1.
Trebbiano
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Trebbiano is one of the most widely planted varieties of grape in the world. It gives good yields, but tends to yield undistinguished wine and it can be fresh and fruity, but does not keep long. Its high acidity makes it important in Cognac and Armagnac productions, also known as Ugni blanc, in particular in France, it has many other names reflecting a family of local subtypes, particularly in Italy and France. Trebbiano may have originated in the Eastern Mediterranean, and was known in Italy in Roman times, a subtype was recognized in Bologna in the thirteenth century, and as Ugni blanc made its way to France, possibly during the Papal retreat to Avignon in the fourteenth century. An Italian study published in 2008 using DNA typing showed a genetic relationship between Garganega on the one hand and Trebbiano and several other grape varieties on the other hand. During a series of trials between 1924 and 1930, Trebbiano was crossed with Gewürztraminer to create the pink-skinned Italian wine grape variety Manzoni rosa. Also, in the early 21st century, DNA analysis has suggested there may be a close genetic relationship between Trebbiano and the Emilia-Romagna wine grape Alionza. Like many Italian grapes, Trebbiano came to Argentina with Italian immigrants, white Hermitage came to Australia with James Busby in 1832. The major plantings are in New South Wales and South Australia and it is known as Thalia in both Bulgaria and Portugal. Ugni blanc is the most widely planted white grape of France, being found particularly along the Provençal coast, in the Gironde and it is also known as Clairette Ronde, Clairette de Vence, Queue de Renard, and in Corsica as Rossola. Most of the table wine is unremarkable and is often blended or turned into industrial alcohol. Under the name St. Émilion, Trebbiano is important in brandy production, in the Armagnac / Côtes de Gascogne area it is also used in the white Floc de Gascogne. The Trebbiano family account for around a third of all wine in Italy. Perhaps the most successful Trebbiano-based blend are the Orvieto whites of Umbria, Trebbiano is also used to produce balsamic vinegar. As in Bulgaria, the variety is known as Thalia in Portugal, Italian immigrants brought Trebbiano to California, but is seldom seen as a single variety table wine. The vine is vigorous and high-yielding, with long cylindrical bunches of tough-skinned berries that yield acidic yellow juice, Trebbiano shares at least three synonyms with the Spanish wine grape Viura including Queue de Renard, Rossan, Ugni blanc and the similarly spelled Gredelín/Gredelin
2.
Umbria
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Umbria, is a region of historic and modern central Italy. It is the only Italian region having neither a coastline nor a border with other countries and it includes the Lake Trasimeno, Marmores Falls, and is crossed by the River Tiber. Umbria is known for its landscapes, traditions, history, culinary delights, artistic legacy, and influence on culture. Contained within Umbria is Cospaia, a republic created by accident that existed from 1440 to 1826 Umbria is bordered by Tuscany to the west, Marche to the east. It is the only Italian region having neither a coastline nor a border with other countries. The commune of Città di Castello has an exclave named Monte Ruperto within Marche. Umbria is crossed by two valleys, the Umbrian valley, stretching from Perugia to Spoleto, and the Tiber Valley, west of the first one, the Tiber River forms the approximate border with Lazio, although its source is just over the Tuscan border. The Tibers three principal tributaries flow southward through Umbria, the Chiascio basin is relatively uninhabited as far as Bastia Umbra. About 10 kilometres farther on, it joins the Tiber at Torgiano, the third river is the Nera, flowing into the Tiber further south, at Terni, its valley is called the Valnerina. The upper Nera cuts ravines in the mountains, the lower, in antiquity, the plain was covered by a pair of shallow, interlocking lakes, the Lacus Clitorius and the Lacus Umber. They were drained by the Romans over several hundred years, an earthquake in the 4th century and the political collapse of the Roman Empire resulted in the refilling of the basin. The eastern part of the region, being crossed by many faults, has often hit by earthquakes, the last ones have been that of 1997. In literature, Umbria is referred to as il cuore verde dItalia, the phrase is taken from a poem by Giosuè Carducci, the subject of which is the source of the Clitunno River in Umbria. The region is named for the Umbri people, an Italic people which was absorbed by the expansion of the Romans, the Umbris capital city was Gubbio, where today is housed the longest and most important document of any of the Osco-Umbrian group of languages, the Iguvine Tablets. In fact, they belonged to a family of neighbouring peoples with similar roots. Their language was Umbrian, one of the Italic languages, related to Latin, the Etruscans were the chief enemies of the Umbri. The Etruscan invasion went from the western seaboard towards the north and east, eventually driving the Umbrians towards the Apennine uplands, nevertheless, the Umbrian population does not seem to have been eradicated in the conquered districts. The border between Etruria and Umbria was the Tiber river, the ancient name of Todi, Tular, after the downfall of the Etruscans, Umbrians aided the Samnites in their struggle against Rome
3.
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
4.
Andrea del Verrocchio
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Andrea del Verrocchio, born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de Cioni, was an Italian painter, sculptor, and goldsmith who was a master of an important workshop in Florence. He became known by his nickname Verrocchio, from vero occhio, which in Italian means true eye, few paintings are attributed to him with certainty, but a number of important painters were trained at his workshop. His pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi and his greatest importance was as a sculptor and his last work, the Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, is generally accepted as a masterpiece. Verrocchio was born in Florence in around 1435 and his father, Michele di Francesco Cioni, initially worked as a tile and brick maker, then later as a tax collector. Verrocchio never married, and had to provide support for some members of his family. He was at first apprenticed to a goldsmith and it has been suggested that he was later apprenticed to Donatello, but there is no evidence of this and John Pope-Hennessy considered that it is contradicted by the style of his early works. It has been suggested that he was trained as a painter under Fra Filippo Lippi, little is known about his life. His main works are dated in his last twenty years and his advancement owed much to the patronage of Lorenzo de Medici and his workshop was in Florence where he was a member of the Guild of St Luke. At the end of his life he opened a new workshop in Venice where he was working on the statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni and he died in Venice in 1488. Despite the importance of Verrocchios workshop in the training of younger painters, very few paintings are universally recognised as his own work, a painting of the Madonna with seated child in tempera on panel is considered an early work of 1468-70. It is a work which has formerly been attributed to Pollaiuolo. Covi thinks that it was painted with assistance from Ghirlandaio. It is now in London at the National Gallery, the Baptism of Christ, now in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, was painted in 1474–75. In this work Verrocchio was assisted by Leonardo da Vinci, then a youth and a member of his workshop, who painted the angel on the left and the part of the background above. According to Vasari, Andrea resolved never to touch the brush again because Leonardo, his pupil, had far surpassed him, the Madonna enthroned with John the Baptist and St Donato is in the Pistoia Cathedral. It had been left unfinished and was completed by Lorenzo di Credi when Verrocchio was in Venice near the end of his life, around 1465 he is believed to have worked on the lavabo of the Old Sacristy in San Lorenzo, Florence. He therefore had the problem of placing two statues in a tabernacle originally intended for one, as Covi says, the problem was resolved in a most felicitous manner. The work was placed in position in 1483 and has been acclaimed since the day of its unveiling, in 1468 Verrocchio made a bronze candlestick, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, for the Signoria of Florence
5.
Painting
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
6.
Fresco
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Fresco is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly-laid, or wet lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the fresco technique has been employed since antiquity and is closely associated with Italian Renaissance painting. Buon fresco pigment mixed with water of temperature on a thin layer of wet, fresh plaster, for which the Italian word for plaster. Because of the makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required, as the pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the intonaco. The pigment is absorbed by the wet plaster, after a number of hours, many artists sketched their compositions on this underlayer, which would never be seen, in a red pigment called sinopia, a name also used to refer to these under-paintings. Later, new techniques for transferring paper drawings to the wall were developed. The main lines of a drawing made on paper were pricked over with a point, the paper held against the wall, if the painting was to be done over an existing fresco, the surface would be roughened to provide better adhesion. This area is called the giornata, and the different day stages can usually be seen in a large fresco, buon frescoes are difficult to create because of the deadline associated with the drying plaster. Once a giornata is dried, no more buon fresco can be done, if mistakes have been made, it may also be necessary to remove the whole intonaco for that area—or to change them later, a secco. An indispensable component of this process is the carbonatation of the lime, the eyes of the people of the School of Athens are sunken-in using this technique which causes the eyes to seem deeper and more pensive. Michelangelo used this technique as part of his trademark outlining of his central figures within his frescoes, in a wall-sized fresco, there may be ten to twenty or even more giornate, or separate areas of plaster. After five centuries, the giornate, which were nearly invisible, have sometimes become visible, and in many large-scale frescoes. Additionally, the border between giornate was often covered by an a secco painting, which has fallen off. One of the first painters in the period to use this technique was the Isaac Master in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. A person who creates fresco is called a frescoist, a secco or fresco-secco painting is done on dry plaster. The pigments thus require a medium, such as egg. Blue was a problem, and skies and blue robes were often added a secco, because neither azurite blue nor lapis lazuli. By the end of the century this had largely displaced buon fresco
7.
