A

acanthus (Lat. acanthus Gk. Akantha, "thorn")

a thistle species very common in the Mediterranean. Its large, jagged leaves, curving in slightly at the tips, have been a favorite ornamental pattern since classical antiquity.

aedicula

A shrine or niche framed by two columns, piers, or pilasters carrying an entablature and pediment (triangular or segmental).

aerial perspective

A way of suggesting the far distance in a landscape by using paler colours (sometimes tinged with blue), less pronounced tones, and vaguer forms.

alb (Lat. alba tunica, "white garment")

the white, ankle-length garment worn by priests during Mass, under the stole and chasuble.

all' antica (It. "from the antique")

(of an art work) based on or influenced by classical Greek or Roman art.

allegory (Gk. allegorein, "say differently")

A work of art which represents some abstract quality or idea, either by means of a single figure (personification) or by grouping objects and figures together. Renaissance allegories make frequent allusions both to both Greek and Roman legends and literature, and also to the wealth of Christian allegorical stories and symbols developed during the Middle Ages.

altarpiece

A picture or sculpture that stands on or is set up behind an altar. The term reredos is used for an ornamental screen or partition, not directly attached to the altar table but affixed to the wall behind it. A diptych is an altarpiece consisting of two panels, a triptych one of three panels, and a polyptych one of four or more panels.

From the 14th to 16th century, the altarpiece was one of the most important commissions in European art; it was through the altarpiece that some of the most decisive developments in painting and sculpture came about.

ambulatory

Semicircular or polygonal circulation space enclosing an apse or a straight-ended sanctuary.

anamorphosis

Device commonly used in 16th-century paintings and drawings whereby a figure or object is depicted not parallel to the pictorial plane but projected at an oblique angle to it, and so highly distorted. The viewer resolves the optical distortion of form that results by looking at the picture at the same oblique angle.

Anghiari, battle of

A Florentine and papal army defeated a Milanese force under Piccinino outside this town near Arezzo (29 June 1440). Macchiavelli, in his History of Florence, used it shamelessly as an example of the reluctance of mercenaries to risk death in battle: he put the casualties as 'one man killed, and he fell off his horse and was trampled to death', whereas sources available to him put the joint fatalities at some 300. It was a subject of a fresco painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (chosen because it was primarily a cavalry engagement and he could show horses in combat). The fresco rapidly decayed and its composition is best known from the sketch Rubens made of its central part.

Annunciation

the term for the event described in the Gospel according to St. Luke, when the Angel Gabriel brings the Virgin Mary the news that she is to bear her son, Jesus Christ. The Annunciation was among the most widespread pictorial subjects of European art during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Antique, Classical world (Lat. antiquus, "old")

the classical age of Greece and Rome began with the Greek migrations of the 2nd millennium BC, and ended in the West in 476 AD with the deposition of the Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus (c. 475 AD); in the East it ended in 529 AD when the Platonic Academy was closed by Justinian (482 - 565 AD).

Antwerp Mannerists

Group of Antwerp painters of the early 16th century whose work is characterized by Italianate ornamentation and affected attitudes. Unconnected with later Mannerism.

Apelles (c. 330 BC)

one of the most famous painters of ancient Greece, noted above all for his startling realism. Painters of the Renaissance tried to reconstruct some of his compositions, which have come down to us in written accounts only.

Apocalypse (Gk. apokalyptein, "reveal")

the Revelation of St John, the last book of the New Testament. The wrath of God descending upon the earth is depicted in three visions; in the form of terrible natural catastrophes, in the battle between the forces and good and evil, and in the union of a new Heaven and new Earth in the Heavenly Jerusalem. The announcement of the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the world was intended to console the persecuted Christians and also prepare them for the horrors connected with the event.

Apocalyptic Madonna

the depiction of the Virgin Mary as the "Apocalyptic Woman" mentioned in the Revelation of St. John (Chapter 12, verse 1). She is "clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars"; she is described as pregnant, and her enemy is a dragon. In the wake of Mariological interpretations of this passage, Gothic art increasingly gave the Woman of the Apocalypse the features of the Virgin Mary, and after the l4th century the devoted relationship of mother and child was emphasized in depictions of the Apocalyptic Madonna, with reference to the Biblical Song of Songs.

Apocrypha (Gk. apokryphos, "hidden")

Jewish or Christian additions to the Old and New Testaments excluded from the Canon.

Apostle (Gk. apostolos, "messenger")

one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, chosen personally by him from amongst his large crowd of followers in order to continue his work and preach the gospels.

applied art

Term describing the design or decoration of functional objects so as to make them aesthetically pleasing. It is used in distinction to fine art, although there is often no clear dividing line between the two terms.

apse (Lat. absis, "arch, vault")

A semicircular projection, roofed with a half-dome, at the east end of a church behind the altar. Smaller subsidiary apses may be found around the choir or transepts. Also known as an exedra. The adjective is apsidal.

aquatint

An engraving method related to etching but producing finely granulated tonal areas rather than lines. The term applies also to a print made by this method. There are several variants of the technique, but in essence the process is as follows. A metal plate is sprinkled with acid-resistant varnish, which is fused to the plate by heating, and when the plate is immersed in an acid bath the acid bites between the tiny particles of resin and produces an evenly granulated surface. The design is created by drawing on the plate with add-resistant varnish, and great variety of tone can be obtained by immersing in acid and varnishing in turn (the longer the add bites, the darker the tone). Aquatint was invented around the middle of the 18th century, and in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, was highly popular in England for reproducing watercolours (colour could be added by hand or by using several plates with different coloured inks). It has also been used as an original creative medium (sometimes in conjunction with other graphic techniques) by many distinguished artists, including Goya, Degas, Picasso, and Rouault.

arcade (Lat. arcus, "arch")

A series of arches supported by columns, piers or pillars. In a blind arcade the arches are built into a wall.

Arcadia

A mountainous area of Greece. In Greek and Roman literature, a place where a contented life of rural simplicity is lived; an earthly paradise peopled by shepherds.

arch

The pointed arch is widely regarded as the main identifiable feature of Gothic architecture (distinct from the round arch of the Romanesque period). The three most common Gothic arches are the Equilateral, Lancet and Tudor.

architectonic (Gk. arkhitektonikos, "architectural")

Relating to structure, design, or organization.

architrave (It. "chiefbeam")

In classical architecture, the main beam resting on the capitals of the columns (i.e. the lowest part of the entablature); the moulding around a window or door.

archivolt (Ital. archivolto, "front arch," from Gk. archeiu, "begin, dominate," and Lat. voltus, "turned")

a set of concentric and projecting moldings with which the face of an arch is decorated. In Early Netherlandish art the archivolt is often depicted showing sculpted scenes relating to the central subject of a painting.

Ars Moriendi (Lat. "the art of dying well")

a small book on death; Late Medieval devotional tracts which described the battles between Heaven and Hell for the souls of the dying and recommended to Christians the proper way to behave at the hour of their death.

attribute (Lat. attributum, "added")

A symbolic object which is conventionally used to identify a particular person, usually a saint. In the case of martyrs, it is usually the nature of their martyrdom.

Augsburg confession

A classic statement of Lutheran doctrine, drawn up largely by Philipp Melanchthon and approved by Luther himself. It was presented to Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg 1530.

aureole (Lat. aureolus, "golden, beautiful")

a halo or "glory" enclosing the head or sometimes the whole body of a holy person.

autobiography

Autobiography as a distinct literary genre was one of the more original products of the Renaissance; there had been relatively little of it in antiquity and even less in the Middle Ages. The Confessions of St Augustine provided the example of an inward autobiography - the story of the author's search for God - but no imitator was able to approach its level of introspection until Petrarch's Letter to posterity and Secretum. Dante's Vita nuova - and the Comedy - are intensely autobiographical but are not autobiographies.

The roots of the secular autobiography are to be found in the books of ricordanze (memoranda) kept by Italian professional and business men from the late 13th century. From bare accounts of land purchases and marriage settlements, these personal notebooks could develop into family histories which might also contain soul-searching and self examinations, like those of the early 15th century Florentine merchants Goro Dati and Giovanni Morelli, or the Zibaldone quaresimale of Giovanni Rucellai (1457-85). Records of business ventures and public offices were the starting point for autobiographies of external action:

while the Cronica of Jacopo Salviati is a fairly wooden account of captaincies and embassies 1398-1411, that of Buonaccorso Pitti is a lively narrative of fortunes won and lost through trading and gambling (written 1412-22). The Commentaries of Enea Silvio Piccolomini (Pius II) similarly concentrate on events, leaving the character of the author to be deduced from his actions. The supreme example of the (apparently) unconsciously revealing autobiography is the famous Life of Cellini: of the deliberately revealing one, that of Cardano.

Avignon

The decision to move the Papacy here was made in August 1308 by Pope Clement V, who had been residing in France since 1305. The actual move was made in 1309. Six pontificates later, in 1377, the Papacy was brought back to Rome by Gregory XI. All the popes elected at Avignon were French, as were 113 of the 134 cardinals appointed during this time. Yet though the period has been called one of 'captivity' to France, the Avignonese residence was not one of uninterrupted truckling to French kings. The city was not on French territory: it belonged to the Angevin princes of Naples. 'Captivity', like Petrarch's 'unholy Babylon', which he likened to the harlot of the Apocalypse 'full of abominations and the filth of her fornication', was mainly a term of abuse directed at a Papacy that had acquired security enough to revive its legal and financial pretensions and to build lavishly and live well. Between 1100 and 1309 the popes had only spent 82 years in Rome. Avignon gave them a long breathing space to assemble the machinery and the values which characterized the Renaissance Papacy after its final resettlement in Rome.

B

Bacchus

In Greek and Roman mythology, the god of wine and fertility. Bacchic rites were often orgiastic.

baldachin, or baldacchino (It. "brocade")

Originally a textile canopy supported on poles and carried dignitaries and relics. Later, an architectural canopy of stone or wood set over a high altar or bishop's throne.

balustrade

A rail supported by a row of small posts or open-work panels.

Bambocciati

Group of relatively small, often anecdotal, paintings of everyday life, made in Rome in the mid-17th century. The word derives from the nickname "Il Bamboccio" ("Large Baby"), applied to the physically

malformed Dutch painter Pieter van Laer (1592/95-1642). Generally regarded as the originator of the style and its most important exponent, van Laer arrived in Rome from Haarlem about 1625 and was soon well known for paintings in which his Netherlandish interest in the picturesque was combined with the pictorial cohesiveness of Caravaggio's dramatic tenebrist lighting. Because van Laer and his followers depicted scenes of the Roman lower classes in a humorous or even grotesque fashion, their works were condemned by both court critics and the leading painters of the classicist-idealist school as indecorous and ridiculous. The painter Salvator Rosa was particularly savage in his comments about the later followers of the style, whom he criticized for painting "baggy pants, beggars in rags, and abject filthy things." The Bamboccianti (painters of Bambocciati) influenced such Dutch genre painters as Adriaen Brouwer and Adriaen van Ostade.

banderole (It. banderuola, "small flag")

A long flag or scroll (usually forked at the end) bearing an inscription. In Renaissance art they are often held by angels.

baptistery

Hall or chapel situated close to, or connected with, a church, in which the sacrament of baptism is administered. The form of the baptistery originally evolved from small, circular Roman buildings that were designated for religious purposes (e.g., the Temple of Venus, Baalbek, Lebanon, AD 273, and the Mausoleum of Diocletian, Spalato [Split, Croatia], AD 300); but because baptism originally was performed on only three holidays, Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany, enlargement of the older Roman buildings became necessary to accommodate the growing numbers of converts.

Baptisteries were among the most symbolic of all Christian architectural forms; and the characteristic design that was developed by the 4th century AD can be seen today in what is probably the earliest extant example, the baptistery of the Lateran palace in Rome, built by Sixtus III, pope between 432 and 440.

The baptistery was commonly octagonal in plan, a visual metaphor for the number eight, which symbolized in Christian numerology a new beginning. As eight follows the "complete" number, seven, so the beginning of the Christian life follows baptism. Customarily, a baptistery was roofed with a dome, the symbol of the heavenly realm toward which the Christian progresses after the first step of baptism. The baptismal font was usually octagonal, set beneath a domical ciborium, or canopy, and encircled by columns and an ambulatory--features that were first used in the baptistery by the Byzantines when they altered Roman structures.

Baptisteries commonly adjoined the atrium, or forecourt, of the church and were often large and richly decorated, such as those at Pisa, Florence, Parma, and Nocera in Italy; el Kantara, Alg.; and Poitiers, France. After the 6th century they were gradually reduced to the status of small chapels inside churches.

In the 10th century, when baptism by affusion (pouring liquid over the head) became standard practice in the church, baptisteries, or baptismal chapels, were often omitted entirely.

In most modern churches the font alone serves for baptism; something of earlier symbolism survives, however, in its usual location near the church door - an allusion to entering the Christian life.

Barbizon School

A group of naturalist landscape painters who worked in the vicinity of Barbizon, a village on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleu, southeast of Paris, in the 1840s and 1850s. Théodore Rousseau (French, 1812-1867) was the founder of the group. Other members of the group were Jean-Baptist Corot (French, 1796-1875), Narcisse Diaz de la Pena (French, 1807-1876), Constant Troyon (French, 1810-1865), Jules Dupré (French, 1811-1889), Jean-François Millet (French, 1814-1875), and Charles-François Daubigny (French, 1817-1878). Their approach constituted an art movement which eventually led to both Realism and Impressionism. Daubigny was the first of the plein air painters.

Baroque (Port. barocco, "an irregular pearl or stone")

The period in art history from about 1600 to about 1750. In this sense the term covers a wide range of styles and artists. In painting and sculpture there were three main forms of Baroque: (1) sumptuous display, a style associated with the Catholic Counter Reformation and the absolutist courts of Europe (Bernini, Rubens); (2) dramatic realism (Caravaggio); and (3) everyday realism, a development seen in particular in Holland (Rembrandt, Vermeer). In architecture, there was an emphasis on expressiveness and grandeur, achieved through scale, the dramatic use of light and shadow, and increasingly elaborate decoration. In a more limited sense the term Baroque often refers to the first of these categories.

The development of the Baroque reflects the period's religious tensions (Catholic versus Protestant); a new and more expansive world view based on science and exploration; and the growth of absolutist monarchies.

barrel vault

A ceiling that is like a continuous circular arch or tunnel, contrasted with vaults that are supported on ribs or a series of arches. Also tunnel vault.

basilica (Gk. stoa basilike, "king's hall")

a church building, usually facing east, with a tall main nave and two or four side aisles of lesser height. There may also be a transept between the nave and the choir, which is reserved for the clergy. Originally, the basilica was an ancient Greek administrative building, and the Romans used this form for markets and law courts; it then became a place of assembly for the early Christians, and thus a church.

Battle of Lepanto

Naval battle during the course of which the 208 ships belonging to the Holy League gained a decisive victory on 7 October 1571 over the 210 ships of the Ottoman Turkish fleet on the edge of the Gulf of Corinth.

Biedermeier

Term applied to a style characteristic of much German and Austrian art and interior decoration in the period roughly between the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) and the Year of Revolutions (1848). The name derives from a fictional character called Gottlieb Biedermaier (sic) from the journal Fliegende Elssner (Flying Leaves), who personified the solid yet philistine qualities of the bourgeois middle classes, and the art to which he lent his name eschewed flights of the imagination in favour of sobriety, domesticity, and often sentimentality. There were, as is to be expected, no major painters associated with Biedermeier but many excellent practitioners, such as Waldmüller. The term is sometimes extended to cover the work of artists in other countries.

biscuit

Unglazed ceramic, particularly porcelain, which is either not yet glazed, or which is to be left as it is. Biscuit porcelain, also incorrectly called bisque, is often employed to make miniature versions of marble statuary. It takes its name from its grainy texture.

bodegón Image, especially Spanish, in which still-life predominates, though it is often part of a kitchen or eating scene. The term was mainly used up to c. 1650 in Spain. These genre scenes were sometimes set in the rough public eating establishments from which they take their name. By association, however, the term was applied to a wide range of genre paintings depicting figures of humble origin, often with food and drink. As early as the 1590s Flemish and Italian kitchen and market scenes were referred to as bodegónes in Spanish inventories. Such paintings were imitated by Spanish artists. Bodegónes, such as those by Diego Velázquez, were often regarded as inconsequential and even disreputable by contemporary society. They were generally monochromatic so as to emphasize relief and volume. Due to the still-life aspects of bodegónes, over time the term came to refer to still-lifes in general; up until the mid-17th century, Spanish still-lifes, like their Dutch counterparts, were referred to by their specific contents. Bolognese school In the most restricted sense, the works produced and the theories expounded by the late 16th- and early 17th-century Italian painters Lodovico Carracci and his cousins, the brothers Agostino and Annibale Carracci. Book of Hours

A prayer book used by laymen for private devotion, containing prayers or meditations appropriate to certain hours of the day, days of the week, months, or seasons. They became so popular in the 15th century that the Book of Hours outnumbers all other categories of illuminated manuscripts; from the late 15th century there were also printed versions illustrated by woodcuts. The most famous Book of Hours and one of the most beautiful of all illuminated manuscripts is the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (Musée Condé, Chantilly), illuminated by the Limburg Brothers for Jean de Berry.

bottom view

A form of perspective in painting that takes account of the viewer's position well below the level of the picture.

bozzetto(Italian, sketch)

Usually applied to models for sculpture, but can also be used for painted sketches, though these are more often called 'modelli'.

bozzetto

Strictly speaking, a small three-dimensional sketch in wax or clay made by a sculptor in preparation for a larger and more finished work. By extension, a rapid sketch in oil, made as a study for a larger picture.

breviary

A book of daily prayers and readings used by priest and monks.

bronze

An alloy of copper (usually about 90 per cent) and tin, often also containing small amounts of other metals such as lead or zinc. Since antiquity it has been the metal most commonly used in cast sculpture because of its strength, durability, and the fact that it is easily workable - both hot and cold - by a variety of processes. It is easier to cast than copper because it has a lower melting-point, and its great tensile strength makes possible the protrusion of unsupported parts - an advantage over marble sculpture. The colour of bronze is affected by the proportion of tin or other metals present, varying from silverish to a rich, coppery red, and its surface beauty can be enhanced when it acquires a patina.

buttress

A mass of stone built up to support a wall, usually necessary to strengthen those of great height. See flying buttress.

Byzantine art

The art ofthe Byzantine Empire, which had its capital in Constantinople (Byzantium), from the 5th century to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. Based largely on Roman and Greek art, Byzantine art also absorbed a wide of influences, notable from Syria and Egypt. Byzantine art was essentially a spiritual and religious art, its forms highly stylized, hieratic and unchanging (central images were thought to derive from original portraits). It also served to glorify the emperor. Among its most distinctive products were icons, mosaics, manuscript illuminations, and work in precious metals. The strong influence of the Byzantine style on medieval Italian painting can be seen in the works of Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto.

C

cabinet

A small, private room where works of art, valuables and curiosities were kept and contemplated at leisure; over time the term was used for the collections themselves. Renaissance cabinets played an important role in the development of museums and art galleries.

cabinet painting

A small painting which was intended to be viewed closely and at leisure in a Renaissance cabinet, a fact usually reflected in a highly finished style and the subject matter, which was often allegorical. Cabinet paintings and pieces first occur in the 15th century and are associated with the development of private collections.

caduceus

A rod entwined with a pair of snakes, an attribute of Mercury and a symbol of healing and of peace.

caisson (Fr. casson, "a chest, box")

In architecture, a sunken panel in a ceiling or vault.

cameo

Small relief made from gems, glass, ceramics, or shell having layers of different colours and carved so that the design stands out in one colour against a background in another.

camera obscura

Ancestor of the photographic camera. The Latin name means "dark chamber," and the earliest versions, dating to antiquity, consisted of small darkened rooms with light admitted through a single tiny hole. The result was that an inverted image of the outside scene was cast on the opposite wall, which was usually whitened. For centuries the technique was used for viewing eclipses of the Sun without endangering the eyes and, by the 16th century, as an aid to drawing; the subject was posed outside and the image reflected on a piece of drawing paper for the artist to trace. Portable versions were built, followed by smaller and even pocket models; the interior of the box was painted black and the image reflected by an angled mirror so that it could be viewed right side up. The introduction of a light-sensitive plate by J.-N. Niepce created photography.

campanile

Bell tower, usually built beside or attached to a church; the word is most often used in connection with Italian architecture.

candelabra, sing. candelabrum (It. candela, "candle")

A large, usually decorated, candlestick, usually with several branches or arms.

cantoria, pl. cantorie (It.)

A gallery for singers or musicians, usually in a church. Two outstanding examples are those by the sculptors Andrea della Robbia and Donatello in Florence cathedral, both of which have richly carved marble panels.

canvas

A woven cloth used as a support for painting. The best-quality canvas is made of linen; other materials used are cotton, hemp, and jute. It is now so familiar a material that the word 'canvas' has become almost a synonym for an oil painting, but it was not until around 1500 that it began to rival the wooden panel (which was more expensive and took longer to prepare) as the standard support for movable paintings (the transition came later in Northern Europe than in Italy). Canvas is not suitable for painting on until it has been coated with a ground, which isolates the fabric from the paint; otherwise it will absorb too much paint, only very rough effects will be obtainable, and parts of the fabric may be rotted by the pigments. It must also be made taut on a stretcher or by some other means.

capital (Lat. capitellum, "little head")

The head or crowning feature of a column or pillar. Structurally, capitals broaden the area of a column so that it can more easily bear the weight of the arch or entablature it supports.

Caravaggists

The term 'Caravaggisti' is applied to painters - both Italians and artists from other countries - who imitated the style of Caravaggio in the early 17th century.

Cardinal Virtues (Lat. cardinalis, "hinge")

the four principle virtues of Temperantia (Temperance), Fortitudo (Fortitude), Prudentia (Prudence) and Justitia (Justice) that were adopted from Plato (427-347 BC) in Christian ethics. Gregory the Great (540-604 AD) added the three so-called Theological Virtues of Fides (Faith), Spes (Hope) and Caritas (Love/Charity). At the height of the Middle Ages, this Christian system of Virtues was further extended.

Carmelites (Lat. Ordo Fratrum Beatae Mariae Virginis de Monte Carmelo)

"Brothers of Our Blessed Lady of Mount Carmel", a Roman Catholic order of contemplative mendicant friars. Founded in Palestine in the 12th century, the Carmelites were originally hermits. In the 13th century the order was refounded as an order resembling the Dominicans and Franciscans. An order of Carmelite sisters was founded in the 15th century; in the 16th century reforms introduced by St. Teresa of Ávila led to the creation of the Barefoot (Discalced) Carmelites.

cartellino, pl. cartellini

In a painting, a simulated piece of paper that carries an inscription bearing the artist's signature, the date of the painting, details of the subject, or a motto.

Carthusian Order (Lat. Ordo Cartusiensis

strict Catholic monastic order founded in 1084 by Bruno of Cologne (1032-1101) in the Grande Chartreuse, near Grenoble. The order combines reclusive and community life. New Charterhouses, monasteries containing separate hermitages, were built in the 14th and 15th centuries, and the order became receptive to late medieval mysticism, and humanism, the endeavour to attain true humanity.

cartoon (It. cartone, "pasteboard")

A full-scale preparatory drawing for a painting, tapestry, or fresco. In fresco painting, the design was transferred to the wall by making small holes along the contour lines and then powdering them with charcoal in order to leave an outline on the surface to be painted. In the 19th centurry designs submitted in a competition for frescos in the Houses of Parliament in London were parodied in the magazine Punch. From this the word has acquired its most common meaning today - a humorous drawing or parody.

cartouche

An ornate painted panel on which an inscription can be written.

caryatid (Gk. "priestess")

A carved female figure used in architecture as a column to support an entablature.

