi, built as the chapter house. Filippo Brunelleschi was involved in its design which has remained rigorously simple, in 1560, the choir screen was removed as part of changes arising from the Counter-Reformation and the interior rebuilt by Giorgio Vasari. As a result, there was damage to the churchs decoration, the bell tower was built in 1842, replacing an earlier one damaged by lightning. The neo-Gothic marble façade dates from 1857-1863, the Jewish architect Niccolo Matas from Ancona, designed the churchs façade, working a prominent Star of David into the composition. Matas had wanted to be buried with his peers but because he was Jewish, he was buried under the threshold, in 1866, the complex became public property, as a part of government suppression of most religious houses, following the wars that gained Italian independence and unity. The Museo dellOpera di Santa Croce is housed mainly in the refectory, a monument to Florence Nightingale stands in the cloister, in the city in which she was born and after which she was named. Brunelleschi also built the cloister, completed in 1453. In 1966, the Arno River flooded much of Florence, including Santa Croce, the water entered the church bringing mud, pollution and heating oil. The damage to buildings and art treasures was severe, taking several decades to repair, today the former dormitory of the Franciscan friars houses the Scuola del Cuoio. Visitors can watch as artisans craft purses, wallets, and other goods which are sold in the adjacent shop. Sylvester. Henry Moore Andrea Orcagna Antonio Rossellino Bernardo Rossellino Santi di Tito Giorgio Vasari with sculpture by Valerio Cioli, Iovanni Bandini, way to Calvary painted by Vasari. Domenico Veneziano Once present in the churchs Medici Chapel, but now split between the Florentine Galleries and the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum in Milan, is a polyptych by Lorenzo di Niccolò
38.
Baroncelli Chapel
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The Baroncelli Chapel is a chapel located at the end of the right transept in church of Santa Croce, central Florence, Italy. It has frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi executed between 1328 and 1338, the fresco cycle represents the Stories of the Virgin. In this work, Gaddi showed his mastership of Giottos style, with a disposition of the characters in the scenes. The two niches with still lifes in the basement are perhaps inspired by Giottos ones in the Scrovegni Chapel, the delicate and soft features are characteristic of Gaddis late style. The adoption of light in the Annunciation to the Shepherds is nearly unique in the mid-14th century painting of central Italy. Gaddi also designed the stained glasses, with four prophets on the exterior, and perhaps had a hand in the altarpiece also,1328, has the signature Opus Magistri Jocti, but the style shows the hands of assistants, including Gaddi himself. It is a polyptych, depicting the Coronation of the Virgin surrounded by a crowded Glory of Angels. The cusp of the altarpiece is now at the San Diego Museum of Art of San Diego, California, the original frame was replaced by a new one during the 15th century. Other artworks in the include, on the right wall. The Baroncelli Polyptych, painted by Giotto di Bondone c.1334, is in the chapel, the Baroncelli family owned the tomb on the external wall, which was designed by Giovanni di Balduccio in 1327. He also sculpted the statuettes of the Archangel Gabriel and the Annunciation on the arcades pillars, the Madonna with Child sculpture inside the chapel was created by Vincenzo Danti in 1568
39.
Pazzi Chapel
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The Pazzi Chapel is a chapel located in the first cloister on the southern flank of the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. Commonly credited to Filippo Brunelleschi, it is considered to be one of the masterpieces of Renaissance architecture. Though funds for the chapel were assembled in 1429 by Andrea Pazzi, head of the Pazzi family, whose wealth was only to the Medici. The chapel was completed in 1443, almost two decades after the death of Brunelleschi. The building is considered to be an Early Renaissance masterpiece, the main purpose of the building was the cathedral chapter house and use as a classroom for the teaching of monks and other religious purposes. There was also a chapel behind the altar where the family had the right to bury its dead. The Pazzis ulterior motive in building the chapel was probably to make their mark on the city of Florence and to emphasize their wealth and power. The fact that the city was at war with a city at the time and still acquired the funds to build this chapel showed the importance it had to the Pazzi family. A façade that he had begun, and of only the lower register can be seen, was partially obscured by the addition of a porch. The main inspiration for this piece was the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria Novella, between the pilasters in the transept there are tall, blank, round headed panels and, above them, roundels, common Renaissance decorative motifs. The architectural elements of the interior are all in pietra serena, the building also used bearing masonry in its construction, which is mason units or concrete blocks with lime and man made adhesives to stick them together. As to the architect, scholars argue that it is not actually by Brunelleschi, no period sources nor period documents support this theory, with the first written mention of Brunelleschi as the architect first appearing with an anonymous author who wrote in the 1490s. Scholars now consider the chapel as possibly the work of Giuliano da Maiano or Michelozzo, the tondi of the seated Apostles are by Luca della Robbia, who also did the terracotta decorations in the cupola of the porch. It has been suggested that the roundels of the Evangelists may have been the work of Donatello
40.
