Discovering the humanities 3rd by henry m sayre 2016 chapter 07

Discovering the humanities 3rd by henry m sayre 2016 chapter 07 Discovering the humanities 3rd by henry m sayre 2016 chapter 07 Discovering the humanities 3rd by henry m sayre 2016 chapter 07 Discovering the humanities 3rd by henry m sayre 2016 chapter 07 Discovering the humanities 3rd by henry m sayre 2016 chapter 07 Discovering the humanities 3rd by henry m sayre 2016 chapter 07

Discovering the Humanities

by Pearson Education, Inc or its affiliates

All Rights Reserved

The Renaissance:

Florence, Rome, and Venice

7

Learning Objectives

1 Discuss the influence of the Medici

family on Florentine art and the

development of humanist thought

2 Describe how other Italian courts

followed the lead of the humanist court

in Florence

3 Examine the impact of papal

patronage on the art of the High

Renaissance in Rome

Learning Objectives

4 Compare the social fabric and artistic

style of Renaissance Venice to that of both Florence and Rome

5 Outline the place of women in

Renaissance Italy

Florence, Italy.

Folco Quilici © Fratelli Alinari [Fig 7.1]

The Renaissance

• Florence, Italy, was the center of a

more than 150-year-long cultural revival

in Europe that we have come to call the Renaissance

• The word Renaissance comes from the

Italian rinascita or "rebirth."

• It indicates that the beliefs and values

of the medieval world were transformed

in Italy

The Renaissance

• The Middle Ages had been an age of

faith, in which the salvation of the soul was an individual's chief preoccupation

• The Renaissance was an age of

intellectual exploration, in which the

humanist strove to understand in ever

more precise and scientific terms the

nature of humanity and its relationship

to the natural world

The State as a Work of Art:

Florence and the Medici

• The 1401 competition for Florence's

new Baptistery doors on the north side exemplified the Renaissance spirit in

sculptural decoration

• The baptistery was a building standing

in front of the cathedral and used for

the Christian rite of baptism

Major Italian city-states during the Renaissance

[Fig Map 7.1]

The State as a Work of Art:

Florence and the Medici

• The competition was not merely about artistic talent, but also about civic pride and patriotism, and about appeasing an evidently wrathful God who had sent

repeated outbreaks of the Plague

Filippo Brunelleschi Sacrifice of Isaac, competition relief

commissioned for the doors of the Baptistery 1401–02.

Lorenzo Ghiberti Sacrifice of Isaac, competition relief commissioned for the doors of the

Baptistery 1401–02.

Parcel-gilt bronze 21" × 17-1/2".

Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence Image © Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

[Fig 7.3]

The State as a Work of Art:

Florence and the Medici

• Lorenzo Ghiberti's winning design stood out due to its figurative naturalism, to his inventive use of foreshortening, and his creation of an overall more vivid

sense of real space

• Both finalists, Ghiberti as well as Filippo Brunelleschi, valued the artistic models

of antiquity and looked to Classical

sculpture for inspiration

The State as a Work of Art:

Florence and The Medici

• Both artists created artworks that

captured human beings in the midst of

a crisis of faith

• The technique of foreshortening

suggests that forms are sharply

receding and can be seen better in

Ghiberti's

The Gates of Paradise

• Ghiberti worked on the north-side doors for 22 years, designing 28 panels in

four vertical rows illustrating the New

Testament

 The second set of doors for the east side took another 27 years to complete.

• Each of the panels in the east doors

depicts one or more events from the

same story

Lorenzo Ghiberti Gates of Paradise, east doors of the Baptistery, Florence ca 1425–52.

Gilt bronze Height 15'.

East doors of the Baptistery, Florence Canali Photobank, Milan, Italy [Fig 7.4]

Lorenzo Ghiberti Self-portrait from the Gates of Paradise, east doors of the Baptistery,

Florence ca 1445–48.

Gilt bronze.

Erich Lessing/akg-images [Fig 7.5]

Lorenzo Ghiberti The Story of Adam and Eve from the Gates of Paradise, east doors of

the Baptistery, Florence ca 1425–52.

Gilt bronze 31-1/4" × 31-1/4".

© Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence/Photo Scala, Florence [Fig 7.6]

Lorenzo Ghiberti Meeting of Solomon and Sheba from the Gates of Paradise, east doors

of the Baptistery, Florence ca 1425–52.

Gilt bronze 31-1/4" × 31-1/4".

© Photo Scala, Florence [Fig 7.7]

Florence Cathedral

• The cathedral known as the Duomo was planned as the most beautiful and

grandest in all of Tuscany

• Over the years, its design and

construction became a group activity as

an ever-changing panel of architects

prepared model after model of the

church

Brunelleschi's Dome

• Brunelleschi's design for the dome

eliminated the need for wooden

scaffolding through its skeleton with

eight large ribs on the outside, and

eight pairs of thinner ribs on the inside

of the roof

• In yet another competition, he then

designed a lantern, a windowed turret

at the top of a dome

Diagram of ribs and horizontal bands within Brunelleschi's dome.