Cascina, battle of

The Florentines defeated a Pisan force here on 28 July 1364, taking some of them by surprise while they bathed in the Arno. The engagement is best known as the subject of a fresco commissioned for the Palazzo Vecchio from Michelangelo. Worked on at intervals 1504-06, this remained unfinished and is known (partly)only from a somewhat later copy of the cartoon, and from the contemporary fame the cartoon acquired for its treatment of the abruptly alerted bathers.

cassone (It. chest)

Usually used as a marriage chest, and the most elaborately decorated piece of furniture of the Renaissance. Cassoni traditionally were made in pairs and sometimes bore the respective coats of arms of the bride and groom. They contained the bride's clothes, linen, and many other items of her dowry. In the 15th century, when the greatest importance was attached to suitable marital alliances between Florence's wealthiest families, the cassone reached great heights of artistic achievement. Florentine artists such as Sandro Botticelli, Paolo Uccello, and Donatello were employed to decorate cassoni with paintings set in an architectural framework. Battle scenes and classical and literary themes were especially popular. A number of paintings from cassoni of this period have been preserved.

Sixteenth-century cassoni were elaborately carved with mythological and grotesque figures, decorated with gilt gesso, putti (cupids), and swags of fruit and flowers, or enriched with intarsia (mosaics of wood). Although the finest marriage chests came from Italy, they were also used in other countries.

castello (It.)

"castle", palace.

cathedral (cathedra, seat or throne)

The principal church of a province or diocese, where the throne of the bishop is placed. For reasons lost to time and tradition, a cathedral always faces west - toward the setting sun. The altar is placed at the east end. The main body, or nave, of the cathedral is usually divided into one main and two side aisles. These lead up to the north and south transepts, or arms of the cross, the shape in which a cathedral is usually formed.

Catholic reform

Attempts between the 15th and 16th centuries to eliminate deficiencies within the Roman Catholic Church (such as financial abuses, moral laxity in the clergy and so on).

central perspective (Lat. centralis, "in the centre", and perspicere, "see clearly')

a scientific and mathematical method of three-dimensional representation developed by Filippo Brunelleschi (1376 -1446) at the beginning of the 15th century. Relative to the observer, all the converging lines lead toward a single vanishing point at the centre of the composition. An illusion of depth is created on two-dimensional picture surfaces by precise foreshortening and proportioning of the objects, landscapes, buildings and figures that are being depicted, in accordance with their distance from the observer.

chalice

A cup used in the celebration of the Christian Eucharist. Both the statement of St. Paul about "the cup of blessing which we bless" (1 Corinthians 10:16) and the accounts of the institution of the Eucharist in the first three Gospels indicate that special rites of consecration attended the use of the chalice from the beginning. It was not until the recognition of Christianity by the Roman Empire in the 4th century that silver and gold became the usual materials for the chalice. In the Middle Ages the legend of the Holy Grail surrounded the origins of the eucharistic chalice with a magical aura.

The precious stones and elaborate carvings employed for the embellishment of chalices have made them an important part of the history of ecclesiastical art.

champlevé (Fr. 'raised ground')

A technique dating from Roman times or earlier, in which grooves cut in the surface of a thick metal plaque (usually of bronze or copper, but sometimes of gold) are filled with enamel and fired. The glass powder melts filling the carved areas with solid glass.

cherub (plural cherubim)

In Jewish, Christian, and Islamic literature, a celestial winged being with human, animal, or birdlike characteristics; a throne bearer of the deity. Derived from ancient Near Eastern mythology and iconography, these celestial beings serve important liturgical and intercessory functions in the hierarchy of angels. Old Testament descriptions of the cherubim emphasize their supernatural mobility and their cultic role as throne bearers of God, rather than intercessory functions. In Christianity the cherubim are ranked among the higher orders of angels and, as celestial attendants of God, continually praise him.

chiaroscuro (It. "light dark")

In painting, the modelling of form (the creation of a sense of three-dimensionality in objects) through the use of light and shade. The introduction of oil paints in the 15th century, replacing tempera, encouraged the development of chiaroscuro, for oil paint allowed a far greater range and control of tone. The term chiaroscuro is used in particular for the dramatic contrasts of light and dark introduced by Caravaggio. When the contrast of light and dark is strong, chiaroscuro becomes an important element of composition.

chiaroscuro woodcut

A printing technique in which several printing blocks are used, each producing a different tone of the same color so as to create tonal modeling. Hans Wechtlin experimented with the process in Strassburg between 1504 and 1526, but Ugo da Carpi's claims to have invented it in Venice in 1516 were generally accepted. North of the Alps, various painters experimented with using blocks of different color to produce novel artistic emphases, notably Lucas Cranach (1506), Hans Burgkmair (1510), and Albrecht Altdorfer (1511/20).

chivalry

The knightly class of feudal times. The primary sense of the term in the European Middle Ages is "knights," or "fully armed and mounted fighting men." Thence the term came to mean the gallantry and honour expected of knights. Lastly, the word came to be used in its general sense of "courtesy."

In English law "chivalry" meant the tenure of land by knights' service. The court of chivalry instituted by Edward III, with the lord high constable and earl marshal of England as joint judges, had summary jurisdiction in all cases of offenses of knights and generally as to military matters.

The concept of chivalry in the sense of "honourable and courteous conduct expected of a knight" was perhaps at its height in the 12th and 13th centuries and was strengthened by the Crusades, which led to the founding of the earliest orders of chivalry, the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (Hospitalers) and the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Templars), both originally devoted to the service of pilgrims to the Holy Land. In the 14th and 15th centuries the ideals of chivalry came to be associated increasingly with aristocratic display and public ceremony rather than service in the field.

choir (Gk. choros, "group of singers and dancers")

the part of a church interior, usually raised and set apart from the rest of the church, reserved for the clergy to pray together, or for choral singing. Since Carolingian times, "choir" has been the word for the part of the central nave of the church extending over the crossing (the place where nave and transept

intersect), and including the apse (a niche in the wall, roofed with a half dome) that often stands at the end of this area.

Christus Patiens and Christus Triumphans

are the names given to the two main types of the very large painted crucifixes which normally stood on the rood-screens of medieval churches. Very few still exist in their original positions, most of the surviving examples having been cut down in size and transferred to chapels or sacristies. The Christus Patiens (Suffering Christ) represents Christ as dead on the cross, whereas the Triumphans type represents Him with open eyes and outstretched arms standing on (rather than hangign from) the Cross. The dramatic emphasis of the Patiens type is certainly to be connected with the influence of St Francis of Assisi. An early example is provided by the work of Giunta Pisano.

Churrigueresque

Spanish Churrigueresco, Spanish Rococo style in architecture, historically a late Baroque return to the aesthetics of the earlier Plateresque style. In addition to a plethora of compressed ornament, surfaces bristle with such devices as broken pediments, undulating cornices, reversed volutes, balustrades, stucco shells, and garlands. Restraint was totally abandoned in a conscious effort to overwhelm the spectator. Although the name of the style comes from the family name of José Benito Churriguera, an architect, the Churriguera family members are not the most representative masters of the style.

The Transparente (completed 1732), designed by Narciso Tomé for the cathedral in Toledo, is among the masterpieces of Churrigueresque. Tomé created an arrangement in which the Holy Sacrament could be placed within a transparent vessel that was visible from both the high altar and the ambulatory, seen both by the congregation and the pilgrim. Sculpted clouds, gilded rays, a massing of carved angels, and architecturally directed natural light combine to produce a mystical and spiritual effect.

In the sacristy of the Cartuja of Granada (1727-64), Luis de Arévalo and Francisco Manuel Vásquez created an interior that, if not as delicate or as ingenious as that designed by Tomé, is as typically Churrigueresque. The architects drew from other sources for the thick moldings, undulating lines, and repetition of pattern.

In Spanish America tendencies from both the native art of the Americas and the ever-present Mudéjar (Moorish art) have been incorporated, further enriching the style, and the Churrigueresque column, which was shaped like an inverted cone, became the most common motif. The Mexico cathedral (1718), Santa Prisca at Taxco (1758), and San Martín at San Luis Potosí (1764) are excellent examples of Churrigueresque in Mexico.

ciborium

A term applied to both a liturgical vessel used for holding the consecrated Host and an altar canopy supported on columns, popular particularly in Italy in the Romanesque and Gothic periods. In the latter sense the word is not easily distinguished from baldacchino.

Cinquecento

Designations such as Cinquecento (1500s, High Renaissance), Quattrocento (1400s, Early Renaissance) and the earlier Trecento (1300s, the interval falling between the Gothic and Renaissance periods) are useful in suggesting the changing intellectual and cultural outlooks of late- and post-medieval Italy. The Cinquecento delimits a period of intense and violent changes in the whole fabric of Italian culture. It refers to the century of the Protestant Reformation, of Spanish and Habsburg political domination, and of the uneasy transition to Mannerism in the visual arts.

ciompi

Ciompi was the name given to the most numerous class of day-labourers (dismissible without notice) in 14th century Florence's chief industry: those employed in the manufacture of woollen cloth as weavers, beaters, combers, etc. They were forbidden to form a trade association, as also were those in the associated, but self-employed, craft of dyeing. Without being members of a guild, none could seek redress save from the Arte della Lana, the manufacturers' corporation which employed them, or achieve political representation.

ciompi, revolt of the

Insurrection of the lower classes of Florence in 1378 that briefly brought to power one of the most democratic governments in Florentine history. The ciompi ("wool carders") were the most radical of the groups that revolted, and they were defeated by the more conservative elements in Florentine society.

A struggle between factions within the major ruling guilds triggered the uprising. Members of the lower classes, called upon to take part in the revolt in late June, continued to agitate on their own during the month of July. They presented a series of petitions to the Signoria (executive council of Florence) demanding a more equitable fiscal policy and the right to establish guilds for those groups not already organized. Then, on July 22, the lower classes forcibly took over the government, placing one of their members, the wool carder Michele di Lando, in the important executive office of gonfaloniere of justice. The new government, controlled by the minor guilds, was novel in that for the first time it represented all the classes of society, including the ciompi, who were raised to the status of a guild.

But the ciompi were soon disillusioned. Their economic condition worsened, and the new government failed to implement all their demands. Conflicting interests of the minor guilds and the ciompi became evident. On August 31 a large group of the ciompi that had gathered in the Piazza della Signoria was easily routed by the combined forces of the major and minor guilds. In reaction to this revolutionary

episode, the ciompi guild was abolished, and within four years the dominance of the major guilds was restored.

cithara (Gk.)

An ancient musical instrument, resembling a lyre, on which strings were plucked. They were often used to accompany a singer or someone reciting poetry.

clair-obscur (Fr. "light-dark")

woodcut technique based on the reproduction of light and dark in drawings, where the effect depends on using the base of the drawing in the design of the image. In clair-obscur prints the light areas are carved out of the printing plate, in order to allow the white of the paper to take effect. In coloured prints the coloured areas are printed with clay plates, the black contours usually with a special line plate, except in cases where - as in Italy these were dispensed with.

classical

Relating to the culture of ancient Greece and Rome (classical Antiquity). The classical world played a profoundly important role in the Renaissance, with Italian scholars, writers, and artists seeing their own period as the rebirth (the "renaissance") of classical values after the Middle Ages. The classical world was considered the golden age for the arts, literature, philosophy, and politics. Concepts of the classical, however, changed greatly from one period to the next. Roman literature provided the starting point in the 14th century, scholars patiently finding, editing and translating a wide range of texts. In the 15th century Greek literature, philosophy and art - together with the close study of the remains of Roman buildings and sculptures-expanded the concept of the classical and ensured it remained a vital source of ideas and inspiration.

clerestory

A row of windows in the upper part of the wall of a basilicas nave (main aisle).

cloisonné (French: partitioned)

A technique dating from the 6th century AD, in which the various colours are separated by metal wire or strips soldered to the plaque.

cloth of honour

a cloth of valuable material held up behind a distinguished person to set them apart visually from others (a custom deriving from classical antiquity).

coffering

An ornamental system of deep panels recessed into a vault, arch or ceiling. Coffered ceilings, occasionally made of wood, were frequently used in Renaissance palaces.

cognoscenti, sing. cognoscente (It. "those who know")

Connoisseurs of art, literature or music; those with refined tastes.

colonnade

Row of columns with a straight entablature and no arches.

Compagnia de San Luca (Guild of St. Luke)

The painters' guild in Florence (named after St. Luke because he was believed to have painted a portrait of the Virgin Mary).

complementary colours

Pairs of colours that have the maximum contrast and so, when set side by side, intensify one another. Green and red, blue and orange, and yellow and violet are complementary colours.

compline (Lat. [hora] completa, "completed [hour]")

The last prayers of the day; the church service at which these prayers are said.

concetto, pl. concetti (It. "concept")

In Renaissance art theory, the intellectual or narrative program behind a work; a work's underlying theme. Concetti were often taken from the literature and mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome, as well as from the Bible.

condottiere, pl. condottieri (It. "leader")

Leader of a band of mercenaries engaged to fight in numerous wars among the Italian states from the mid-14th to the 16th century. The name was derived from the condotta, or "contract," by which the condottieri put themselves in the service of a city or of a lord.

The first mercenary armies in Italy (often called free companies) were made up of foreigners. The earliest (1303) was composed of Catalans who had fought in the dynastic wars of the south. In the mid-14th century the Grand Company, composed mainly of Germans and Hungarians, terrorized the country,

devastating Romagna, Umbria, and Tuscany. It was one of the first to have a formal organization and a strict code of discipline, developed by the Provençal adventurer Montréal d' Albarno. The Englishman Sir John Hawkwood, one of the most famous of the non-Italian condottieri, came to Italy in the 1360s during a lull in the Hundred Years' War and for the next 30 years led the White Company in the confused wars of northern Italy.

By the end of the 14th century, Italians began to raise mercenary armies, and soon condottieri were conquering principalities for themselves. The organization of the companies was perfected in the early 15th century by Muzio Attendolo Sforza, in the service of Naples, and his rival Braccio da Montone, in the service of Perugia. Muzio's son, Francesco Sforza, who won control of Milan in 1450, was one of the most successful of all the condottieri.

Less fortunate was another great condottiere, Carmagnola, who first served one of the viscounts of Milan and then conducted the wars of Venice against his former masters but at last awoke the suspicion of the Venetian oligarchy and was put to death before the palace of St. Mark (1432). Toward the end of the 15th century, when the large cities had gradually swallowed up the small states and Italy itself was drawn into the general current of European politics and became the battlefield of powerful armies--French, Spanish, and German--the condottieri, who proved unequal to the gendarmery of France and the improved Italian troops, disappeared.

The soldiers who fought under the condottieri were almost entirely heavy-armoured cavalry and were noted for their rapacious and disorderly behaviour. With no goal beyond personal gain, the armies of the condottieri often changed sides, and their battles often resulted in little bloodshed.

confraternities

Confraternities, often called compagnie or, in Venice, scuole, were religious associations of lay persons devoted to specific pious practices or works of charity, often under the direction of, or with the spiritual assistance of, clergy. Guilds 'qua' religious associations had the character of confraternities.

Several major historic waves of foundations can be distinguished. (1) Compagnie dei disciplinati or dei laudesi, i.e. flagellant confraternities, which were conformist offshoots of the partly heterodox flagellant movement of 1260. The Venetian scuole grandi were especially prestigious examples. By the 16th century, although flagellant practices were retained in some cases, these functioned more as mutual aid societies and as administrators of charitable funds. (2) Confraternite del Rosario, which spread in the 15th century, being primarily promoted by the Dominicans. (3) A group of confraternities which spread from the mid-15th century, commonly called either Compagnia di S. Girolamo or Compagnia del Divino Amore ('Company of Divine Love'; perhaps the first example was the Florentine Buonuomini di S. Martino), associated with certain specialized charitable enterprises, in the first place relief of the poveri vergognosi or 'shamefaced poor', i.e. respectable people who had to be aided discreetly. In the 16th century they also promoted hospitals of the incurabili, primarily for syphilitics, convents of convertite,

i.e. reformed prostitutes, and refuges for maidens. To this movement belonged the famous Roman Company or Oratory of Divine Love, founded c. 1514 in S. Dorotea in Trastevere. This recruited some leading churchmen and papal officials (as a confraternity it was unusual in its heavy clerical membership), but many ascriptions of leading church reformers to it are without sound foundation and there is no basis for its reputation as a seminal body in the Catholic reform movement. The new congregation of the Clerks Regular called Theatines was, however, an offshoot and these took the lead in propagating Compagnie del Divino Amore in Italy. Other types of confraternity were those of the buona morte, which accompanied condemned prisoners, and those which aided imprisoned debtors, e.g. the Florentine Neri.

Confraternities commonly had chapels in parish churches or in the churches of religious orders, but sometimes had their own premises, e.g. the splendid ones of the Venetian scuole grandi; in Florence, the hall of Orsanmichele housed a devotional and almsgiving confraternity as well as being a grain dispensary. Great confraternities might exercise public functions: certain Florentine ones concerned with welfare became effectively state magistracies, while the Venetian government, in addition to giving them a ceremonial role, relied upon the scuole grandi to distribute funds. Confraternities, notwithstanding their location, tended to be manifestations of lay piety independent of ecclesiastical institutions, or at least outside the framework of the parish and the diocese.

congregation

A close community of monasteries within the same monastic order.

Consiglio dei Dieci (Ital. "Council of Ten")

established in 1310, the highest political decision-making body in Venice. Its members were elected for a fixed term by the Senate, the Venetian parliament of noblemen. While the Doge ranked above the Council, he had to use considerable personal power if he wanted to win against them.

contour (Fr. contour, "outline")

a line around a shape in a work of art, its nature depending on the artist's concept and intention. In medieval painting, contours were initially regular, flat outlines; in the course of the 14th century they acquired more sense of spatial effect, and appear to be alternately more and less emphatic. Later, the effect of contour in painting and graphic art became particularly important to artistic movements in which line and draughtsmanship was a prominent factor.

contrapposto (It. "placed opposite")

An asymmetrical pose in which the one part of the body is counterbalanced by another about the body's central axis. Ancient Greek sculptors developed contrapposto by creating figures who stand with their

weight on one leg, the movement of the hips to one side being balanced by a counter movement of the torso. Contrapposto was revived during the Renaissance and frequently used by Mannerist artist, who developed a greater range of contrapposto poses.

conventicle (Lat. conventiculurn, "meeting place")

A religious meeting or society.

Copperplate engraving (late Lat. cuprum; Lat. aes cyprium, "ore from the island of Cyprus")

A method of printing using a copper plate into which a design has been cut by a sharp instrument such as a burin; an engraving produced in this way. Invented in south west Germany during the 1430s, the process is the second oldest graphic art after woodcut. In German art it was developed in particular by Schongauer and Dürer, and in Italian art by Pollaiuolo and Mantegna.

corbel

In architecture, a bracket of stone, brick or wood that projects from a wall to support an arch, large cornice or other feature. They are often ornamented.

Cosmati work

A type of coloured decorative inlay work of stone and glass that flourished mainly in Rome between c. 1100 and 1300. It is characterized by the use of small pieces of coloured stone and glass in combination with strips of white marble to produce geometrical designs. The term derives from two craftsmen called Cosmas, whose names are inscribed on several works, but there were several families of 'Cosmati' workers and many individual craftsmen. Cosmati work was applied to church furnishings such as tombs and pulpits and was also used for architectural decoration. The style spread as far as England, for example in the tomb of Henry III in Westminster Abbey (c. 1280), executed by imported Italian craftsmen.

Counter-Reformation

Term in ecclesiastical history referring to the reform of the entire Church which was widely believed to be necessary as early as the late Middle Ages. Reform programs, such as those passed by the Councils of Constance (1414-1418) and Basle (1431-1437 and 1448) or the 5th Lateran Council (1512-1517), did not achieve any lasting results. Not until the Protestant Reformation were the Pope and Roman Curia forced to take specific action against abuse of position, declining moral standards, the selling of indulgences and excesses in the worship of saints and relics. With the Laetere Jerusalem (1544) bull. Pope Paul III (1534-1549) was responsible for the convocation of the Council of Trent which, in three separate sessions between 15445 and 1563, started the process of inner reform in the Church.

craquelure

The pattern of fine cracks in paint, due to the paint shrinking and becoming brittle as it ages.

crozier

The crook-shaped staff carried by a bishop. The crook is intended to resemble a shepherd's crook, i.e. it symbolizes the shepherd (the bishop) looking after his flock.

crucifixion

An important method of capital punishment, particularly among the Persians, Seleucids, Jews, Carthaginians, and Romans from about the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD. Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, abolished it in the Roman Empire in AD 337, out of veneration for Jesus Christ, the most famous victim of crucifixion.

There were various methods of performing the execution. Usually, the condemned man, after being whipped, or "scourged," dragged the crossbeam of his cross to the place of punishment, where the upright shaft was already fixed in the ground. Stripped of his clothing either then or earlier at his scourging, he was bound fast with outstretched arms to the crossbeam or nailed firmly to it through the wrists. The crossbeam was then raised high against the upright shaft and made fast to it about 9 to 12 feet (approximately 3 metres) from the ground. Next, the feet were tightly bound or nailed to the upright shaft. A ledge inserted about halfway up the upright shaft gave some support to the body; evidence for a similar ledge for the feet is rare and late. Over the criminal's head was placed a notice stating his name and his crime. Death, apparently caused by exhaustion or by heart failure, could be hastened by shattering the legs (crurifragium) with an iron club, so that shock and asphyxiation soon ended his life.

crumhorn

A wind instrument popular throughout Europe in 16th and 17th centuries. An ancestor of the oboe, the crumhorn was a double-reed instrument that produced a soft, reedy sound.

cupola (Lat. cupula, "small vat")

In architecture, a small dome, usually one set on a much larger dome or on a roof; a semi-circular vault.

D

dado

(1) The section of a pedestal between base and surbase. (2) The lower portion of the wall of a room, decorated diffrently from the upper section.

danse macabre

The dance of death, a favorite late medieval picture subject. It generally shows skeletons forcing the living to dance with them, usually in matching pairs, e.g. a live priest dancing with a skeleton priest. Holbein's woodcut series the Dance of Death is one of the most famous.

Danube school

Refers to a style of painting that developed in Regensburg, Germany, and elsewhere along the Danube river during the Renaissance and Reformation. It is characterized by a renewed interest in medieval piety, an expressive use of nature, the relationship of the human figure and events to nature, and the introduction of landscape as a primary theme in art. The term was coined by Theodor von Frimmel (1853-1928), who believed that painting in the Danube River region around Regensburg, Passau, and Linz possessed common characteristics; the style seems to exist even though leading artists did not form a school in the usual sense of the term, since they did not work in a single workshop or in a particular centre. Major artists whose work represents the style include Lucas Cranach the Elder, Albrecht Altdorfer and Wolf Huber.

deacon (Gk. diakonos, "servant")

a minister who was below the rank of priest in the Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox churches. Deacons originally cared for both the sick and the poor in early Christian communities.

Deësis (Gk. "request")

the representation of Christ enthroned in glory as judge or ruler of the world, flanked by the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist acting as intercessors.

diptych (Lat. diptychum, Gk. diptychos, "folded in two")

in medieval art a picture, often an altarpiece, consisting of two folding wings without a fixed central area.

disegno (It. "drawing, design")

In Renaissance art theory, the design of a painting seen in terms of drawing, which was help to be the basis of all art. The term stresses not the literal drawing, but the concept behind an art work. With the Mannerists the term came to mean an ideal image that a work attempts to embody but can in fact never

fully realize. As disegno appeals to the intellect, it was considered far more important that coloure (colour), which was seen as appealing to the senses and emotions.

distemper (Lat. distemperare, "to mix, dilute")

A technique of painting in which pigments are diluted with water and bound with a glue. It was usually used for painting wall decorations and frescoes, though a few artists, notably Andrea Mantegna (1430/31-1506), also used it on canvas.

dome

in architecture, hemispherical structure evolved from the arch, usually forming a ceiling or roof.

Dominicans (Lat. Ordo Praedictatorum, Order of Preachers)

A Roman Catholic order of mendicant friars founded by St. Dominic in 1216 to spread the faith through preaching and teaching. The Dominicans were one of the most influential religious orders in the later Middle Ages, their intellectual authority being established by such figures as Albertus Magnus and St.Thomas Aquinas. The Dominicans played the leading role in the Inquisition.

donor (Lat. donator, "giver of a gift")

a patron who commissioned a work of art for a church. Donors sometimes had their portraits included in the work they were donating as a sign of piety.

doublet

A male garment, formerly worn under armour, that from the 15th century referred to a close-fitting jacket.