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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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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Santissima Annunziata, Florence
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The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata is a Renaissance-style, Roman Catholic minor basilica in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy. This is considered the church of the Servite Order. It is located at the side of the Piazza Santissima Annunziata near the city center. The church was founded in 1250 by the seven members of the Servite Order. This painting was placed in the church and became so venerated that in 1444 the Gonzaga family from Mantua financed a special tribune, albertis designs were constricted by the pre-existing foundations. Construction was completed in 1481, after Alberti’s death, though the structure was refurbished in Baroque-style in the seventeenth century, the basic scheme of a domed circular space flanked by altar niches is still evident. The building across from the Foundling Hospital, designed by Sangallo the Elder, was given a Brunelleschian facade in the 1520s. Pilgrims who came to the church to venerate the miraculous painting often left wax votive offerings, in 1516, a special atrium was built to house these figures, the Chiostrino dei Voti. By the late 18th century there were six hundred of these images. In 1786, however, they were all melted down to make candles, pope Alexander VI, in appreciation for the survival of Rome after French occupation, paid homage and gifted a silver effigy to the church. The Florentine brides traditionally visit the shrine to leave their bouquets and this church is entered from the Chiostrino dei Voti. The Baroque decoration of the interior was begun in 1644. The 1st chapel to right contains a Madonna in Glory by Jacopo da Empoli, the 5th chapel on the right contains a Monument to Orlando de Medici by Bernardo Rossellino. The right transept has a side chapel has a Pietà by Baccio Bandinelli. The chapel-surrounded tribune or choir, known as the Rotonda, was designed in turn by Michelozzo, the next chapel has a Resurrection by Bronzino with a statue of St Roch attributed to Veit Stoss. The next chapel has a Madonna with Saints by a follower of Perugino and this chapel was elaborately decorated in a baroque fashion by Gianbattista Foggini in 1692. The first chapel just to the left of the entrance has a tabernacle of the Annunciation by Michelozzo, the organ is the oldest in Florence and the second oldest in Italy. The church contains the tomb of the Italian writer Maria Valtorta, the Chiostrino dei Voti was designed by Michelozzo
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San Marco, Florence
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San Marco is the name of a religious complex in Florence, Italy. It comprises a church and a convent, the convent, which is now a museum, has three claims to fame. During the 15th century it was home to two famous Dominicans, the painter Fra Angelico and the preacher Girolamo Savonarola, also housed at the convent is a famous collection of manuscripts in a library built by Michelozzo. The present convent occupies the site where a Vallombrosan monastery existed in the 12th century, both of these groups were branches of the Order of St. Benedict. In the time of the Sylvestrines at least, the church was used both for monastic liturgical functions and as a parish church, from this initial period there have recently been rediscovered some traces of frescoes below floor level. They appealed to Cosimo de Medici the Elder, who lived nearby in the palace, now known as the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. So it was that in 1437 Cosimo commissioned Michelozzo, the Medici’s favourite architect to rebuild the San Marco convent on Renaissance lines. By 1438 the work was underway and the final dedication took place on Epiphany night 1443 in the presence of Pope Eugene IV. These years marked in fact the height of the Medici family’s artistic patronage, the church has a single nave with side chapels designed in the late 16th century by Giambologna, and housing paintings from the 16th–17th centuries. In the late 17th century the tribune and the ceiling were also realized. A further renovation was carried on in 1678 by Pier Francesco Silvani, the façade, in Neo-Classical style, was built in 1777–1778. Among the artworks, the most ancient is a 14th-century crucifix in the counter-façade, the crucifix on the high altar is by Fra Angelico. Over the first altar to the right is St. Thomas Praying by Santi di Tito from 1593, Giambologna completed the Cappella di SantAntonino in May 1589. The Salviati family had been linked by marriage to the Medici (Pope Leo XI was the son of