1400-1500

Masaccio was a Florentine artist whose short life made a great impact upon Renaissance painting. Tommaso Guidi nicknamed Masaccio meaning “slovenly Tom.” Masaccio portrayed realistic human forms including male and female nudes in a Classical manner. He used linear perspective (single-point) according to Brunelleschi's rules. His life was cut short at age 27, which might have been by poisoning.

Masaccio was commissioned in 1424 to paint a series of frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria della Carmine in Florence. He stunned the world in his realism, precision and passionate subjects.

Expulsion from Eden completed in 1425 portrays nude figures as Adam and Eve following their disobedience and removal from the Garden of Eden. The fully nude figure of Adam broke with medieval conservative portrayals of the subject. Adam is so ashamed of his actions he does not cover his penis, but holds his face. The angel above their heads holds a sword and commands them away from the gate.

The Tribute Money was another great fresco from the Brancacci Chapel completed in 1427. This scene depicts three parts of a story about Jesus and his disciples as they are confronted by a tax collector. Peter collects a coin from the mouth of a fish to pay the tax.

Masaccio deploys contrapposto in the tax collector’s stance. The diminished halos on Christ and apostles represent a shift from Byzantine and Medieval depictions. The entire work portrays human subjects in beautiful Roman garments. The vanishing point is located directly above Christ’s head. Aerial perspective makes a natural background with realistic depth. Masaccio’s chiaroscuro softens figures clothing and skin tone.

Lorenzo Ghiberti was a Florentine goldsmith who also explored the new techniques of Brunelleschi and Masaccio in his relief sculptures.

In 1401, the cloth merchants guild held a competition to see who could have the honor of creating the North doors of the Florence Cathedral Baptistery.

Ghiberti won the competition with his work Sacrifice of Isaac (right). He defeated Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Jacopo del Quercia at the age of 21 and became the greatest Florentine sculptor.

The contest required a quatrefoil design and the number of characters were defined. Ghiberti defeated Brunelleschi by a narrow margin.

The scene depicts the moment before Abraham would sacrifice his son Isaac. The angel saves Isaac and a ram is provided to in the upper right to be a substitutionary sacrifice.

Ghiberti took 21 years to complete 28 scenes from New Testament and lives of saints. He used the lost wax technique used in Egypt, West Africa, Asia, Greece, and Rome.

The civic competition placed Ghiberti’s creation on the northern side of the octagonal shaped Baptistery.

Ghiberti won a second commission for the East doors. He created doors with Old Testament scenes to compliment the previous doors.

Ghiberti worked on 10 scenes from the Old Testament from 1425-1452. From left to right: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac with Jacob and Esau, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, and Solomon with the Queen of Sheba.

Michelangelo called them the “Gates of Paradise” for their spectacular execution. Ghiberti used linear perspective, architecture, and depth to heighten realism.

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) was a Renaissance architect, sculptor and art theorist. His victory in 1420 in a competition to design the dome for the Florence cathedral made him an icon among Renaissance architects.

It was the largest dome designed since the Pantheon in the first century CE.

He used two octagonal structures – one interior self supporting dome with flying buttresses and one exterior ribbed dome.

He innovated hoists and masonry to complete his vision. Alberti praised the work as greater than Classical accomplishments in architecture.

The interior frescoes were painted by Giorgio Vasari and Frederico Zuccaro between 1568-1579. The dome has a theme of the Last Judgment including Christ, Mary, various saints, and scenes from Revelation of John.

The dome has eight circular stained glass windows and a lantern at the top which lets natural light in through the oculus.

In Pazzi Chapel, Brunelleschi has the freedom to return to the Classical façade (right) to compliment the interior (below).

This privately designed side chapel starkly contrasts the Gothic cathedral style of Santa Croce that it adjoins. Corinthian pillars are relief sculptures instead of free standing. The repeated geometric shapes represent a complete break from the Gothic cathedral design.