E

easel

Stand on which a painting is supported while the artist works on it. The oldest representation of an easel is on an Egyptian relief of the Old Kingdom (c. 2600-2150              2600-2150       BC). Renaissance illustrations of the artist at work show all kinds of contrivances, the commonest being the three-legged easel with pegs, such as we still use today. Light folding easels were not made until the 18th and 19th centuries, when painters took to working out of doors. The studio easel, a 19th-century invention, is a heavy piece of furniture, which runs on castors or wheels, and served to impress the c1ients of portrait painters. Oil painters need an easel which will support the canvas almost vertically or tip it slightly

forward to prevent reflection from the wet paint, whereas the watercolourist must be able to lay his paper nearly flat so that the wet paint will not run down. The term 'easel-painting' is applied to any picture small enough to have been painted on a standard easel.

Ecce Homo (Lat. "Behold the Man!")

The words of Pontius Pilate in the Gospel of St. John (19, 5) when he presents Jesus to the crowds. Hence, in art, a depiction of Jesus, bound and flogged, wearing a crown of thorns and a scarlet robe.

en face

In portraiture, a pose in which the sitter faces the viewer directly; full face.

enamel

Coloured glass in powder form and sometimes bound with oil, which is bonded to a metal surface or plaque by firing.

engraving

A print made from a metal plate that has had a design cut into it with a sharp point. Ink is smeared over the plate and then wiped off, the ink remaining in the etched lines being transferred when the plate is pressed very firmly onto a sheet of paper.

ensemble (Fr. "together")

A combining of several media grouped together to form a composite art work. Chapels were among the most notable Renaissance ensembles, sometimes combining panel painting, fresco, sculpture, and architecture.

entablature

In classical architecture, the part of a building between the capitals of the columns and the roof. It consists of the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice.

epitaph (Gk. epistaphion)

Pictures or tables with reliefs and inscriptions erected in honour of the deceased in churches or sepulchral chapels.

eschatology (Gk. eschaton, "last", and logos, "word")

the science of the end of the world and beginning of a new world, and of the last things,death and resurrection.

Eucharist (Gk. eu, "good," and charis, "thanks")

the sacrament of Holy Communion, celebrated with bread and wine, the most sacred moment of the Christian liturgy.

Evangelism

The term is used in an Italian context to designate spiritual currents manifest around 1540 which might be said to have occupied the confessional middle ground between Catholicism and Protestantism; hence it does not relate at all to the term 'Evangelical' as used in German or English contexts. It has been applied particularly to the so-called spirituali of the Viterbo circle, notably Cardinal Pole, Vittoria Colonna, Marcantonio Flaminio, Carnesecchi and Ochino, and also to Giulia Gonzaga, Contarini, Giovanni Morone; Gregorio Cortese and Vermigli. Such persons combined a zeal for personal religious renewal with spiritual anxieties akin to those of Luther, to which they sought an answer in the study of St Paul and St Augustine; convinced of the inefficacy of human works, they stressed the role of faith and the all-efficacy of divine grace in justification. Few of them broke with the Catholic Church.

F

faience

Tin-glazed European earthenware, particularly ware made in France, Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia. It developed in France in the early 16th century, was influenced by the technique and the designs of Italian maiolica, and is named for Faenza, Italy, which was famous for maiolica. It is distinguished from tin-glazed earthenware made in Italy, which is called "maiolica," and that made in the Netherlands and England, which is called "delftware." It has no connection to the ancient objects or material also named faience, which was developed in the Near East ca. 4500 BCE.

Fathers of the Church

A title given to those leaders of the early Christian Church whose writings had made an important contribution to the development of doctrine. Saints Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great were often considered the four principal Fathers of the Church.

faun

Ancient Roman god of nature, protector of shepherds, farmers, fields and livestock. Equated with the Greek god Pan, he is frequently depicted with a goats legs and horns.

festoni (It. "festoons)

Architectural ornaments consisting of fruit, leaves, and flowers suspended in a loop; a swag.

fête champêtre (French: "rural feast")

In painting, representation of a rural feast or open-air entertainment. Although the term fête galante ("gallant feast") is sometimes used synonymously with fête champêtre, it is also used to refer to a specific kind of fête champêtre: a more graceful, usually aristocratic scene in which groups of idly amorous, relaxed, well-dressed figures are depicted in a pastoral setting.

fluted

of a column or pillar, carved with closely spaced parallel grooves cut vertically.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

the Four Horsemen in the Revelation of St John (Rev 6, 2 - 8), which contains the description of the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ. The Horsemen personify the disasters about to happen to mankind, such as plague, war, famine and death. Their attributes are the bow, sword and set of balances. In some sculptures the first rider is identified as Christ by a halo. The colour of his horse is white, that of the others red, black and dun.

Franciscans

A Roman Catholic order of mendicant friars founded by St. Francis of Assisi (given papal approval in 1223). Committed to charitable and missionary work, they stressed the veneration of the Holy Virgin, a fact that was highly significant in the development of images of the Madonna in Italian art. In time the absolute poverty of the early Franciscans gave way to a far more relaxed view of property and wealth, and the Franciscans became some of the most important patrons of art in the early Renaissance.

fresco (It. "fresh")

Wall painting technique in which pigments are applied to wet (fresh) plaster (intonaco). The pigments bind with the drying plaster to form a very durable image. Only a small area can be painted in a day, and these areas, drying to a slightly different tint, can in time be seen. Small amounts of retouching and detail work could be carried out on the dry plaster, a technique known as a secco fresco.

frescos in Italy

Save in Venice, where the atmosphere was too damp, fresco painting was the habitual way of decorating wall surfaces in Italy, both in churches and in private and public palaces. During the 16th century a liking for the more brilliant effect of large canvases painted in oils, and to a lesser extent for tapestries, diminished the use of frescoes save for covering upper walls, covings and ceilings. The technique of buon fresco, or true fresco, involved covering the area with a medium-fine plaster, the intonaco, just rough enough to provide a bond (sometimes enhanced by scoring) for the final layer of fine plaster. Either a freehand sketch of the whole composition (sinopia) was drawn on the wall, or a full-scale cartoon was prepared and its outlines transferred to the intonaco by pressing them through with a knife or by pouncing - blowing charcoal dust through prickholes in the paper. Then over the intonaco enough of the final thin layer was applied to contain a day's work. That portion of the design was repeated on it either by the same methods or freehand, and the artist set to work with water-based pigments while the plaster was still damp; this allowed them to sink in before becoming dry and fixed. (Thus 'pulls' or slices of frescoes could be taken by later art thieves without actually destroying the colour or drawing of the work.) It is usually possible to estimate the time taken to produce a fresco by examining the joins between the plastered areas representing a day's work. Final details, or effects impossible to obtain in true fresco pigments, could be added at the end in 'dry' paints, or fresco secco, a technique in which pigment was laid on an unabsorbent plaster; the best known example of an entire composition in fresco secco is Leonardo's Last Supper.

G

Garter, Order of the

The highest order the English monarch can bestow. It was founded by Edward III in 1348. The blue Garter ribbon is worn under the left knee by men and on the upper left arm by women. The motto is Honi soit qui mal y pense (Evil to those who think evil).

Genius

in classical Rome, a person's invisible tutelary god. In art from the classical period onwards, the low-ranking god was depicted as a winged, usually childish figure.

genre

In a broad sense, the term is used to mean a particular branch or category of art; landscape and portraiture, for example, are genres of painting, and the essay and the short story are genres of literature.

genre painting

The depiction of scenes from everyday life. Elements of everyday life had long had a role in religious works; pictures in which such elements were the subject of a painting developed in the 16th century with

such artists as Pieter Bruegel. Then Carracci and Caravaggio developed genre painting in Italy, but it was in Holland in the 17th century that it became an independent form with its own major achievements, Vermeer being one of its finest exponents.

Giottesques

A term applied to the 14th-century followers of Giotto. The best-known of the 'Giotteschi' are the Florentines Taddeo Gaddi, Maso di Banco, Bernardo Daddi, and to a lesser extent the Master of St Cecilia. Giotto's most loyal follower was Maso, who concentrated on the essential and maintained the master's high seriousness.

gisant

French term used from the 15th century onwards for a lying or recumbent effigy on a funerary monument. The gisant typically represented a person in death (sometimes decomposition) and the gisant position was contrasted with the orant, which represented the person as if alive in a kneeling or praying position. In Renaissance monuments gisants often formed part of the lower register, where the deceased person was represented as a corpse, while on the upper part he was represented orant as if alive.

glaze

paint applied so thinly that the base beneath it is visible through the layer.

glory

(1) The supernatural radiance surrounding a holy person.

(2) To have the distinction of one's deeds recognized in life and to be revered for them posthumously: this was glory. The nature of true gloria was much discussed, whether it must be connected with the public good, whether the actions that led to it must conform with Christian ethics, how it differed from notoriety. The concept did not exclude religious figures (the title of the church of the Frari in Venice was S. Maria Gloriosa), but it was overwhelmingly seen in terms of secular success and subsequent recognition, as determining the lifestyles of the potent and the form of their commemoration in literature, in portraits and on tombs. As such, it has been taken as a denial of medieval religiosity ('sic transit gloria mundi'), and thus a hallmark of Renaissance individual ism; as a formidable influence on cultural patronage; and as spurring on men of action, as well as writers and artists, to surpass their rivals - including their counterparts in antiquity.

Gobelins

French tapestry manufactory, named after a family of dyers and clothmakers who set up business on the outskirts of Paris in the 15th century. Their premises became a tapestry factory in the early 17th century, and in 1662 it was taken over by Louis XIV, who appointed Lebrun Director. Initially it made not only tapestries but also every kind of product (except carpets, which were woven at the Savonnerie factory) required for the furnishing of the royal palaces — its official title was Manufacture royale des meubles de la Couronne. The celebrated tapestry designed by Lebrun showing Louis XIV Visiting the Gobelins (Gobelins Museum, Paris, 1663-75) gives a good idea of the range of its activities. In 1694 the factory was closed because of the king's financial difficulties, and although it reopened in 1699, thereafter it made only tapestries. For much of the 18th century it retained its position as the foremost tapestry manufactory in Europe. 0udry and Boucher successively held the post of Director (1733-70). The Gobelins continues in production today and houses a tapestry museum.

Golden Fleece, Order of the Golden Fleece

a noble chivalric order, still in existence today, founded by Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy in 1430 in honor of the Apostle Andrew, for the defence of the Christian faith and the Church. In allusion to the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, the symbol of the order is a golden ram's fleece drawn through a gold ring.

golden section (Lat. sectio aurea)

In painting and architecture, a formula meant to provide the aesthetically most satisfying proportions for a picture or a feature of a building. The golden section is arrived at by dividing a line unevenly so that the shorter length is to the larger as the larger is to the whole. This ratio is approximately 8:13. The golden section (sometimes known as the golden mean), which was thought to express a perfect harmony of proportions, played an important role in Renaissance theories of art.

gonfalonier

Italian gonfaloniere ("standard bearer"), a title of high civic magistrates in the medieval Italian city-states.

In Florence the gonfaloniers of the companies (gonfalonieri di compagnia) originated during the 1250s as commanders of the people's militia. In the 1280s a new office called the gonfalonier of justice (gonfaloniere di giustizia) was instituted to protect the interests of the people against the dominant magnate class. The holder of this office subsequently became the most prominent member of the Signoria (supreme executive council of Florence) and formal head of the civil administration. In other Italian cities, the role of the gonfaloniers was similar to that in Florence. Gonfaloniers headed the militia from the various city quarters, while the gonfalonier of justice often was the chief of the council of guild representatives.

The kings of France traditionally bore the title gonfalonier of St. Denis. The honorary title of gonfalonier of the church (vexillifer ecclesiae) was conferred by the popes, from the 13th until the 17th century, on sovereigns and other distinguished persons.

Gothic

Gothic, which may well have originated with Alberti as a derogatory term and which certainly corresponds to Vasari's 'maniera tedesca' ('German style'), is properly the descriptive term for an artistic style which achieved its first full flowering in the Ile de France and the surrounding areas in the period between c. 1200 and c. 1270, and which then spread throughout northern Europe. It is characterized by the hitherto unprecedented integration of the arts of sculpture, painting, stained glass and architecture which is epitomized in the great cathedrals of Chartres, Amiens, and Reims or in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. In all the arts the predominantly planar forms of the Romanesque are replaced by an emphasis on line. There is a transcendental quality, whether in the soaring forms of the pointed arches or in the new stress on the humanity of Christ, which similarly distinguishes it from the preceding Romanesque style.

In thinking of Nicola (d. c. 1284) or Giovanni Pisano (d. after 1314) there is same danger of forgetting what had happened in French sculpture half a century or more earlier, and likewise it is hard to remember that the spectacular achievements of early Renaissance art are a singularly localized eddy in the continuing stream of late gothic European art. By northern European standards few Italian works of art can be called gothic without qualification, and the story of 13th and 14th century Italian architecture is as much one of resistance to the new style as of its reception, whether directly from France or through German or central European intermediaries. In sculpture and in painting, the Italian reluctance to distort the human figure, conditioned by a never wholly submerged awareness of the omnipresent antique heritage, gives a special quality to the work of even those artists such as Giovanni Pisano or Simone Martini who most closely approached a pure gothic style.

Nevertheless, the vitalizing role of Northern gothic art throughout the early Renaissance and the period leading up to it should never be underestimated. The artistic, like the cultural and commercial, interaction was continuous and much of the Italian achievement is incomprehensible if seen in isolation. It is not merely at the level of direct exchanges between one artist and another, or the influence of one building; painting, manuscript or piece of sculpture upon another, that the effects are to be felt. The streaming quality of line which is so characteristic of Brunelleschi's early Renaissance architecture surely reflects a sensitivity to the gothic contribution which is entirely independent of, and lies much deeper than, the superficial particularities of form.

The counterflow of influence and inspiration from South to North must likewise not be underrated. In particular, the contribution of Italian painters from Duccio and Simone Martini onwards is central to the evolution of the so-called International Gothic style developing in Burgundy, Bohemia and north Italy in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.

gouache

Gouache is opaque watercolour, known also as poster paint and designer's colour. It is thinned with water for applying, with sable- and hog-hair brushes, to white or tinted paper and card and, occasionally, to silk. Honey, starch, or acrylic is sometimes added to retard its quick-drying property. Liquid glue is preferred as a thinner by painters wishing to retain the tonality of colours (which otherwise dry slightly lighter in key) and to prevent thick paint from flaking. Gouache paints have the advantages that they dry out almost immediately to a mat finish and, if required, without visible brush marks. These qualities, with the capacities to be washed thinly or applied in thick impasto and a wide colour range that now includes fluorescent and metallic pigments, make the medium particularly suited to preparatory studies for oil and acrylic paintings. It is the medium that produces the suede finish and crisp lines characteristic of many Indian and Islamic miniatures, and it has been used in Western screen and fan decoration and by modern artists such as Rouault, Klee, Dubuffet, and Morris Graves.

Grand Manner

Term applied to the lofty and rhetorical manner of history painting that in academic theory was considered appropriate to the most serious and elevated subjects. The classic exposition of its doctrines is found in Reynolds's Third and Fourth Discourses (1770 and 1771), where he asserts that 'the gusto grande of the Italians, the beau idéal of the French, and the great style, genius, and taste among the English, are but different appellations of the same thing'. The idea of the Grand Manner took shape in 17th-century Italy, notably in the writings of Bellori. His friend Poussin and the great Bolognese painters of the 17th century were regarded as outstanding exponents of the Grand Manner, but the greatest of all was held to be Raphael.

Grand Tour

An extensive journey to the Continent, chiefly to France, the Netherlands, and above all Italy, sometimes in the company of a tutor, that became a conventional feature in the education of the English gentleman in the 18th century. Such tours often took a year or more. It had a noticeable effect in bringing a more cosmopolitan spirit to the taste of connoisseurs and laid the basis for many collections among the landed gentry. It also helped the spread of the fashion for Neoclassicism and an enthusiasm for Italian painting. Among the native artists who catered for this demand were Batoni, Canaletto, Pannini, and Piranesi, and British artists (such as Nollekens) were sometimes able to support themselves while in Italy by working for the dealers and restorers who supplied the tourist clientele. There was also a flourishing market in guide books.

Greek cross

A cross with four arms of equal length.

graphic art

Term current with several different meanings in the literature of the visual arts. In the context of the fine arts, it most usually refers to those arts that rely essentially on line or tone rather than colour — i.e. drawing and the various forms of engraving. Some writers, however, exclude drawing from this definition, so that the term 'graphic art' is used to cover the various processes by which prints are created. In another sense, the term — sometimes shortened to 'graphics' — is used to cover the entire field of commercial printing, including text as well as illustrations.

grisaille (Fr. gris, "gray")

A painting done entirely in one colour, usually gray. Grisaille paintings were often intended to imitate sculpture.

Guelfs and Ghibellines

Italian political terms derived from the German Welf, a personal and thence family name of the dukes of Bavaria, and Waiblingen, the name of a castle of the Hohenstaufen dukes of Swabia apparently used as a battle cry. Presumably introduced into Italy 1198-1218, when partisans of the Emperor Otto IV (Welf) contested central Italy with supporters of Philip of Swabia and his' nephew Frederick II, the terms do not appear in the chronicles until the Emperor Frederick's conflict with the Papacy 1235-50, when Guelf meant a supporter of the Pope and Ghibelline a supporter of the Empire. From 1266 to 1268, when Naples was conquered by Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX, the French connection became the touchstone of Guelfism, and the chain of Guelf alliances stretching from Naples, through central Italy, to Provence and Paris, underwritten by the financial interests of the Tuscan bankers, became an abiding feature of European politics. The Italian expeditions of Henry of Luxemburg (1310-13) and Lewis of Bavaria (1327-29) spread the terms to northern Italy, with the Visconti of Milan and the della Scala of Verona emerging as the leading Ghibelline powers. Attempts by Guelf propagandists to claim their party as the upholder of liberty and their opponents as the protagonists of tyranny rarely coincide with the truth: power politics, then as now, generally overrode ideology in inter-state affairs.

Factional struggles had existed within the Italian states from time immemorial, the parties taking a multitude of local names. In Florence, however, Guelf and Ghibelline were applied to the local factions which supposedly originated in a feud between the Buondelmonte and Amidei clans, c. 1216. In 1266-67 the Guelf party, which had recruited most of the merchant class, finally prevailed over the predominantly noble Ghibellines; after this, internal factions in Florence went under other names, like the Blacks and the Whites who contested for control of the commune between 1295 and 1302. Meanwhile the Parte Guelfa had become a corporate body whose wealth and moral authority as the guardian of political orthodoxy enabled it to play the part of a powerful pressure group through most of the 14th century. After the War of the Eight Saints, the influence of the Parte declined rapidly. Although its palace was rebuilt c. 1418-58 to the designs of Brunelleschi, it had no part in the conflicts surrounding the rise of the Medici régime.

guild

An association of the masters of a particular craft, trade or profession (painters, goldsmiths, surgeons, and so on) set up to protect its members' rights and interests. Such guilds existed in virtually every European city in the 16th century. The guild also monitored standards of work, acted as a court for those who brought their trade into disrepute, and provided assistance to members in need.

guilds (in Italy)

Guilds were essentially associations of masters in particular crafts, trades, or professions. In Italy they go back a long way; there is documentary evidence of guilds in 6th century Naples. In origin they were clubs which observed religious festivals together and attended the funerals of their members, but in time they acquired other functions. Their economic function was to control standards and to enforce the guild's monopoly of particular activities in a particular territory. Their political function was to participate in the government of the city-state. In some cities, notably Florence in the 14th century, only guildsmen were eligible for civic office, thus excluding both noblemen (unless they swallowed their pride and joined, as some did), and unskilled workers like the woolcombers and dyers. In Florence in 1378 these groups demanded the right to form their own guilds, and there were similar movements of protest in Siena and Bologna.

Guilds were also patrons of art, commissioning paintings for guildhalls, contributing to the fabric fund of cathedrals and collaborating on collective projects like the statues for Orsanmichele at Florence. The guilds were not equal. In Florence, the 7 'Greater Guilds', including such prestigious occupations as judges and bankers, outranked the 14 'Lesser Guilds', and in general the guild hierarchy was reflected in the order of precedence in processions. The great age of the guilds was the 13th and 14th centuries. The economic recession after 1348 meant fewer opportunities for journeymen to become masters, and greater hostility between master and man. The shift from trade to land in the 15th and 16th centuries meant a decline in the social standing of the crafts. In some towns, such as Brescia and Vicenza, guild membership actually became a disqualification instead of a qualification for municipal office. The guilds lost their independence and became instruments of state control. In 16th century Venice, for example, they were made responsible for supplying oarsmen for the galleys of the state.

H

hatching

In a drawing, print or painting, a series of close parallel lines that create the effect of shadow, and therefore contour and three-dimensionality In crosshatching the lines overlap.

heraldry (Fr. [science] héraldique, "[knowledge of] heraldry," from Fr. héraut, "herald")

the study of the meaning of emblems and coats of arms, with the rules governing their use.

heresy (pre-Reformation)

The heretical movements affecting Italy between the mid-12th and the mid-14th century had their main impact in an area covering the north-west of the peninsula and southern France: it is not possible to speak of distinct Italian and meridional French movements. The authentically Christian movements which were expelled from the Catholic Church must in the first instance be distinguished from Catharism, which represented an infiltration by the originally non-Christian dualist system of Manichaeanism; from the start, the Cathars were an anti-church. By contrast, the Waldensian, Spiritual and Joachimite movements appeared initially as vital manifestations of Catholicism; only after their condemnation by the ecclesiastical authorities do they seem to have developed notably eccentric doctrines and to have described themselves as the true Church in opposition to the institutional Church; they had a recognizable kinship with movements that remained within the pale of orthodoxy.

These Christian heresies had in common an attachment to the ideal of apostolic poverty, which came to be seen by the ecclesiastical authorities as a challenge to the institutionalized Church. The Waldensians or Valdesi (not to be confused with Valdesiani, the followers of Juan de Valdes, d. 1541) took their origin from the Poor Men of Lyons, founded by Peter Valdes or Waldo in the 1170s. They were distinguished by a strong attachment to the Bible and a desire to imitate Christ's poverty. At first approved by the Papacy as an order of laymen, they were condemned in 1184. Likewise condemned was the rather similar Lombard movement of the Humiliati. One stream of these remained as an approved order within the Catholic Church, while others merged with the Waldensians. The Waldensians came to teach that the sacraments could be administered validly only by the pure, i.e: only by Waldensian superiors or perfecti practising evangelical poverty. Alone among the heretical sects existing in Italy they were organized as a church, and regarded themselves as forming, together with brethren north of the Alps, one great missionary community. They spread all over western and central Europe but in the long term they came to be largely confined to the Rhaetian and Cottian Alps (the Grisons and Savoy). The Italian Waldensians in the 16th century resisted absorption by Reformed Protestantism.

The early Franciscans might be regarded as a movement, similar in character to the Poor Men of Lyons, which was won for the cause of Catholic orthodoxy. However, divisions within the order over the issue of poverty led to religious dissidence. The Spirituals held up the ideal of strict poverty as obligatory for Franciscans and, indeed, normative for churchmen; following the Papacy's recognition of the Franciscan order as a property-owning body in 1322-23, their position became one of criticism of the institutional Church as such. Their heresies came to incorporate the millenarian doctrines of the 12th century abbot Joachim of Fiore. He had prophesied a coming age of the Holy Spirit ushered in by Spiritual monks; his heretical followers prophesied a new Spiritual gospel that would supersede the Bible. Joachimite Spiritualists came to see the pope, head of the 'carnal Church', as Antichrist. The main impact of the

movement upon the laity was in southern France; in Italy it was an affair of various groups of fraticelli de paupere vita (little friars of the poor life), mainly in the south.

hetaira

A courtesan of ancient Greece. There may have been one or two hetaira called Lais in ancient Corinth. One was the model of the celebrated painter Apelles.

history painting

Painting concerned with the representation of scenes from the Bible, history (usually classical history), and classical literature. From the Renaissance to the 19th century it was considered the highest form of painting, its subjects considered morally elevating.

hortus conclusus (Lat. 'enclosed garden')

a representation of the Virgin and Child in a fenced garden, sometimes accompanied by a group of female saints. The garden is a symbolic allusion to a phrase in the Song of Songs (4:12): 'A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse'.

