The Renaissance in Italy

1
The Renaissance in Italy
2
The Italian City-states

• Italy conduit for travel and commerce between
  Europe and East
• Cities independent from kings and popes
• Merchant princes
• Medici family powerful banking family
• Charitable to arts
• Civic humanism

3
Renaissance Humanism

• Humans God greatest creation
• Humanist student of classical ideas
• Glorified beauty and order in nature
• Picos Oration man had choice of goodness or
  evil in himself
• Great reformers, artists, writers, inventors

4
Lorenzo The Magnificent

• 1462-92, patron of the arts
• Praised Plato, civic leader, poet
• Wrote songs in Italian
• Gave money and support to artists in Florence
• Had many libraries, museums, and palaces built
  for Florence

5
Ghibertis Baptistery Doors

• Competition for Baptistery Doors 1401
• Ghiberti and Bunelleschi competed for the
  commission with the subject of Abraham and
  Isaac
• Ghiberti won
• They took 48 years!
• Michelangelo called them the Gates of Paradise
• The Creation of Adam and Eve (fig.13.8)
  perspective

6
Brunelleschis Domes

• Florences greatest Renaissance architect
• Studied Romes ancient buildings
• Domed roof over Florence Cathedral unique
  two-layer construction
• Simplicity and reason
• Pazzi Chapel Roman architecture
• Attempt by Pazzi on Lorenzos life in chapel

7
Florentine Painting A Refined Classicism

• Life-like figures, volume and perspective
• Revival of fresco technique
• Masaccio depth through modeling, linear
  perspective, and atmospheric effects
• The Tribute Money (fig. 13.12) chiaroscuro

8
Sandro Botticelli

• Primavera (fig. 13.17) Neoplatonic ideas
• Birth of Venus (fig. 13.18) her birth
  equivalent to the birth of the human soul, as yet
  uncorrupted
• Later threw his Classically-themed paintings on
  Savanorolas Bonfire of the Vanities and
  returned to Christian subjects

9
Italian Renaissance Music

• The Mass
• Sacred motets in Latin
• Secular song inserted in masses
• Guillaume Dufay fuses polyphony with new form,
  word painting
• Polyphonic secular songs
• Frottola
• Madrigal

10
Donatello

• Brought back the free-standing nude with David
  (fig. 13.10)
• Used contrapposto
• Biblical description of David is that he is
  adolescent
• Tuscan hat
• Pagan (Classical) rather than Christian
• Political overtones because David was the symbol
  of Florence

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Michelangelo in Florence

• By age 22 already rival to Donatello
• In Rome Pietá (fig. 13.26)
• Florences David (fig. 13.27) Classical values
  with a biblical theme
• Captured his spirit/hero in stone

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The Decline of Florence

• Savonarola
• Appealed to poor and working people
• Condemned Churchs corruption and excesses of
  wealth
• Bonfire of the Vanities
• Defeated and burned at the stake
• Message affected artists

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Machiavellis The Prince

• Florentine diplomat described realities of
  political philosophy and power
• The Prince a masterpiece of political
  philosophy
• Describes the ideal prince or ruler only strong,
  ruthless leaders keep country safe from foreign
  domination
• Machiavellian ideal the end justifies the means

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The Genius of Leonardo

• Architect, engineer, mathematician, and musician
  as well as artist true Renaissance Man
• Finished very few projects
• Conceived airplane, helicopter, parachute,
  machine gun, and other inventions hundreds of
  years before they were ever built
• Developed artistic techniques of chiaroscuro and
  sfumato

15
Leonardo as Scientist

• Notebooks mirror writing
• Birds in flight, movement of water, anatomy
• Inventions requiring propulsion lacked means for
  motion
• Unpublished

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Leonardo as Painter

• The Last Supper (fig. 13.20)
• Madonna of the Rocks (fig. 13.19)
• Mona Lisa (fig. 13.21)
• Classical triangle composition
• Felt that painting was the highest art

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Renaissance Menand Woman

• Leonardo
• Baldassare Castiglione wrote The Courtier, idea
  of universal man (well-rounded individual)
• Isabella dEste educated, cultured, refined
  tastes, and a patroness of the arts
• Ruled her city in husbands absence
• Multi-talented

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Patronage of the Renaissance

• Wealthy church officials and families employed
  artists for beauty and entertainment patronage
  directly translated as power and prestige
• Popes and princes Julius II and Leo X
• Sometimes there were problems between patrons and
  artists

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Josquin des Prez Composer of the High Renaissance

• Leo X meditated in the Sistine Chapel listening
  to the choir of a cappella music
• Musicians were male, girls had to have private
  lessons or attend a convent
• Greatest composer of High Renaissance
• Match between words and music, complex polyphony
  word painting and imitation

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Raphael

• Julius II apartments in the Vatican
• Known for his Madonnas
• School of Athens (fig. 13.25)
• Aristotle and Plato in center
• Portraits of contemporary figures
• Michelangelo front, slightly left of center
• Raphael buried in Pantheon and is the only artist
  to be buried there

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Sistine Chapel Ceiling

• In 1508 Pope Julius II asked M. to paint ceiling
• Used Old Testament as prophecy of Christs coming
• Combines classical and Christian ideas, tension
  between spirit and flesh
• Central panel Creation of Eve, not Creation of
  Adam (fig. 13.28)
• Muscular energy male models
• Confident colors (which was not known until
  ceiling cleaned in 1990s!)

22
The New St. Peters

• Last years devoted to architecture
• Old basilica demolished and modernized
• 150 years to complete
• Three main architects Bramante, Michelangelo,
  Maderno
• Greek Cross floorplan (M.s design seen only from
  the rear) (fig. 13.32)
• Conflict between architects and popes
• Limited funds in Vatican

23
An Age of Giants

• Why such concentration of talent in Italy?
• Cultural center of beauty and learning
• Triumph of the human spirit