This document provides an overview of 15th century Italian art and artists. It discusses key developments in Florence, including the patronage of wealthy families like the Medici, advances in architecture by Brunelleschi, and influential sculptors and painters such as Donatello, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Uccello, and Botticelli. It also covers artistic centers that developed in other northern Italian cities like Urbino under Federico da Montefeltro, where Piero della Francesca worked, and Mantua under the Gonzaga family, where Mantegna frescoed the Camera Picta. The document concludes with mentions of Ghirlandaio's frescoes for the Sassetti Chapel and

1. Professor Paige Prater
T, R, 12PM-1:20PM

2. Big Ideas

Sculptors: human figure…Roman
sculpture
Scientific investigation
Linear perspective
Wealthy merchant class (condottieri)
Artistic competition & individual
achievement
innovation

3. th
15
Century Italy

 Florence, Milan, & Venice
 Wealthy families: political power + artistic patronage
 Medici (merchants/bankers>virtual rulers) in Florence
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l88oJARJ9Fs (first 7
min)
 Renewed interest in ancient literary texts
 Plato & NeoPlatonists
 Spiritual vs physical (ideal vs matter)
 Government:
 Florence: constitutional oligarchy
 civic architecture

4. Church of San Lorenzo

 Old Sacristy:
https://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=LK
v0hRyiGCY&list=PL
AAEFE618A27E29D2
 Square module
throughout
 Pietra serena – gray
Tuscan sandstone

5. Church of San Lorenzo,
Florence - Exterior


6. Palazzo Medici-Riccardi

 Begun 1446

7. Palazzo Medici-Riccardi
– sgraffito in courtyard


8. Florence Cathedral
 1367 – dome envisioned; no technical ―know-how‖
 1407 – sculptor-turned-architect, Filippo Brunelleschi
proposed a technical solution
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ8F_yPwqz
A&list=PLAAEFE618A27E29D2&index=4


9. Florence Cathedral: Bronze
Doors Competition
Lorenzo Ghiberti
Filippo Brunelleschi


10. Lorenzo Ghiberti (1381?-1455),
The Gates of Paradise

 East doors for Florentine
Baptistery; commissioned
1425; installed 1452.
 Restoration Project
completed in 2012:
http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=C6AbLI4QBAU

11. Ghiberti, Gates of Paradise – Jacob
& Esau


12. Sculpture

 Realism
 Space
 Classical past

13. Orsanmichele
  Grain loggia (grain
market) – 14 guilds
commissioned to fill
ground-floor niches with
statuary
 Nanni di Banco The Four
Crowned Martyrs
 Donatello St. George
View of north east corner of the church
from Via Calzaiuoli
(http://www.orsanmichele.net/photos-video/)

14. The Four
Crowned Martyrs
– Nanni di
Banco
c. 1409-1417. 6’
height of
figures.


15. St. George –
Donatello,

1417—1420
Height 6’5‖.

16. Donatello – David
1446-1460(?)
 First life-size, freestanding nude since
antiquity!
 Originally in Medici
Palace in 1469 with
inscribed base:
―The victor is whoever
defends the fatherland.
All-powerful God
crushes the angry
enemy.
Behold, a boy
overcomes the great
tyrant.
Conquer, O citizens!‖


17. Donatello – Equestrian Statue of
Erasmo da Narni (Gattamelata),
1443-1453

 Piazza del Santo, Padua. Bronze, ~12’2‖ high.

18. The Trinity (1426,
fresco)-Masaccio
(―Big Tom‖) 
 Tommaso di
Ser Giovanni
di Mone
Cassai (14011428/1429?)
 Linear
perspective

19. 
The Expulsion of
Adam & Eve from
Paradise (c. 1427) Masaccio
 Brancacci Chapel,
Churc of Santa
Maria del
Carmine, Florence.
 Only scene NOT
from the life of St.
Peter
 http://www.yout
ube.com/watch?v
=hMzFbORRiss

20. The Tribute Money (c. 1427) Masaccio
 Brancacci Chapel, church of Santa Maria del
Carmine, Florence. Fresco.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDPNSPbjzQ8


21. Fra Angelico (―Angelic Brother‖)
(1395/1400-1455)

 Beatified in 1984
 Took vows as a Dominican monk between 1418-1421.
 1438-1445 – worked with assistants to create
meditational paintings for each monk’s cell at monastery
of San Marco

22. Annunciation – Fra
Angelico

 Top of
stairs, north
corridor
 Linear
perspective
 1438-1445 –
7’ 1‖ x 10’ 6‖
 http://ww
w.youtube.c
om/watch?
v=3BV_pG3HPQ

23. Paolo Ucello (―Paul
Bird‖)

 The Battle of San Romano (1438-1440)

24. Fra Filippo Lippi
– Portrait of a
Woman and a 
Man, c. 1435-1445
 Earliest
surviving
double
portrait of
the Italian
Renaissance
 Tempera on
wood panel,
25 ¼‖ x 16
½‖.
Metropolitan
Museum of
Art, New
York.