Hudson River school

group of American landscape painters, working from 1825 to 1875. The 19th-century romantic movements of England, Germany, and France were introduced to the United States by such writers as Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper. At the same time, American painters were studying in Rome, absorbing much of the romantic aesthetic of the European painters. Adapting the European ideas about nature to a growing pride in the beauty of their homeland, for the first time a number of American artists began to devote themselves to landscape painting instead of portraiture. First of the group of artists properly classified with the Hudson River school was Thomas Doughty; his tranquil works greatly influenced later artists of the school. Thomas Cole, whose dramatic and colourful landscapes are among the most impressive of the school, may be said to have been its leader during the group's most active years. Among the other important painters of the school are Asher B. Durand, J. F. Kensett, S. F. B. Morse, Henry Inman, Jasper Cropsey, Frederick E. Church, and, in his earlier work, George Inness.

humanism (Lat. humanus, "human")

philosophical movement which started in Italy in the mid-14th century, and which drew on antiquity to make man the focal point. In humanism, the formative spiritual attitude of the Renaissance, the emancipation of man from God took place. It went hand in hand with a search for new insights into the spiritual and scientific workings of this world. The humanists paid particular attention to the rediscovery

and nurture of the Greek and Latin languages and literature. To this day the term denotes the supposedly ideal combination of education based on classical erudition and humanity based on observation of reality.

I

icon (Gk. eikon, "likeness")

a small, portable painting in the Orthodox Church. The form and colours are strictly idealized and unnatural. The cultic worship of icons was a result of traditionally prescribed patterns of representation in terms of theme and form, for it was believed that icons depicted the original appearances of Christ, Mary and the saints.

iconoclasm

the destruction of works of art on the grounds that they are impious. During the 16th century, Calvinist iconoclasts destroyed a great many religious art works in the Netherlands.

iconography ((Gk. eikon, "likeness", and graphein, "description")

The systematic study and identification of the subject-matter and symbolism of art works, as opposed to their style; the set of symbolic forms on which a given work is based. Originally, the study and identification of classical portraits. Renaissance art drew heavily on two iconographical traditions: Christianity, and ancient Greek and Roman art, thought and literature.

ignudi, sing. ignudo (It.)

Male nudes. The best-known are the male nudes on Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling.

illuminated manuscripts

Books written by hand, decorated with paintings and ornament of different kinds. The word illuminated comes from a usage of the Latin word 'illuminare' in connection with oratory or prose style, where it means 'adorn'. The decorations are of three main types: (a) miniature, or small pictures, not always illustrative, incorporated into the text or occupying the whole page or part of the border; (b) initial letters either containing scenes (historiated initials) or with elaborate decoration; (c) borders, which may consist of miniatures, occasionally illustrative, or more often are composed of decorative motifs. They may enclose the whole of the text space or occupy only a small part of the margin of the page. Manuscripts are for the most part written on parchment or vellum. From the 14th century paper was used for less sumptuous copies. Although a number of books have miniatures and ornaments executed in outline drawing only, the majority are fully colored. By the 15th century illumination tended more and more to

follow the lead given by painters, and with the invention of printing the illuminated book gradually went out of fashion. During the 15th and 16th centuries illuminations were added to printed books.

illumination

The decoration of manuscripts, one of the most common forms of medieval art; because of its monastic origins, usually of religious texts. The practice extends from heavy decorations of initial letters and inter-woven margin patterns (as in Celtic examples) to miniatures and and full-page illuminations, often of a formal and grandiose kind (as in Byzantine manuscripts). Rich colors are a common feature, in particular a luxirious use of gold and silver. Illuminations survived the advent of printing for some time and only died out with the rise of printed illustration in the 16 century.

illusionism

The painting techniques that create the realistic impression of solid, three-dimensional objects (such as picture frames, architectural features, plasterwork etc.)

imago pietatis (Lat. "image of pity")

A religious image that is meant to inspire strong feelings of pity, tenderness, or love; specifically, an image of Christ on His tomb, the marks of the Passion clearly visible.

imitato (It. "imitation")

In Renaissance art theory, the ability to imitate, to depict objects and people accurately and convincingly. Derived from classical literary theory, imitato was one of the key concepts of Renaissance art theory.

impasto

Paint applied in thick or heavy layers.

impost

In architecture, the horizontal moulding or course of stone or brickwork at the top of a pillar or pier.

impresa

An emblem, used as a badge by rulers and scholars during the Renaissance, that consisted of a picture and a complementary motto in Latin or Greek.

indulgence

In the Roman Catholic Church, the remission of punishment for sins. It dates back to the 10th-century practice of doing penances, from which the Church drew much practical benefit (foundation of churches, pilgrimages). In the early 16th century, the sale of letters of indulgence was an important source of income for the Church. Its degeneration into commercial trafficking became the subject of overt dispute between Martin Luther and Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz in 1517, and consequently became the focal issue leading to the Reformation.

initial (Lat. initialis, "at the beginning")

the first letter of the text in medieval manuscripts and early printed books, made to stand out emphatically by its colour, size, and ornamentation.

ink

Coloured fluid used for writing, drawing, or printing. Inks usually have staining power without body, but printers' inks are pigments mixed with oil and varnish, and are opaque. The use of inks goes back in China and Egypt to at least 2500 BC. They were usually made from lampblack (a pigment made from soot) or a red ochre ground into a solution of glue or gums. These materials were moulded into dry sticks or blocks, which were then mixed with water for use. Ink brought from China or Japan in such dry form came to be known in the West as 'Chinese ink' or 'Indian ink'. The names are also given to a similar preparation made in Europe.

Inquisition Lat. inquisitio, "examination, investigation")

Medieval ecclesiastical institution for hunting down heretics and criminals; from 1231 papal Inquisitors (mainly Dominicans and Franciscans) were appointed. Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241) and the collection of decrees published in 1234 made the Inquisition a papal institution ("Sanctum Officium"), and it was later extended to include other offenses such as magic, witchcraft and fortune-telling.

insignia

the distinguishing marks or symbols of state or personal offices or honours.

instruments of the Passion of Christ (Lat. arma Christi, "weapons of Christ")

the term for the items central to the Passion of Christ (the scourging, the crowning with thorns, and the Crucifixion). They include the Cross; the spear of Longinus (the staff with the sponge soaked in vinegar) and the bucket containing the vinegar; the nails used to fasten Jesus to the Cross; the crown of thorns; and the inscription on the Cross. From the 13th century onwards, at the time of the Crusades, and particularly after the looting of Constantinople in 1204, countless relics of the Passion made their way to the Western world, and were the objects of special veneration. In art, Christ is shown as the man of sorrows

surrounded by the instruments of the Passion, and they are also depicted on their own, with many further details added. For instance, there are representations of the bundle of rods, the scourge that was used in the scourging; the cloak and reed scepter that were part of the crowning with thorns; the rooster of Peter's denial; Judas' thirty pieces of silver; the pincers, the hammer, and the ladder; the veil of St. Veronica; as well as the heads and hands of Christ's tormentors.

intercession

a pictorial theme showing the intervention of the Virgin Mary, or of other saints, with God the Father or with Christ on behalf of individuals or whole families, usually the donors of a work of art.

International Gothic

European art was characteristic of a rare uniformity for 60-70 years around 1400. Art historians have still not been able to come to an agreement on an appropriate name for it. The term "art around 1400" suits the style best which, because of its prevalence is referred to as international Gothic. The terms court style, soft style, beautiful style, trecento rococo and lyrical style, etc. are also used in art literature.

Elements of style which were generally wide-spread, did not belong to any particular country and were characteristic of art in courts. In the second half of the 14th century, models appeared in court art in the circle of French-Flemish artists serving at French courts and Bohemian regions of the Emperor's Court which determined works of art all over Europe at the end of the century. Human figures, landscapes and spaces in a realistic approach were accompanied by a peculiar quality of dreams, decorative dynamism and deep emotional charge. It is called as a soft style on the basis of lyrical expressions and drapes: it is more than a simple system of formal motifs, it denominates a kind of behaviour. Artists of the period were engaged in learning the human soul until their attention was attracted to the world (e.g. Donatallo, Masaccio and Jan van Eyck).

intonaco

The final layer of plaster on which a fresco is painted.

inventio (It. "invention")

In Renaissance art theory, the ability to create; invention, originality. Derived from classical rhetoric, inventio was one of the key concepts of Renaissance art theory; because it was seen as being based on the use of reason, it gave art a far higher status than a craft and helped to establish the intellectual respectability of painting and sculpture.

investiture

Process by which an ecclesiastical or secular dignitary is appointed to his office.

Ionic order

One of the classical order of columns that was used during the Renaissance; its characteristics are a capital with curled volutes on either side.

Italianate painters

Group of 17th-century northern European painters, principally Dutch, who traveled in Italy and, consciously adopting the style of landscape painting that they found there, incorporated Italian models and motifs into their own works. Chief among the Italianates were Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Andries and Jan Both, Nicolaes Berchem, and Jan Asselijn. The Both brothers, of Utrecht, were to some degree rivals of the Haarlem-born Berchem. Andries painted the figures that populated Jan's landscapes. Berchem's own compositions were largely derived from the Arcadian landscapes of the French painter Claude Lorrain; a typical scene would contain shepherds grazing their flocks among classical ruins, bathed in a golden haze. Upon his return to Holland, Berchem occasionally worked in cooperation with the local painters and is said to have supplied figures in works of both Jacob van Ruisdael and Meindert Hobbema.

Italianizers

Northern artists, generally Dutch or Flemish, who adopt as far as possible a style based on Italian models or who import Italian motives into their repertory. The word is often used of 17th-century Dutch landscape painters like Asselyn, Both and Berchem, but is also used of 16th-century Flemings like Mabuse or van Orley, although they are usually called Romanists.

J

Jeronymites

Congregation of hermits named after St. Jerome of Stridon which followed the Augustinians' rule with additions from St. Jerome's writings. Their main tasks were spiritual welfare and academic work.

Jesuits

The Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic teaching order founded by St. Ignatius Loyola in 1534. The express purpose of the Jesuits was to fight heresy within the Church (they played a leading role in the Counter Reformation), and to spread the faith through missionary work in the many parts of the world recently discovered by Western explorers and colonists.

K

Knights of Malta

A military religious order established in 1113 - as the Friars of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem - to aid and protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. As their military role grew, encouraged by the Crusades, they became a powerful military and political force in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. In 1530 Emperor Charles V gave them the island of Malta as a base (hence their name from that date). They remained in power there until the end of the 18th century.

L

Last Supper

Christ's last meal with His disciples before His arrest and trial; the rite of communion is based on this. One of most famous depictions of the event is a fresco painted by Leonardo da Vinci.

League of Cambrai

Alliance against Venice lasting from 1508 until 1510 between Pope Julius II (1443-1513), Emperor Maximilian I (1459- 1519), Ferdinand of Aragon (1452-1516), Louis XII of France (1462-1515) and some Italian states.

lectern

A reading stand or desk, especially one at which the Bible is read.

Legenda Aurea (Lat. "golden legend")

A collection of saints' legends, published in Latin in the 13th century by the Dominican Jacobus da Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa. These were particularly important as a source for Christian art from the Middle Ages onwards.

Leipzig Disputation

A debate held in Leipzig in 1519 between Martin Luther and the theologian Johann Eck. The central themes were Luther's condemnation of the sale of indulgences, and his challenge to the doctrinal authority of the Pope and Church Councils.

liberal arts

These represented the subject matter of the secular 'arts' syllabus of the Middle Ages; first the preparatory trivium - grammar, rhetoric and dialectic, then the basis of a philosophical training, the quadrivium, comprising arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. By the 13th century each had been given a pictorial identity, together with identifying attributes (e.g. a measuring rod for geometry) and exemplars (e.g. Pythagoras for arithmetic, Tubal for music).While treated with a stylistic variety that reflected current pictorial concerns, whether with iconographic completeness (Andrea da Firenze in the Spanish Chapel at S. Maria Novella in Florence), or with narrative (Pinturicchio in the Vatican) or with the nude (Pollaiuolo's tomb of Sixtus IV in St Peter's), the theme was left remarkably intact by artists whose own activity (save through the mathematics of perspective) was excluded from it as manual rather than liberal.

lintel

Horizontal structural member that span an opening in a wall and that carry the superimposed weight of the wall.

loggetta

Small loggia: open arcaded walkway supported by columns or pillars.

loggia (It.)

A gallery or room open on one or more sides, its roof supported by columns. Loggias in Italian Renaissance buildings were generally on the upper levels. Renaissance loggias were also separate structure, often standing in markets and town squares, that could be used for public ceremonies.

love knot

A painted or sculpted knot interlaced with initials, commemorating a marriage.

Luminism

The American landscape painting style of the 1850s-1870s, characterized by effects of light in landscapes, poetic atmosphere, often sublime, through the use of aerial perspective, and a hiding of visible brushstrokes. It is related to, and sometimes refers to Impressionism. Leading American luminists were Fitz Hugh Lane (1804-1865), John F. Kensett (1816-1872), Martin J. Heade (1819-1904), Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900), and Frederick E. Church (1826-1900).

lunette (Fr. "little moon")

In architecture, a semicircular space, such as that over a door or window or in a vaulted roof, that may contain a window, painting or sculptural decoration.

M

Macchiaioli

Group of Italian painters, active mainly in Florence c. 1855–65, who were in revolt against academic conventions and emphasized painterly freshness through the use of spots or patches (macchie) of colour. The name Macchiaioli (spot makers) was applied facetiously to them in 1862 and the painters themselves adopted it. They were influenced by the Barbizon School, but they painted genre scenes, historical subjects, and portraits as well as landscapes. Leading members included Giovanni Fattori (1825–1908), Silvestro Lega (1826–95), and Telemaco Signorini (1835–1901). Boldini and de Nittis were among the artists who sympathized with their ideas. The Macchiaioli had little commercial success, but they are now considered the most important phenomenon in 19th-century Italian painting. Sometimes they are even claimed as proto-Impressionists, but the differences between the two groups are as striking as the similarities; there is often a strong literary element in the work of the Macchiaioli, for example, and however bright their lighting effects, they never lost a sense of solidity of form.

madrigal

A part song, originally sung without accompaniment, originating in Italy in the 14th century. It reached the heights of its popularity in the 16th century, with secular texts replacing sacred ones, and accompaniments, usually for the lute, being written. One of the leading composers of madrigals was Claudio Monteverdi.

magna mater (Lat. "great mother")

A mother goddess, especially when seen as the guardian deity of a city or state. Specifically, the goddess Cybele, who was adopted by the Romans in 204 BC.

maiolica

Tin-glazed earthenware, particularly such ware produced in Italy. The term originally referred to the island of Majorca (or an alternate theory has it referring to Malaga), and designated only Hispano-Moresque lusterware; but since the 16th century it has been used to refer to Italian tin-glazed ware and imitations of the Italian ware. It is characterized by painted decoration of high quality executed in several colours on the dry but unfired tin glaze, generally with a final coating of clear lead glaze. The range of colours is typically limited to cobalt blue, copper green, manganese purple, antimony yellow, and iron red, with white provided by the tin-glaze material. When white is used for painting, it is applied onto a bluish-white glaze or blue ground. The luster is typically a golden colour derived from silver or a mother-of-pearl effect.

mandorla (It. "almond")

An almond-shaped radiance surrounding a holy person, often seen in images of the Resurrection of Christ or the Assumption of the Virgin.

Mannerism (It. maniera, "manner, style")

A movement in Italian art from about 1520 to 1600. Developing out of the Renaissance, Mannerism rejected Renaissance balance and harmony in favor of emotional intensity and ambiguity. In Mannerist painting, this was expressed mainly through severe distortions of perspective and scale; complex and crowded compositions; strong, sometimes harsh or discordant colors; and elongated figures in exaggerated poses. In architecture, there was a playful exaggeration of Renaissance forms (largely in scale and proportion) and the greater use of bizarre decoration. Mannerism gave way to the Baroque. Leading Mannerists include Pontormo, Bronzino, Parmigianino, El Greco and Tintoretto.

Man of Sorrows

A depiction of Christ during his Passion, bound, marked by flagellation, and crowned with thorns.

mantle

An overcoat, worn open, popular during the second half of the 15th century and the 16th century and often lined with fur along the hem and around the collar. It reached to the knee or foot, depending on the social class of the wearer.

manuscript

collective term for books or other documents written by hand; in a specific sense, the hand-written medieval book, the Codex manuscriptus, often ornamented with decorative borders, illuminated initials and miniatures, and containing works of ancient philosophy or scholarly, ecclesiastical, and literary texts. Manuscripts were usually produced on commission. At first the scriptoria (writing rooms) of monasteries transcribed the contents of famous manuscripts and made copies. Monastic communities in the Netherlands and northern Germany began producing manuscripts around 1383/84. Flanders, Burgundy, and in particular Paris became major centres for the mass production of breviaries (prayer books) and Books of Hours.

marble

loosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount

Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles.

marmi finti (It. "pretend marble")

A painted imitation of marble. Usually a decorative feature (on simulated architectural features) it was sometimes used in paintings, particularly by the artist Andrea Mantegna (1430/31-1506).

martyrdom (Gk. martyrion, "witness, proof")

the sufferings, torture and death inflicted on a person on account of his faith or convictions.

masterpiece

A term now loosely applied to the finest work by a particular artist or to any work of art of acknowledged greatness or of preeminence in its field. Originally it meant the piece of work by which a craftsman, having finished his training, gained the rank of'master' in his guild.

Mater Dolorosa

The Sorrowing Virgin at two Stations of the Cross, when the Virgin Mary meets her Son on his way to Calvary, or stands sorrowing beneath the Cross (Stabat Mater).

medallion

In architecture, a large ornamental plaquc or disc.

medals

The medal came to artistic maturity within a remarkably short time of its introduction in 15th century Italy. This was partly because ancient Roman coins, which were beginning to be reverently collected, suggested (on a smaller scale) its form: profile portrait bust on the obverse, a different design on the reverse, an inscription running round the rim. Like the finest Imperial coins, the medal's purpose was commemorative. Without monetary value, and of non-precious metal (bronze or lead), it was a way of circulating a likeness to a chosen few; it anticipated the use of miniatures and was indeed frequently worn

round the neck. And while the reverse could record a historical event or make a propaganda point related to its subject's career, more commonly it bore a design that purported to convey the 'essence', as it were, of the person portrayed on the other side.

Given the admiration for the men and artefacts of ancient Rome, the stress on individual character, the desire for fame and the penchant for summing up temperament in symbols and images, it is easy to understand how quickly the fashion for commissioning medals spread. Its pioneer executant was Pisanello. The precedents before he began to cast medals in 1438-39 had been few and excessively coin-like. Within 10 years he had established the form the medal was to retain until the influence was registered of the reverseless, hollow-cast and wafer-thin medals of the 1560s and 70s made by Bombarda (Andrea Cambi). Pisanello's approach was first echoed by the Veronese Matteo de' Pasti (d. 1467-688). It was, perhaps oddly, not until the works from 1485 of Niccolò Fiorentino (Niccolò di Forzore Spinelli, 1430-1514) that Florence produced a medallist of the highest calibre. Other specialists in the medium included Sperandio (Sperandio Savelli, c. 1425-1504), L'Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, c. 1460-1528), Caradosso (Cristoforo Caradosso Foppa, 1452-1526/27). The work of these men, and of the many, often anonymous, who reflected them, is still coveted because it avoided the two medallistic errors: making a medal look like either an enlarged piece of money or a small sculptured plaque.

Medusa

In Greek mythology, a Gorgon, the daughter of Phorkys and Kreto. A mortal monster with serpents in her hair and a gaze that turned people to stone. When Perseus cuts off her head, Chrysaor and Pegasos spring from her body. Her head features on Minerva's shield, supposedly to petrify her enemies.

Memento mori (Latin "remember you must die")

An object (most commonly a skull) reminding believers of the inevitability of death and the need for penitence. Other symbols of mortality include clocks and candles. A danse macabre with only one pair of dancers is also a known as a memento mori.

mezzotint

method of copper or steel engraving in tone. A Dutch officer, Ludwig von Siegen, is given credit for the invention of mezzotint c. 1640. The process then came into prominence in England early in the 18th century. Mezzotint involves uniform burring with a curved, sawtoothed tool by cradling it back and forth until the surface of the plate presents an all-over, even grain. This yields a soft effect in the print. The picture is developed in chiaroscuro with a scraper and a burnisher, every degree of light and shade from black to white being attainable. In pure mezzotint, no line drawing is employed, the result being soft without the sharp lines of an etching. Mezzotint was often used for the reproduction of paintings, particularly, in England, for landscapes and portraits. The process is essentially extinct today.

miniature

Term originally applied to the art of manuscript illumination but later used of paintings, usually portraits, executed on a very small scale. The earliest miniaturists (16th century) continued to use the materials of the illuminators, painting in gouache on vellum or card.

Minorites (also called Friars Minor and Observants)

In the Roman Catholic Church, a branch of the Franciscan order. The order came into existence in the 14th century as a reform movement wanting to return to the poverty and simple piety of St. Francis himself.

mirrors

Mirrors of glass 'silvered' on the back began to supplement those of polished metal in the 14th century, though it was only in the 16th century that high-quality glass ones were made (at Murano) on a scale that made them one of Venice's chief luxury exports. The connection between the increasing use of mirrors and the art of make-up (the mirror was a familiar symbol of vanity) and personal cleanliness is unexplored, but they had an influence on the development of the self-portrait in painting: Vasari assumed that Simone Martini (d. 1344) 'painted himself with two mirrors in order to get his head in profile'. Parmigianino (d. 1540) took self-scrutiny to a thoroughly introspective level in his Self-portrait in a (convex) Mirror.

miter

A high, pointed headdress worn by bishops.

modello

Italian word used to describe a small version of a large picture, not strictly speaking a preliminary sketch, which was shown to the person or body commissioning the large work for approval before the final design was put in hand. Many such small versions, often quite highly finished, still exist, e.g. by Tiepolo and Rubens. Most modelli are in oil paint or a combination of chalk, ink and paint.

monochrome (Gk. monokhromatos, "one color")

Painted in a single color; a painting executed in a single color.

motto (Ital., "word, saying")

from the Middle Ages, a saying usually associated with a visual symbol. The invention of personal mottos, as distinct from those that were inherited in a family's coat of arms, was particularly widespread in the Renaissance period.

N

narthex

entrance porches in early basilican churches, and for interior vestibules across the western end of later churches.

naturalism (Fr. naturalisme)

a method of depiction in the fine arts and literature in which reality as the result of sensory experience rather than theory is represented as realistically and scientifically precise as possible.

nave (from Lat. navis, "ship")

the main interior space of a church building. It may have parallel aisles on each side, often separated from it by pillars, and is intersected by the transept, which cuts across it at the point where the choir begins.

Nazarenes

A group of young, idealistic German painters of the early 19th century who believed that art should serve a religious or moral purpose and desired to return to the spirit of the Middle Ages. The nucleus of the group was established in 1809 when six students at the Vienna Academy formed an association called the Brotherhood of St Luke (Lukasbrüder), named after the patron saint of painting. The name Nazarenes was given to them derisively because of their affectation of biblical dress and hairstyles. They wished to revive the working environment as well as the spiritual sincerity of the Middle Ages, and lived and worked together in a quasi-monastic fashion.

In 1810 0verbeck. Pforr, and two other members moved to Rome, where they occupied the disused monastery of S. Isidore. Here they were joined by Peter von Cornelius and others. One of their aims was the revival of monumental fresco and they obtained two important commissions which made their work internationally known (Casa Bartholdy, 1816-17, the paintings are now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin; and Casino Massimo, Rome, 1817-29). Stylistically they were much indebted to Perugino, and their work is clear and prettily coloured, but often insipid. In general, modern taste has been more sympathetic towards the Nazarenes' simple and sensitive landscape and portrait drawings than to their ambitious and didactic figure paintings.