The Medici family were the most powerful Florentine family who effectively ended the Florentine Republican form of Government. Their patronage of the arts was rivaled only by the Pope.

Among the 500 wealthiest families, they rose to the top through the leadership of Cosimo (1389-1464). Initially the Florentine families were scared of Medici power. In 1433, Cosimo was exiled, but later the families asked him to return. Cosimo continued to exercise power in Florence until his death. He preferred to rule through proxies in order to avoid future punishment.

Cosimo commissioned Michelozzo di Bartolomeo to build the Palazzo Medici from 1444-1460. It has three distinct levels that illustrate a progression of architectural design from the rough cut ground floor to the finely finished third story.

Greek and Roman artists reveled in the beauty of the nude human body as an art form in itself.

Donatello (1386-1466) represents an early Renaissance master who fused Biblical subject matter with Classical aesthetics to create David in 1432 as the first free standing life sized nude sculpture since Roman times.

Donatello’s David is a young boy with soft features wearing a Tuscan hat and leg armor who soberly demonstrates his dominance over the giant Goliath whom he has slain.

The work was commissioned by the Medici family to be prominently displayed in the Courtyard of their palace.

David is a difficult work to analyze since its androgynous form is rather unusual for this subject matter. From the left side the small breasts and covered genitals suggests a standing nude young girl.

Donatello’s work has been interpreted as David, but recently scholars have suggested he might be the Roman messenger to the gods Mercury.

This fusion of the Classical style and Biblical subject matter would be repeated frequently in the Renaissance as artists sought to be freed from the rigidly defined Medieval Catholic art form.

Cosimo commissioned Benozzo Gozzoli to paint the fresco of the procession of the magi (wise men) who visited the baby Jesus with gifts.

To honor his patron, Gozzoli featured Medici family members in the foreground.

Cosimo rides a donkey as one of the wise men. The donkey represents humility.

Piero sits on a white horse to the left of Cosimo.

Lorenzo leads the procession on his white horse in fine clothes.

This 15th century crowd fuses contemporary and Biblical images.

After Cosimo died, Piero (1416-1468) ascended to the top of the Medici Family. He only ruled Florence for five years.

Like his father Cosimo, Piero supported Donatello’s sculptures and Ficino’s humanist literature.

His patronage of Sandro Boticelli intensified the Renaissance connection between the Classical world and the 15th century European world.

Boticelli painted Adoration of the Magi in 1475 including Cosimo, Piero, Lorenzo, and Guiliano as members of the crowd offering gifts to Christ. The work is in the Church of Santa Maria Novella built by Alberti and Vasari.

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) explores the Classical nude form in his masterpiece Birth of Venus, 1482 (near right).

Botticelli captures the beauty of the Medici Venus (far right) from the first century CE, which had been discovered in Rome in the fifteenth century.

Venus (Gk. Aphrodite) was born from the sea foam of her father Uranus (Gk. Poseidon). Boticelli captures her emergence from the waters to the shores of Cythera. She is ushered in by a wind god and wind goddess and welcomed by Pomona, goddess of fertility.

It was under the leadership of Lorenzo “the Magnificent” (1449-1492) that Medici power reached its peak.

Lorenzo shared leadership with Giuliano until 1478 when Giuliano was assassinated.

Lorenzo ruled Florence another 14 years until his death in 1492.

With Medici wealth and power, Lorenzo financed some of the greatest works of art and architecture in the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli and Michelangelo were backed by Medici family monies.

Leonardo da Vinci was a Florentine painter, sculptor, scientist, inventor, engineer, and musician. He embodied the Renaissance individual in his mastery of many interests.

Leonardo sought answers in nature, not Scripture. He studied natural properties of wind, water and human biology.

He struggled in his own time for being a true individual and a free thinker. Leonardo was caught in a political conflict between Florentine and Milanese nobles. He needed their financial support, which created frustration at times.