Delivery of the Keys (Perugino)
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The Delivery of the Keys, or Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter Pietro Perugino, executed in 1481–1482 and located in the Sistine Chapel, Rome. The commission of the work originated in 1480, when Perugino was decorating a chapel in the Old St. Peters Basilica in Rome. Pope Sixtus IV was pleased by his work, and decided to commission him also the decoration of the new Chapel he had built in the Vatican Palace. Due to the size of the work, Perugino was later joined by a group of painters from Florence, including Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and others. The scene, part of the series of the Stories of Jesus on the northern wall, is a reference to Matthew 16 in which the keys of the kingdom of heaven are given to Saint Peter. These keys represent the power to forgive and to share the word of God thereby giving them the power to others into heaven. The main figures are organized in a frieze in two tightly compressed rows close to the surface of the picture and well below the horizon, the flat, open square is divided by coloured stones into large foreshortened rectangles. In the center of the painting is the porticoed Temple of Solomon, on either side are triumphal arches. Scattered in the distance are two scenes from the life of Christ, including the Tribute Money on the left and the Stoning of Christ on the right. The style of the figures is inspired by Andrea del Verrocchio, the poses of the actors fall into a small number of basic attitudes that are consistently repeated, usually in reverse from one side to the other, signifying the use of the same cartoon. They are graceful and elegant figures who tend to stand firmly on the earth and their heads are smallish in proportion to the rest of their bodies, and their features are delicately distilled with considerable attention to minor detail. The building with its arches serves as a backdrop in front of which the action unfolds, Perugino has made a significant contribution in rendering the landscape. The fresco was believed to be an omen in Papal conclaves. Contemporary records indicate at least three popes were housed beneath the fresco during the conclaves that elected them, Pope Clement VII, Pope Julius II, and Pope Paul III
8.
Italian Renaissance
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The term Renaissance is in essence a modern one that came into currency in the 19th century, in the work of historians such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt. The French word renaissance means Rebirth, and the era is best known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical antiquity after the period that Renaissance humanists labeled the Dark Ages. Though today perhaps best known for Italian Renaissance art and architecture, the period saw major achievements in literature, music, philosophy, Italy became the recognized European leader in all these areas by the late 15th century, and to varying degrees retained this lead until about 1600. This was despite a turbulent and generally disastrous period in Italian politics, the European Renaissance began in Tuscany, and centred in the city of Florence. It later spread to Venice, where the remains of ancient Greek culture were brought together, the Renaissance later had a significant effect on Rome, which was ornamented with some structures in the new allantico mode, then was largely rebuilt by humanist sixteenth-century popes. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the century as foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. However, the ideas and ideals of the Renaissance endured and spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance is best known for its cultural achievements. Accounts of Renaissance literature usually begin with Petrarch and his friend, famous vernacular poets of the 15th century include the renaissance epic authors Luigi Pulci, Matteo Maria Boiardo, and Ludovico Ariosto. 15th century writers such as the poet Poliziano and the Platonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino made extensive translations from both Latin and Greek, the same is true for architecture, as practiced by Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Palladio, and Bramante. Their works include Florence Cathedral, St. Peters Basilica in Rome, yet cultural contributions notwithstanding, some present-day historians also see the era as one of the beginning of economic regression for Italy. By the Late Middle Ages, Latium, the heartland of the Roman Empire. Rome was a city of ancient ruins, and the Papal States were loosely administered, and vulnerable to external interference such as that of France, and later Spain. The Papacy was affronted when the Avignon Papacy was created in southern France as a consequence of pressure from King Philip the Fair of France, in the south, Sicily had for some time been under foreign domination, by the Arabs and then the Normans. Sicily had prospered for 150 years during the Emirate of Sicily, in contrast Northern and Central Italy had become far more prosperous, and it has been calculated that the region was among the richest of Europe. The Crusades had built lasting trade links to the Levant, the main trade routes from the east passed through the Byzantine Empire or the Arab lands and onwards to the ports of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. Luxury goods bought in the Levant, such as spices, dyes, moreover, the inland city-states profited from the rich agricultural land of the Po valley. From France, Germany, and the Low Countries, through the medium of the Champagne fairs, land and river trade routes brought goods such as wool, wheat, and precious metals into the region. The extensive trade that stretched from Egypt to the Baltic generated substantial surpluses that allowed significant investment in mining, thus, while northern Italy was not richer in resources than many other parts of Europe, the level of development, stimulated by trade, allowed it to prosper
9.
High Renaissance
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In art history, High Renaissance is the period denoting the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance. This term was first used in German in the nineteenth century. High Renaissance style in architecture conventionally begins with Donato Bramante, whose Tempietto at S. Pietro in Montorio at Rome was begun in 1510, the Tempietto, signifies a full-scale revival of ancient Roman commemorative architecture. David Watkin writes that the Tempietto, like Raphaels works in the Vatican, is an attempt at reconciling Christian, the High Renaissance was traditionally viewed as a great explosion of creative genius, following a model of art history first proposed by the Florentine Giorgio Vasari. Even relatively minor painters of the period, such as Fra Bartolomeo and Mariotto Albertinelli, produced works that are still lauded for the harmony of their design, the serene mood and luminous colours of paintings by Giorgione and early Titian exemplify High Renaissance style as practiced in Venice. Other recognizable pieces of this period include Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa, Raphaels fresco, set beneath an arch, is a virtuoso work of perspective, composition and disegno. High Renaissance sculpture, as exemplified by Michelangelos Pietà and the iconic David, is characterized by a balance between stillness and movement. High Renaissance sculpture was commissioned by the public and the state. Sculpture was often used to decorate or embellish architecture, normally within courtyards where others were able to study, wealthy individuals like cardinals, rulers and bankers were the more likely private patrons along with very wealthy families, Pope Julius II also patronized many artists. During the High Renaissance there was the development of small scale statuettes for private patrons, the subject matter related to sculpture was mostly religious but also with a significant strand of classical individuals in the form of tomb sculpture and paintings as well as ceilings of cathedrals. Toward The High Renaissance at Smarthistory
10.
Raphael
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Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running a large workshop and, despite his death at 37. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, the best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings and he was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region and his poem to Federico shows him as keen to show awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture, growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a humanistic education however, it is unclear how easily he read Latin. His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight, followed on August 1,1494 by his father, Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven, his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. He probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master and he had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been a great help to his father. A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity and his fathers workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter, and Luca Signorelli, according to Vasari, his father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice despite the tears of his mother. The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, an alternative theory is that he received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters, the Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a master, that is to say fully trained and his first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was named in the commission
11.
Perugia
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Perugia is the capital city of both the region of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the river Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about 164 kilometres north of Rome and 148 km south-east of Florence and it covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area. The region of Umbria is bordered by Tuscany, Lazio, the history of Perugia goes back to the Etruscan period, Perugia was one of the main Etruscan cities. Perugia is also a cultural and artistic centre of Italy. The famous painter Pietro Vannucci, nicknamed Perugino, was a native of Città della Pieve and he decorated the local Sala del Cambio with a beautiful series of frescoes, eight of his pictures can also be admired in the National Gallery of Umbria. Perugino was the teacher of Raphael, the great Renaissance artist who produced five paintings in Perugia, another famous painter, Pinturicchio, lived in Perugia. Galeazzo Alessi is the most famous architect from Perugia, the citys symbol is the griffin, which can be seen in the form of plaques and statues on buildings around the city. Perugia was an Umbrian settlement but first appears in history as Perusia, one of the 12 confederate cities of Etruria. Fabius Pictors account, utilized by Livy, of the carried out against the Etruscan League by Fabius Maximus Rullianus in 310 or 309 BC. At that time a thirty-year indutiae was agreed upon, however, in 295 Perusia took part in the Third Samnite War and was reduced, with Volsinii and Arretium, a number of lead bullets used by slingers have been found in and around the city. Negotiations with the besieging forces fell to the bishop, Herculanus. Totila is said to have ordered the bishop to be flayed and beheaded, st. Herculanus later became the citys patron saint. In the Lombard period Perugia is spoken of as one of the cities of Tuscia. Peter, acknowledged the validity of the statement and recognised the established civic practices as having the force of law. However this dominant tendency was rather an anti-Germanic and Italian political strategy, midway through the 14th century Bartholus of Sassoferrato, who was a renowned jurist, asserted that Perugia was dependent upon neither imperial nor papal support. Civic peace was constantly disturbed in the 14th century by struggles between the party representing the people and the nobles. A citadel known as the Rocca Paolina, after the name of Pope Paul III, was built, in 1797, the city was conquered by French troops. On 4 February 1798, the Tiberina Republic was formed, with Perugia as capital, in 1799, the Tiberina Republic merged to the Roman Republic
12.
Giovanni Santi
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Giovanni Santi was an Italian painter, decorator, and the father of Raphael. He was born at Colbordolo in the Duchy of Urbino and he was a petty merchant for a time, he then studied under Piero della Francesca. He was influenced by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and seems to have been an assistant and his poetry includes an epic in honor of one of his patrons, Federico III da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, followed a discourse on painting. Giovanni Santi at Panopticon Virtual Art Gallery The Gubbio Studiolo and its conservation, volumes 1 &2, from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on Giovanni Santi
13.
Bartolomeo Caporali
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Bartolomeo Caporali was an Italian painter born and active in Perugia. He was the father of Giovanni Battista Caporali and was part of the Umbrian School of Painting and he painted a Madonna and Saints for the church of Santa Maria Maddalena at Castiglione del Lago. Annunciation, a triptych by Bonfigli, San Domenico Church, Perugia, virbin and Saints, Santa Maria Maddalena church, Castiglione del Lago. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical, york St. #4, Covent Garden, London, Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18,2007, George Bell and Sons
14.
Fiorenzo di Lorenzo
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Fiorenzo di Lorenzo was an Italian painter, of the Umbrian school. He lived and worked at Perugia, where most of his works are still preserved in the Galleria Nazionale dellUmbria. Of his birth and death and pupilage nothing is known, certain it is that the early works both of Perugino and of Pinturicchio show certain mannerisms which point towards Fiorenzos influence, if not to his direct teaching. Pisanello, Verrocchio, Benozzo Gozzoli, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Benedetto Bonfigli, Andrea Mantegna, Francesco Squarcione, Filippo Lippi, Luca Signorelli, but Fiorenzo has an intensity of feeling and a power of expressing character which are far removed from the somewhat affected grace of Perugino. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
15.