The Nazarenes broke up as a group in the 1820s, but their ideas continued to be influential. Cornelius had moved in 1819 to Munich, where he surrounded himself with a large number of pupils and assistants who in turn carried his style to other German centres. The studio of Overbeck (the only one to remain permanently in Rome) was a meeting-place for artists from many countries; Ingres admired him and Ford Madox Brown visited him. William Dyce introduced some of the Nazarene ideals into English art and there is a kinship of spirit with the Pre-Raphaelites.

Neoclassicism

A style in European art and architecture from the mid 18th century until the end of the 19th century. Based as it was on the use of ancient Greek and Roman models and motifs, its development was greatly influenced by the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and by the theories of the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768). Intellectually and politically it was closely linked to the Enlightenment's rejection of the aristocratic frivolity of Rococo, the style of the Ancien Régime. Among Neoclassicism's leading figures were the French painter Jacques-Louis David (1744-1825), the German painter Anton Raffael Mengs (1728-1729), and the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822).

nepotism

The accusation levelled against the popes of the Renaissance from Sixtus IV to Paul III (with Alexander VI as an especially opprobrious case), that they appointed nephews (nipoti) and other relations to clerical and administrative positions of importance, is as true as it is notorious. This sort of favouritism was an abuse of power. It subordinated spiritual fervour or trained bureaucratic competence to the accidents of relationship. But popes were temporal rulers of a large part of Italy as well as spiritual leaders: other rulers did not hesitate to use members of their own family as military commanders or policy advisers. Popes, moreover, were usually old when elected, surrounded by the supporters of their ex-rivals, confronted by a plethora of Vatican staff members either self-interested or in foreign pay. To conduct a vigorous personal policy it was not unnatural that popes should promote men of less questionable loyalty.

niello (Lat. nigellus, "black")

The art of decorating metals with fine lines engraved in black. The design is first cut into the metal and then filled with a black alloy that at high temperatures melts and fuses into the fine lines.

nimbus (Lat. "aureole")

The disc or halo, usually golden, placed behind the head of a saint or other sacred personage to distinguish him or her from ordinary people.

Nymphaeum (Gk.)

Series of classical fountains dedicated to the nymphs, Greek goddesses of Nature.

O

obsequies (Lat. obsequia, "services, observances")

Rites performed for the dead.

ogee arches

arches composed of two double-curved lines that meet at the apex.

oil paint

a painting medium in which pigments are mixed with drying oils, such as linseed, walnut, or poppy. Though oils had been used in the Middle Ages, it was not until the van Eyck brothers in the early 15th century that the medium became fully developed. It reached Italy during the 1460s and by the end of the century had largely replaced tempera. It was preferred for its brilliance of detail, its richness of colour, and its greater tonal range.

Oratorians (or the Congregation of the Oratory)

In the Catholic Church, an order of secular priests who live in independent communities, prayer and preaching being central to their mission. The Oratorians was founded by St Philip Neri (1515-1595).

oratory (or oratorium)

A place where Oratorians pray or preach; a small private chapel.

orders of architecture

In classical architecture, the three basic styles of design. They are seen in the form of the columns, capital, and entablatures. The earliest, the Doric order, was the simplest, with a sturdy, fluted column and a plain capital. The Ionic order had a slenderer column, a more elaborate base, and a capital formed by a pair of spiral scrolls. The Corinthian order was the most ornate, having a very slender column and a capital formed of ornately carved leaves (acanthus).

original sin

The tendency to evil transmitted to mankind by Adam and Eve's transgression in eating of the Tree of Knowledge; inborn sin.

Our Lady of Sorrows (or Mater Dolorosa)

A depiction of the Virgin Mary lamenting Christ's torment and crucifixion. There are several forms: she can be shown witnessing his ascent of Calvary; standing at the foot of the Cross; watching as the body of Christ is brought down from the Cross (Deposition); or sitting with His body across her lap (Pietà).

P

pala (Ital. "panel")

Altarpiece or a sculptural or painted altar decoration. Usually pointed or rounded at the top.

palazzo (It. "palace")

Palaces: large urban dwellings, 'palazzo' in Italian carries no regal connotations.

Alberti described the palace as a city in little, and, like cities, Italian Renaissance palaces vary in type according to differences of climate, tradition and social structure. On to these regional stocks were grafted new architectural strains, reflecting theoretical reinterpretations of antiquity and individually influential examples.

The atrium and peristyle house described by Vitruvius and now known from Pompeii did not survive antiquity, and much of the interest of Renaissance designs lies in creative misunderstandings of Vitruvius's text. Medieval palace architecture probably inherited the insula type of ancient apartment house, related to the modest strip dwellings which never disappeared from Italian cities. In Florence a merchant palace developed from fortified beginnings, with vaulted shop openings on the ground floor, and the main apartments above, reached by internal stone staircases opening from an inner court. Renaissance developments regularized without changing the essential type, although large cloister-like courtyards were introduced, while shops came to be thought undignified. At Michelozzo's Medici Palace (1444) a square arcaded courtyard with axial entrance lies behind a façade of graduated rustication, with biforate windows, a classical cornice replacing the traditional wooden overhang. The apartments on the 'piano nobile' formed interconnecting suites of rooms of diminishing size and increasing privacy. The classical orders which Alberti introduced to the façade of the Palazzo Rucellai (c.1453) were not taken up by the conservative Florentines, who continued to build variations on the Medici Palace (Palazzo Pitti; Palazzo Strozzi). In the 16th century rustication was reduced to quoins and voussoirs, and large windows appeared on the ground floor, 'kneeling' on elongated volutes.

At Urbino the Ducal Palace (1465) reflected Alberti's recommendations for the princely palace, and was in turn influential on late 15th century palaces in Rome (e.g. the Cancelleria). A harmonious Florentine courtyard and ample staircase replace the embattled spaces of medieval seigneurial castles, of which vestiges remain only in the towers flanking the balconies of the duke's private apartments, designed as a

scholarly retreat. In the absence of a merchant class or a cultured nobility in 15th century Rome, the architectural pace was set by the papal court. Papal incentives to build, and large households, meant less compact plans for cardinals' palaces, often built next to their titular churches. Renaissance forms appear in the unfinished courtyard of the Palazzo Venezia (1460s), with its arcade system derived from the nearby Theatre of Marcellus, and in the delicately ordered stonework of the Cancelleria (1485). In the 16th century vestigial corner towers and shops disappear from cardinals' palaces, and Antonio da Sangallo's Palazzo Farnese (1516) introduces symmetrical planning and Vitrivuan elements, like the colonnaded vestibule, behind a sober Florentine façade, enlivened by Michelangelo's cornice. A smaller palace type supplied the needs of an enlarged papal bureaucracy, more ambitious for display than for domestic accommodation. Bramante's 'House of Raphael' sets the façade style not only for this new type, but also for Renaissance houses all over Europe. Raphael and Peruzzi made ingenious use of difficult sites (Palazzo da Brescia; Palazzo Massimi), and their sophisticated façades flattered the architectural pretensions of patron and pope (e.g. Palazzo Branconio dell'Aquila).

Movement of patrons and architects, especially after the Sack of Rome, meant a diffusion of Roman forms to central and northern Italy, where Sanmicheli's palaces in Verona, and Palladio's in Vicenza, adapted Roman types to suit local conditions. Palladio's 4-columned atrium is a Vitruvian solution to the traditionally wide Veneto entrance hall, and his plan for the Palazzo da Porto-Festa contains explicit references to Vitruvius's House of the Greeks. In Venice, defended by its lagoon and a stable political system, the hereditary aristocracy built palaces open to trade and festivity on the Grand Canal. The traditional Venetian palace has a tripartite structure: long central halls above entrance vestibules used for unloading merchandise are lit on the canal façade by clusters of glazed windows (rare elsewhere), and at the back from small courts with external staircases (as in the Ca' d'Oro). Codussi's palaces introduced biforate windows and a grid of classical orders into the system, while Sansovino's Palazzo Cornaro retains vestiges of the Venetian type (small courtyard; tripartite façade) despite its Bramantesque coupled orders and licentious window surrounds. Other cities, like Genoa, evolved influential types. Through engravings and the illustrated treatises, Italian Renaissance ideas of palace planning, originally evolved in response to specific conditions, came to be applied all over Europe.

palmette, palmette style

The word comes from Italian "palm". It is a symmetrical ornamental motif imitating palm trees or palm leaves. Following Oriental patterns, it is an element of ancient architectural decoration frequently used either on its own or as friezes. It became the most popular basic motif of medieval ornaments. The so-called palmette style was a style following Byzantine examples whose contacts are not yet identified. Rich, lace-like decorations were applied on major parts of buildings, e.g. column-caps, cornices and abutments.

panel

Term in painting for a support of wood, metal, or other rigid substance, as distinct from canvas. Until the adoption of canvas in the 15th century nearly all the movable paintings of Europe were executed on wood, and even up to the beginning of the 17th century it is probable that as much painting was done on the one support as on the other. Painters who worked on a small scale often used copper panels (Elsheimer is a leading example), and in the colonial art of South America copper and tin and even lead and zinc were used. On a larger scale, slate has occasionally been used as a support, notably by Rubens for his altarpiece for Sta Maria in Vallicella (the Chiesa Nuova) in Rome; the picture he originally painted was said to reflect the light unpleasantly and slate was used for the replacement to produce a more matt finish. For wood panels the Italian masters of the Renaissance preferred white poplar, while oak was the most common wood used in northern Europe. Many other types were used, however; analysis of the contents of art galleries has yielded a long list, including beech, cedar, chestnut, fir, larch, linden, mahogany, olive, and walnut. In the 20th century cedar, teak, and dark walnut are favourites, and modern painters have also used plywood, fibre-board, and other synthetic materials as supports.

panel painting

Painting on wooden panels. Until the introduction of canvas in the 15th century, wooden panels were the standard support in painting.

Pantheon

Temple built in Rome aloout 25 BC by Emperor Agrippa. Having a circular plan, and spanned by a single dome, it was one of the most distinctive and original buildings of ancient Rome.

papacy (in the Renaissance period)

Papal rule had three aspects. As successors to St Peter, the disciple charged with the fulfilment of Christ's mission on earth, and as men uniquely privileged to interpret and develop Christian doctrine, the popes were both the leaders and the continuators of a faith. Then, thanks to their possession of the Papal State, the.popes were the rulers of a large part of Italy. To maintain their authority, enforce law and order; extract taxes and check incursions from rival territories they had to act like other, secular rulers, becoming fully enmeshed in diplomacy and war. The third aspect was administrative. The popes were the heads of the largest bureaucracy in Europe, maintaining contact with local churches through the making or licensing of appointments, the management of clerical dues and taxation, the receipt of appeals in lawsuits conducted in terms of the Church's own canon law.

A number of matters, notably the making of appointments to especially wealthy sees and abbacies, or the incidence of taxation, could lead to conflict with secular authorities. This in turn led to the practice whereby monarchs retained the services of cardinals sympathetic to their national policies, so that they might have a voice at court, as it were, to influence popes in their favour. The choice of popes became increasingly affected by the known political sympathies of cardinals, and the pressure and temptations

that could be applied to them. So onerous, various and inevitably politicized an office was not for a saint. The pious hermit Celestine V had in 1294 crumpled under its burden after only a few months.

The identification of the Papacy with Rome, which seems so inevitable, was long in doubt. The insecurity of the shabby and unpopulous medieval city, prey to the feuds of baronial families like the Orsini, Colonna and Caetani, had already forced the popes from time to time to set up their headquarters elsewhere in Italy. For the greater part of the 14th century (1309-77) the Papacy funetioned out of Italy altogether, at Avignon, building there (especially the huge Palace of the Popes) on a scale that suggested permanence. Though they were by no means in the pockets of their neighbours the kings of France, criticism of undue influence steadily mounted. Provence ceased to be a comfortingly secure region as the Hundred Years War between England and France proceeded. Finally the breakdown of central authority in the Papal State, despite the efforts there of such strenuous papal lieutenants as Cardinal Albornoz (in 1353-67), prompted Gregory XI to return to Rome in 1377.

The period of authority and cultivated magnificence associated with the Renaissance Papacy was, however, to be long delayed. The return to Rome was challenged by a group of cardinals faithful to France. On Gregory's death in 1378 their election of a rival or antipope opened a period of divided authority, further complicated in 1409 by the election of yet a third pope. This situation deepened the politicization of the papal office (for support to the rivals was given purely on the basis of the dynastic conflicts in Europe) and confused the minds, if it did no serious damage to the faith, of individuals. But the remedy was another blow to the recovery of papal confidence and power. To resolve the problem of divided authority, protect the faith from the extension of heresy (especially in the case of the Bohemian followers of John Huss), and bring about an improvement in the standards of education and deportment among the Church's personnel, it was at last resolved to call together a General Council of the Church. It was argued that such a council, which met at Constance 1414-18, would, by being representative of the Christian faithful as a whole; possess an authority which, in the eyes of God, could supersede that of a pope. In this spirit Huss was tried and executed, a number of reforms relating to the clergy were passed and, above all (for this was the only measure with permanent consequences), two of the rival popes were deposed and the other forced to abdicate; Martin V being elected by a fairly united body of cardinals.

There remained; however, the challenge to his authority represented by the conciliar theory itself: that final authority could be vested as well in a group (if properly constituted) as in an individual. This view was expressed again by the Council of Basle, which lasted from 1431 until as late as 1449. Not until 1460 did a pope feel strong enough to make rejection of the theory an article of faith, as Pius II did in his bull 'Execrabilis'. By then, however, in spite of further absences from Rome, notably that of Eugenius IV (1431-40), who governed the Church chiefly from Florence, the acceptance of the city as the most practical - as well, from the point of view of its religious associations, the most appropriate - base for the Papacy had been made clear in the plans of Nicholas V for improving it. Thenceforward the creation of a capital commensurate with the authority of the institution it housed continued steadily. As at Avignon, fine buildings and a luxurious style of life were, as such, considered perfectly suitable for the role played

by the head of the Church: a view exemplified in episcopal and archiepiscopal palaces all over Europe. However, the creation of a cultural capital, through lavish patronage of artists, scholars and men of letters, as well as a governmental one, not only contributed to an atmosphere of worldliness that aroused criticism, but may also have diverted the popes from registering the true import of the spiritual movements that were to cause the Reformation conflict of faiths. The fortunes of the Papacy from its return to Rome can be followed in the biographies of its outstanding representatives.

paragone ('comparison')

In an art historical context paragone refers to debates concerning the respective worthiness of painting and sculpture. The first protracted discussion was compiled from passages scattered through the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. It is one of the topics dealt with in Castiglione's The courtier, and in 1546 Benedetto Varchi even sent a questionnaire on the subject to sculptors (including Michelangelo and Cellini) and painters (including Pontormo and Vasari). Apart from demonstrating an aspect of the interest taken in the arts, it acted as a stimulus to the development of the language and concepts through which art could be appraised and understood, as did the parallel discussion of the respective merits of painting and poetry.

parchment

Writing material made from the skins of sheep or calf, less frequently pig, goat,, and other animals; it has also been used for painting, and occasionally for printing and bookbinding. Pliny says that it ewas invented in the 2nd century BC in Pergamum; hence the name parchment from the Latin pergamena (of Pergamum). Skin had been used as a writng material before this, but the refined methods of cleaning and stretching involved in making parchment enabled booth sides of a leaf to be used, leading eventually to the supplanting of the manuscript roll by the bound book. Vellum is a fine kind of parchment made from delicate skins of young (sometimes stillborn) animals. Paper began to replace parchment from about the 14th century, but parchment is still used for certain kinds of documents, and the name is often applied to high-quality writng paper.

Parrhasius (c. 420 BC)

Greek painter of the late classical period (c. 400-300 BC), and with Zeuxis (c. 425 BC) and Apelles (c. 330 BC) one of the most famous artists of the classical age.

pastoral (Lat. pastor, "shepherd")

Relating to a romantic or idealized image of rural life; in classical literature, to a world peopled by shepherds, nymphs, and satyrs.

Passion

The events leading up to Good Friday, beginning with Christ's arrest and ending with his burial. Portrayals of the Passion, which focus on the Suffering Christ, include depictions of Judas betraying Christ with a kiss, Peter cutting off Malchus's ear, the crown of thorns, and so on.

pastel

A drawing medium of dried paste made of ground pigments and a water-based binder that is manufactured in crayon form.

pastiche (fr.) or pasticcio (It.)

A work of art using a borrowed style and usually made up of borrowed elements, but not necessarily a direct copy. A pastiche often verges on conscious or unconscious caricature, through its exaggeration of what seems most typical in the original model.

patrician (Lat. patricius, "father")

originally a member of the ancient Roman nobility; from the Middle Ages onwards a term for a noble, wealthy citizen.

pavilion (Lat. papilio, "butterfly, hence tent")

A lightly constructed, ornamental building, such as a garden summerhouse; a small, ornamental structure built onto a palace or cháteau; a prominent section of a monumental façade, projecting either centrally or at both ends.

Pazzi conspiracy

Pazzi conspiracy (April 26, 1478), unsuccessful plot to overthrow the Medici rulers of Florence; the most dramatic of all political opposition to the Medici family. The conspiracy was led by the rival Pazzi family of Florence.

In league with the Pazzi were Pope Sixtus IV and his nephew Girolamo Riario, who resented Lorenzo de' Medici's efforts to thwart the consolidation of papal rule over the Romagna, a region in north-central Italy, and also the archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati, whom Lorenzo had refused to recognize. An assassination attempt on the Medici brothers was made during mass at the Cathedral of Florence on April 26, 1478. Giuliano de' Medici was killed by Francesco Pazzi, but Lorenzo was able to defend himself and escaped only slightly wounded. Meanwhile, other conspirators tried to gain control of the government. But the people of Florence rallied to the Medici; the conspirators were ruthlessly pursued and many (including the archbishop of Pisa) were killed on the spot.

The failure of the conspiracy led directly to a two-year war with the papacy that was almost disastrous for Florence. But the most important effect was to strengthen the power of Lorenzo, who not only was rid of his most dangerous enemies but also was shown to have the solid support of the people.

Peace of Augsburg

A treaty, concluded in 1555 between Emperor Ferdinand I and the German Electors, that settled the religious conflict in the German states. The Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches were given equal legal status within the Empire, and it was agreed that subjects should follow the religion of their rulers.

pendant (Fr. "hanging, dependent")

One of a pair of related art works, or related elements within an art work.

pentimenti (Italian "regrets")

Changes undertaken by an artist in the course of painting a picture. They are usually visible under the final version only with the help of X-rays, though they are sometimes revealed when the top layers of paint are worn away or become translucent.

pergola (It.)

A passageway covered by a trellis on which climbing plants are grown.

personification (Lat. persona, "person", and facere, "make")

an imaginary person conceived as representing a thing, concept or deity.

perspective (Lat. perspicere, "to see through, see clearly")

The method of representing three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. Perspective gives a picture a sense of depth. The most important form of perspective in the Renaissance was linear perspective (first formulated by the architect Brunelleschi in the early 15th century), in which the real or suggested lines of objects converge on a vanishing point on the horizon, often in the middle of the composition (centralized perspective). The first artist to make a systematic use of linear perspective was Masaccio, and its principles were set out by the architect Alberti in a book published in 1436. The use of linear perspective had a profound effect on the development of Western art and remained unchallenged until the 20th century.

physiognomy (Gk. physis, "nature", and gnomon, "interpreter")

the external appearance of a person, in particular the face.

piano nobile (Ital.)

The main floor of a building, usually above the ground floor, containing the public rooms.

picture plane

In the imaginary space of a picture, the plane occupied by the physical surface of the work. Perspective appears to recede from the picture plane, and objects painted in trompe-l'oeil may appear to project from it.

Picturesque

Term covering a set of attitudes towards landscape, both real and painted, that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It indicated an aesthetic approach that found pleasure in roughness and irregularity, and an attempt was made to establish it as a critical category between the 'beautiful' and the 'Sublime'. Picturesque scenes were thus neither serene (like the beautiful) nor awe-inspiring (like the Sublime), but full of variety, curious details, and interesting textures — medieval ruins were quintessentially Picturesque. Natural scenery tended to be judged in terms of how closely it approximated to the paintings of favoured artists such as Gaspard Dughet, and in 1801 the Supplement to Samuel Johnson's Dictionary by George Mason defined 'Picturesque as: 'what pleases the eye; remarkable for singularity; striking the imagination with the force of painting; to be expressed in painting; affording a good subject for a landscape; proper to take a landscape from.' The Picturesque Tour in search of suitable subjects was a feature of English landscape painting of the period, exemplified, for example, in the work of Girtin and (early in his career) of Turner, and the Picturesque generated a large literary output; much of it was pedantic and obsessive and it became a popular subject for satire.

pier

One of the massive supports on which an arch or upper part of a church stands. A pier is generally larger than a column, but may consist of a cluster of columns.

Pietà (Lat. [Maria Santissima della] Pietà, Most Holy Mary of Pity)

A depiction of the Virgin Mary with the crucified body of Jesus across her lap. Developing in Germany in the 14th century, the Pietà became a familiar part of Renaissance religious imagery. One of the best-known examples is Michelangelo's "Pietà" (1497-1500) in St. Peter's, Rome.

pigment (Lat. pigmentum, "colour substance")

coloured powder mixed with binding agents such as oil, glue, or resin to make paint.

pilaster (Lat. pilastrum, "pillar")

A flat, low-relief decorative strip on a wall that corresponds to a column in its parts, since, it has a base, a shaft, and capital. It is often fluted, in other words the surface is lined with parallel grooves.

plague

Plague, which had been extinct in Italy from the 8th century, returned along eastern trade routes to strike the peninsula, and thereafter all Europe, in October 1347. During 1348 the Black Death, comprising the bubonic and still more deadly septicaemic and pneumonic forms of the disease, swept town and countryside in a series of attacks whose horror was strikingly portrayed by Boccaccio in his preface to the Decameron. Thenceforward, though in less widespread, more sporadic outbreaks, plague recurred periodically until the 18th century. Thirty per cent of the population of Venice died in the outbreak of 1575-7, for instance, which was commemorated by Palladio's church of the Redentore. Preventive measures included the boarding up of infected families, the isolation of sufferers in plague hospitals, the burning of 'infected' clothing, but none worked or mitigated the feeling of hopelessness. The plague's social effects are an object of controversy. It seems probable, however, that during the second half of the 14th century plague reduced the population of Italy by a half and at certain centres, such as Florence and Genoa, sharply accentuated an economic depression which had already set in during the 1340s. In the 15th century, despite regional variations, it is unlikely that population began to rise significantly before the 1470s.

Large claims have been made in the field of the arts and of human sensibility for the influence of plague. In Florence and Siena from 1348 to 1380, religious feeling and the art which mirrors it seem to assume more sombre forms and to reflect less the human and more the divine, transcendent and threatening aspects of faith. Yet the black rat and its plague-bearing flea could find a more hospitable environment in the hovels of the poor than in the stone-built houses of wealthy patrons of the arts (who, moreover, were often able to remove themselves from areas where plague had broken out). For this reason, perhaps, it is difficult to find, outside Tuscany, evidence of cultural change which could be attributed to plague, and in the Italy of the 15th and 16th centuries the main effect of the disease in art is to be found only in the frequent portrayal of the plague saints, Rocco and Sebastian. It is none the less interesting to recall that it was against a stark background of continual menace from plague that the human achievements of the Renaissance came into being.

Plateresque

Spanish Plateresco (Silversmith-like), main architectural style in Spain during the late 15th and the 16th centuries, also used in Spain's American colonies. Cristóbal de Villalón first used the term in 1539 while comparing the richly ornamented facade of the Cathedral of León to a silversmith's intricate work. Later the name came to be generally applied to late Gothic and early Renaissance Spanish architecture, since it was characterized by an intricate and minutely detailed relief ornament that is generally applied to the

surface of buildings for extravagant decorative effect and without regard for structural articulation. Favourite motifs of this florid ornament include twisted columns, heraldic escutcheons, and sinuous scrolls. Clusters of this jewelry-like ornament contrast with broad expanses of flat wall surface.