His draft sketches reveal his true brilliance and forward thinking nature.

Leonardo mastered the artistic techniques in his own day. He innovated sfumato, mastered aerial and linear perspective, and incorporated Classical values into his paintings.

His religious works reveal his efforts to push the boundaries of symbolism while retaining piety and reverence for the subject matter.

da Vinci’s studies on human figures revolutionized his artistic depictions. His notebook contains thousands of sketches and figure studies from 1489 to 1518 used in later completed works. He envisioned tanks, parachutes, helicopters, gliders and bicycles.

In 1487, da Vinci sketched the Vitruvian man (top left) used the Roman techniques from Vitruvius which were ratios of human body parts in relation to one another.

His sketches of the embryo and skeletal system were decades ahead of scientific depictions. It is highly unlikely they influenced medical sciences, but they reveal his artistic genius.

Da Vinci’s two versions of the same composition reveal his refinements and improved techniques over the decades. They are a fascinating study of tenderness between women and their children. Mary is seated on the ground instead of on a throne. The naturalism of these scenes possess a human quality that set a standard for later painters.

The Madonna of the Rocks was painted twice in 1483 and 1508. In 1483, the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception commissioned Leonardo to paint an altarpiece. A dispute over payment and the sale of the first version forced Leonardo to paint a second version that is more complete.

Mary raises hand in protection over Christ. Christ blesses the kneeling John the Baptist. An angel, seated behind Christ, supports his back lovingly. The title comes from the spectacular rocky background.

da Vinci finished the subtle details of plants and closed the composition by keeping the angel’s gaze on Christ instead of toward the viewer.

Leonardo painted this fresco in the Monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan above a doorway in the dining hall. The architecture in the scene resembles that of the Monastery. The vanishing point is directly above Christ’s head. The three windows in the background represent the Trinity.

da Vinci depicts the moment when Christ reveals his betrayer. Judas, the betrayer, is the third figure on the viewer’s left side. The 12 disciples represent a range of emotions to this shocking revelation that there is dissention in the ranks.

Renaissance portrait painters often painted their subjects in plein-air to give the appearance of a beautiful landscape. This accented the seated figure and added more opportunity to display mastery of space and depth.

Mona Lisa is one of the great examples of plein-air portraiture. Leonardo da Vinci painted Lisa Gherardini del Giacondo, wife of banker Francesco del Giocondo.

Leonardo dressed her in the latest Italian fashion while seated in a mysterious setting that mirrors her expression.

Despite its small size (30.25 in x 21 in) it is a masterpiece because da Vinci’s use of oils captured a softness and a glow that had not been seen in prior portraits.

Leonardo used sfumato throughout the composition. It includes the use of several layers of color to make the darker tones which blended naturally into the lighter ones. Lisa’s mouth, eyes and hands are the best examples of this technique.

Michelangelo was a Florentine architect, poet, painter, sculptor, and engineer. He called himself a sculptor and didn’t respect his other magnificent achievements as much as his primary art form.

Michelangelo spent much of his life rushed from one commission to the next by the Vatican and Italian nobles.

In 1495, Michelangelo observed dissections in the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Florence to understand the human muscular and skeletal system.

His first work was a commissioned piece for a tomb monument in Old Saint Peter’s Cathedral. Pieta 1497-1500 is a vision of motherly grief for her dead son. She forms a throne for the exposed body of the dead Christ. Michelangelo portrays the humanity of the moment in a sculptural form just as Leonardo da Vinci had on canvas in his Madonnas.

Michelangelo’s first work was enough to win him greatness, but he was just getting started. His reputation earned him the nearly impossible task of carving a block of marble that had been rejected by other sculptors.

The 13 1/2 foot tall free standing nude of the Hebrew young man was worthy of placement in front of the city hall in Florence in the Palazzo Vecchio.