Leonardo da Vinci
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He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the Universal Genius or Renaissance Man, an individual of unquenchable curiosity and feverishly inventive imagination. Much of his working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded to him by Francis I of France, Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait, Leonardos drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have survived, Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated power, an adding machine. Some of his inventions, however, such as an automated bobbin winder. A number of Leonardos most practical inventions are nowadays displayed as working models at the Museum of Vinci. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, geology, optics, and hydrodynamics, today, Leonardo is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived. Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452 at the hour of the night in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci. He was the son of the wealthy Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine legal notary, and Caterina. Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense – da Vinci simply meaning of Vinci, his birth name was Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci, meaning Leonardo. The inclusion of the title ser indicated that Leonardos father was a gentleman, little is known about Leonardos early life. He spent his first five years in the hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his mother and his father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera Amadori, who loved Leonardo but died young in 1465 without children. When Leonardo was sixteen, his father married again to twenty-year-old Francesca Lanfredini, pieros legitimate heirs were born from his third wife Margherita di Guglielmo and his fourth and final wife, Lucrezia Cortigiani. Leonardo received an education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In later life, Leonardo recorded only two childhood incidents, one, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face
16.
Domenico Ghirlandaio
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Domenico Ghirlandaio was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Florence. Ghirlandaio was part of the third generation of the Florentine Renaissance, along with Verrocchio. Many apprentices passed through Ghirlandaios workshop, including the famous Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio was born Domenico di Tommaso di Currado di Doffo Bigordi. Tommaso had two children by his second wife, also named Antonia, whom he married in 1464. Domenicos half-sister Alessandra married the painter Bastiano Mainardi in 1494, both Ghirlandaios father and his uncle, Antonio, were setaiuolo a minuto. Giorgio Vasari reported that Domenico was at first apprenticed to his father, the nickname Il Ghirlandaio came to Domenico from his father, who was famed for creating the metallic garland-like headdresses worn by Florentine women. He was eventually apprenticed to Alesso Baldovinetti to study painting and mosaic, according to the art historian Günter Passavent, he was apprenticed in Florence to Andrea del Verrocchio. He maintained an association with other Florentine painters including Botticelli. Ghirlandaio excelled in the painting of frescos and it is for his fresco cycles that he is best known, an early commission came to him in the 1470s from the Commune of San Gimignano to decorate the Chapel of Santa Fina in the Collegiate Church of that city. The frescos, executed from 1477 to 1478, depict two miraculous events associated with the death of Saint Fina, in 1480, Ghirlandaio painted St. Jerome in His Study as a companion piece to Saint Augustine in His Study by Botticelli in the Church of Ognissanti, Florence. He also painted a life-sized Last Supper in its refectory, from 1481 to 1485, he was employed on frescoes at the Palazzo Vecchio, painting among other works an Apotheosis of St. Ghirlandaio painted the Vocation of the Apostles. He also painted the now lost Resurrection of Christ, the Crossing of the Red Sea has also been attributed to him, but is consistent with the style of Cosimo Roselli who was also part of the commission. Ghirlandaio is known to have created works in Rome, now lost. The first of these paintings contains portraits of Lorenzo de Medici, Sassetti and Lorenzos children with their tutor, the Resuscitation shows the painters own likeness. In 1483, there arrived in Florence a masterpiece of the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes, now known as the Portinari Altarpiece, it was an Adoration of the Shepherds, commissioned by Tommaso Portinari, an employee of the Medici Bank. The painting was in oil paint, not the tempera employed in Florence, the aspect of the painting that had a profound effect on Ghirlandaio was the naturalism with which the shepherds were depicted. Ghirlandaio painted the altarpiece of the Sassetti chapel, an Adoration of the Shepherds and it is in this painting that he particularly shows his indebtedness to the Portinari Altarpiece. The shepherds, among whom is a portrait of the artist himself, are portrayed with a realism that was an advance in Florentine painting at that time, the altarpiece is still in position in Santa Trinita, surrounded by the frescos of which it was the centrepiece
17.
Lorenzo di Credi
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Lorenzo di Credi was an Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor. He first influenced Leonardo da Vinci and then was influenced by him. Born in Florence, he started to work in Andrea del Verrocchios workshop, after the death of his master, he inherited the direction of the workshop. Amongst his other works are an Annunciation in the Uffizi, a Madonna with Child in the Galleria Sabauda of Turin. Of a later period are a Madonna and Saints and an Adoration of the Child in the Uffizi, in Fiesole, he remade parts of Fra Angelicos panels on the altars of the church of San Domenico. Lorenzos mature works are influenced by Fra Bartolomeo, Perugino and the young Raphael, caterina Sforza was the Lady of Forlì and Imola in Romagna, later prisoner of Cesare Borgia. The portrait, known also as La dama dei gelsomini, is now in the Pinacoteca of Forlì, hobbes, James R. Picture collectors manual, Dictionary of Painters. T. & W. Boone,29 Bond Street, London, Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman, exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Library, which contains material on Lorenzo di Credi
18.
Filippino Lippi
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Filippino Lippi was an Italian painter working during the High Renaissance in Florence, Italy. Born Filippo Lippi in Prato, Tuscany, the son of the painter Fra Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti. They moved to Spoleto, where Filippino served as workshop adjuvant in the construction of the Cathedral there, when his father died in 1469, he completed the frescos with Storie della Vergine in the cathedral. Filippino Lippi completed his apprenticeship in the workshop of Botticelli, who had been a pupil of Filippinos father, in 1472, Botticelli also took him as his companion in the Compagnia di San Luca. His first works greatly resemble those of Botticellis, but with less sensitivity and subtlety, the very first ones were initially attributed to an anonymous Amico di Sandro. Eventually Lippis style evolved into a personal and effective one in the years 1480-1485. Together with Perugino, Ghirlandaio and Botticelli, Lippi worked on the decoration of Lorenzo de Medicis villa at Spedaletto. On December 31,1482 he was commissioned to work on a wall of Sala dellUdienza of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, a work never begun. Soon after, probably in 1483-84, he was called to complete Masaccios decoration of Brancacci Chapel in the church of the Carmine, the work on the Sala degli Otto di Pratica, in the Palazzo Vecchio, started on February 20,1486. It is now in the Uffizi Gallery, in the same years Piero di Francesco del Pugliese asked him to paint the altarpiece with the Apparition of the Virgin to St. Bernard, now in the Badia Fiorentina, Florence. This is Lippis most popular picture, a composition of unreal items, with its very particular elongated figures, backed by a scenario of rocks. The work is dated to 1480–86, eventually he worked for Tanai de Nerli in Florences Santo Spirito church. On April 21,1487, Filippo Strozzi asked him to decorate the chapel in Santa Maria Novella with the Stories of St. John Evangelist. He worked on this piece intermittently, only completing it in 1503, the windows with musical themes, also designed by Filippino, were completed between June and July 1503. Filippino showed his characters in a landscape which recreated the ancient world in its finest details and he created in this way an animated, mysterious, fantastic but also disquieting style, showing the unreality of something as a nightmare. In this way, Filippino portrayed ruthless executioners deformed by grim faces, in the scene with St. Philip expelling a monster from the temple, the statue of the pagan god is a living figure which seems to dare the Christian saint. In 1488, Lippi moved to Rome, where Lorenzo de Medici had advised Cardinal Oliviero Carafa to entrust him the decoration of the chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva. These frescoes show a new kind of inspiration, quite different from the earlier works, Lippi finished the cycle by 1493
19.
Piero della Francesca
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Piero della Francesca was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting is characterized by its humanism, its use of geometric forms. His most famous work is the cycle of frescoes The History of the True Cross in the church of San Francesco in the Tuscan town of Arezzo. He was most probably apprenticed to the local painter Antonio di Giovanni dAnghiari, because in documents about payments it is noted that he was working with Antonio in 1432 and May 1438. Besides, he took notice of the work of some of the Sienese artists active in San Sepolcro during his youth. In 1439 Piero received, together with Domenico Veneziano, payments for his work on frescoes for the church of SantEgidio in Florence, in Florence he must have met leading masters like Fra Angelico, Luca della Robbia, Donatello and Brunelleschi. The classicism of Masaccios frescoes and his figures in the Santa Maria del Carmine were for him an important source of inspiration. Dating of Pieros undocumented work is difficult because his style does not seem to have developed over the years, in 1442 he was listed as eligible for the City Council of San Sepolcro. Three years later, he received the commission for the Madonna della Misericordia altarpiece for the church of the Misericordia in Sansepolcro, in 1449 he executed several frescoes in the Castello Estense and the church of SantAndrea of Ferrara, also lost. His influence was strong in the later Ferrarese allegorical works of Cosimo Tura. Two years later he was in Rimini, working for the condottiero Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, in this sojourn he executed in 1451 the famous fresco of St. Sigismund and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta in the Tempio Malatestiano, as well as Sigismondos portrait. Thereafter Piero was active in Ancona, Pesaro and Bologna, in 1454 he signed a contract for the Polyptych of Saint Augustine in the church of SantAgostino in Sansepolcro. The central panel of this polyptic is lost and the four panels of the wings, a few years later, summoned by Pope Nicholas V, he moved to Rome, here he executed frescoes in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, of which only fragments remain. Two years later he was again in the Papal capital, for frescoes in Vatican Palace which have also been destroyed, the Baptism of Christ, in The National Gallery in London, was executed around 1460 for the high altar of the church of the Priory of S. Other notable works of Piero della Francescas maturity are the frescoes of the Resurrection of Christ in Sansepolcro, in 1452, Piero della Francesca was called to Arezzo to replace Bicci di Lorenzo in painting the frescoes of the basilica of San Francesco. The work was finished before 1466, probably between 1452 and 1456, the cycle of frescoes, depicting the Legend of the True Cross, is generally considered among his masterworks and those of Renaissance painting in general. The story in these frescoes derives from medieval sources as to how timber relics of the True Cross came to be found
20.