The Plateresque style went through two distinguishable phases. The first phase, termed the Isabelline style because it flourished during the reign of Isabella I, lasted from about 1480 to about 1540. In this phase (also known as the Gothic-Plateresque style), the forms of late Flamboyant Gothic still predominate, and Renaissance elements are used with only imperfect understanding. The first phase, like its successor, utilized Mudejar ornament -, i.e., the intricate and elegant decorative patterns used by Moorish artists working in Christian-ruled Spain. The Isabelline style is well represented in the buildings of Enrique de Egas and Diego de Riaño and is typified by the facade of the College of San Gregorio in Valladolid (1488), in which architectural ornamentation seems free from all external dictates and pursues its own life without regard to scale, composition, placement, or appropriateness.

The second phase, the Renaissance-Plateresque, or simply the Plateresque, lasted from about 1525 to 1560. The architect and sculptor Diego de Siloé (d. 1563) helped inaugurate this phase, in which High Renaissance structural and decorative elements clearly predominated over late Gothic ones. In the Granada Cathedral (1528-43) and other buildings, Diego evolved a purer, more severe, harmonious, and unified style using massive geometric forms; correct classical orders became frequent, and nonstructural Gothic ribbing tended to disappear in favour of Italianate round arches and domical vaults. The buildings of Alonso de Covarrubias and of Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón, particularly the latter's facade of the University of Alcalá de Henares (1541-53), are the masterworks of the second style, which lasted only a few decades. Even the balance and correctness of the style seemed excessively rich to the sombre young man who became King Philip II in 1556 and supervised construction of the severe El Escorial.

Plato and neo-Platonism

The Renaissance revival of Platonism and neo-Platonism was one of the characteristic intellectual features of the Renaissance. In fields ranging from literature (Castiglione and Ronsard) to science (Bruno and Galileo) it exerted a great influence in all parts of Europe from Portugal and Scotland to Hungary and Poland. The founder of one of the two most influential ancient schools of philosophy, Plato (428-348 BC) was born at Athens. A student of Socrates, he continued to develop his philosophy after the master's death in 399, and was in turn the teacher of Aristotle. Writing in a forceful and compelling style mostly cast in dialogue form, Plato was the author of some 30 works of lasting fame including the Republic, the Symposium, Phaedrus, Phaedo, Philebus, Timaeus, Theatetus and the Laws.

Plato's philosophy has a distinctly other-worldly character, emphasizing the spiritual and non-material aspects of reality. In contrast with Aristotle, he gives knowledge and philosophy an intuitive and intellectual basis, not so much dependent upon sense experience as on inspiration and direct mental contact with the supra-sensible sources of knowledge. Thus empirical science does not have a central role

in Plato's thought, though mathematics is consistently stressed as being an important gateway to the natural world. Such themes as poetic inspiration and harmony, as well as the rigorous analyses of central moral doctrines such as justice and happiness, have ensured that his works were widely read for many centuries. Rather unsystematic, with many internal contradictions and points left unresolved, his works were already subjected to critical analysis and amplification by his earliest followers. Plotinus, the greatest of his ancient disciples, systematized and added to what Plato had done, turning the tradition in an even more mystical and spiritual direction, while at the same time giving the philosophy a more coherent form. 'Neo-Platonism' resulted from these modifications and those of other ancient Platonists.

Only a small proportion of Plato's works was known during the Middle Ages in western Europe, though indirect knowledge of Platonic doctrine through many late ancient sources secured a significant fortuna down to the 15th century. Petrarch favoured Plato over Aristotle as an authority and set the tone for the great Renaissance revival of interest in Platonism. The real re-emergence of Plato began around 1400, when Greek manuscripts of most of his works came into Italy from Constantinople. Latin translations of several works were made in the early 15th century, but only with Ficino were the entire writings first made available in Latin (published 1484). Ficino was also the founder of the informal Platonic Academy which met at the Medici villa at Careggi, near Florence. Ficino's interpretation went far beyond what could be found in the text of Plato, and he utilized many other writings, including those of Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus and a range of pseudonymous texts, among them those attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and Orpheus, and the Chaldaic Oracles, all of which he also translated into Latin. He emphasized the close kinship between the Platonic philosophy and the Christian religion, seeing them as parallel paths to the truth connected at source, and holding that Plato had had access to the Pentateuch and absorbed some ideas from it: he agreed with Numenius (2c. AD) that Plato was a 'Greek-speaking Moses'.

Ficino's translations of Plato and the neo-Platonists were reprinted frequently and were the standard sources for knowledge of Platonism for several centuries. Among his Italian followers Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Francesco da Diacceto (1466-1522) were perhaps the most important, and Agostino Steuco (c. 1497-1548) developed Christian Platonism into a 'perennial philosophy'. The impact of Ficino's work gradually made itself felt be yond the confines of Italy, for example with Symphorian Champier (c. 1472-c. 1539) and Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (c. 1460-1536) in France and John Colet (c. 1467-1519) and Thomas More (1478-1535) in England.

The first Greek edition of Plato's works was published by Aldus at Venice in 1513 , but the later edition published at Paris in 1578 by Henri Estienne achieved perhaps even greater fame. A new Latin translation, prepared by Jean de Serres (1540-98) to accompany Estienne's edition, partially, but not completely, replaced Ficino's. There was no complete translation into a vernacular language during the Renaissance, though various dialogues were rendered into Italian and French, the translations of Louis Le Roy (d.1577) becoming particularly popular. Unlike the case of Aristotle, the interest in Plato and neo-Platonism was largely outside the universities. It was especially in a number of academies in France and

Italy that there was a focused reading of Platonic texts. The numerous editions and translations show that there was a wide general demand for his writings. Plato was read in the universities, if on a very limited scale: for example various dialogues were read from time to time as part of Greek courses. In the 1570s special chairs of Platonic philosophy were established at the universities of Pisa and Ferrara. The latter was held for 14 years by Francesco Patrizi of Cherso, one of the most forceful and original Platonic philosophers of the Renaissance.

plinth (Gk. plinthos, "tile")

square or rectangular section forming part of the base of a pillar, column, or statue.

pluvial (Med. Lat. pluviale, "rain cloak")

a long cloak in the shape of a semicircle which is open at the front, where a pectoral is used to close it. It is worn by bishops and priests as a ceremonial vestment on occasions other than mass, such as processions and consecrations.

pointed arch

In architecture, an arch rising to a point (instead of being round, as in classical architecture). The pointed arch is characteristic of Gothic architecture.

polychrome decoration

the gilding or coloured painting of a work of sculpture.

polyptych (Gk. poluptukhos, "folded many times")

A painting (usually an altarpiece) made up of a number of panels fastened together. Some polyptychs were very elaborate, the panels being housed in richly carved and decorated wooden frameworks. Duccio's "Maestà" (1308-1311) is a well-known example.

portico (Lat. porticus, "columned hall")

Usually open porch supported by columns or pillars on the main entrance side of a buildings. Frequently supports a pediment.

portrait (in the Italian Renaissance)

The Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by

sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture.

The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello.

The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90).

pouncing

A technique for transferring the design on a cartoon to another surface. Fine holes are pricked along the contours of the drawing on the cartoon and then dabbed with fine charcoal powder so that a faint outline appears on the new ground.

Poussinist (French Poussiniste)

Any of the supporters of the supremacy of disegno ("drawing") over colour in the "quarrel" of colour versus drawing that erupted in the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris in 1671. The quarrel was over the preeminent importance of drawing (i.e., the use of line to depict form) or colour in the art of painting. The Poussinists (followers of Nicolas Poussin) supported the Platonic concept of the existence in the mind of ideal objects that could be reconstructed in concrete form by a reasoned selection of beautiful parts from nature. Colour to the Poussinists was temporary, inessential, and only a decorative accessory to form. The Poussinists extolled the virtues of antiquity and Raphael, the Carracci, and the

severe art of Poussin and were opposed by the party of the Rubenists, who had as their ideal masters Titian, Correggio, and Peter Paul Rubens.

As Poussin was a Frenchman, sometimes referred to as the "French Raphael," and Rubens was a Fleming who had been expelled from France when it was suspected that he was spying for the Spanish Netherlands, there was a strong nationalistic stake in the Poussinists' motivation. In 1672 the debate between colour and drawing was temporarily halted by the chancellor of the Academy, Charles Le Brun, who stated officially that "the function of colour is to satisfy the eyes, whereas drawing satisfies the mind."

preachers

The field of preaching was dominated by the religious orders, primarily the mendicants. Quite apart from the notorious incompetence of the secular clergy, members of regular orders were the acknowledged masters of pulpit oratory, of the sermon as an art form. This pre-eminence was not challenged even in the 16th century, when reformers called for the secular clergy engaged in the pastoral ministry, bishops especially, to discharge their preaching duties. The great preaching events of the year were still the Lenten sermons given by friars or monks of repute; star preachers journeyed all over Italy. The major collections of sermons published in the 16th century came from friars or monks, several of whom became bishops; sermons of bishops not drawn from the orders are hard to find.

Outstanding preachers of the 15th century whose sermons are extant are the Franciscans S. Bernardino da Siena and Bernardino da Feltre (d. 1494), together with the Dominican Savonarola. For the 16th century there are the Capuchin Ochino; the Franciscans Franceschino Visdomini (1514-73), Cornelio Musso (1511-74), bishop of Bertinoro and Bitonto, and Francesco Panigarola (1548-94), bishop of Asti; the Augustinian Canon Gabriele Fiamma (1533-85), bishop of Chioggia; and, from the secular clergy, Borromeo. The call to repentance was a major feature of Lenten sermons: here Bernardino da Feltre stood out for his harsh, minatory exhortations; Savonarola and Musso, in their appeals for communal religious renewal, took on the dramatic role of Old Testament prophets as if laying claim to divine inspiration. Mendicants of the 15th century castigated the vices of society, not least those of statesmen and prelates, but 16th century ones were more cautious here.

The styles of S. Bernardino da Siena and Bernardino da Feltre were earthy, abrasive even; Savonarola's by contrast was cultivated and his last sermons were complex and arcane; Ochino's unadorned style was peculiarly limpid and conveys a winged emotionality. The sermons of Visdomini, Musso and Panigarola on the other hand often strain after emotional effect by accumulation of rhetoric and largesse of poetic vocabulary; Panigarola is particularly noted for his literary conceits and has been viewed as a significant precursor of the literary Baroque. Fiamma's sermons, however, are not florid in style; his forte was allegorical explication of scriptural references. The flow of Borromeo's grandiose and sometimes emotive style shows how he, by contrast with the mendicant preachers, was versed in classical and patristic

rhetoric. In general 16th century sermons were very free in their formal organization and in no way bound to the principles of construction laid down in medieval preaching manuals.

predella (It. "altar step")

An Italian word for the small strip of paintings which forms the lower edge or socle of a large altarpiece (pala). Such a polyptych consists of a principal, central panel with subsidiary side and/or top panels, and a predella: the predella usually has narrative scenes from the lives of the Saints who are represented in the panels above. Because of the small size of predelle - they are not usually more than 25-30 cm high, though often relatively very wide - they were frequently used for pictorial experiments that the painter did not wish to risk making in the larger panels. The first datable example seems to be that in Simone Martini's S. Louis of Toulouse (1317, Naples).

prefiguration

Typology - the notion that aspects of the life and mission of Christ were in many respects prefigured or foreshadowed in the Old Testament - had become popularized visually by the 14th century through versions of works like the Biblia pauperum with their pairs of illustrations: Brazen Serpent/the Crucifixion, Moses receiving the tablets of the Law/the Sermon on the Mount, Joseph sold into captivity/the betrayal of Christ, the temptations of Adam and Christ, Noah's Ark prefiguring the Church as a means of human salvation, and so forth. Strengthened by the 15th century wish to find anticipations of Christian teachings in the ancient world (e.g. the Sybils as the pagan counterparts of the Prophets), this fascination with parallels gave rise to whole cycles, like the frescoes on the walls of the Sistine Chapel showing scenes from the life of Moses answered by scenes from that of Christ, as well as providing some extremely recondite reasons for the choice of Old Testament subjects. The New Testament references in these would, however, have been caught at the time because of the continued popularity of typological analogies in sermons and devotional literature.

Pre-Raphaelites

A group of English artists, among them Holman Hunt, Millais and Rossetti, who in 1848 formed the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, aiming to produce work in the spirit which imbued Italian artists before Raphael's move to Rome. The movement was a mixture of romantic medievalism and the desire to return to a realistic depiction of nature, disregarding what they considered to be the arbitrary rules of academic art. These preoccupations were unified by a kind of seriousness which turned painting into a moral as well as an aesthetic act. The group also had an impact on the decorative arts through painted furniture, tapestries, stained glass and designs for fabric and wallpaper.

presbytery (or choir) (Gk. presbyterion "Council of Elders")

The raised space at the end of a church's nave which contains the high altar and is reserved for members of the clergy.

presentation drawings

Evolving naturally as a consequence of contemporary workshop practice, these highly finished drawings, intended as complete works of art in themselves, seem to have first assumed an importance in the bottega of Verrocchio. They acquired under Leonardo and especially Michelangelo the role of high art for a privileged few. That the recipients of these drawings studied them carefully is made clear in contemporary letters, again indicative of the purpose they served. The term is perhaps a little too freely applied.

prie-dieu

A prayer stool or desk with a low, projecting shelf on which to kneel. The praying person's arms rested on the upper part.

Prix de Rome

A scholarship, founded concurrently with the French Academy in Rome (1666), that enabled prize-winning students at the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris to spend a period (usually 4 years) in Rome at the state's expense. Prizes for architecture began to be awarded regularly in 1723, and prizes for engravers and musicians were added in the 19th century. The prizes were meant to perpetuate the academic tradition and during the 18th and 19th centuries winning the award was the traditional stepping stone to the highest honours for painters and sculptors. Many distinguished artists (as well as many nonentities) were Prix de Rome winners, notably David, Fragonard, and Ingres among painters and Clodion, Girardon, and Houdon among sculptors. The prizes are still awarded and the system has been adopted by other countries.

profil perdu (Fr. "lost profile")

A pose in which the figure's head is turned away from the viewer so that only an outline of the cheek is visible.

proportion (Lat. proportio, "evenness")

in painting, sculpture and architecture, the ratio between the respective parts and the whole work. The following are important: 1. the Canon of Proportion, a mathematical formula establishing ideal proportions of the various parts of the human body. The unit of measurement is usually the relationship of the head to the torso (1:7 or 1:10); 2. the golden section, a line C divided into a small section A and a larger section B, so that A:B are in the same relationship as B:C; 3. the quadrature, which uses the square

as a unit of measurement; 4. triangulation, which uses an equilateral triangle in order to determine important points in the construction; and 5. harmonic proportions, an analogy with the way sounds are produced on stringed instruments, for example an octave = 1:2 (the difference in pitch between two strings, one half the length of the other), a fifth = 2:3, a fourth = 3:4.

provenance

The origins of an art work; the history of a work's ownership since its creation. The study of a work's provenance is important in establishing authenticity.

provisor

A cleric who stands in for a parish priest; the steward or treasurer of a church.

psalter

A manuscript (particularly one for liturgical use) or a printed book containing the text of the Psalms. The great popularity and copious illustration of the psalter make it the most important illuminated book from the 11th to the 14th centuries. Thereafter the Book of Hours became the most important channel for illuminations.

putti sing. putto (It. "boys")

Plump naked little boys, most commonly found in late Renaissance and Baroque works. They can be either sacred (angels) or secular (the attendants of Venus).

Q

quadrature

A type of illusionistic decoration in which architectural elements are painted on walls and/or ceilings in such a way that they appear to be an extension of the real architecture of a room into an imaginary space. It was common in Roman art, was revived by Mantegna in the 15th century, and reached its peaks of elaboration in Baroque Italy. The greatest of all exponents of quadratura was probably Pozzo, in whose celebrated ceiling in S. Ignazio, Rome, architecture and figures surge towards the heavens with breathtaking bravura. Unlike Pozzo, many artists relied on specialists called quadraturisti to paint the architectural settings for their figures (see Guercino and Tiepolo, for example).

quatrefoil

decorative motif in Gothic art consisting of four lobes or sections of circles of the same size.

Quattrocento (It. "four hundred")

The 15th century in Italian art. The term is often used of the new style of art that was characteristic of the Early Renaissance, in particular works by Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Fra Angelico and others. It was preceded by the Trecento and followed by the Cinquecento.

R

Realism

Realism (with an upper case "R"), also known as the Realist school, denotes a mid-nineteenth century art movement and style in which artists discarded the formulas of Neoclassicism and the theatrical drama of Romanticism to paint familiar scenes and events as they actually looked. Typically it involved some sort of sociopolitical or moral message, in the depiction of ugly or commonplace subjects.

refectory (Med. Lat. refectorium)

Monastic dining hall.

Reformed churches

Churches that rejected the authority of the Pope from the 16th century. In 16th century Europe, the two main denominations were the Lutherans and the Calvinists, with the Anglican Church developing in England.

relic (Lat. relicquiae, "remains")

a part of the body of a saint, or some item connected with a saint, the object of particular veneration.

relief (Lat. relevare, "to raise")

A sculptural work in which all or part projects from the flat surface. There are three basic forms: low relief (bas-relief, basso rilievo), in which figures project less than half their depth from the background; medium relief (mezzo-rilievo), in which figures are seen half round; and high relief (alto rilievo), in which figures are almost detached from their background.

religious orders and congregations

An order is a body of men or women bound by solemn vows and following a rule of life, e.g. the great orders of monks, hermits, canons regular, friars and nuns, or the Jesuits. A congregation may be either a subsection of an order, or a body of persons bound by simple vows and generally having a looser structure than an order. Among the old orders there was both fusion and fission. Among the

contemplative orders, originally autonomous houses tended to group themselves into congregations, presided over by chapters general. A major stimulus to such reform movements was concern for mutual defence against the abuse of commendams, i.e. the grant of abbacies 'in trust' to non-resident outsiders to the order. At the same time, there was dissidence and fractionalization in almost all of the old orders and congregations, the great issue of contention being the strict observance.

The Benedictines, who had no overall organization originally, were mostly grouped into congregations by the 16th century. The Silvestrines, Celestines and Olivetines were old congregations. That of S. Giustina, Padua, which was to become the main Italian one, developed from 1419 under the leadership of the Venetian Lodovico Barbo. He was particularly concerned to develop sacred studies and eventually there were certain designated houses of study for the entire congregation, the most notable being S. Benedetto, Mantua. In 1504, having absorbed St Benedict's original monastery, it became the Cassinese congregation. The Camaldolese were an offshoot of the Benedictines. Founded by St Romuald c. 1012, they followed a distinctive eremetical rule of life, rather on the model of Eastern monasticism, with hermitages linked to matrix monasteries. In the second decade of the 16th century Paolo Giustiniani led a movement for a revival of the strict eremetical ideal; hence the formation of the Monte Corona congregation.

Canons Regular of St Augustine follow a rule and are basically monks; they are to be distinguished from secular canons who serve cathedral and collegiate churches. Two major congregations arose from reform movements in the 15th century: that of S. Salvatore, Bologna (1419), and the Lateran one (1446) which grew from S. Maria di Fregonaia, Lucca. A body genuinely monastic and contemplative in spirit, although technically of secular canons, was the congregation of S. Giorgio in Alga, Venice (1404), whose foundation is especially associated with Gabriel Condulmer (later Eugenius IV) and S. Lorenzo Giustiniani, the great patriarch of Venice. The Hermits of St Augustine and the Carmelites were originally contemplative eremetical orders which turned to the active life of friars. The Hermits of St Jerome (Hieronymites or Gerolimini) appeared from the 15th century and included the Fiesole and Lombard congregations and that of Pietro Gambacorta of Pisa.

The Friars Minor (Franciscans) had been split after their founder's death by disputes between the Spirituals, with their ideology of an absolute apostolic poverty, and their more institutionalized brethren, the Conventuals. After the repression of the Spirituals, the great dispute in the order was primarily a legalistic one: the division was between the Conventuals, whose friaries were corporate property-owners; and the generally moderate Observants; whose friaries were technically non-property owning, their resources being in the hands of trustees. 'The Observance' did not necessarily designate a very straitened rule of life but in the 15th century a strict movement of the Observance developed whose leading figures were S. Bernardino of Siena, S. Giovanni da Capestrano and Giacomo della Marca. In 1517, the bull 'Ite vos' of Leo X instituted the Great Division between Friars Minor (Conventual) and Friars Minor of the Observance; various groups were fused in the latter body, which was given precedence over the Conventuals. The Conventuals, however, continued to hold the order's great basilicas. The same bull

provided for special friaries within the Observance for those dedicated to a very strict interpretation of the Rule. Failure to implement this clause caused a splinter movement of zealot groups which finally coalesced into the Capuchins and the Reformed (canonically recognized in 1528 and 1532 respectively). The Order of Preachers (Dominicans) underwent similar if less serious crises over the issue of poverty and a body of the strict observance was established in the late 14th century; however, the Dominicans were substantially reunited under the generalate of the great Tommaso di Vio da Gaeta (1508-18). Other orders of Friars were the Minims, founded by S. Francesco da Paola in 1454 on the primitive Franciscan model, and the Servites following the Augustinian rule.

The 16th century produced the Jesuits (founded in 1541) and several rather small congregations of clerks regular, who had many of the marks of secular clergy but who lived a common life. Generally they were devoted to pastoral and welfare work. The first, the Theatines, founded by Giampietro Caraffa (later Paul IV) and the Vicentine aristocrat S. Gaetano da Thiene, emerged from the Roman Oratory of Divine Love in 1524. The Somaschi were founded at Somasca near Bergamo in 1532 by S. Gerolamo Aemiliani, a Venetian noble castellan turned evangelist; this congregation specialized in the upbringing of orphan boys. The Barnabites were founded at Milan by S. Antonio Maria Zaccaria in 1533, while the Congregation of the Oratory was founded in Rome in the 1560s by S. Filippo Neri. One of the few significant innovations among the female orders were the Ursulines, an offshoot of the Brescian Confraternity of Divine Love, founded in 1535 by S. Angela Merici. S. Angela's intention was that they should be a congregation of unenclosed women dedicated to the active life in charitable and educational work; however, the ecclesiastical authorities forced the Ursulines into the mould of an enclosed contemplative order. While the friars basically remained attached to scholastic philosophy and theology, certain sections of contemplative orders were distinguished for humanist studies and related forms of religious scholarship; most notably the Cassinese Benedictine congregation, the Lateran Canons (especially of the Badia Fiesolana) and the Camaldolese, who included Ambrogio Traversari in Florence and a group of scholars at S. Michele in Isola, Venice.

Religious Peace of Nuremberg

A temporary settlement of Germany's religious conflicts agreed in 1532 between Emperor Charles V and those German princes who supported the Reformed Churches. Though it merely postponed the final settlement of the issue until the next diet, the settlement was in effect a formal recognition of Lutheranism.

Renaissance

A French label given to an Italian cultural movement and to its repercussions elsewhere; also, on the assumption that chronological slices of human mass experience can usefully be described in terms of a dominant intellectual and creative manner, a historical period. For Italy the period is popularly accepted as running from the second generation of the 14th century to the second or third generation of the 16th

century. Though there is something inherently ridiculous about describing a period of 250 years as one of rebirth, there is some justification for seeing a unity within it, if only in terms of the chronological self-awareness of contemporaries.

For Petrarch the challenge to understand and celebrate the achievements of ancient Rome led him to scorn the intervening centuries which had neglected them; he saw them as an age of intellectual sleep, of 'darkness', and his own as potentially one of light, of an energetic revival of interest in, and competition with, too long forgotten glories. Thanks to his fame not only as a scholar but also as a poet and a voluminous correspondent, this sense of living in an age of new possibilities was rapidly shared by others who worked within the intellectual framework which came to be known as Humanism. Perhaps the sense of living in a new mental atmosphere can be compared to the exhilaration that followed the realization that Marxist analysis could be used to look afresh at the significance of intellectual and creative, as well as political, life. The humanistic enthusiasm lasted so long, however, because its core of energy, the historical reality of antiquity, was so vast and potent, because it was uncontroversial (save when an assassin borrowed the aura of Brutus, or a paganizing faddist mocked Christianity), and because the scholarly excitement about the need to imitate the achievements of the Roman (and, increasingly, Greek) past was sustained by evidence from contemporary art and literature that it could be done. Even when the Wars of Italy had inflicted grievous humiliations on Italian pride, Vasari could still see a process of restored vigour in the arts, which had begun early in the 14th century, as only coming near its close with the death of Michelangelo in 1564.