25. Beyond 1550: Northern
Italy

 Artists trained in Florence moved around; influence
of Donatello, Masaccio, and Brunelleschi spreads…
 Ducal courts at Urbino and Mantua
 Classical ideas and innovation continued to
characterize the artwork.

26. Urbino

 Count Federico da Montefeltro, a condottiere, hires
Luciano Laurana (c. 1420/1425-1479) to finish out the
palace at Urbino
 Montefeltro becomes Duke in 1476
 Fourth wing added; courtyard facades redecorated
 Piers embellished with pilasters
 Trompe l’oeil (―fool the eye‖) effects
 Intarsia (wood inlay)

27. Courtyard, Ducal Palace, Urbino
(1467-1472)


28. Ducal Palace, Urbino, cutaway

http://arts.muohio.edu/faculty/benson/urbino/urbino.htm

29. Studiolo – Montefeltro’s study
(1476)

 Intarsia!
 Probably done by woodworker/architect, Giuliano da Maiano
(1432-1490)

30. Ducal court artist:
Piero Della Francesca
(c.1415-1492)

 Worked in Florence in the 1430s
 Knew current art theory and practice
 Linear and atmospheric perspective
 Spatial illusion
 Modeling of forms

31. Baptism of Christ
(c. 1450)– Piero
della Francesca
 Tempera on
wood panel
 66‖ x 45 ¾‖.
National
Gallery,
London.
 http://www
.youtube.co
m/watch?v=
qv2K1yk0LC
E&list=PLA
AEFE618A27
E29D2&inde
x=15


32. Battista Sforza and Federico da Montefeltro
(c. 1474)– Piero della Francesca

 OIL on wood panel, ea 18 ½‖ x 13‖. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
 Battista died at age 26, after birth of 9th child! Federico grieved.

33. Mantua

 Marquis of Mantua: Ludovico Gonzaga, a condottiere
 Gonzaga rules territory of Italian plain between
Venice and Milan
 Humanist ideas in his court: art & literature

34. Camera Picta – Ducal
Palace, Mantua (1465-1474)

 Andrea Mantegna, artist of the frescos
 Tower chamber in palace
 Radical perspective in domed ceiling: di sotto in sù (―from below
upwards‖)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN0P5RkQAow&list=PLAAEFE618
A27E29D2&index=32

35. Sistine Chapel - Rome

 Pope Sixtus IV – 1480s – called group of young
Florentine and Umbrian artists including
 Pietro Vannucci (―Perugino‖) – worked on Christ
Giving the Keys to Saint Peter
 Sandro Botticelli
 Ghirlandaio
 Michelangelo (ceiling and scene behind altar)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEE3B8Fsuc0

36. 
Sculpture
in Florence
 Verrocchio (―true
eye‖), a.k.a Andrea
di Michele Cioni
(1435-1488)
goldsmith, painter,
and bronze sculptor
 Teacher of Da Vinci
and Perugino!
David, Verrocchio. Medici Palace, c. 1470-1475.
Bronze with gilded details. 49 5/8‖ high.
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

37. Hercules and Antaeus
– Antonio del
Pollaiuolo, c. 1475

 Bronze, 18‖ with
base. Museo
Nazionale del
Bargello, Florence.
 Polaiuolo:
embroidery designer,
goldsmith, painter,
printmaker, and
sculptor; started
working for Medici
family in 1460

38. The Battle of the Nudes Pollaiuolo, c. 1465-1470, etching


39. Ghirlandaio

 Nickname means ―garland maker‖, a.k.a. Domenico
di Tommaso Bigordi (1449-1494)
 Father was a goldsmith known for his floral wreaths
 1483-1486 Life of St. Francis murals
 Commissioned by Francesco Sassetti, manager of
Medici bank, for burial chapel at Santa Trinità in
Florence

40. 
Scenes from
the Life of St.
Francis;
Altarpiece
with Nativity
and
Adoration of
the Shepherds

41. Nativity and Adoration of
the Shepherds (1485).


42. Confirmation of the
Franciscan  by Pope
Rule
Honorius III

43. Birth of Venus (1484-1486)-Botticelli

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdp22elrY7s&li
st=PLAAEFE618A27E29D2&index=18

44. Primavera (1482)Botticelli

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwZn852brII&l
ist=PLAAEFE618A27E29D2&index=19

45. Gentile & Giovanni
Bellini

 Venice
 Oligarchy with elected duke (―doge‖)
 Gentile: large and lively narratives

46. Gentile Bellini – Procession of the Relic of
the True Cross before the Church of St. Mark
– c. 1496, oil on canvas, 12’ x 24’ 5‖


47. 
Giovanni Bellini
– Virgin and
Child Enthroned
with SS. Francis,
John the Baptist,
Job, Dominic,
Sebastian, and
Louis of Toulouse
– oil on wood
panel, c. 1478

48. Giovanni Bellini – St. Francis in Ecstasy –
c. 1470s, oil and tempera on wood panel