Perspective (graphical)
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Perspective in the graphic arts is an approximate representation, on a flat surface, of an image as it is seen by the eye. If viewed from the spot as the windowpane was painted. Each painted object in the scene is thus a flat, scaled down version of the object on the side of the window. All perspective drawings assume the viewer is a distance away from the drawing. Objects are scaled relative to that viewer, an object is often not scaled evenly, a circle often appears as an ellipse and a square can appear as a trapezoid. This distortion is referred to as foreshortening, Perspective drawings have a horizon line, which is often implied. This line, directly opposite the viewers eye, represents objects infinitely far away and they have shrunk, in the distance, to the infinitesimal thickness of a line. It is analogous to the Earths horizon, any perspective representation of a scene that includes parallel lines has one or more vanishing points in a perspective drawing. A one-point perspective drawing means that the drawing has a vanishing point, usually directly opposite the viewers eye. All lines parallel with the line of sight recede to the horizon towards this vanishing point. This is the standard receding railroad tracks phenomenon, a two-point drawing would have lines parallel to two different angles. Any number of vanishing points are possible in a drawing, one for each set of lines that are at an angle relative to the plane of the drawing. Perspectives consisting of parallel lines are observed most often when drawing architecture. In contrast, natural scenes often do not have any sets of parallel lines, the only method to indicate the relative position of elements in the composition was by overlapping, of which much use is made in works like the Parthenon Marbles. Chinese artists made use of perspective from the first or second century until the 18th century. It is not certain how they came to use the technique, some authorities suggest that the Chinese acquired the technique from India, oblique projection is also seen in Japanese art, such as in the Ukiyo-e paintings of Torii Kiyonaga. This was detailed within Aristotles Poetics as skenographia, using flat panels on a stage to give the illusion of depth, the philosophers Anaxagoras and Democritus worked out geometric theories of perspective for use with skenographia. Alcibiades had paintings in his house designed using skenographia, so this art was not confined merely to the stage, Euclids Optics introduced a mathematical theory of perspective, but there is some debate over the extent to which Euclids perspective coincides with the modern mathematical definition
21.
Guild of Saint Luke
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The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the saint of artists. One of the most famous such organizations was founded in Antwerp and it continued to function until 1795, although by then it had lost its monopoly and therefore most of its power. In most cities, including Antwerp, the government had given the Guild the power to regulate defined types of trade within the city. Guild membership, as a master, was required for an artist to take on apprentices or to sell paintings to the public. Similar rules existed in Delft, where members could sell paintings in the city or have a shop. The guild of Saint Luke not only represented painters, sculptors, and other artists, but also—especially in the seventeenth century—dealers, amateurs. In traditional guild structures, house-painters and decorators were often in the same guild, however, as artists formed under their own specific guild of St. Luke, particularly in the Netherlands, distinctions were increasingly made. In general, guilds also made judgments on disputes between artists and other artists or their clients, in such ways, it controlled the economic career of an artist working in a specific city, while in different cities they were wholly independent and often competitive against each other. Although it did not become an artistic center until the sixteenth century, Antwerp was one of, if not the first. It is first mentioned in 1382, and was given privileges by the city in 1442. The registers, or Liggeren, from the guild exist, cataloging when artists became masters, who the dean for each year was, what their specialities were, and the names of any students. Perhaps because of this link, for a period they had a rule that all miniatures needed a tiny mark to identify the artist, only under special privileges, such as court artist, could an artist effectively practice their craft without holding membership in the guild. Membership also allowed members to sell works at the guild-owned showroom, Antwerp, for example, opened a market stall for selling paintings in front of the cathedral in 1460, and Bruges followed in 1482. Guilds of St. Luke in the Dutch Republic began to reinvent themselves as cities there changed over to Protestant rule, many St. Luke guilds reissued charters to protect the interests of local painters from the influx of southern talent from places like Antwerp and Bruges. Many cities in the republic became more important artistic centres in the late sixteenth. Amsterdam was the first city to reissue a St. Lukes charter after the reformation in 1579, and it included painters, sculptors, engravers, for example, Gouda, Rotterdam, and Delft, all founded guilds between 1609 and 1611. On the other hand, these distinctions did not take effect at that time in Amsterdam or Haarlem, in the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, however, a strict hierarchy was attempted in 1631 with panel painters at the top, though this hierarchy was eventually rejected
22.
Oil painting
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Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. Commonly used drying oils include linseed oil, poppy seed oil, walnut oil, the choice of oil imparts a range of properties to the oil paint, such as the amount of yellowing or drying time. Certain differences, depending on the oil, are visible in the sheen of the paints. An artist might use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular consistency depending on the medium, the oil may be boiled with a resin, such as pine resin or frankincense, to create a varnish prized for its body and gloss. Its practice may have migrated westward during the Middle Ages, Oil paint eventually became the principal medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became widely known. In recent years, water miscible oil paint has come to prominence and, to some extent, water-soluble paints contain an emulsifier that allows them to be thinned with water rather than paint thinner, and allows very fast drying times when compared with traditional oils. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with the artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint, Oil paint is usually mixed with linseed oil, artist grade mineral spirits, or other solvents to make the paint thinner, faster or slower-drying. A basic rule of oil paint application is fat over lean and this means that each additional layer of paint should contain more oil than the layer below to allow proper drying. If each additional layer contains less oil, the painting will crack. This rule does not ensure permanence, it is the quality and type of oil leads to a strong. There are many media that can be used with the oil, including cold wax, resins. These aspects of the paint are closely related to the capacity of oil paint. Traditionally, paint was transferred to the surface using paintbrushes. Oil paint remains wet longer than other types of artists materials, enabling the artist to change the color. At times, the painter might even remove a layer of paint. This can be done with a rag and some turpentine for a time while the paint is wet, Oil paint dries by oxidation, not evaporation, and is usually dry to the touch within a span of two weeks. It is generally dry enough to be varnished in six months to a year, art conservators do not consider an oil painting completely dry until it is 60 to 80 years old
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Stained glass
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The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches, mosques, although traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensional structures and sculpture. Modern vernacular usage has extended the term stained glass to include domestic leadlight. As a material stained glass is glass that has been coloured by adding metallic salts during its manufacture. The coloured glass is crafted into stained glass windows in which pieces of glass are arranged to form patterns or pictures, held together by strips of lead. Painted details and yellow stain are used to enhance the design. The term stained glass is applied to windows in which the colours have been painted onto the glass. Stained glass, as an art and a craft, requires the artistic skill to conceive an appropriate and workable design, and the engineering skills to assemble the piece. A window must fit snugly into the space for which it is made, must resist wind and rain, Many large windows have withstood the test of time and remained substantially intact since the late Middle Ages. In Western Europe they constitute the form of pictorial art to have survived. In this context, the purpose of a glass window is not to allow those within a building to see the world outside or even primarily to admit light. For this reason stained glass windows have been described as illuminated wall decorations, Stained glass is still popular today, but often referred to as art glass. It is prevalent in luxury homes, commercial buildings, and places of worship, artists and companies are contracted to create beautiful art glass ranging from domes, windows, backsplashes, etc. During the late Medieval period, glass factories were set up there was a ready supply of silica. Silica requires very high heat to become molten, something not all glass factories were able to achieve, such materials as potash, soda, and lead can be added to lower the melting temperature. Other substances, such as lime, are added to rebuild the weakened network, Glass is coloured by adding metallic oxide powders or finely divided metals while it is in a molten state. Copper oxides produce green or bluish green, cobalt makes deep blue, much modern red glass is produced using copper, which is less expensive than gold and gives a brighter, more vermilion shade of red. Glass coloured while in the pot in the furnace is known as pot metal glass
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Tempera
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Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium. Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium, Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist. Egg tempera was a method of painting until after 1500 when it was superseded by the invention of oil painting. Tempera painting has been found on early Egyptian sarcophagi decorations, many of the Fayum mummy portraits use tempera, sometimes in combination with encaustic. A related technique has been used also in ancient and early medieval paintings found in several caves, high-quality art with the help of tempera was created in Bagh Caves between the late 4th and 10th centuries AD and in the 7th century AD in Ravan Chhaya rock shelter, Orissa. Tempera painting was the panel painting medium for nearly every painter in the European Medieval. For example, every surviving panel painting by Michelangelo is egg tempera, oil paint, which may have originated in Afghanistan between the 5th and 9th centuries and migrated westward in the Middle Ages eventually superseded tempera. Oil replaced tempera as the medium used for creating artwork during the 15th century in Early Netherlandish painting in northern Europe. Around 1500, oil paint replaced tempera in Italy, in the 19th and 20th centuries, there were intermittent revivals of tempera technique in Western art, among the Pre-Raphaelites, Social Realists, and others. Tempera painting continues to be used in Greece and Russia where it is the medium for Orthodox icons. Tempera is traditionally created by hand-grinding dry powdered pigments into an agent or medium, such as egg, glue, honey, water, milk. Tempera painting starts with placing an amount of the powdered pigment onto a palette, dish or bowl and adding about an equal volume of the binder. Some pigments require slightly more binder, some require less, a few drops of distilled water are added, then the binder is added in small increments to the desired transparency. The more egg emulsion, the more transparent the paint, the most common form of classical tempera painting is egg tempera. For this form most often only the contents of the egg yolk is used, the white of the egg and the membrane of the yolk are discarded. Egg yolk is never used by itself with pigment, it dries almost immediately, some agent is always added, in variable proportions. One recipe calls for vinegar, other recipes suggest white wine, some schools of egg tempera use various mixtures of egg yolk and water. The paint mixture has to be adjusted to maintain a balance between a greasy and watery consistency by adjusting the amount of water and yolk
25.
