Born in Monte Asdrualdo, Donato Bramante was the most important architect of the Italian High Renaissance. He received his early training from Piero della Francesca. One of his early frescoes was the half length "Christ at the Column" (1480-81, the Brera in Milan). Although his most important contributions are as an architect, Bramante began as a painter and had many pupils, among them Raphael. His architectural works evidence great talent and include the sacristy of San Satiro in Milan and the apse of Santa Maria delle Grazie. On the later, he was the first Architect to use a false front technique to give an illusion of depth. Bramante's work on the facade at the cathedral of Abbiategrasso (1497) had a two-story high niche surrounded by two columns and was one of his masterpieces. He moved to Rome in 1499, and was hired by Pope Julius II to carry out the Pope's elaborate architectural plans. Bramante was influenced by the classic Roman architecture discovered during archaeological excavations occuring at that time. He showed this in his works he moved away from the Lombardian architectural environment . Bramante designed a small rotunda at the Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio, the spot where St. Peter is believed to have been crucified. The rotunda was framed by Doric columns, and this design marked the beginning of the High Renaissance in Italy. His first commission for Pope Julius II allowed him a great deal of freedom of expression in the combination of a small summer house and the Vatican Palace. Bramante took full advantage of the sloping site by screening in the old buildings with arcades, tiered courts, and landings. In 1506, he began the design for the new St. Peter's; the project was not finished to his original design. He was quite interested in perspectives and, according to Vasari, it was he from whom Raphael took inspiration for the architecture in "The School of Athens". This is supported by one of the earliest of Bramante's sketches shows a complex architectural setting similar to that of the Raphael work. Two copies of this sketch are still in existence, one in London and one in Milan. Bramante's influence is seen in the Santa Maria della Consolazione, built beneath the Umbrian city of Todi and considered to be the perfect example of high Italian Renaissance architecture (early 17th century).
$#GHIBERTI,LORENZO
##Lorenzo Ghiberti 1378-1455
Lorenzo Ghiberti was born in Florence. He left Florence in 1400 but returned in 1401 to win a design competition the second pair of bronze doors for the Bapistry in Florence. It is from these doors, and another set of doors for the same project, that Ghiberti achieved fame. Ghiberti won the contest from six other participants, including the sculptor Brunelleschi (who, because of losing, worked in architecture from that point on). The doors themselves, portray scenes from the New Testament, consist of twenty-eight panels and took twenty one years to complete. After finishing the first pair of doors, Ghiberti was awarded a commission for a second pair. The second set of doors used the Old Testament for its subjects and had only ten panels compared to the twenty eight of the first set. In the meantime, Ghiberti's style had changed. In the second pair, the Renaissance influence is apparent, both in the relief and in the perspective. Although Ghiberti was not supposed accept other commisions while producing the doors, he did, in fact, do other projects. These included two large statues, one of St. John the Baptist (1414) and one of St. Matthew (1419-22). As a sculptor, Ghiberti linked the Trecento Gothic and Renaissance styles, and he was also a goldsmith, writer and architect. He was the first artist to write his own autobiography, which he published within a work called "Commentarii". Michelangelo called Ghiberti's second set of doors the "Doors to Paradise", a name by which they are still known.
$#ANGELICO, FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE
##Angelica, Fra Giovanni da Fiesole 1400-1456 ca
Fra Angelico, often called Il Beato (The Blessed) by the Italians, was for about thirty years a monk in the monastery of San Marco, Florence. His name owes its high rank (among the painters of his time) to the religious sentiment of his work. Today, however, his innovative style, influenced by Masaccio, and his welcoming of the new ideas of the Renaissance are recognized as most important and influential on the course of Italian painting.
Characteristics.--His most frequent subjects represent the lowliness of soul of God's servants and the devout beauty of angels. His figures are peculiarly quiet; many have passive, folded hands. The motion of his angels, dancing in Paradise, is a most gentle motion, which in no way disturbs the draperies. His execution is elaborate, sometimes almost miniature-like in delicacy. His coloring is most pure and simple and has been little affected by time. His latest works in Orvieto and Rome show the influence of the dawning Renaissance in a better drawing of the figure.
$#ANTONELLO DA MESSINA
##Antonello da Messina 1430-1479 ca.
Antonello was born in Messina. His family were painters for generations under the name of the Antonio. His grandfather and uncle are mentioned in the "Momorie de' Pittori Messinesi", and his father, Salvadore d'Antonio, was an architect and painter. The latter was his first instructor, and sent him as a young man to Rome to complete his studies. From Rome he went to Palermo, and then he went to Messina, and painted (as is believed) at this time the "Virgin and Child", in tempera, on panel, now in the Museo Peloritano of that city. He next went to Naples, probably about 1438, and became the pupil of Colantonio del Fiore. Here he was exposed to the work of Van Eyck, Patrus, Christus and other Netherlandish artists, which influenced his own work. In Venice he was employed, and painted many portraits. His work shows him to have acquired Flemish finish and execution. From this time his Italian tendencies seemed to strengthen as his later works show. In 1465 Antonello returned to Messina, where he received pupils, the best of whom was his son or nephew, Salvo d'Antonio. About this time he executed his most important works. In 1473 he went again to Venice and received important commissions. He was at one time in Milan, but when is not precisely known. He was also in Treviso in 1490, but returned to Venice where his genius had its most profound and lasting influence on the next generation of great Italian painters, including Mantegna and Carpaccio.