Donatello’s young boy has now become the ideal male nude from Classical times. Like Renaissance artists before him, Michelangelo fuses Biblical narrative in Classical style to stun his viewers.

David was the young Hebrew boy who faced the giant Philistine warrior Goliath with five stones and a sling. He projected a rock straight at the giant’s head and knocked him over. Michelangelo portrays him confident before battle with the stone in his hand and an intense stare at his opponent.

Michelangelo intentionally made David’s head and hands too large. He wanted to intensify the strength and manliness of the Hebrew subject.

MICHELANGELO, SISTINE CHAPEL CEILING 1508-1512

Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, totaling 5,760 square feet. This Herculean task took four years of back breaking and mind numbing work. Michelangelo worked 70 feet in the air on scaffolding while hand painting each section of the work.

Nine scenes (left to right) from the book of Genesis form the center of the composition telling the stories of Creation, Adam and Eve, and Noah.

The remaining scenes are also major Hebrew Bible stories. Michelangelo interspersed sibyls and prophets as a tribute to Classical and Biblical heroism.

Neo-Platonism was the revival of Platonic philosophy as influenced by Plotinus – a Roman philosopher. Beauty and harmony were key principles of the Divine. Neo-Platonists believed the human spirit needed to be cultivated through a fusion of Christian and Platonic philosophy. The Catholic God was equated to the One or the Good in Plato’s dialogues.

Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) was a humanist philosopher who translated the complete works of Plato from Greek into Latin to use in his teachings. The Platonic Academy was founded with Cosimo di Medici’s support to revive the study of Plato’s philosophy in Florence. See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) translated ancient Hebrew, Arabic, Latin and Greek texts in an effort to chronicle human understanding and to prove a divine influence in the process. His work earned him persecution and exile by the Catholic Church. His exile foiled his efforts to address 900 theological points of disagreement with the Church. See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Pico della Mirandola wrote what is considered the manifesto of the Renaissance Oration on the Dignity of Man in 1486, which was the Introduction to his incomplete work. In it he argues humans determine their fate. God’s role in giving human freedom to create does not diminish God’s importance. Creation is a God-like quality that is a gift to humanity. Pico della Mirandola inspired others to pursue their God-given abilities in a variety of areas. This freedom directly contrasted with a Catholic church based view of human fate, which focused attention upon the afterlife and one’s place in Purgatory or Hell.

The Renaissance opened doors for women to pursue education, but the long journey of women’s rights took five centuries of hard work and sacrifice. Medieval emphasis upon male authority would not go away easily – even in the progressive Renaissance male population.

After marriage, most women were expected to tend to the house and maintain their husband’s interests. Although taken care of, women were generally less respected in their public endeavors, and male headship would be assumed the norm.

By the middle of the 16th century, women had more opportunities to work in textiles, food service, medical care, and politics. Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533-1603), Caterina Sforza of Milan, Countess of Forli (1463-1509), and Battista Sforza, Duchess of Urbino (1447-1472) were three powerful women in political positions.

Isotta Nogorola (1418-1466) neither married nor became a nun. She wrote humanist works that were not recognized by her contemporaries due to her gender.

Cassandra Fedele (1465-1558) (top) was a Venetian humanist whose Latin letters were composed in the tradition of Petrarch.

Laura Cereta (1469-1499) (middle), a Brescian aristocrat, continued her education after marriage and the death of her husband. Her Defense of Liberal Instruction of Women is her argument against her opponents. She chronicles women’s successes up to her own day. She also wrote in the Petrarchan style.

Vittoria Colonna (1490-1547) (bottom), a Roman humanist, wrote religious and vernacular poems which were admired by Michelangelo. She was one of the most regarded Italian poets in the 16th century.

Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat, statesman and political theorist. Many consider him Europe’s first Political Scientist. His work looks at the darker parts of Italian politics and has less optimism than della Mirandola and Castiglione.