Tondo (art)
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A tondo is a Renaissance term for a circular work of art, either a painting or a sculpture. The word derives from the Italian rotondo, round, artists have created tondi since Greek antiquity. The circular paintings in the centre of painted vases of that period are known as tondi, the style was revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, particularly in Italy, where it may have developed from the smaller desco da parto or birthing tray. Since then it has been less common, in Ford Madox Browns painting The Last of England, the ships wire railing curving round the figures helps enclose the composition within its tondo shape. The background scene is consolidated or omitted, and to an extent, unimportant. While the background may be visible in paintings, in tondo relief carvings the background is not seen. Andrea della Robbia and other members of his family created glazed terracotta tondi that were framed in a wreath of fruit and leaves. In the sixteenth century the style of istoriato decoration for maiolica wares was applied to large circular dishes. The infrequently-encountered synonym rondo much more usually refers to a musical form, adoration of the Magi Taddei Tondo Doni Tondo Pitti Tondo Severan Tondo, Roman painting of c.200 AD Roberta J. M. Olson, The Florentine Tondo, Oxford 2000. Moritz Hauptmann, Der Tondo, Ursprung, Bedeutung und Geschichte des italienischen Rundbildes in Relief und Malerei, six tondi from the National Gallery, London
26.
Louvre
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The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
27.
Sistine Chapel
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The Sistine Chapel is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope, in Vatican City. Originally known as the Cappella Magna, the chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, since that time, the chapel has served as a place of both religious and functionary papal activity. Today it is the site of the Papal conclave, the process by which a new pope is selected, the fame of the Sistine Chapel lies mainly in the frescos that decorate the interior, and most particularly the Sistine Chapel ceiling and The Last Judgment by Michelangelo. In a different climate after the Sack of Rome, he returned, the fame of Michelangelos paintings has drawn multitudes of visitors to the chapel ever since they were revealed five hundred years ago. At the time of Pope Sixtus IV in the late 15th century, there were 50 occasions during the year on which it was prescribed by the Papal Calendar that the whole Papal Chapel should meet. Of these 50 occasions,35 were masses, of which 8 were held in Basilicas, in general St. Peters and these included the Christmas Day and Easter masses, at which the Pope himself was the celebrant. The other 27 masses could be held in a smaller, less public space, the Cappella Maggiore derived its name, the Greater Chapel, from the fact that there was another chapel also in use by the Pope and his retinue for daily worship. At the time of Pope Sixtus IV, this was the Chapel of Pope Nicholas V, the Cappella Maggiore is recorded as existing in 1368. The proportions of the present chapel appear to follow those of the original. The first mass in the Sistine Chapel was celebrated on 15 August 1483, the Sistine Chapel has maintained its function to the present day, and continues to host the important services of the Papal Calendar, unless the Pope is travelling. There is a permanent choir, the Sistine Chapel Choir, for whom much original music has been written, one of the functions of the Sistine Chapel is as a venue for the election of each successive pope in a conclave of the College of Cardinals. On the occasion of a conclave, a chimney is installed in the roof of the chapel, if white smoke appears, created by burning the ballots of the election, a new Pope has been elected. The conclave also provided for the cardinals a space in which they can hear mass, and in which they can eat, sleep, and pass time attended by servants. From 1455, conclaves have been held in the Vatican, until the Great Schism, canopies for each cardinal-elector were once used during conclaves—a sign of equal dignity. After the new Pope accepts his election, he would give his new name, at this time, until reforms instituted by Saint Pius X, the canopies were of different colours to designate which Cardinals had been appointed by which Pope. Its exterior is unadorned by architectural or decorative details, as is common in many Italian churches of the Medieval, subsidence and cracking of masonry such as must also have affected the Cappella Maggiore has necessitated the building of very large buttresses to brace the exterior walls. The accretion of other buildings has further altered the appearance of the Chapel. The building is divided into three stories of which the lowest is a tall basement level with several utilitarian windows
28.
Adoration of the Magi (Perugino)
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The Adoration of the Magi is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Pietro Perugino, housed in the Galleria Nazionale dellUmbria of Perugia, Italy. The painting was executed for the church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Perugia, connected to the Baglioni family. The scene follows a layout, with the nativity hut on the right. On the background, behind the ox and the donkey, is a rocky, the Virgin holds the blessing child on her knees, and behind her is St. Joseph, standing, with a stick. The oldest of the magi is already kneeled, while the two are offering the gifts. The crowded procession includes figures which are common in Peruginos works, such as the boy with a turban, the man on the extreme left is perhaps a self-portrait of Perugino. The Virgin and Child are reminiscent of Peruginos Gambier Parry Madonna at the Courtauld Institute in London, in general, the scenes style is related to Verrocchios workshop, where Perugino made his apprenticeship. The characters, forming a typical of late-Gothic art, show a robust appearance seen in the works of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. The integration between the characters and the landscape is inspired to Piero della Francesca, such as the golden ratio tree, the landscape is similar to works by Leonardo da Vinci
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Pope Sixtus IV
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Pope Sixtus IV, born Francesco della Rovere, was Pope from 9 August 1471 to his death in 1484. His accomplishments as pope included building the Sistine Chapel and the creation of the Vatican Archives, a patron of the arts, the group of artists that he brought together introduced the Early Renaissance into Rome with the first masterpieces of the citys new artistic age. Sixtus aided the Spanish Inquisition, though he fought to prevent abuses therein and he was famed for his nepotism and was personally involved in the infamous Pazzi conspiracy. Francesco was born to a family of modest means from Liguria, Italy and he was born in Celle Ligure, a town near Savona. He went on to lecture at Padua and many other Italian universities, in 1464, Della Rovere was elected Minister General of the Franciscan order at the age of 50. In 1467, he was appointed Cardinal by Pope Paul II with the church being the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli. Before his papal election, Cardinal della Rovere was renowned for his unworldliness and had even written learned treatises entitled On the Blood of Christ and On the Power of God. His pious reputation was one of the factors that prompted the College of Cardinals to elect him pope upon the unexpected death of Paul II at the age of fifty-four. Upon being elected pope Della Rovere adopted the name Sixtus – a name that had not been used since the 5th century, one of his first acts was to declare a renewed crusade against the Ottoman Turks in Smyrna. However, after the conquest of Smyrna, the fleet disbanded, some fruitless attempts were made towards unification with the Greek Church. For the remainder of his pontificate, Sixtus turned to temporal issues, Sixtus IV sought to strengthen his position by surrounding himself with relatives and friends. His nephew Pietro Riario also benefited from his nepotism, Pietro became one of the richest men in Rome and was entrusted with Pope Sixtus foreign policy. However, Pietro died prematurely in 1474, and his role passed to Giuliano della Rovere, six of the thirty-four cardinals that he created were his nephews. Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa and an organizer of the plot, was hanged on the walls of the Florentine Palazzo della Signoria. To this, Sixtus IV replied with an interdict and two years of war with Florence, however, Infessura had partisan allegiances to the Colonna and so is not considered to be always reliable or impartial. However, such accusations are easily dismissed as propaganda, but did nevertheless prompt the noted historian of the Catholic Church, Ludwig von Pastor. Sixtus continued a dispute with King Louis XI of France, who upheld the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, according to which papal decrees needed royal assent before they could be promulgated in France. This was a cornerstone of the claimed for the Gallican Church
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Moses
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Moses is a prophet in Abrahamic religions. Also called Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew, he is the most important prophet in Judaism and he is also an important prophet in Christianity, Islam, the Baháí Faith as well as a number of other Abrahamic religions. Moses Hebrew mother, Jochebed, secretly hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of the Israelites. Through the Pharaohs daughter, the child was adopted as a foundling from the Nile river and grew up with the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slavemaster, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian, God sent Moses back to Egypt to demand the release of the Israelites from slavery. Moses said that he could not speak with assurance or eloquence, so God allowed Aaron, his brother, to become his spokesperson. After the Ten Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai, after 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land on Mount Nebo. According to archaeologist William G. Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE, Jerome gives 1592 BCE, the Biblical account of Moses birth provides him with a folk etymology to explain the ostensible meaning of his name. He is said to have received it from the Pharaohs daughter and she named him Moses, saying, I drew him out of the water. This explanation links it to a verb mashah, meaning to draw out, the princess made a grammatical mistake which is prophetic of his future role in legend, as someone who will draw the people of Israel out of Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea. Abraham Yahuda, based on the spelling given in the Tanakh, argues that it combines water or seed and pond, expanse of water, the Hebrew etymology in the Biblical story may reflect an attempt to cancel out traces of Moses Egyptian origins. The Egyptian character of his name was recognized as such by ancient Jewish writers like Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. Philo linked Mōēsēs to the Egyptian word for water, while Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, claimed that the element, -esês. Hizkuni suggested she either converted or took a tip from Jochebed, the Israelites had settled in the Land of Goshen in the time of Joseph and Jacob, but a new pharaoh arose who oppressed the children of Israel. At this time Moses was born to his father Amram, son of Kehath the Levite, who entered Egypt with Jacobs household, his mother was Jochebed, Moses had one older sister, Miriam, and one older brother, Aaron. One day after Moses had reached adulthood he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, Moses, in order to escape the Pharaohs death penalty, fled to Midian. There, on Mount Horeb, God revealed to Moses his name YHWH and commanded him to return to Egypt and bring his people out of bondage. Moses returned to carry out Gods command, but God caused the Pharaoh to refuse, from Egypt, Moses led the Israelites to biblical Mount Sinai, where he was given the Ten Commandments from God, written on stone tablets
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Zipporah
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Zipporah or Tzipora is mentioned in the Book of Exodus as the wife of Moses, and the daughter of Reuel/Jethro, the priest or prince of Midian and the spiritual founder and ancestor of the Druze. In the Book of Chronicles, two of her descendants are mentioned, Shebuel, son of Gershom, and Rehabiah, son of Eliezer. In the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible Zipporah was one of the seven daughters of Jethro, in Exodus 2,18 Jethro is also referred to as Reuel and referred to as Hobab in the Book of Judges. While the Israelites/Hebrews were captives in Egypt, Moses killed an Egyptian who was striking a Hebrew, Moses therefore fled from Egypt and arrived in Midian. One day while he sat by a well, Reuels daughters came to water their fathers flocks, other shepherds arrived and drove the girls away so they could water their own flocks first. Moses defended the girls and watered their flock, upon their return home their father asked them, How is it that you have come home so early today. The girls answered, An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds, he drew water for us. Why did you leave the man, invite him for supper to break bread. Moses stayed and lived with the Midianite and his family, Reuel gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage and, in due time, she gave birth to Gershom and then to Eliezer. The Book of Numbers 12,1 calls the wife of Moses a Cushite woman, the rhetorical question Can the Cushite change his skin. In Jeremiah 13,23 implies people of a different skin color from the Israelites, most likely a Nubian people, also. Another person named Cush in the Hebrew Bible is a Benjamite who is mentioned only in Psalm 7, after all the men in Egypt who had sought his death had died, Moses returned to Egypt. Moses took his wife and sons and started his journey back to Egypt, on the road, they stayed in an inn, where a mysterious and much-debated incident that features Zipporah took place. The Bible describes that God came to kill Moses, Zipporah quickly circumcised Gershom with a sharp stone and touched Moses feet with it, saying You are a husband of blood. Some scholars explain the reason why God came to kill Moses was because of the covenant he made with Abraham. He who is born in house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised. And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, the Bible does not say when Zipporah and her sons rejoined Reuel/Jethro, only that after he heard of what God did for the Israelites, he brought Moses family to him. The most common translation is that Moses sent her away, but another grammatically permissible translation is that she sent things or persons, the word that makes this difficult is shelucheiha, the sendings of her
32.