$#BARTOLOMMEO, FRA (BACCIO DELLA PORTA)
##Fra Bartolommeo 1472-1517
Fra Bartolommeo (Bacio della Porta), born near Florence, was a monk in the monastery of San Marco, the same to which Fra Angelico belonged. He had already won considerable fame as a painter under his real name, "Baccio", when the shock produced by the martyrdom of his friend Savonarola caused him to renounce painting and enter the monastery, which he did under the name of Fra Bartolommeo. After six years of utter seclusion, at the urgent entreaty of friends, he resumed his brush. About this time Raphael visited Florence, became strongly attached to Bartolommeo, learned from him his method of coloring, and, in return, gave him instruction in drawing. Both artists seem to have profited by their friendship. Bartolommeo's rank among Italian painters is high, and he is considered a key figure of the Renaissance in Florence in the early 16th century.
Characteristics.--His composition is simple, almost architectural in its masses; his favorite form is the pyramid, within whose outline he has grouped few figures. Types of figures and faces tend to be abstract and contain little individuality. His figures are clothed with heavy masses of drapery, which is quite elaborate. He is said to have been the first artist to use the lay-figure. In many pictures of the Madonna little boy angels are introduced, sitting at her feet and playing musical instruments, or otherwise occupied in ministry. Raphael borrowed this fancy. His color is finer than usual with Florentine painters, but injured by the use of black pigment in shadows. His management of chiaroscuro shows the influence of Leonardo da Vinci.
$#BOTTICELLI, ALESSANDRO (SANDRO)
##Alessandro Botticelli 1444-1510 ca.
Alessandro Botticelli called Botticelli from the name of a goldsmith to whose service he was bound when a boy, was a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi, and is one of the most important among the fifteenth-century painters. Botticelli was closely associated with the Medici and his fortune paralleled theirs. The death of Lorenzo ended the world in which Botticelli had found honors and fame. Before him the old masters had drawn the inspiration for their works from the Bible; the great mass of pictures had been painted in the service of the church. Botticelli's nature was imaginative: he delighted in myths, fables, and poetry, and freely introduced into his painting all kinds of fanciful creations. Others were beginning to widen the field of art a little, but Botticelli was the first to step boldly forth and make his painting a means for the delight of the secular as well as the religious world. He was a leader in the great movement in the history of art in Florence that led to the protest by Savonarola against the "corrupting influence" as he called it and "of profane pictures". He became an ardent disciple of this great prophet. When Savonarola demanded that bonfires should be made of these "profane" works of art, Botticelli contributed many of his pictures to the burning pile.
Characteristics.--While Masaccio had taken a long step in advance of former artists by making humanity rather than events the chief center of interest in his works, Botticelli pictured not merely humanity, but also human feelings. We see this particularly in his sad-faced Madonnas, whose expressions seem born of a prophetic sorrow, sometimes further denoted by the introduction of the crown of thorns into the picture; it is also seen in the eager, sympathetic countenances of those who surround her. He created a type of face and figure that is most easily recognizable. His figures are unusually tall and graceful, often shown through almost transparent garments; the limbs are slender, the hands long and nervous. His faces are long and thin, with prominent, round chins and very full lips. His style of painting shows early training in the goldsmith's shop; he loved to elaborate with gold-painted embroideries and jewelry, and even gilded the lights upon the heavy locks of hair. His representation of figures in motion is far beyond anything that preceded him and has never been excelled.
$#BRUNELLESCHI, FILIPPO
##Filippo Brunelleschi 1377-1446
Filippo Brunelleschi, born in Florence, was a great architect who is known as the father of the Renaissance. His father, Filippo Lapi, intended him to be a lawyer or physician, but his love for mechanical pursuits was so great that he was placed with a goldsmith. He gradually came to be an architect and was the first Florentine who applied geometrical rules of the ancient Greeks to that branch of art. Masaccio and Benedetto da Majano profited by his example in the application of the rules of perspective to their pictures and mosaics. It is said that Brunelleschi spent much time in Rome studying the remains of ancient architecture and making drawings from them. In 1420 the Signoria of Florence called together the architects of all countries, to consider the completion of the dome of the Cathedral. Brunelleschi presented himself, armed with well-digested plans, and, although sneered at and opposed, the work was at length committed to him. He completed it, and, in spite of great trials and hindrances of every possible kind, he produced one of the greatest and boldest masterpieces of the world in any age. The church of San Lorenzo (1425) is a specimen of his designs; the Capella Pazzi, in the courts of Santa Croce, is a proof of his ability to design the graceful and elegant. The Badia of Fiesole, and the Hospital of the Innocenti are also fine examples of his work. In secular architecture he excelled, as may be seen in the Palazzo Pitti.. Brunelleschi was also a sculptor and a worker in bronze.