Vasari's Lives became a textbook of European repute. It was his contention that he was describing what followed from the rinascita or rebirth of the arts that launched the word on its increasingly inclusive career. For long, however, it was a 'renaissance' of this or that, of arts, of scholarship, of letters. Not until the publication in 1855 of the volume in Jules Michelet's Histoire de France entitled 'La Renaissance' was the label attached to a period and all that happened in it; not until the appearance of Jacob Burckhardt's still seminal Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy in 1860 was it ineluctably identified in particular with Italy and more generally with a phase of human development thought to be markedly different in kind from what went before and what came after.

Thereafter, 'Renaissance' became a mercurial term: not just a label for a period or a movement but a concept, a concept redolent (in spite of Burckhardt's precautions) of Individualism, All-Roundness, even Amoralism; man had escaped from the medieval thought-dungeon, and the world (and its expanding physical and mental horizons) was his oyster; culture was linked to personality and behaviour; the Renaissance became both the scene and the work of Renaissance Man. To a northern European world (whence the alertest scholars and popularizers came), morally confined by Protestantism and social decorum, 'Renaissance' became a symbol of ways of conduct and thought that were either to be castigated (John Ruskin, whose The stones of Venice of 1851-53 had anticipated the art-morality connection) or envied (John Addington Symonds's avidly nostalgic Renaissance in Italy, 1875-86).

A term that had become so liable to subjective interpretation was bound to attract criticism. During this century it has been challenged chiefly on the following points. (1) There is no such thing as a self-sufficient historical period. Much that was characteristic of the Middle Ages flowed into and through the Renaissance. Much that was characteristic of the Renaissance flowed on until the age of experimental science, of industrialization, mobilized nationalism, and mass media. (2) Renaissance art and literature did not develop so consistently that they can be seen in one broad Vasarian sweep. There was an early, a 'high' and a late stage (all variously dated) in terms of artistic and literary aims and style. (3) There is not a true, let alone a uniform, congruence between, 'culture' and 'history' during the period; 'Renaissance' culture came late to Venice, later still to Genoa, both thriving centres of political and commercial activity. (4) To define a period in terms of a cultural élite is to divert attention unacceptably from the fortunes of the population as a whole.

Though thus challenged, mocked (the 'so-called Renaissance'), aped (the 'Carolingian' or 'Ottonian' renaissance, etc.) and genially debased ('the renaissance of the mini-skirt'), the term retains most of its glamour and much of its usefulness. It is surely not by chance that 'rebirth' rather than the 18th century and early 19th century 'revival' (of arts, letters, etc.) was the term chosen, because it applies to a society the resonance of a personal, spiritual and perhaps psychological aspiration: the new start, the previous record - with all its shabbiness - erased. It is for this additional, subjective reason a term to be used with caution. The challenges are to be accepted, however, gratefully, as having led to an enormous extension of knowledge and sensitivity.

repoussoir (French: "to push back")

Repoussoir is means of achieving perspective or spatial contrasts by the use of illusionistic devices such as the placement of a large figure or object in the immediate foreground of a painting to increase the illusion of depth in the rest of the picture. Caravaggio had become famous for his paintings of ordinary people or even religious subjects in repoussoir compositions. Repoussoir figures appear frequently in Dutch figure painting where they function as a major force in establishing the spatial depth that is characteristic of painting of the seventeenth-century. Landscapists too learned to exploit the dramatic effect of repoussoir to enliven their renderings of the flat uneventful Dutch countryside.

retable

Ornamental panel behind an altar and, in the more limited sense, the shelf behind an altar on which are placed the crucifix, candlesticks, and other liturgical objects. The panel is usually made of wood or stone, though sometimes of metal, and is decorated with paintings, statues, or mosaics depicting the Crucifixion or a similar subject. Although frequently forming part of the architectural structure of the church, especially in the High Gothic period, retables can be detached and, sometimes, as in the case of the famous retable by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, "The Adoration of the Lamb" (1432, Cathedral of Saint-Bavon, Ghent), consist merely of a painting. Probably the most well-known retable is that in the Basilica

of St Mark in Venice, which is one of the most remarkable examples in existence of the craft of the jeweler and goldsmith. Originally commissioned in 976, the St. Mark's retable was enlarged and enriched in the 13th century. With the development of freestanding altars, retables have become extinct.

rilievo (It. "relief")

In painting, the impression that an object is three-dimensional, that it stands out from its background fully rounded.

rocaille (French, literally, for "pebble")

Small stone and shell motifs in some eighteenth century ornamentation.

Rococo

A style of design, painting, and architecture dominating the 18th century, often considered the last stage of the Baroque. Developing in the Paris townhouses of the French aristocracy at the turn of the 18th century, Rococo was elegant and ornately decorative, its mood lighthearted and witry. Louis XV furniture, richly decorated with organic forms, is a typical product. Leading exponents of the Rococo sryle included the French painter Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), and the German architect Johann Balthasar Neumann (1687-1753). Rococo gave way to Neo-classicism.

Romanesque

Style of art and architecture prevailing throughout most of Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries, the first style to achieve such international currency. The dominant art of the Middle Ages was architecture, and 'Romanesque', like 'Gothic', is primarily an architectural term that has been extended to the other arts of the period. As the name suggests, it indicates a derivation from Roman art, and sometimes Romanesque is used to cover all the developments from Roman architecture in the period from the collapse of the Roman Empire until the flowering of the Gothic roughly AD 500-1200. More usually, however, it is applied to a distinctive style that emerged, almost simultaneously, in several countries - France, Germany, Italy, Spain - in the 11th century. It is characterized most obviously by a new massiveness of scale, reflecting the greater political and economic stability that followed a period when Christian civilization seemed in danger of extinction. Romanesque painting and sculpture are generally strongly stylized, with little of the naturalism and humanistic warmth of classical or later Gothic art. The forms of nature are freely translated into linear and sculptural designs which are sometimes majestically calm and severe and at others are agitated by a visionary excitement that can become almost delirious. Because of its expressionistic distortion of natural form, Romanesque art, as with other great non-naturalistic styles of the past, has had to wait for the revolution in sensibility brought about by the development of modern art in order to be widely appreciated.

Romanist

Name used to describe Northern artists of the early 16th century whose style was influenced by Italian Renaissance painting, usually as a result of a visit to Italy. Mabuse, B. van Orley, M. van Heemskerk, Q. Massys and M. van Reymerswaele are important Romanists.

romanticism

A term loosely applied to literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and 19th centuries. Resulting in part from the libertarian and egalitarian ideals of the French Revolution, the romantic movements had in common only a revolt against the prescribed rules of classicism. The basic aims of romanticism were various: a return to nature and to belief in the goodness of humanity; the rediscovery of the artist as a supremely individual creator; the development of nationalistic pride; and the exaltation of the senses and emotions over reason and intellect. In addition, romanticism was a philosophical revolt against rationalism.

Rome, school of

School of Italian painting of importance from the mid-15th to the late 19th centuries. Both Michelangelo and Raphael worked in Rome, making it the centre of the High Renaissance; in the 17th century it was the centre of the Baroque movement represented by Bernini and Pietro da Cortona. From the 17th century the presence of classical remains drew artists from all over Europe including Poussin, Claude, Piranesi, Pannini and Mengs.

rosette

A small architectural ornament consisting of a disc on which there is a carved or molded a circular, stylized design representing an open rose.

Rubenist (French Rubéniste)

Any of the artists and critics who championed the sovereignty of colour over design and drawing in the "quarrel" of colour versus drawing that broke out in the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris in 1671 (see also Poussinist). The dispute raged for many years before the Rubenists emerged victorious. The aim of painting, they maintained, is to deceive the eye by creating an imitation of life or of nature and by manipulating colour. The colourists pointed to the art of Peter Paul Rubens (whence their name) as one in which nature and not the imitation of Classical art predominated.

ruddle

Any red-earth pigment, such as red ochre.

S

Sack of Rome

Climax of the papal-Imperial struggle and a turning point in the history of Italy, the Sack of Rome resulted from Clement VII's adhesion to the League of Cognac (1526). Imperial troops under the Duke of Bourbon left Milan and joined an army of mainly Lutheran landsknechts (January 1527). The Duke of Bourbon marched on Rome, hoping to force Clement to abandon the League and to provide money for the pay of the Imperial army. A truce made by the Pope and Lannoy failed to halt this advance, and Rome was attacked and taken on 6 May, the Duke of Bourbon being killed at the first assault. Clement escaped into Castel S. Angelo but for a week Rome itself was subjected to a sacking of a peculiarly brutal nature. Although the army was then brought back under some kind of control, it continued to occupy Rome until February 1528, when it finally left the city it had devastated, gutted, and impoverished.

Sacra Conversazione (It. "holy conversation")

A representation of the Virgin and Child attended by saints. There is seldom a literal conversation depicted, though as the theme developed the interaction between the participants - expressed through gesture, glance and movement - greatly increased. The saints depicted are usually the saint the church or altar is dedicated to, local saints, or those chosen by the patron who commissioned the work.

sacra rappresentazione

A dramatic form that flourished particularly in Quattrocento Tuscany, supported by lay confraternities. Written primarily in ottava rima, the sacra rappresentazione was staged in an open space with luoghi deputati, multiple sets used in succession. Subjects were nominally sacred, from the Old and New Testaments, pious legend and hagiography, but the injection of realistic vignette and detail from contemporary local life or of romantic elaboration was considerable. There were no limits on time; a single rappresentazione or festa could begin with the Creation and end with the Final Judgment, and available techniques of elaborate scenery made such subjects desirable. Many compositions were anonymous, but others were the work of well-known figures, among them Feo Belcari (1410-84), author of La rappresentazione di Abram ed Isac (1449), and Lorenzo de' Medici, whose Rappresentazione dei SS. Giovanni e Paolo (1491) was performed by the children of the Compagnia del Vangelista. The rappresentazioni were often printed in the Cinquecento and continued to be performed on municipal occasions, but eventually they became fare only for monasteries and convents.

sacraments

The interpretation and number of the sacraments vary among the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Eastern independent, and Protestant churches. The Roman Church has fixed the number of sacraments at seven: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, holy orders, matrimony, and anointing of the sick. In the

early church the number of sacraments varied, sometimes including as many as 10 or 12. The theology of the Orthodox Church, under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, fixed the number of sacraments at seven. The classical Protestant churches (i.e., Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed) have accepted only two sacraments - i.e., baptism and the Eucharist, though Luther allowed that penance was a valid part of sacramental theology.

The New Testament mentions a series of "holy acts" that are not, strictly speaking, sacraments. Though the Roman Catholic Church recognizes a difference between such "holy acts," which are called sacramentals, and sacraments, the Orthodox Church does not, in principle, make such strict distinctions. Thus, though baptism and the Eucharist have been established as sacraments of the church, foot washing, which in the Gospel According to John, chapter 13, replaces the Lord's Supper, was not maintained as a sacrament. It is still practiced on special occasions, such as on Holy Thursday in the Roman Catholic Church and as a rite prior to the observance of the Lord's Supper, as in the Church of the Brethren. The "holy acts" of the Orthodox Church are symbolically connected to its most important mysteries. Hence, baptism consists of a triple immersion that is connected with a triple renunciation of Satan that the candidates say and act out symbolically prior to the immersions. Candidates first face west, which is the symbolic direction of the Antichrist, spit three times to symbolize their renunciation of Satan, and then face east, the symbolic direction of Christ, the sun of righteousness. Immediately following baptism, chrismation (anointing with consecrated oil) takes place, and the baptized believers receive the "seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit."

sala (Ital.)

Hall, large room.

Salt War, the

Exasperated by the overriding of their privileges by papal governors, and hit by the rise in price of provisions after two disastrous harvests, the Perugians seized on Pope Paul III's order of 1540, that the price of salt should be increased, as an excuse to revolt. They were still seeking aid, notably from Florence and in Germany, when a papal army forced the city to surrender and swear allegiance to the legate sent to govern it. The chief focus of discontent, the area containing the houses of the old ruling family, the Bentivoglio, was buried under a new fortress, the Rocca Paolina, designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.

sanguine

Red chalk with a rownish tinge, used for drawing.

Saracens

During the Middle Ages, the Arabs or Muslims, particularly those who fought against the Christian Crusades.

sarcophagus, pl. sarcophagi (Gk. "flesh eating")

A coffin or tomb, made of stone, wood or terracotta, and sometimes (especially among the Greeks and Romans) carved with inscriptions and reliefs.

satyr

In Greek mythology, human-like woodland deities with the ears, legs and horns of a goat. Often depicted as the attendant of the Bacchus, the god of wine.

scalloped niche

A real or painted niche which has a semi-circular conch in the form of a shell.

Scepticism

This generic term covers several different anti-dogmatic tendencies in ancient and modern philosophy. The founder of the school is traditionally considered to be Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360 - c. 270 BC), whose writings, along with all the other original works of the formulators of the tradition, are lost. Information about the movement is contained in later writings such as Cicero's Academica (c. 45 BC), Diogenes Laertius' Life of Pyrrho (3rd century AD), and especially the works of Sextus Empiricus (c. 160 - c. 210 AD). The central thesis of the Sceptics is that certitude is impossible, owing to the many obstacles preventing valid empirical knowledge, in particular the absence of a criterion by which to distinguish truth from falsity. Rather than establishing a system of positive philosophy, the Sceptics emphasized the critical and negative nature of philosophy in questioning what was taken as legitimate knowledge by dogmatic schools such as Platonism and Stoicism.

Little known in the Middle Ages, the Sceptical position was revived in the Renaissance when the writings of Diogenes Laertius and Sextus Empiricus once again became available. Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola was the first Renaissance writer to utilize Sceptical arguments in a systematic way: his lead was followed by Francisco Sanches (1552-1623 ), Michel de Montaigne (1533-92), and many others. The publication of Latin (1562, 1569) and Greek (162I) editions of Sextus Empiricus was important for later diffusion.

Schildersbent (Dutch: 'band of painters')

A fraternal organization founded in 1623 by a group of Netherlandish artists living in Rome for social intercourse and mutual assistance. Its members called themselves Bentvueghels or 'birds of a flock' and

they had individual Bentnames - for example Pieter van Laer, one of the early leaders, was called Bamboccio. In 1720 the Schildersbent was dissolved and prohibited by papal decree because of its rowdiness and drunkenness.

Schism, the Great

It began 20 September 1378 when a majority of the cardinals, having declared their election of the Neapolitan Bartolomeo Prignano (Urban VI) 5 months previously to be invalid because of the undue pressure exerted by the Roman mob, elected the Frenchman Robert of Geneva (Clement VII). Although the schism was caused by acute personal differences between Urban and the cardinals, most of whom, being Frenchmen, were deeply unhappy over the return of the Papacy from Avignon to Rome, Christendom divided along political lines once the double election had taken place, with France and her allies Aragon, Castile and Scotland supporting Clement, while England, the Emperor and most other princes remained loyal to Urban.

Most of the Italian states stood behind Urban but in Naples Queen Giovanna I of Anjou provoked a popular and baronial revolt by sheltering Clement, and for the next 20 years the kingdom was contested between, on one side, Charles III of Durazzo (d. 1386) and his son Ladislas, who recognized the Roman pope, and, on the other, Louis I (d. 1384) and Louis II of Anjou, who had the support of the Avignon pope. In northern Italy, the scene was dominated by the expansionist policies of Giangaleazzo Visconti of Milan until his death in 1402; from time to time both he and his opponents, the Florentines, flirted with the Avignon popes in the hope of obtaining French support, but with little effect.

Meanwhile the temporal power of the Roman popes survived despite Urban's gift for quarrelling with all his allies, and was considerably built up by his able successor Boniface IX (1389-1404). However, on his death the Roman papacy fell under the domination of King Ladislas of Naples, who drove north through Rome to threaten central Italy, causing the Florentines and most of the other Italian states to throw their weight behind a group of cardinals from both camps who met at Pisa and elected a third pope, Alexander V, in June 1409. It was the continued pressure of Ladislas that finally compelled Alexander's successor Baldassare Cossa (John XXIII) to summon the Council of Constance (1414-18}. This Council healed the Schism by deposing both John and the Avignon pope Benedict XIII and accepting the resignation of the Roman pope, thus leaving the way open for the election in 1417 of Martin V (1417-31), who set about the task of restoring the shattered power and prestige of the Holy See. The 39-year schism killed the supranational papacy of the Middle Ages, for; while devout Christians agonized, practical politicians (often the same people) seized the chance to extend their jurisdiction at the Church's expense. As a result, the Renaissance popes were much more dependent on their Italian resources, and therefore far more purely Italian princes, than their medieval predecessors.

scholasticism

The term is ambivalent. It describes the characteristic method of instruction and exposition used in medieval schools and universities: the posing of a case (quaestio), arguing (disputatio) and settling it (sententia). It also describes the subject matter that was particularly shaped by this method: philosophy, with its strong connection with Christian theology and its dependence on Aristotelian texts and commentaries, and theology, with its assumption that spiritual truths can be seized with the tools of formal logic. 'Scholasticism' has thus become almost synonymous with medieval thought. As such, it can appear the antithesis of Renaissance thought, especially as writers like Petrarch and Valla poured scorn on both the methods and the content of medieval scholarship.

None the less, in spite of Valla's insistence (in his Encomion S. Thomae of 1457) that theologians should eschew dialectic and listen anew to the sources of spiritual understanding, the gospels and the early Greek and Roman Fathers, scholastic method maintained its vitality in the areas where continuity with medieval practice was strongest, theology itself and 'Aristotelian' philosophy. Medieval scholars, moreover, notably Aquinas, were quoted with admiration even by neo-Platonic philosophers. It was because the central concerns of humanism - moral philosophy, textual scholarship, history and rhetoric - were different from those of medieval, university-based study, and were less suited to a dialectical form of exposition, that scholasticism was left, as it were, on one side. But to ignore its presence is to exaggerate the difference between the new learning and the old.

secco (Italian: dry)

Term applied to a technique of mural painting in which the colours are applied to dry plaster, rather than wet plaster as in fresco. The colours were either tempera or pigments ground in lime-water; if lime-water was used, the plaster had to be damped before painting, a method described by Theophilus and popular in northern Europe and in Spain. In Italian Renaissance art the finishing touches to a true fresco would often be painted a secco, as it is easier to add details in this way; because the secco technique is much less permanent, such passages have frequently flaked off with time. Thus in Giotto's Betrayal in the Arena Chapel, Padua, the details of many of the soldiers' weapons are now missing. (See also: fresco.)

seraph (plural seraphim)

In Jewish, Christian, and Islamic literature, celestial being variously described as having two or three pairs of wings and serving as a throne guardian of God. Often called the burning ones, seraphim in the Old Testament appear in the Temple vision of the prophet Isaiah as six-winged creatures praising God. In Christian angelology the seraphim are the highest-ranking celestial beings in the hierarchy of angels. In art the four-winged cherubim are painted blue (symbolizing the sky) and the six-winged seraphim red (symbolizing fire).

Serenissima (Ital.)

Abbreviation of La Serenissima Repubblica Venezia, "the most serene republic of Venice"), term, in use since the Middle Ages, which describes the splendour and dignity of Venice and is, at the same time, an expression of Venetian self-confidence.

Servite (Lat., Med. Lat.)

Member of a mendicant order founded in 1233.

sfumato

A technique, largely developed by Leonardo da Vinci, in which the transitions from light to dark are so gradual they are almost imperceptible; sfumato softens lines and creates a soft-focus effect.

sibyls (Gk. sibylla, "prophetess")

In antiquity, women who could prophesy. The many Sibylline prophecies were kept in Rome and consulted by the Senate. In Christian legend, Sibyls foretold the Birth, Passion and Resurrection of Christ, just as the male prophets of the Bible did. Originally, in the period of classical antiquity, there was only one Sibyl; the number gradually rose to ten. In early Christianity it was further raised to 12, in analogy to the 12 prophets of the Old Testament.

Signoria (It. "lordship")

from the late Middle Ages, the governing body of some of the Italian city states, usually presided over by individual families.

silverpoint

metal pencil made of copper, brass, or bronze with a silver tip fused to it. Silverpoint drawing must be done on a specially prepared surface. Silverpoint was already in use as a drawing instrument in the 14th century, and the delicate, light-gray lines produced by the silver tip, which were all identical in thickness, made it a particularly popular artistic tool throughout the course of the 15th century.

single-leaf woodcuts

the earliest works in linear book printing which were produced between 1400 and 1550 as single sheets with black lines in high relief. They first appear in alpine monasteries, were at first used to spread information of all sorts and were later used as leaflets and visual polemics.

sinopia

The preparatory drawing for a fresco drawn on the wall where the painting is to appear; the red chalk used to make such a drawing.

soffit (Lat., Ital.)

Wooden ceiling decoration.

soft style

A name given to the style found principally in Germany (where it is called Weiche Stil), at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries. It is very closely related to International Gothic, and, as the name implies, is characterized by soft and gentle rhythms, especially in the flow of drapery, and by a sweet and playful sentiment. The principal subject is the Madonna playing with the Christ Child and these are sometimes called Schöne Madonnen - 'Beautiful Madonnas'. Sculpture and the earliest woodcuts show the style even more clearly than painting.

sotto in sù (It. "up from under")

Perspective in which people and objects are seen from below and shown with extreme foreshortening.

spandrel

(1) The triangular space between two arches in an arcade. (2) The curved surface between two ribs meeting at an angle in a vault.

staffage

This word, pronounced as French, is used in both English and German to describe the figures and animals which animate a picture intended essentially as a landscape or veduta; in other words, figures which are not really essential and could be added by another painter. In the highly specialized world of the Dutch painters of the 17th century this was very often the case, so that a landscape painter like Wynants rarely did his own staffage; whereas Canaletto or Guardi always did.

Stanze (Ital. rooms)

The suite of rooms in the Vatican decorated by Raphael.

stigmata, sing. stigma (Gk. "mark, brand, tattoo")

The five Crucifixion wounds of Christ (pierced feet, hands and side) which appear miraculously on the body of a saint. One of the most familiar examples in Renaissance art is the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi.

stipple engraving

Printmaking process that achieves tonal areas by directly engraving short flicks or dots, usually in conjunction with engraved or etched lines.

stucco

A type of light, malleable plaster made from dehydrated lime (calcium carbonate) mixed with powdered marble and glue and sometimes reinforced with hair. It is used for sculpture and architectural decoration, both external and internal. In a looser sense, the term is applied to a plaster coating applied to the exterior of buildings, but stucco is a different substance from plaster (which is calcium sulphate). Stucco in the more restricted sense has been known to virtually every civilization. In Europe it was exploited most fully from the 16th century to the 18th century, notable exponents being the artists of the School of Fontainebleau and Giacomo Serpotta. By adding large quantities of glue and colour to the stucco mixture stuccatori were able to produce a material that could take a high polish and assume the appearance of marble. Indeed, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish from real marble without touching it (stucco feels warmer).

studiolo, pl. studioli (It.)

A room in a Renaissance palace in which the rich or powerful could retire to study their rare books and contemplate their works of art. The studiolo became a symbol of a person's humanist learning and artistic refinement. Among the best known are those of Duke Federico da Montefeltro in Urbino, and Isabella D'Este in Mantua.

Sublime

Term that came into general use in the 18th century to denote a new aesthetic concept that was held to be distinct from the beautiful and the Picturesque and was associated with ideas of awe and vastness. The outstanding work on the concept of the Sublime in English was Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). This book was one of the first to realize (in contrast with the emphasis on clarity and precision during the Age of Enlightenment) the power of suggestiveness to stimulate imagination. The cult of the Sublime had varied expressions in the visual arts, notably the taste for the 'savage' landscapes of Salvator Rosa and the popularity among painters of subjects from Homer, John Milton, and Ossian (the legendary Gaelic warrior and bard, whose verses - actually fabrications - were published in the 1760s to great acclaim). The vogue for the Sublime, with that for the Picturesque, helped shape the attitudes that led to Romanticism.

supremacy

Historically, the supremacy of the English king over the English Church, i.e. the king not the Pope is acknowledged as the supreme head of the Church of England. Established legally by the Act of Supremacy in 1534.