Luca Signorelli
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Luca Signorelli was an Italian Renaissance painter who was noted in particular for his ability as a draftsman and his use of foreshortening. His massive frescoes of the Last Judgment in Orvieto Cathedral are considered his masterpiece and he was born Luca dEgidio di Ventura in Cortona, Tuscany. The precise date of his birth is uncertain, but birth dates between 1441 and 1445 have been proposed and he died in 1523 in his native Cortona, where he is buried. He was likely between seventy-eight and eighty-two years old and he is considered to be part of the Tuscan school, although he also worked extensively in Umbria and Rome. His first impressions of art seem to originate in Perugia — including the styles of such as Benedetto Bonfigli, Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. Lazzaro Vasari, the great-grandfather of art historian Giorgio Vasari, was Lucas maternal uncle, according to Giorgio Vasari, Lazzaro had Luca apprenticed to Piero della Francesca. In 1472 the young artist was painting at Arezzo, and in 1474 at Città di Castello and he presented to Lorenzo de Medici a work which is likely School of Pan. Janet Ross and her husband Henry discovered the painting in Florence circa 1870 and subsequently sold it to the Kaiser Frederick Museum in Berlin, additionally, Signorelli executed various sacred pictures, displaying a study of Botticelli and Lippo Lippi. Signorelli worked in Rome from 1478 to 1484, in 1484 he returned to his native Cortona, which remained his home until his death. In the Monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore in Siena he painted eight frescoes, forming part of a vast series depicting the life of St. Benedict, in the palace of Pandolfo Petrucci he worked upon various classic or mythological subjects, including the aforementioned School of Pan. Signorelli remained healthy until his death, continuing to paint and accept commissions into his final year, from the Monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore near Siena, Signorelli went to Orvieto and produced his masterpiece, the frescoes in the chapel of S. Brizio, in the cathedral. The Cappella Nuova already contained two groups of images in the vaulting over the altar, the Judging Christ and the Prophets, the works of Signorelli in the vaults and on the upper walls represent the events surrounding the Apocalypse and the Last Judgment. The events of the Apocalypse fill the space which surrounds the entrance into the large chapel, the Apocalyptic events begin with the Preaching of Antichrist, and proceed to the Doomsday and The Resurrection of the Flesh. They occupy three vast lunettes, each of them a continuous narrative composition. In one of them, the Antichrist, after his portents and impious glories, falls headlong from the sky, the events of the Last Judgment fill the facing vault and the walls around the altar. The series is composed of Paradise, the Elect and the Condemned, Hell, the Resurrection of the Dead, the unifying factor of the paintings is found in the scripture readings in the Roman liturgies for the Feast of All Saints and Advent. Stylistically, the daring and terrible inventions, with their treatment of the nude. Michelangelo is claimed to have borrowed, in his own fresco at the Sistine Chapel wall, a Pietà composition in a niche in the lower wall contains explicit references to two important Orvietan martyr saints, San Pietro Parenzo and San Faustino
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Baptism of Christ (Perugino)
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The Baptism of Christ is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter Pietro Perugino and his workshop, executed around 1482 and located in the Sistine Chapel, Rome. The commission of the work originated in 1480, when Perugino was decorating a chapel in the Old St. Peters Basilica in Rome. Pope Sixtus IV was pleased by his work, and decided to commission him also the decoration of the new Chapel he had built in the Vatican Palace. Due to the size of the work, Perugino was later joined by a group of painters from Florence, including Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and others. Peruginos assistants in the Sistine Chapel included Pinturicchio, Andrea dAssisi, Rocco Zoppo or, less likely, Lo Spagna or Bartolomeo della Gatta, the baptism was in fact considered by Augustine and other early Christian writers as a kind of spiritual circumcision. The scene follows a pattern, typical of Perugino. In the center is the Jordan River flowing towards the observer and reaching the feet of Jesus and John, who is baptizing the former. A dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit, descends from the sky, it is sent by God, represented within a luminous cloud, the landscape includes a symbolic view of Rome, recognizable by a triumphal arch, the Colosseum and the Pantheon. The thin trees are typical of the Umbrian school and of Perugino in particular, at the sides are two secondary episodes, the Baptist and Jesus preaching at the crowd. The fresco is surmounted by a frieze with the signature OPVS PETRI PERVSINI · CASTRO PLEBIS
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Pinturicchio
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Pintoricchio or Pinturicchio whose formal name was Bernardino di Betto, also known as Benetto di Biagio or Sordicchio, was an Italian painter of the Renaissance. Born in Perugia in 1454 and dying in Siena in 1513, Pintoricchio acquired his nickname, meaning and he also used it to sign some of his 14th and 15th century artworks. Pinturicchio was born the son of Benedetto or Betto di Blagio, in his career, he may have trained under lesser known Perugian painters such as Bonfigli and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. According to Vasari, Pinturicchio was an assistant of Perugino. The works of the Perugian Renaissance school are very similar, and paintings by Perugino, Pinturicchio, Lo Spagna, the Sistine Chapel was also where it is believed that Pinturicchio was collaborating with Perugino to some extent. Would be, if it had left with all its original decorations. A great deal still remains, but much has been swept away, the earliest of his works is an altarpiece of the Adoration of the Shepherds, in the Della Rovere Chapel, the first chapel on the south, built by Cardinal Domenico della Rovere. The old fresco of the Virgin and the Child by Pinturicchio was detached from the wall, the fragment was re-used as the altarpiece of the Ducal Chapel of the Cathedral of Massa. The third chapel on the south is that of Girolamo Basso della Rovere, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, and bishop of Recanati. The Basso Della Rovere Chapel contains an altarpiece of the Madonna enthroned between Four Saints, and on the east side a very nobly composed fresco of the Assumption of the Virgin. In the Costa Chapel, Pinturicchio or one of his helpers painted the Four Latin Doctors in the lunettes of the vault, most of these frescoes are considerably injured by moisture and have suffered little from restoration. In the centre is a panel of the Coronation of the Virgin. The spaces between them are filled by reclining figures of the Four Sibyls, on each pendentive is a figure of one of the Four Doctors enthroned under a niched canopy. No finer specimen of the decoration of a quadripartite vault can be seen anywhere. In 1492, Pinturicchio was summoned to Orvieto Cathedral and he was employed by Pope Alexander VI to decorate a recently completed suite of six rooms, the Borgia Apartments in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican. These rooms now form part of the Vatican Library, and five still retain a series of Pinturicchio frescoes, the Umbrian painter worked in these rooms till around 1494, assisted by his pupils, and not without interruption. It was not until Pope Alexander VI died that Pinturicchio left Rome for Umbria, leaving much of the work in Rome to be completed by Michelangelo, Raphael, and company. His other chief frescoes in Rome, still existing in good condition, are in the Bufalini Chapel in the southwest sector of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli, probably executed around 1484-1486
35.
Assumption of Mary
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The Catholic Church teaches as dogma that the Virgin Mary having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. This doctrine was defined by Pope Pius XII on 1 November 1950. In the churches that observe it, the Assumption is a major feast day, in many countries, the feast is also marked as a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic Church and as a festival in the Anglican Communion. The Catholic Church itself interprets chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation as referring to it, the earliest known narrative is the so-called Liber Requiei Mariae, which survives intact only in an Ethiopic translation. Probably composed by the 4th century, this Christian apocryphal narrative may be as early as the 3rd century, also quite early are the very different traditions of the Six Books Dormition narratives. The earliest versions of this apocryphon are preserved by several Syriac manuscripts of the 5th and 6th centuries, although the text itself probably belongs to the 4th century. The story also appears in De Transitu Virginis, a late 5th century work ascribed to St. Melito of Sardis that presents a theologically redacted summary of the traditions in the Liber Requiei Mariae. The Transitus Mariae tells the story of the apostles being transported by white clouds to the deathbed of Mary, the Decretum Gelasianum in the 490s declared some transitus Mariae literature apocryphal. An Armenian letter attributed to Dionysus the Areopagite also mentioned the supposed event, john of Damascus, from this period, is the first church authority to advocate the doctrine under his own name. His contemporaries, Gregory of Tours and Modestus of Jerusalem, helped promote the concept to the wider church. In some versions of the story, the event is said to have taken place in Ephesus, in the House of the Virgin Mary, although this is a more recent. The earliest traditions locate the end of Marys life in Jerusalem, in a later tradition, Mary drops her girdle down to the apostle from heaven as testament to the event. This incident is depicted in later paintings of the Assumption. It was celebrated in the West under Pope Sergius I in the 8th century, theological debate about the Assumption continued, following the Reformation, climaxing in 1950 when Pope Pius XII defined it as dogma for the Catholic Church. Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott stated, The idea of the assumption of Mary is first expressed in certain transitus-narratives of the fifth and sixth centuries. The first Church author to speak of the assumption of Mary. The Catholic writer Eamon Duffy states that there is, clearly, however, the Catholic Church has never asserted nor denied that its teaching is based on the apocryphal accounts. The Church documents are silent on this matter and instead rely upon other sources, Pope Pius XII deliberately left open the question of whether Mary died before her Assumption
36.