[Fig 7.8]

"Songs of Angels": Music for

Church and State

• A motet composed especially for the consecration of the Florence Cathedral

was Nuper rosasum flores by French

composer Guillaume Dufay

• The cantus firmus—or "fixed

melody"—on which the composition

Nuper rosarum flores is based is stated

in not one but two voices, both moving

at different speeds

Cantus firmus melody from Dufay's Nuper rosarum flores.

[Fig 7-MN.1]

Scientific Perspective and

Naturalistic Representation

• No aspect of the Renaissance better

embodies the spirit of invention than

scientific, or linear perspective.

• Linear perspective allowed artists to

translate three-dimensional space onto

a two-dimensional surface, thereby

satisfying the age's increasing taste for naturalistic representations of the

physical world

Brunelleschi, Alberti, and the Invention of Scientific Perspective

• The architect Leon Battista Alberti

(1404–1474) codified Brunelleschi's

findings about the one-point

perspective, providing instructions for

artists and a diagram in his treatise On

Painting.

• All parallel lines in a visual field appear

to converge at a single vanishing

point on the horizon.

Brunelleschi, Alberti, and the Invention of Scientific Perspective

• These parallel lines are realized on the

picture plane—the two-dimensional

surface of the panel or canvas—as

diagonal lines called orthogonals.

• The vanishing point is directly opposite the eye of the beholder, who stands at

the vantage point.

Perspective and Naturalism in

Painting: Masaccio

• According to Alberti, Masaccio was one

of the truly talented artists to employ perspective

• Masaccio's masterpiece of naturalistic

representation is his fresco The Tribute

Money in the Brancacci Chapel.

Alberti's perspective diagram.

[Fig 7.9]

Masaccio The Tribute Money 1420s.

Fresco 8-1/4' × 19'7".

Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence.

© Studio Fotografico Quattrone, Florence [Fig 7.10]

Closer Look: Masaccio,

The Tribute Money

Perspective and Naturalism in

Painting: Masaccio

• While the architecture is presented in linear perspective, the mountainous

landscape in the background follows

the principle of the atmospheric

perspective.

Perspective and Naturalism in

Painting: Masaccio

• Perhaps the greatest source of

naturalism can be found in Masaccio's figures, which provide a good imitation

of life through their dynamic gestures

and poses including contrapposto, their

individuality, and their emotional

engagement

The Classical Tradition in Freestanding Sculpture: Donatello

• Masaccio probably learned about the

Classical disposition of the body's

weight from the sculptor Donatello

• Donatello's David reflects the Classical

tradition with an almost exaggerated

contrapposto.

Donatello David 1440s.

Bronze Height: 62-1/4".

Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence © Studio Fotografico Quattrone, Florence.

[Fig 7.11]

The Classical Tradition in Freestanding Sculpture: Donatello

• Donatello seems to celebrate not just

the human body, but its youthful

vitality, a vitality that the figure shared with the Florentine state itself

• It is as if Donatello portrayed David as

an unconvincing hero in order to

underscore the ability of virtue, in

whatever form, to overcome tyranny

The Medici Family and Humanism

• The Medici family had been prominent

in Florentine civic politics since the

early fourteenth century and became

strong supporters of the city's smaller

Marsilio Ficino and Neoplatonism

• Cosimo de' Medici supported the

translation and interpretations of the

works of Plato by the young priest

Marsilio Ficino and Neoplatonism

• The Neoplatonist philosophy recast

Platonic thought in contemporary

terms

Domestic Architecture for

Merchant Princes

• In 1444, Cosimo commissioned for the

family a new palazzo ("palace") that

would redefine domestic architecture in the Renaissance

• The architect Alberti believed leading

families should live in houses that

reflect those families' stability and

strength

Michelozzo di Bartolommeo Palazzo Medici-Ricccardi, Florence Begun 1444.

© 2014 Photo Scala, Florence [Fig 7.12]

Leon Battista Alberti Palazzo Rucellai, Florence 1446–51.

© Bednorz-images, Cologne [Fig 7.13]

Video: Students on Site: Palazzo Rucellai

Lorenzo the Magnificent: "…I find a

Lorenzo the Magnificent: "…I find a

relaxation in learning."

• His own circle of acquaintances

included many of the greatest minds of

the day, including the composer

Heinrich Isaac, the poet Poliziano, the

painter Botticelli, the philosopher Pico

della Mirandola, and the young sculptor

Michelangelo Buonarroti, whom he

invited to live in the Medici palace

Sandro Botticelli: Humanist

Painter

• In Botticelli's Primavera, a nymph

stands in the center, depicted as Venus, goddess of Love

• To the humanists in Lorenzo's court,

Venus was an allegorical figure who

represented the highest moral qualities

• This work celebrates love, not only in a Neoplatonic sense, but also in a more

direct, physical way

Sandro Botticelli Primavera Early 1480s.