T

tapestry (in Italian Renaissance)

As historical climatologists have not shown that Renaissance Italian winters and springs were warmer than they are now, it is puzzling that Italy did not fabricate tapestries to decorate and draught-proof the stony rooms of its palaces until 1545, when Cosimo I set up a manufactory in Florence. To hardiness or stinginess (tapestry was by far the most expensive form of wall decoration) we owe the existence of such secular frescoed decorative schemes as the labours of the months in the castle at Trent (c. 1407), the Arthurian scenes of Pisanello and the courtly ones of Mantegna in the Ducal Palace of Mantua, the delicious calendar fantasies of Cossa and others in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara - and, doubtless, many others that await liberation from whitewash or later panelling. These are all in situations where northern patrons would have used tapestries.

These were imported, chiefly from Flanders, into Italy. The influence of their hunting and ceremonial scenes in particular registered on Italian 'gothic' painting or illumination and stained glass, and in literature. But the Italians did not make them. The most famous of all 'Italian' tapestries, those for the Sistine Chapel designed by Raphael, were made in Brussels from the full-scale coloured patterns, or cartoons, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Nor is it clear whether imported tapestries were used habitually or simply to add grandeur to special occasions. Even when Cosimo's manufactory was in being, and working from designs by court artists of the calibre of Bronzino, Salviati and Allori, his own headquarters, the Palace of the Signoria (now the Palazzo Vecchio), was being decorated with frescoes. The subject is underexplored.

tempera (Lat. temperare, "to mix in due proportion")

A method of painting in which the pigments are mixed with an emulsion of water and egg yolks or whole eggs (sometimes glue or milk). Tempera was widely used in Italian art in the 14th and 15th centuries, both for panel painting and fresco, then being replaced by oil paint. Tempera colors are bright and translucent, though because the paint dried very quickly there is little time to blend them, graduated tones being created by adding lighter or darker dots or lines of color to an area of dried paint.

tenebrism

A style of painting especially associated with the Italian painter Caravaggio and his followers in which most of the figures are engulfed in shadow but some are dramatically illuminated by a concentrated beam of light usually from an identifiable source.

terracotta (It. "baked earth")

Unglazed fired clay. It is used for architectural features and ornaments, vessels, and sculptures.

terraferma (Ital. "firm land")

The mainland forming part of the Venetian Doge's sovereign territory, i.e. the strip of coastline immediately next to the lagoon.

three-quarter face

artistic term denoting a particular angle from which the human face is depicted. Depending on how far the head is turned away from a fully frontal angle en face, the picture is described as three-quarter face (in which a good deal of the face can be seen), quarter face, and profile.

tondo, pl. tondi (It. "round")

A circular painting or relief sculpture. The tondo derives from classical medallions and was used in the Renaissance as a compositional device for creating an ideal visual harmony. It was particularly popular in Florence and was often used for depictions of the Madonna and Child.

topiary (Gk. topia, "fields, gardens")

The craft of cutting bushes and trees into decorative shapes, usually those of animals or geometrical forms. triumphal arch, in the architecture of ancient Rome, a large and usually free-standing ceremonial archway built to celebrate a military victory. Often decorated with architectural features and relief sculptures, they usually consisted of a large archway flanked by two smaller ones. The triumphal archway was revived during the Renaissance, though usually as a feature of a building rather than as an independent structure. In Renaissance painting they appear as allusion to classical antiquity.

topos, pl. topoi (Gk. "a commonplace")

In literature, figure of speech; in art, widely used form, model, theme or motif.

tracery

the geometrical architectural ornamentation which is used in Gothic architecture to subdivide the upper parts of the arches belonging to large windows, and later to subdivide gable ends, walls, and other surfaces.

Trajan's Column

A monumental column erected in Rome in 113 AD to commemorate the deeds of Emperor Trajan. Around its entire length is carved a continuous spiral band of low relief sculptures depicting Trajan's exploits.

Trinity (Lat. trinitas, "threefold")

in Christianity, the term used for the existence of one God in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

triptych (Gk. tryptychos, "threefold")

A painting in three sections, usually an altarpiece, consisting of a central panel and two outer panels, or wings. In many medieval triptychs the two outer wings were hinged so that could be closed over the center panel. Early triptychs were often portable.

triumph

With growing interest from the early 14th century in the history of ancient Rome came a fascination with the city's conquests, the wars by which they were won - and the ceremony which marked their success: the victor's triumph. The knowledge that the privilege of being commemorated by one of these enormous and costly processions of warriors, loot and prisoners was given sparingly, only to the sole commander of a major victory over a foreign army of whom at least 5000 were slain, added to the glamour of the triumph. Its centrepiece was the chariot of the victor himself. Dante gave one to Beatrice in Purgatorio XXIX: 'Rome upon Africanus ne'er conferred / Nor on Augustus's self, a car so brave'. But it was tentatively with the relief carvings on the Triumphal Arch (1452-66) at Castelnuovo in Naples commemorating Alfonso the Magnanimous, and finally with Mantegna's superb Triumph of Caesar cartoons (Hampton Court), that the visual reconstruction of a Roman triumph became complete.

Meanwhile, in an age which did not like the idea of large numbers of victory-flushed soldiers parading through its streets, the military triumph became sublimated, as it were, into a number of less controversial forms. This was largely under the influence of Petrarch's 'Trionfi' - poems describing the processions commemorating the triumphs of love, chastity, death; fame, time and eternity. Disseminated soon after his death, they soon appeared in illuminated manuscripts, and the triumph scene became a popular one for woodcuts, decorated marriage chests and other paintings, most beautifully of all on the backs of Piero della Francesca's portraits of Federigo da Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza. Other 'triumphs' were invented: of the seasons, of virtues and of the arts. Nor was the theme allowed to be simply a profane one. Just before his death Savonarola published his 'Triumph of the Cross', in which the reader was invited to imagine 'a four-wheeled chariot on which is seated Christ as Conqueror.' Before it go the apostles, patriarchs and prophets, beside it the army of martyrs, behind it, after 'a countless number of virgins, of both sexes', come the prisoners: 'the serried ranks of the enemies of the Church of Christ.' This aspect of the theme was magnificently realized in Titian's great woodcut 'The Triumph of the Faith'.

triumphal arch

In the architecture of ancient Rome, a large and usually free-standing ceremonial archway built to celebrate a military victory. Often decorated with architectural features and relief sculptures, they usually consisted of a large archway flanked by two smaller ones. The triumphal archway was revived during the Renaissance, though usually as a feature of a building rather than as an independent structure. In Renaissance painting they appear as allusion to classical antiquity.

tromp l'oeil (Fr. "deceives the eye")

A type of painting which, through various naturalistic devices, creates the illusion that the objects depicted are actually there in front of us. Dating from classical times, tromp l'oeil was revived in the 15th century and became a distinctive feature of 17th-century Dutch painting.

trumeau

Stone pillar or column supporting the lintel of a monumental portal at its centre, it is usually decorated with carvings.

Tudor

An obscure Welsh family, first recorded in 1232, that seized the English throne in 1485 by defeating the Yorkist king Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. Lancastrian Henry VII was its first crowned representative, marrying Richard's niece Elizabeth of York and thus symbolically ending the dynastic wars of the Roses. The Tudor dynasty lasted until 1603 (death of Elizabeth I). Tudor is also the name of a transitional Late Gothic building style during the reigns of the two Henrys. It incorporates Renaissance features.

tusche

A thick, viscous black ink.

tympanum (Lat. "drum")

In classical architecture, the triangular area enclosed by a pediment, often decorated with sculptures. In medieval architecture, the semi-circular area over a a door's lintel, enclosed by an arch, often decorated with sculptures or mosaics.

typology

A system of classification. In Christian thought, the drawing of parallels between the Old Testament and the New. Typological studies were based on the assumption that Old Testament figures and events prefigured those in the New, e.g. the story of Jonah and the whale prefigured Christ's death and resurrection. Such typological links were frequently used in both medieval and Renaissance art.

tyrannicide

Assassination of rulers (often in church, where they were most accessible, and often by cadets of their family) had long played an important part in the Italian political process. From the end of the 14th century these deeds came frequently to be gilded by biblical and classical references: to the precedents of Brutus (condenmed by Dante as an arch-traitor, then raised by such republican enthusiasts as Michclangelo to heroic stature), Judith, killer of Holofernes, and David, slayer of Goliath. So the killing of Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1476) was carried out by three Milanesi patricians inspired in part by the teachings of the humanist Cola Montano, while the Pazzi conspiracy in Florence was seen by Alamanno Rinuccini as an emulation of ancient glory. Intellectuals who combined a taste for violence with a classicizing republicanism featured largely too in the plots of Stefano Porcari against Nicholas V (1453), of the Roman Academy against Paul II (1468), and of Pietro Paolo Boscoli against the Medici in 1513.

U

uomo universale (It.)

The Renaissance "universal man", a many-talented man with a broad-ranging knowledge of both the arts and the sciences.

Utrecht school

Principally a group of three Dutch painters - Dirck van Baburen (c. 1590-1624), Gerrit van Honthorst (1590-1656), and Hendrik Terbrugghen (1588-1629) - who went to Rome and fell fully under the pervasive influence of Caravaggio's art before returning to Utrecht. Although none of them ever actually met Caravaggio (d. 1610), each had access to his paintings, knew his former patrons, and was influenced by the work of his follower Bartholomeo Manfredi (1580-1620/21), especially his half-length figural groups, which were boldly derived from Caravaggio and occasionally passed off as the deceased master's works.

Back in the Netherlands the "Caravaggisti" were eager to demonstrate what they had learned. Their subjects are frequently religious ones, but brothel scenes and pictures in sets, such as five works devoted to the senses, were popular with them also. The numerous candles, lanterns, and other sources of artificial light are characteristic and further underscore the indebtedness to Caravaggio.

Although Honthorst enjoyed the widest reputation at the time, painting at both the Dutch and English courts, Terbrugghen is generally regarded as the most talented and versatile of the group.

V

vanishing point

In perspective, the point on the horizon at which sets of lines representing parallel lines will converge.

vanitas (Lat. "emptiness")

A painting (or element in painting) that acts as a reminder of the inevitabiliry of death, and the pointlessness of earthly ambitions and achievements. Common vanitas-symbols include skulls, guttering candles, hour-glasses and clocks, overturned vessels, and even flowers (which will soon fade). The vanitas theme became popular during the Baroque, with the vanitas still life flourishing in Dutch art.

varietà (It. "variety")

In Renaissance art theory, a work's richness of subject matter. Also varietas (Lat.).

vault

A roof or ceiling whose structure is based on the arch. There are a wide range of forms, including the barrel (or tunnel) vault, formed by a continuous semi-circular arch; the groin vault, formed when two barrel vaults intersect; and the rib vault, consistong of a framework of diagonal ribs supporting interlocking arches. The development of the various forms was of great structural and aesthetic importance in the development of church architecture during the Middle Ages.

veduta (Italian for view)

a primarily topographical representation of a town or landscape that is depicted in such a life-like manner that the location can be identified.

vernis Martin

Refers to lacquer (coating) produced in France during the 18th century in imitation of Japanese and Chinese lacquers. The basic ingrediant in copal varnish with powdered metal, often gold, mixed in. It was developed by and named for the Martin brothers, Parisian craftsmen, it was used to decorate furniture, carriages, snuff boxes and other objects.

Vespers (Lat. vesper, "evening")

Prayers said in the evening; the church service at which these prayers are said. The Marian Vespers are prayers and meditations relating to the Virgin Mary.

Vestibule (Lat. vestibulum, "forecourt")

The anteroom or entrance hall of a building. In ancient Roman dwellings, the vestibule was situated before the entrance to the house.

Via Crucis

The Way of the Cross. The route taken by Christ in the Passion on the way to Golgotha. The route is marked by the 14 Stations of the Cross.

Vices and Virtues

In the medieval and Renaissance Christianity there were seven principal virtues and seven principal vices, a classification that brought together both ideals of both Christianity and classical Antiquity. Personifications of both appear in medieval and Renaissance art. The seven Vices (also known as the seven Deadly Sins) were: Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Envy, Gluttony, and Sloth. The seven Virtues were: Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, Temperance, Prudence, and Justice.

vimperga

Of German origin, "not exposed to winds". Gothic decorative attic over doors and windows. Attics with tracery in the shape of isosceles triangles are decorated with crockets and cornices, and wooden towers are decorated with finials at the top.

virtù

The Italian word commonly means 'virtue' in the sense of Hamlet's admonition to his mother, 'Assume a virtue, if you have it not', but during the Renaissance it increasingly carried the force of Edmund Burke's 'I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government', in which the word signifies efficacy, actual or latent. Under the influence of the classical 'virtus', 'excellence' (with a strongly virile connotation), virtù could be used, as it most frequently was by Machiavelli, for example, to convey an inherently gifted activism especially in statecraft or military affairs; to possess virtù was a character trait distinguishing the energetic, even reckless (but not feckless) man from his conventionally virtuous counterpart, rendering him less vulnerable to the quirks of Fortuna.

vita, pl. vite (Lat. "life")

An account of someone's life and work, a biography. The best-known writer of the vita in the Renaissance was Vasari, whose Le vite de'più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti italiani ("Lives of the Most Eminent Italian Painters, Sculptors and Architects"), published in 1550 and 1568, provides detailed accounts of the lives of many of the most important artists of the Renaissance.

Vitruvius Pollio, Marcus (1st cent. AD)

Roman architect whose ten books of architecture formed the basis of Renaissance architectural theory.

volute

A spiral scroll found particularly on (Ionic) capitals and gables, as a transition between horizontal and vertical elements.

votive painting/image

A picture or panel donated because of a sacred promise, usually when a prayer for good fortune, protection from harm, or recovery from illness has been made.

W

Wars of Italy

In spite of the endemic warfare which characterized Italy from the 14th century to the Peace of Lodi in 1454, and the occasional wars thereafter (e.g. those of Volterera, 1472, of the Papacy and Naples against Florence, 1478-80, and of Ferrara, 1482-84), by general consensus the Wars of Italy are held to be those that began in 1494 with Charles VIII'S invasion of the peninsula, came virtually to an end with the Habsburg-Valois treaties of Barcelona and Cambrai in 1529, and were finally concluded with the European settlement of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559.

The wars from 1494 do, in fact, fall into a different category from those that preceded them. Campaign followed campaign on a scale and with an unremittingness sharply different from those which had interrupted the post-Lodi peacefulness. Though foreign intervention in Italian affairs was certainly no novelty, the peninsula had never before been seen so consistently by dynastic contenders as both prize and arena. No previous series of combats had produced such lasting effects: the subjection of Milan and Naples to direct Spanish rule and the ossification of politics until the arrival in 1796 of a new Charles VIII in the person of Napoleon Bonaparte. The wars were also recognized as different in kind from their predecessors by those who lived through them: 'before. 1494' and 'after 1494' became phrases charged with nostalgic regret for, and appalled recognition of, the demoted status of the previously quarrelsome but in the main independent comity of peninsular powers. And because the wars forced the rest of western Europe into new alliances and a novel diplomatic closeness, they were from the 18th century

until comparatively recently seen as marking the turn from medieval to recognizably modern political times.

The wars, then, were caused by foreign intervention. In these terms they can be chronicled with some brevity. After crossing the Alps in 1494 Charles VIII conquered the kingdom of Naples and retired in 1495, leaving the kingdom garrisoned. The garrisons were attacked later in the same year by Spanish troops under Gonzalo de Cordoba, sent by King Ferdinand II of Aragon (who was also King of Sicily). With this assistance Naples was restored to its native Aragonese dynasty. In 1499 the new King of France, Louis XII, assumed the title Duke of Milan (inherited through his grandfather's marriage to a Visconti) and occupied the duchy, taking over Genoa later in the same year. In 1501 a joint Franco-Spanish expedition reconquered the kingdom of Naples. The allies then fell out and fought one another. By January 1504 Spain controlled the whole southern kingdom, leaving France in control of Milan and Genoa in the north. A third foreign power, the German Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I entered the arena in 1508 with an abortive invasion of the Veronese-Vicentino. He countered the rebuff by joining the allies of the anti-Venetian League of Cambrai: France and Aragon assisted by Pope Julius II and the rulers of Mantua and Ferrara. In 1509 their victory at Agnadello led to the occupation of the whole of the Venetian terraferma apart from Treviso.

The eastward extension of French power gained by this victory (won by a mainly French army) drove Julius and Ferdinand to turn against Louis and in 1512 the French - now also under pressure from a fourth foreign power interesting itself in Italian territory, the Swiss - were forced to evacuate their possessions in Lombardy. Louis's last invasion of the Milanese was turned back in 1513 at the battle of Novara and the duchy was restored to its native dynasty, the Sforza, in the person of Massimiliano; he ruled, however, under the supervision of Milan's real masters, the Swiss. In 1515, with a new French king, Francis I, came a new invasion and a successful one: the Swiss were defeated at Marignano and Massimiliano ceded his title to Francis. To confirm his monopoly of foreign intervention in the north Francis persuaded Maximilian I to withdraw his garrisons from Venetian territory, thus aiding the Republic to complete the recovery of its terraferma.

With the spirit of the Swiss broken, the death of Ferdinand in 1516 and of Maximilian I in 1519 appeared to betoken an era of stability for a peninsula that on the whole took Spanish rule in the south and French in the north-west for granted. However, on Maximilian's death his grandson Charles, who had already become King of Spain in succession to Ferdinand, was elected Emperor as Charles V; Genoa and Milan formed an obvious land bridge between his Spanish and German lands, and a base for communications and troop movements thence to his other hereditary possessions in Burgundy and the Netherlands. Equally, it was clear to Francis I that his Italian territories were no longer a luxury, but strategically essential were his land frontier not to be encircled all the way from Provence to Artois. Spanish, German and French interests were now all centred on one area of Italy and a new phase of the wars began.

Between 1521 and 1523 the French were expelled from Genoa and the whole of the Milanese. A French counter-attack late in 1523, followed by a fresh invasion in 1524 under Francis himself, led, after many changes of fortune, to the battle of Pavia in 1525; not only were the French defeated, but Francis himself was sent as a prisoner to Spain, and released in 1526 only on condition that he surrender all claims to Italian territory. But by now political words were the most fragile of bonds. Francis allied himself by the Treaty of Cognac to Pope Clement VII, previously a supporter of Charles but, like Julius II in 1510, dismayed by the consequences of what he had encouraged, and the Milanese once more became a theatre of war. In 1527, moreover, the contagion spread, partly by mischance - as when the main Imperial army, feebly led and underpaid, put loot above strategy and proceeded to the Sack of Rome, and partly by design - as when, in a reversion to the policy of Charles VIII, a French army marched to Naples, having forced the Imperial garrison out of Genoa on the way and secured the city's navy, under Andrea Doria, as an ally. In July 1528 it was Doria who broke what had become a Franco-Imperial stalemate by going over to the side of the Emperor and calling off the fleet from its blockade of Naples, thus forcing the French to withdraw from the siege of a city now open to Spanish reinforcements.

By 1529, defeated in Naples and winded in Milan, Francis at last allowed his ministers to throw in the sponge. The Treaty of Barcelona, supplemented by that of Cambrai, confirmed the Spanish title to Naples and the cessation of French pretensions to Milan, which was restored (though the Imperial leading strings were clearly visible) to the Sforza claimant, now Francesco II. Thereafter, though Charles took over the direct government of Milan through his son Philip on Francesco's death in 1535, and Francis I in revenge occupied Savoy and most of Piedmont in the following year, direct foreign intervention in Italy was limited to the localized War of Siena. In 1552 the Sienese expelled the garrison Charles maintained there as watchdog over his communications between Naples and Milan, and called on French support. As an ally of Charles, but really on his own account, Cosimo I, Duke of Florence, took the city after a campaign that lasted from 1554 to 1555. But in the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis of 1559, by which France yet again, and now finally, renounced Italian interests, Cosimo was forced to grant Charles the right to maintain garrisons in Siena's strategic dependencies, Orbetello, Talamone and Porto Ercole.

The Wars of Italy, though caused by foreign interventions, involved and were shaped by the invitations, self-interested groupings and mutual treacheries of the Italian powers themselves. At the beginning, Charles VIII was encouraged by the Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, jealous of the apparently expanding diplomatic influence of Naples, as well as by exiles and malcontents (including the future Julius II) who thought that a violent tap on the peninsular kaleidoscope might provide space for their own ambitions. And the 1529 Treaty of Cambrai did not put an end to the local repercussions of the Franco Imperial conflict. France's ally Venice only withdrew from the kingdom of Naples after the subsequent (December 1529) settlement negotiated at Bologna. It was not until August 1530 that the Last Florentine Republic gave in to the siege by the Imperialist army supporting the exiled Medici. The changes of heart and loyalty on the part of Julius II in 1510 and Clement VII in 1526 are but illustrations of the weaving and reweaving of alliances that determined the individual fortunes of the Italian states within the interventionist framework: no précis can combine them.

A final point may, however, be made. Whatever the economic and psychological strain produced in individual states by their involvement, and the consequential changes in their constitutions or masters, no overall correlation between the Wars and the culture of Italy can be made. The battles were fought in the countryside and peasants were the chief sufferers from the campaigns. Sieges of great cities were few, and, save in the cases of Naples in 1527-28 and Florence in 1529-30, short. No planned military occasion had so grievious effect as did the Sack of Rome, which aborted the city's cultural life for a decade.

War of the Eight Saints (1375-78)

Conflict between Pope Gregory XI and an Italian coalition headed by Florence, which resulted in the return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome. In 1375, provoked by the aggressiveness of the Pope's legates in Italy, Florence incited a widespread revolt in the Papal States. The Pope retaliated by excommunicating the Florentines (March 1376), but their war council, the Otto di Guerra (popularly known as the Eight Saints), continued to defy him. In 1377 Gregory sent an army under Cardinal Robert of Geneva to ravage the areas in revolt, while he himself returned to Italy to secure his possession of Rome. Thus ended the papacy's 70-year stay in France. The war ended with a compromise peace concluded at Tivoli in July 1378.

watercolour

Pigment ground in gum, usually gum arabic, and applied with brush and water to a painting surface, usually paper; the term also denotes a work of art executed in this medium. The pigment is ordinarily transparent but can be made opaque by mixing with a whiting and in this form is known as body colour, or gouache; it can also be mixed with casein, a phosphoprotein of milk.

Watercolour compares in range and variety with any other painting method. Transparent watercolour allows for a freshness and luminosity in its washes and for a deft calligraphic brushwork that makes it a most alluring medium. There is one basic difference between transparent watercolour and all other heavy painting mediums - its transparency. The oil painter can paint one opaque colour over another until he has achieved his desired result. The whites are created with opaque white. The watercolourist's approach is the opposite. In essence, instead of building up he leaves out. The white paper creates the whites. The darkest accents may be placed on the paper with the pigment as it comes out of the tube or with very little water mixed with it. Otherwise the colours are diluted with water. The more water in the wash, the more the paper affects the colours; for example, vermilion, a warm red, will gradually turn into a cool pink as it is thinned with more water.

The dry-brush technique - the use of the brush containing pigment but little water, dragged over the rough surface of the paper - creates various granular effects similar to those of crayon drawing. Whole compositions can be made in this way. This technique also may be used over dull washes to enliven them.

Weltanschauung (Gr. "world view")

A comprehensive world view, a philosophy of life.

Westwerk

German word, "Western work of art". Central space at the Western façade of medieval cathedrals vaulted on the ground floor, pompous on the floor above. It was intended to have a variety of functions, but it was associated with the emperor or aristocrats: it served as a chapel, gallery, treasury or a place where justice was administered.

wood block carvers

craftsmen who carved the work into the wood block according to the design drawn on it. While they are not usually identified by name in the early period and are difficult to distinguish from the artist producing the design, they were responsible for the artistic quality of the print.

woodcut

A print made from a wood block. The design is drawn on a smooth block of wood and then cut out, leaving the design standing up in relief the design to be printed. The person who carved the woodcut often worked to a design by another artist.

X

X-ray photos

X-ray photos are used to examine the undersurfaces of a painting. They allow scholars to see what changes were made during the original painting or by other hands, usually restorers, during its subsequent history.

Y

no article

Z

zoomorphic ornament

Ornament, usually linear, based on stylization of various animal forms.