Nativity of Jesus in art
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The Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century. Christian art includes a great many representations of the Virgin Mary, such works are generally referred to as the Madonna and Child or Virgin and Child. They are not usually representations of the Nativity specifically, but are often devotional objects representing an aspect or attribute of the Virgin Mary. The Nativity has been depicted in different media, both pictorial and sculptural. Pictorial forms include murals, panel paintings, manuscript illuminations, stained glass windows, the subject of the Nativity is often used for altarpieces, many of these combining both painted and sculptural elements. Other sculptural representations of the Nativity include ivory miniatures, carved stone sarcophagi, architectural features such as capitals and door lintels, free-standing sculptures may be grouped into a Nativity scene within or outside a church, home, public place or natural setting. The scale of the figures may range from miniature to life-sized and these Nativity scenes probably derived from acted tableau vivants in Rome, although Saint Francis of Assisi gave the tradition a great boost. This tradition continues to this day, with small versions made of porcelain, plaster, the acted scenes evolved into the Nativity play. The scope of the matter which relates to the Nativity story begins with the genealogy of Jesus as listed in the Gospels of both Matthew and Luke. This lineage, or family tree is often depicted visually with a Tree of Jesse, springing from the side of Jesse and this incident, referred to as the Annunciation is often depicted in art. Matthews Gospel relates that an angel dispelled Josephs distress at discovering Marys pregnancy and this scene is depicted only occasionally. While there, Mary gave birth to the infant, in a stable, at this time, an angel appeared to shepherds on a hillside, telling them that the Saviour, Christ the Lord was born. The shepherds went to the stable and found the baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the trough, or manger. Both have iconographic traditions, not covered here, the narrative is taken up in the Gospel of Matthew, and relates that wise men from the east saw a star, and followed it, believing it would lead them to a new-born king. On arriving in Jerusalem they proceed to the palace where a king might be found, Herod is worried about being supplanted, but he sends them out, asking them return when they have found the child. They follow the star to Bethlehem, where they give the gifts of gold, frankincense. The men are warned in a dream that Herod wished to kill the child. It is as kings that they are almost always depicted in art after about 900, there are a number of subjects but the Adoration of the Magi, when they present their gifts, and, in Christian tradition, worship Jesus, has always been much the most popular
37.
Cyperus papyrus
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Cyperus papyrus is a species of aquatic flowering plant belonging to the sedge family Cyperaceae. It is a herbaceous perennial, native to Africa. Papyrus sedge has a long history of use by humans, notably by the Ancient Egyptians—it is the source of papyrus paper. Parts of the plant can be eaten, and the highly buoyant stems can be made into boats and it is now often cultivated as an ornamental plant. In nature, it grows in sun, in flooded swamps, and on lake margins throughout Africa, Madagascar. C. papyrus and the dwarf cultivar C. papyrus Nanus have gained the Royal Horticultural Societys Award of Garden Merit and this tall, robust, leafless aquatic plant can grow 4 to 5 m high. It forms a clump of triangular green stems that rise up from thick. Each stem is topped by a cluster of thin, bright green, thread-like stems around 10 to 30 cm in length. Greenish-brown flower clusters eventually appear at the ends of the rays, giving way to brown, the younger parts of the rhizome are covered by red-brown, papery, triangular scales, which also cover the base of the culms. Botanically, these represent reduced leaves, so strictly it is not quite correct to call this plant fully leafless, Egyptians used the plant for many purposes, most famously for making papyrus. Its name in Greek and in English is widely believed to have come from Egyptian, Cyperus papyrus is now used mainly for decoration, as it is nearly extinct in its native habitat in the Nile Delta, where in ancient times it was widely cultivated. Theophrastus History of Plants states that it grew in Syria, and according to Plinys Natural History, it was also a plant of the Niger River. Aside from papyrus, several members of the genus Cyperus may also have been involved in the multiple uses Egyptians found for the plant. Its flowering heads were linked to make garlands for the gods in gratitude, the pith of young shoots was eaten both cooked and raw. Its woody root made bowls and other utensils and was burned for fuel, from the stems were made reed boats, sails, mats, cloth, cordage, and sandals. The rush or reed basket in which the Biblical figure Moses was abandoned may have made from papyrus. The adventurer Thor Heyerdahl built two boats from papyrus, Ra and Ra II, in an attempt to demonstrate that ancient African or Mediterranean people could have reached America and he succeeded in sailing Ra II from Morocco to Barbados. Fishermen in the Okavango Delta use small sections of the stem as floats for their nets, papyrus can be found in tropical rain forests, tolerating annual temperatures of 20 to 30 °C and a pH of 6.0 to 8.5
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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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Uffizi
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The Uffizi Gallery is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in central Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy. The building of Uffizi complex was begun by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 for Cosimo I de Medici so as to accommodate the offices of the Florentine magistrates, hence the name uffizi, the construction was later continued by Alfonso Parigi and Bernardo Buontalenti and completed in 1581. The niches in the piers that alternate with columns filled with sculptures of artists in the 19th century. The Uffizi brought together under one roof the administrative offices, the Tribunal and the Archivio di Stato, the state archive. He commissioned from the architect Buontalenti the design of the Tribuna degli Uffizi that collected a series of masterpieces in one room, over the years, more sections of the palace were recruited to exhibit paintings and sculpture collected or commissioned by the Medici. The gallery had been open to visitors by request since the sixteenth century, because of its huge collection, some of its works have in the past been transferred to other museums in Florence—for example, some famous statues to the Bargello. A project was finished in 2006 to expand the exhibition space some 6,000 metres² to almost 13,000 metres². On 27 May 1993, a car exploded in Via dei Georgofili and damaged parts of the palace. The most severe damage was to the Niobe room and classical sculptures and neoclassical interior, the identity of the bomber or bombers are unknown, although it was almost certainly attributable to the Sicilian Mafia who were engaged in a period of terrorism at that time. Today, the Uffizi is one of the most popular tourist attractions of Florence, in high season, waiting times can be up to five hours. In early August 2007, Florence experienced a heavy rainstorm, the Gallery was partially flooded, with water leaking through the ceiling, and the visitors had to be evacuated. There was a more significant flood in 1966 which damaged most of the art collections in Florence severely. Here is a selection from the collection, The collection also contains some ancient sculptures, such as the Arrotino. Collections of the Uffizi Official website Uffizi – Google Art Project
40.
Zodiac
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The zodiac is an area of the sky centered upon the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The paths of the Moon and visible planets also remain close to the ecliptic, within the belt of the zodiac, in western astrology and astronomy, the zodiac is divided into twelve signs, each sign occupying 30° of celestial longitude. Because the signs are regular, they do not correspond exactly to the boundaries of the twelve constellations after which they are named, the English word zodiac derives from zōdiacus, the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek zōidiakòs kýklos, meaning circle of little animals. Zōidion is the diminutive of zōion, the name reflects the prominence of animals among the twelve signs. The construction of the zodiac is described in Ptolemys vast 2nd century AD work, the term zodiac may also refer to the region of the celestial sphere encompassing the paths of the planets corresponding to the band of about eight arc degrees above and below the ecliptic. The zodiac of a planet is the band that contains the path of that particular body, e. g. the zodiac of the Moon is the band of five degrees above. By extension, the zodiac of the comets may refer to the band encompassing most short-period comets, the division of the ecliptic into the zodiacal signs originates in Babylonian astronomy during the first half of the 1st millennium BC. The zodiac draws on stars in earlier Babylonian star catalogues, such as the MUL. APIN catalogue, around the end of the 5th century BC, Babylonian astronomers divided the ecliptic into twelve equal signs, by analogy to twelve schematic months of thirty days each. Each sign contained thirty degrees of longitude, thus creating the first known celestial coordinate system. Because the division was made into equal arcs, 30° each, in Babylonian astronomical diaries, a planet position was generally given with respect to a zodiacal sign alone, less often in specific degrees within a sign. When the degrees of longitude were given, they were expressed with reference to the 30° of the zodiacal sign, in astronomical ephemerides, the positions of significant astronomical phenomena were computed in sexagesimal fractions of a degree. For daily ephemerides, the positions of a planet were not as important as the astrologically significant dates when the planet crossed from one zodiacal sign to the next. The Babylonian star catalogs entered Greek astronomy in the 4th century BC, Babylonia or Chaldea in the Hellenistic world came to be so identified with astrology that Chaldean wisdom became among Greeks and Romans the synonym of divination through the planets and stars. Hellenistic astrology derived in part from Babylonian and Egyptian astrology, horoscopic astrology first appeared in Ptolemaic Egypt. The Dendera zodiac, a dating to ca.50 BC, is the first known depiction of the classical zodiac of twelve signs. The earliest extant Greek text using the Babylonian division of the zodiac into 12 signs of 30 equal degrees each is the Anaphoricus of Hypsicles of Alexandria. Particularly important in the development of Western horoscopic astrology was the astrologer and astronomer Ptolemy, whose work Tetrabiblos laid the basis of the Western astrological tradition. Under the Greeks, and Ptolemy in particular, the planets, Houses, Ptolemy lived in the 2nd century AD, three centuries after the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes by Hipparchus around 130 BC
41.