Heinrich Isaac: Humanist

Composer

• Lorenzo appointed the Flemish

composer Heinrich Isaac as the

household's private music master

• Isaac's works are examples of frottola, from the Italian for "nonsense," and are extremely lighthearted

 Most consist of three musical parts with the melody in the highest register.

Typical frottola rhythm

[Fig 7-MN.2]

Luca della Robbia Drummers (detail of the Cantoria) 1433–40.

Marble 42-1/8" × 41".

© Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence/Photo Scala, Florence [Fig 7.15]

Pico della Mirandola: Humanity "at

the…center of the world…"

• The humanist philosopher Pico della

Mirandola (1463–1494), who shared

Lorenzo de' Medici's deep interest in

the search for divine truth, proclaimed

the message of individual free will and

of humanity's ability to choose a path of virtue and knowledge

Beyond Florence: The Ducal Courts

and the Arts

• This message inspired Lorenzo's circle

as well as the courts of other Italian

city-states

• Unlike the Medicis, almost all other

leaders were nobility

The Montefeltro Court in Urbino

• Federigo da Montefeltro surrounded

himself with humanists, scholars, poets, and artists, from whom he learned and from whom he commissioned works to embellish the prominent city-state

Urbino

• His court became an example for young men who wanted to learn the principles

of noble behavior

Baldassare Castiglione and

"L'uomo Universale"

• Baldassare Castiglione's (1478–1529)

The Book of the Courtier was written

during the time of Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (1472–1508)

Baldassare Castiglione and

"L'uomo Universale"

• In the form of a dialogue, eloquent

courtiers at Urbino compete with each other to describe the perfect courtier—the man (or woman) whose education and demeanor are best fashioned to serve the prince

Baldassare Castiglione and

"L'uomo Universale"

• The goal of becoming an ideal

gentleman is to be a completely

well-rounded person, l'uomo univesale.

• Sprezzatura means, for the courtier, simply doing difficult things as if

effortlessly and with an attitude of

nonchalance

The Sforza Court in Milan and

Leonardo da Vinci

• In Milan, Ludovico Sforza (1451–1508) commissioned Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) to paint the Last Supper for the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria

delle Grazie

Leonardo da Vinci Embryo in the Womb ca 1510.

Pen and brown ink 11-3/4" × 8-1/2".

Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,

2014/Bridgeman Images [Fig 7.16]

Document: Leonardo da Vinci from his undated manuscripts

The Sforza Court in Milan and

Leonardo da Vinci

• Leonardo's restless imagination inspired him to the study of almost everything: natural phenomena like wind, storms,

and the movement of water; anatomy and physiology; physics and mechanics; music; mathematics; plants and

animals; geology; and astronomy; as

well as painting and drawing

The Sforza Court in Milan and

Leonardo da Vinci

• Leonardo was a humanist and was

deeply swayed by Neoplatonic thought

• He saw connections among all spheres

of existence

• Sfumato, "smokiness," is a technique

found in the Mona Lisa where the

subject is fused with the landscape

behind her by means of light

The Sforza Court in Milan and

Leonardo da Vinci

• The hazy effects of the Mona Lisa were

achieved by glazing, or building up

color with many layers of transparent oil

Leonardo da Vinci Last Supper ca 1495–98.

Fresco, oil, and tempera on plaster 15'1-1/8" × 28'10-1/2".

Refectory, Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan © Studio Fotografico Quattrone,

Florence [Fig 7.17]

Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa 1503–15.

Papal Patronage and the High

Renaissance in Rome

• After 1420, when Pope Martin V (papacy 1417–1431) brought the papacy back to Rome from Avignon for good, it became

a papal duty to restore the city to its

former greatness

Bramante and the New Saint

Peter's Basilica

• Shortly after he was elected pope in

1503, Julius II commissioned Donato

Bramante (1444–1514) to renovate the Vatican Palace and to serve as chief

architect of a plan to replace Saint

Peter's Basilica with a new church

Leonardo da Vinci Vitruvian Man ca 1485–90.

Drawing, pen and ink 13-1/2" × 9-5/8".

Galleria dell'Accademia, Venice © Cameraphoto Arte, Venice [Fig 7.19]

Bramante and the New Saint

Peter's Basilica

• One of Bramante's earliest commissions was San Pietro in Montorio, known as

Tempietto, which was modeled on a

Classical round temple

• For a new Saint Peter's, Bramante

adopted the Vitruvian square, placing

inside it a Greek cross topped with a

central dome reminiscent of the

Pantheon

Bramante and the New Saint

Peter's Basilica

• Julius II financed the project through the

sale of indulgences, a remission of

penalties to be suffered in the afterlife

• Polyclitus's proportion was the

geometrical equivalent of Pythagoras's

music of the spheres, the theory that

each planet produced a musical sound, fixed mathematically

Bramante and the New Saint

Peter's Basilica

• According to Vitruvius, if the human

head is one-eighth the total height of

an idealized figure, then the human

body itself fits into the ideal musical

interval of the octave.

• In his plan for a new Saint Peter's,

Bramante adopted the Vitruvian square,

as illustrated in Leonardo's drawing,

placing it in a Greek cross.