Machiavelli was a student of Roman political history. He worried about a fragmented Italy and contemplated the tension between liberty and order. In 1494, France marched into Italy, which divided the country.

Machiavelli's political forays began in 1495 and he eventually had a falling out with the Medici family in 1512.

Machiavelli's greatest work was written in 1513. The Prince was a manual of political theory that argued for a strong leader to unify Italy. His theory assumes a negative view of humanity. It holds this in common with Catholicism, but its tone is distinct from medieval manuals focusing on Christian values. His philosophy is consistent with Renaissance virtu since they both concur the individual makes his/her own destiny.

Macchiavelli sees the state as amoral. It’s not a sign of God’s presence as previously believed in the Divine Right of Kings during the Middle Ages.

Within politics, otherwise immoral actions may be in the best interest for political pursuits. Leaders must be warlike, quick witted, and willing to defend the state at all costs. Machiavelli's ethic is summed up as, “the ends justify the means.”

Cesare Borgia (1475-1507) bastard son of Pope Alexander VI was considered by Machiavelli to be an ideal prince.

Macchiavellian virtues are markedly different from Christian ones: imagination, resilience, ingenuity, intelligence.

One of the greatest minds in this new enterprise was Desiderius Erasmus, a scholar from Rotterdam, Netherlands. The Brethren of Common Life inspired Erasmus’ early life. In 1492, he was ordained for priesthood, but left afterward to become a secretary of the Bishop of Cambrai, France. In 1498 he completed a Bachelor’s of Divinity. The following year he traveled to England and became acquainted with John Colet and Thomas More, which provoked him to explore Cicero, Socrates, and the Bible. He studied Latin, Greek and Hebrew to examine the Christian Scriptures in their original languages. Erasmus also held extensive correspondence with other scholars in Europe throughout his lifetime.

Erasmus wrote Handbook of the Christian Soldier in 1502 which presented a more basic, non-clerical church. His renowned satire, Praise of Folly (1509), offered harsh perspectives on the evils of Church and its clergy. Folly is the main character whose advice is a satirical account of the Catholic condition. The previous three years he studied many original documents in Italy, which increased his frustrations with Catholicism.

In 1516, Erasmus prepared his Greek NT with Latin translation to use in his future studies. Five years later, he printed it in Basel, Switzerland where he lived. This momentous accomplishment began the interpretation debates that Luther and other Reformers continued.

Erasmus rose in intellectual prominence because he printed most of his teachings and disseminated them rapidly. He openly advocated a return to a simpler approach to Christianity that was encapsulated by the Sermon on the Mount. Erasmus emphasized the sacredness of daily work. He recopied writings of Early Church Fathers and wrote philosophia Christi to promote a universal ethical theism centered around Christ.

Despite his frustrations, Erasmus remained Catholic because he realized theological materials were lacking to help re-educate clergy.

With the introduction of the printing press in Europe in 1450, musical notation spread popular music. Renaissance music was both sacred and secular.

Guillame Dufay (1400-1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer who composed music to poems of Petrarch and Lorenzo de’ Medici. He composed 200 surviving pieces including Masses, motets and songs.

Roland de Lassus (1532-1594) was a noted Flemish composer of madrigals. Madrigals were popular in Italian and English courts as performers for nobles. Queen Elizabeth I’s court was one of the premier agents for popular madrigal songs.

Josquin des Prez (1440-1521) was the premier Renaissance composer. He served in French, Italian and Papal courts. He followed the example of Dufay and unified his compositions around a central melody. His music would emulate natural sounds that the lyrics address to help join text and sound together.

Madalena Casulana (1540-1590) was a Venetian aristocrat who was the first female professional composer. She used word painting techniques like Josquin des Prez.

Guglielmo Ebreo (1439-1482) was a dance master at the Court of Urbino who wrote a treatise in dancing. He emphasized three styles of court dances: slow and somber (basse); vigorous 3 beat with a leap (saltarello); and rapid double stepped (piva).