Francesca Salviati, the interior was decorated in fresco with a Translation and Funeral of St. Antonino Perozzi by Domenico Passignano. The dome of the chapel is by Bernardino Poccetti, also author of frescoes in the Sacrament Chapel, the latter also has canvases by Santi di Tito, Crespi, Francesco Morandini, Jacopo da Empoli, and Francesco Curradi. The work was planned according to arrangements that took account of simplicity and practicality, but were of great elegance, a sober, though comfortable, Renaissance edifice. The internal walls were covered in whitewashed plaster, layout centred on two cloisters, with the usual features of a chapter house, two refectories and guest quarters on the ground level. On the upper floor were the friars’ cells, small walled enclosures overarched by a trussed roof
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San Miniato al Monte
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San Miniato al Monte is a basilica in Florence, central Italy, standing atop one of the highest points in the city. It has been described as one of the finest Romanesque structures in Tuscany, there is an adjoining Olivetan monastery, seen to the right of the basilica when ascending the stairs. St. Miniato or Minas was an Armenian prince serving in the Roman army under Emperor Decius and he was denounced as a Christian after becoming a hermit and was brought before the Emperor who was camped outside the gates of Florence. The Emperor ordered him to be thrown to beasts in the Amphitheatre where a panther was called upon him but refused to devour him. Beheaded in the presence of the Emperor, he is alleged to have picked up his head, crossed the Arno, a shrine was later erected at this spot and there was a chapel there by the 8th century. Construction of the present church was begun in 1013 by Bishop Alibrando, the adjoining monastery began as a Benedictine community, then passed to the Cluniacs and then in 1373 to the Olivetans, who still run it. The monks make famous liqueurs, honey and herbal teas, which they sell from a next to the church. The interior exhibits the early feature of a choir raised on a platform above the large crypt and it has changed little since it was first built. The patterned pavement dates from 1207, the centre of the nave is dominated by the beautiful freestanding Cappella del Crocefisso, designed by Michelozzo in 1448. It originally housed the miraculous crucifix now in Santa Trìnita and is decorated with panels long thought to be painted by Agnolo Gaddi, the terracotta decoration of the vault is by Luca della Robbia. The mosaic of Christ between the Virgin and St Minias was made in 1260, the crypt is the oldest part of the church and the high altar supposedly contains the bones of St Minias himself. In the vaults are frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi, the raised choir and presbytery contain a magnificent Romanesque pulpit and screen made in 1207. The apse is dominated by a mosaic dating from 1297. The crucifix above the altar is attributed to Luca della Robbia. The sacristy is decorated with a fresco cycle on the Life of St Benedict by Spinello Aretino. His is the tomb in the church. The chapel is a collaboration of outstanding artists of Florence, it was designed by Brunelleschis associate, Antonio Manetti, the tomb was made by Antonio and Bernardo Rossellino. The chapel decoration is by Alesso Baldovinetti, Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo, the eagle which crowns the façade was their symbol
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Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
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Santa Maria del Carmine is a church of the Carmelite Order, in the Oltrarno district of Florence, in Tuscany, Italy. It is famous as the location of the Brancacci Chapel housing outstanding Renaissance frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale, the church, dedicated to the Beatæ Virginis Mariæ de monte Carmelo, was built from 1268 as part of Carmelite convent, which is still existing today. Of the original edifice only some Romanesque-Gothic remains can be seen on the sides, the complex was enlarged a first time in 1328 and again in 1464, when the capitular hall and the refectory added, though the church maintained the Latin Cross, one nave plan. Renovated in the Baroque style in the 16th–17th centuries, it was damaged by a fire in 1771, the façade, like in many Florentine churches, remained unfinished. The fire did not touch the sacristy, therefore have survived the Stories of St. Cecilia attributed to Lippo dAndrea, the vault of the nave has a trompe-loeil, quadratura fresco by Domenico Stagi. Also the Brancacci Chapel survived the fire, and was saved by the subsequent restoration by the intervention of a Florentine noblewoman who was opposed to the