Transfiguration of Jesus
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The Transfiguration of Jesus is an event reported in the New Testament when Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant in glory upon a mountain. The Synoptic Gospels describe it, and the Second Epistle of Peter also refers to it and it has also been hypothesized that the first chapter of the Gospel of John alludes to it. In these accounts, Jesus and three of his apostles, Peter, James, John, go to a mountain to pray, on the mountain, Jesus begins to shine with bright rays of light. Then the prophets Moses and Elijah appear next to him and he speaks with them, Jesus is then called Son by a voice in the sky, assumed to be God the Father, as in the Baptism of Jesus. Many Christian traditions, including the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, commemorate the event in the Feast of the Transfiguration, the Transfiguration is one of the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels. This miracle is unique among others that appear in the Canonical gospels, thomas Aquinas considered the Transfiguration the greatest miracle in that it complemented baptism and showed the perfection of life in Heaven. The Transfiguration is one of the five major milestones in the narrative of the life of Jesus, the others being Baptism, Crucifixion, Resurrection. In 2002, Pope John Paul II introduced the Luminous Mysteries in the Rosary, moreover, Christians consider the Transfiguration to fulfill an Old Testament messianic prophecy that Elijah would return again after his ascension. Gardner states The very last of the prophets, Malachi. Elijah himself would reappear in the Transfiguration, there he would appear alongside Moses as a representative of all the prophets who looked forward to the coming of the Messiah. Christs redemptive sacrifice was the purpose for which Elijah had ministered while on earth, and it was the goal about which Elijah spoke to Jesus in the Transfiguration. In the synoptic gospels, the account of the transfiguration happens towards the middle of the narrative and it is a key episode and almost immediately follows another important element, the Confession of Peter, you are the Christ. The Transfiguration narrative acts as a revelation of the identity of Jesus as the Son of God to some of his disciples. In the gospels, Jesus takes Peter, James, son of Zebedee and his brother John the Apostle with him and goes up to a mountain, which is not named. Once on the mountain, Matthew 17,2 states that Jesus was transfigured before them, his face shining as the sun, at that point the prophets Elijah and Moses appear and Jesus begins to talk to them. Luke states that they spoke of Jesus exodus which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem, Luke is also specific in describing Jesus in a state of glory, with Luke 9,32 referring to they saw His glory. Just as Elijah and Moses begin to depart from the scene and this has been interpreted as Peters attempt to keep the prophets there longer. But before Peter can finish, a cloud appears
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Cardinal virtues
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The cardinal virtues comprise a quartet set of virtues recognized in the writings of Classical Antiquity and, along with the theological virtues, also in Christian tradition. Cicero expanded on them, and Saint Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, the term cardinal comes from the Latin cardo, the cardinal virtues are so called because they are regarded as the basic virtues required for a virtuous life. They also relate to the Quadrivium, the four cardinal virtues appear as a group long before they are later given this title. Plato identified the four cardinal virtues with the classes of the city described in The Republic, Plato narrates a discussion of the character of a good city where the following is agreed upon. “Clearly, then, it will be wise, brave, temperate, justice stands outside the class system and divisions of man, and rules the proper relationship among the three of them. In Aristotles Rhetoric we read, “The forms of Virtue are justice, courage, temperance, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, gentleness, prudence, wisdom. ”The Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero, like Plato, limits the list to four virtues, “Virtue may be defined as a habit of mind in harmony with reason and the order of nature. It has four parts, wisdom, justice, courage, temperance. ”Cicero discusses these further in De Officiis, the cardinal virtues are listed in the Bible. The deuterocanonical book Wisdom of Solomon 8,7 reads, She teaches temperance, and prudence, and justice, and fortitude and they are also found in the Biblical apocrypha. 4 Maccabees 1, 18-19 relates, “Now the kinds of wisdom are right judgment, justice, courage, and self-control. Right judgment is supreme over all of these since by means of it reason rules over the emotions. ”Catholic moral philosophy drew from all of these sources when developing its reflections on the virtues. St. Ambrose was the first to use the expression “cardinal virtues. ”“And we know there are four cardinal virtues temperance, justice, prudence. Together, they comprise what is known as the seven virtues, in the Book of Genesis Jacob describes his vision of a ladder or stairway leading to heaven. In oral tradition, the three principal rungs on the ladder were denominated empathy, Hope and Love and these three are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13, And now these three remain, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love, because of this reference, the seven attributes are sometimes grouped as four cardinal virtues and three heavenly graces. Efforts to relate the cardinal and theological virtues differ, St. Augustine sees faith as coming under justice. Beginning with a wry comment about the moral mischief of pagan deities, he writes, They have made Virtue also a goddess, the reasons they give are, contemporary writers repeatedly express dissatisfaction with the insufficiency of justice. Additionally, they add, be humble, be hospitable, be merciful, be faithful, reconcile, be vigilant and this totals to 10 new virtues to replace the four cardinal virtues. The Cardinal Virtues are often depicted as female figures and were a popular subject for funerary sculpture
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Cato the Elder
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He was the first to write history in Latin. He came of an ancient Plebeian family who were noted for their military service, like his forefathers, Cato was devoted to agriculture when not serving in the army. As praetor, he expelled usurers from Sardinia, as censor, he tried to preserve Romes ancestral customs and combat degenerate Hellenistic influences. His epithet Elder distinguishes him from his equally famous great-grandson Cato the Younger, Cato the Elder was born in Tusculum, a municipal town of Latium, like some generations of his ancestors. His father had earned a reputation as a soldier. However, the Tusculan Porcii had never obtained the privileges of the Roman magistracy, early in life, he so far exceeded the previous deeds of his predecessors that he is frequently spoken of not only as the leader, but as the founder of the Porcia Gens. Priscus, like Major, may have merely a epithet used to distinguish him from the later Cato of Utica. There is no information as to when he first received the title of Cato. In order to determine the date of Catos birth, we consider the records as to his age at the time of his death, other authors exaggerate the age of Cato. According to Valerius Maximus he survived his 86th year, according to Livy, the exaggerated age, however, is inconsistent with a statement recorded by Plutarch on the asserted authority of Cato himself. Cato is represented to have said that he served his first campaign in his 17th year, when Cato was very young, after his fathers death, he inherited a small property in the Sabine territory, at a distance from his native town. There, he spent most of his childhood hardening his body by exercise, overseeing and sharing the operations of the farm, learning business and the rural economy. Near this land was a small hut abandoned after the triumphs of its owner Manius Curius Dentatus, whose military feats, Cato was inspired to imitate that character, hoping to match the glory of Dentatus. Soon, an opportunity came for a campaign in 217 BC. Experts express some disagreement about Catos early military life, in 214 BC, he served at Capua, and the historian Wilhelm Drumann imagines that already, at the age of 20, he was a military tribune. Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus had the command in Campania, during the year of his fourth consulship, while Fabius communicated the valued results of military experience, he chose not to inculcate Cato with his personal and political values and preferences. At the siege of Tarentum,209 BC, Cato was again at the side of Fabius, two years later, Cato was one of the select group who went with the consul Claudius Nero on his northern march from Lucania to check the progress of Hasdrubal Barca. It is recorded that the services of Cato contributed to the victory of Sena on the Metaurus
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Sibyl
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The sibyls were women that the ancient Greeks believed were oracles. The earliest sibyls, according to legend, prophesied at holy sites and their prophecies were influenced by divine inspiration from a deity, originally at Delphi and Pessinos, the deities were chthonic deities. In Late Antiquity, various writers attested to the existence of sibyls in Greece, Italy, the Levant, the English word sibyl comes — via the Old French sibile and the Latin sibylla — from the ancient Greek Σίβυλλα. Varro derived the name from theobule, but modern philologists mostly propose an Old Italic or alternatively a Semitic etymology. Walter Burkert observes that frenzied women from whose lips the god speaks are recorded very much earlier in the Near East, as in Mari in the second millennium and in Assyria in the first millennium. Until the literary elaborations of Roman writers, sibyls were not identified by a personal name, but by names that refer to the location of their temenos, or shrine. In Pausanias, Description of Greece, the first sibyl at Delphi mentioned was of great antiquity, Sir James Frazer calls the text defective. The second sibyl referred to by Pausanias, and named Herophile, seems to have been based ultimately in Samos, delos and Delphi and sang there, but that at the same time, Delphi had its own sibyl. The scholar David S. Potter writes, In the late fifth century BC it does appear that Sibylla was the given to a single inspired prophetess. Like Heraclitus, Plato speaks of only one sibyl, but in course of time the number increased to nine, with a tenth, the Persian Sibyl, by name Sambethe, was reported to be of the family of Noah. Some say she was a Babylonian, while others call her an Egyptian Sibyl, the medieval Byzantine encyclopedia, the Suda, credits the Hebrew Sibyl as author of the Sibylline oracles. The so-called Libyan Sibyl was identified with prophetic priestess presiding over the ancient Zeus-Amon oracle at the Siwa Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt, the oracle here was consulted by Alexander after his conquest of Egypt. The mother of the Libyan Sibyl was Lamia, the daughter of Poseidon, euripides mentions the Libyan Sibyl in the prologue to his tragedy Lamia. The Delphic Sibyl was a woman from before the Trojan Wars mentioned by Pausanias writing in the 2nd century AD about stories he had heard locally. The Sibyl would have predated the real Pythia, the oracle and priestess of Apollo, naevius names the Cimmerian Sibyl in his books of the Punic War and Piso in his annals. The Sibyls son Evander founded in Rome the shrine of Pan which is called the Lupercal, the Erythraean Sibyl was sited at Erythrae, a town in Ionia opposite Chios. The word acrostic was first applied to the prophecies of the Erythraean Sibyl, the Samian sibyls oracular site was at Samos. The sibyl who most concerned the Romans was the Cumaean Sibyl, located near the Greek city of Naples, Burkert notes that the conquest of Cumae by the Oscans in the 5th century destroyed the tradition, but provides a terminus ante quem for a Cumaean sibyl
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Perugino, Pietro". Encyclopædia Britannica. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
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