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Chapter 14Late Medieval Italy

13th Century Italy – High Middle Ages

13th Century Italy timeline

• 1204 - 4th Crusade results in Venetians sacking Constantinople• 1226 – Death of St. Francis of Assisi• 1260 – Nicola Pisano creates the Pisa pulpit• 1296 – Work on the Florence Cathedral begins• 1305-1378 – The Popes move and live in Avignon, France• 1306 – Giotto completes the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua• 1307-1321 – Dante composes the Divine Comedy (first work in

Italian)• 1311 – Duccio’s Maesta completed in Siena• 1341 – Petrarch is made Poet Laureate in Rome• 1347-1348 – The Black Plague ravages Europe• 1365-68 – The Way of Salvation painted in the Guidalotti Chapel

in Florence• 1395 – Giangaleazzo Visconti becomes Duke of Milan

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13th century Italy Background

• Developing urban economies and independent states in Florence, Pisa, Siena, Padua, and Milan become important centers for artistic patronage

• Growing wealth and prosperity in Florence and Siena attributable to banking and the cloth business

• Important private and ducal patrons emerge in the north of Italy, like Enrico Scrovegni in Padua and Giangaleazzo Visconti in Milan

•  • Important to the development of late medieval spirituality, urban

development, and artistic patronage are the Franciscan and Dominican orders

• The Franciscans are formed by St. Francis of Assisi• The Dominicans are formed by St. Dominic

– The ideal proportions of classical sculpture – The numeric harmonies found in the ruins surrounding them.

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13th Century Italy Background• Important sources of patronage are local governments that are

developing a sense of how to rule these late medieval communes and duchies and how to represent that rule in the visual arts.

• The Florentines build the Palazzo della Signoria• The Sienese commission Ambrogio Lorenzetti to paint frescoes

in the Palazzo Pubblico representing good and bad government•  • Major disturbances affect the patronage and production of art.• Constant warfare led scores of banks and merchants into

bankruptcy; internal upheavals shook governments.• Repeated crop failure and famine make life bleak and difficult.• The arrival of the plague, or Black Death, in 1377-1348

devastates Europe.

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Goals

• Understand the influence of the Byzantine and classical worlds on the art and architecture.

• Understand the rejection of medieval artistic elements and the growing interest in the natural world.

• Examine the revival of classical values, in particular, the growth of humanism.

• Examine elements of the patronage system that developed at that time, and the patronage rivalries among the developing city states.

• Examine the architecture and art as responsive to the growing European power structures at that time.

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14.1 Rejection of Medieval Artistic Values

• Understand the influence of the Byzantine and classical worlds on the art and architecture.

• Understand the rejection of medieval artistic elements and the growing interest in the natural world.    

• Examine the artistic interest in illusionism, pictorial solidity, spatial depth, and emotional display in the human figure.

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Figure 14-2 NICOLA PISANO, pulpit of the baptistery, Pisa, Italy, 1259–1260. Marble, 15’ high.

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Figure 14-3 NICOLA PISANO, Annunciation, Nativity, and Adoration of the Shepherds, relief panel on the baptistery pulpit, Pisa, Italy, 1259–1260. Marble, 2’ 10” x 3’ 9”.

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Figure 14-4 GIOVANNI PISANO, Annunciation, Nativity, and Adoration of the Shepherds, relief panel on the pulpit of Sant’Andrea, Pistoia, Italy, 1297–1301. Marble 2’ 10” x 3’ 4”.

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Figure 14-5 BONAVENTURA BERLINGHIERI, panel from the Saint Francis Altarpiece, San Francesco, Pescia, Italy, 1235. Tempera on wood, 5’ x 3’ x 6”.

14-5A Nave (looking west) of the upper church, San Francesco, Assisi, Italy, 1228–1253.

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14-5B GIOTTO, Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds, upper church, San Francesco, Assisi, Italy, ca. 1290–1300. Fresco, ?’ ?” high.

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The Altered Byzantine Style

• Examine the Byzantine styles and classical style that is seen in the religious panel painting.

• Understand growing interest in the natural world and the presentation of more physically solid human figures.

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Figure 14-6 CIMABUE, Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets, from Santa Trinità, Florence, Italy, ca. 1280–1290. Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 12’ 7” x 7’ 4”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

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Figure 14-7 GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Madonna Enthroned, from the Church of Ognissanti, Florence, Italy, ca. 1310. Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 10’ 8” x 6’ 8”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

14-6B PIETRO CAVALLINI, enthroned apostles, detail of Last Judgment, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, Italy, ca. 1290–1295. Fresco.

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Figure 14-1 Giotto di Bondone, Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni; interior looking west), Padua, Italy, 1305–1306.

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Interest in the Natural World

• Understand the growing interest in the natural world and the interest in real space.

• View how artists began to depict human emotion in their work (influence of humanism)

• Explore how these elements are depicted in the art.

Giotto di Bondone

Interior of the Arena Chapel

Padua, Italy1305-1306fresco

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Figure 14-8 GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Lamentation, Arena Chapel, (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy, ca. 1305. Fresco, 6’ 6 3/4” x 6’ 3/4”.

Late Middle Ages

14-8A GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Entry into Jerusalem, Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy, ca. 1305. Fresco, 6’ 6 3/4" X 6’ 3/4".

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14-8B GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Betrayal of Jesus, Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy, ca. 1305. Fresco, 6’ 6 3/4" X 6’ 3/4".

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