covering of the frescoes. The Chapel is home to the frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino. Masaccios master Masolino, commissioned by a merchant, Felice Brancacci, began work on the chapel in 1425 and was soon joined in the project by his pupil. The scenes by Masolino are St Peter Healing a Lame Man and Raising Tabitha from the Dead, St Peter Preaching, and Adam and Eve. Those by mostly Masaccio are The Tribute Money, St Peter Healing with his Shadow, The Crucifixion of St Peter, The Baptism of the Neophytes and their treatment of figures in believable space made the frescoes among the most important to have come out of the Early Renaissance. The cycle was finished by Filippino Lippi, the elaborated Italian Rococo ceiling is from one of the most important 18th century artists in the city, Giovanni Domenico Ferretti. The architect Pier Francesco Silvani choose for it the Baroque style then popular in Rome, the altar has a marble bas-relief depicting the Glory of St Andrea Corsini, sculpted by Foggini, and above a God the Father sculpted by Carlo Marcellini. The small dome was frescoed by Giordano in 1682, the frescoes suffered in the great church fire, and were restored by Stefano Fabbrini. The convent suffered in its history from numerous disasters, from the 1771 fire to the 1966 River Arno flood, the second refectory is decorated with the Supper in Simon the Pharisees house by Giovanni Battista Vanni, it also houses fragments of frescoes by Lippo dAndrea. Neri Corsini Holy Places in Tuscany Media related to Santa Maria del Carmine at Wikimedia Commons
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Brancacci Chapel
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The Brancacci Chapel is a chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, central Italy. It is sometimes called the Sistine Chapel of the early Renaissance for its cycle, among the most famous. Construction of the chapel was commissioned by Pietro Brancacci and begun in 1386, public access is currently gained via the neighbouring convent, designed by Brunelleschi. The church and the chapel are treated as separate places to visit and as such have different opening times, the patron of the pictorial decoration was Felice Brancacci, descendant of Pietro, who had served as the Florentine ambassador to Cairo until 1423. Upon his return to Florence, he hired Masolino da Panicale to paint his chapel, by the time Masolino returned he was learning from his talented former student. However, Masaccio was called to Rome before he could finish the chapel, portions of the chapel were completed later by Filippino Lippi. Unfortunately during the Baroque period some of the paintings were seen as unfashionable, in his frescos, Masaccio carries out a radical break from the medieval pictorial tradition, by adhering to the new Renaissance perspectival conception of space. Thus, perspective and light create deep spaces where volumetrically constructed figures move in a strongly individualised human dimension, Masaccio therefore continues on Giottos path, detaching himself from a symbolic vision of man and propounding a greater realistic painting. The cycle from the life of Saint Peter was commissioned as patron saint from Pietro Brancacci, the paintings are explained below in their narrative order. In contrast with Masaccios Expulsion, this is a serene and innocent raffiguration, the cycle begins with this painting by Masolino, placed on the higher rectangle of the arch delimiting the Chapel, within the pillar thickness. The painting shows Adam standing near Eve, they look at each other with measured postures, as she prepares to bite on the apple, the snake has a head with thick blond hair, much idealised. The scene is aulic in its presentation, with gestures and style conveying tones of late International Gothic, light, which models the figures without sharp angles, is soft and embracing, the dark background makes the body stand out in their sensual plasticity, almost suspended in space. Masaccios masterpiece Expulsion from the Garden of Eden is the first fresco on the part of the chapel, on the left wall. It is famous for its energy and unprecedented emotional realism. It contrasts dramatically with Masolinos delicate and decorative image of Adam and Eve before the fall, painted on the opposite wall. It presents a dramatic intensity, with an angel who hovers over Adam and Eve indicating the way out of the Garden of Eden. The bodies dynamism, especially Adams, gives an unprecedented passion to the figures, firmly planted on ground, many are the details which increase the emotional drama, Adams damp and sticky hair, the angels posture, foreshortened as if diving down from above. Eves position is from an ancient representation, that of Venus Pudica, the foliage covering the couples nudities was removed during a restoration in 1990