$#PIERO DI COSIMO
##Piero di Cosimo 1462-1521
Piero di Cosimo was a pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, and accepted his Master's name. Although little is known about his life, about 50 paintings are attributed to him, including the altarpieces and devotional paintings. The influence of Filippino Lippi is clear in his early work, and as later works show the signs of Leonardo in the use of color, as well as Raphael's use of space and composition. Though his work reflects diverse influence, Piero was an artist of brilliant imagination and originality, and in his work he reworked impressions and made them his own. His unique character is especially clean and unravelled in his secular works. He was a painter of great originality and was the first real landscapist among the Florentines, and placed some of his mythical scenes in the midst of truly delightful landscapes. He painted the background in Cosimo Roselli's fresco, "Sermon on the Mount", in the Sistine Chapel, Rome. He was also a portrait painter of considerable note.
$#LEONARDO DA VINCI
##Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519
Leonardo da Vinci was born in Vinci, in the Val d'Arno, below Florence, and is considered to be one of the greatest masters in the history of painting. He was a pupil of Andrea del Verrocchio. Leonardo has been well called a "universal genius." He was painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. He had a thorough knowledge of anatomy, mathematics, astronomy, and botany, and also was a poet and musician. It was his greatest delight to study the growth of plant life, the hidden laws that govern the mineral world, the movement of planets in the heavens, -- and this love for the deep things of nature he carried into his study of art. It is said that he always wore a sketchbook attached to his girdle, and would wander through the streets of Florence looking for some especially picturesque figure or some face possessing unusual subtlety of expression. He would excite the mirth of peasants so that he could study the line of their laughing faces. It is also said that he even followed criminals to their painful death so that he might gain some new experience that would aid his art. In this way he laid the foundation for the most eminent characteristics of his work. Yet, from the study of Leonardo's life, we must judge that he enjoyed more this study in and for itself than for its results, for he was never satisfied with his experiences when included them into one of his pictures. He was a most devoted and happy student and a most dissatisfied painter. Over and over again would he paint and then destroy his work. It is to this characteristic that the small number of his existing pictures is due. When Leonardo was about thirty, he went to Milan, where he worked, both in sculpture and painting, in the service of the reigning duke. He became master of the Milanese or Lombard school of painting. After many years of work he returned to Florence, and there, at one time, entered into a competition with Michelangelo in the decoration of the two end walls of the great Hall of the Council Palazzo Vechio. Leonardo chose for his subject "The Defeat of the Milanese by the Florentines at Anghiari"; Michelangelo chose "Pisan Soldiers Called Suddenly to Arms While Bathing in the Arno." The cartoons produced by the two masters mark an important epoch in Italian art. In them we find for the first time the human figure treated with all the truth and splendid fulness of expression of the High Renaissance. Neither picture was completed. A part of Leonardo's cartoon, called "The Battle of the Standard", is now known by an engraving after a copy by Rubens.
Characteristics.--In the latter half of the fifteenth century all the great principles which underlie the art of representation had been mastered. Each great preceding painter had made some important contribution to the general knowledge, until the artist found himself fully equipped for his work. Leonardo's greatest gift to painting was a perfected chiaroscuro. His treatment of this was a revelation to his contemporaries and followers, with his melting and mysterious shadows, and the bewitching way he illuminates his work with light. He used to say to his pupils, "Be as careful for the light in your picture as you would be of a rare jewel". His work shows how well he followed his own precept. His composition, seen at its best in the "Last Supper" was unsurpassed. His drawing is done extremely carefully, and his lines express wonderfully the subtlety of form. His color is clear and silvery, but has suffered very much from his habit of experimenting with technique. He used oils and painted and repainted, touched and retouched infinitely. His backgrounds show a mannerism that seems to have followed him from the studio of his master, Verrocchio: rocks and dark trees and running water, with diffused twilight mark nearly every one of his works. His ideal woman's face has dark eyes and hair, a long, slender nose, and a somewhat pointed chin, and is marked by a peculiar, languid, subtle smile, as is shown in his masterpiece, the "Mona Lisa".
$#DOMENICO VENEZIANO
##Domenico Veneziano 1405-1461 ca.
Domenico Veneziano was possibly born in Venice, but little is known of his early years. During four centuries Castagno, on Vasari's authority, bore the terrible accusation of having been the murderer of Veneziano through envy of the praises bestowed on the latter because of the beautiful results of his painting in the oil medium, which at this time, was being gradually introduced into Italy. It has, however, been conclusively proved that Veneziano did not die until several years after his alleged murderer. With regard to the use of oils, it is unlikely that Domenico was solely responsible for their introduction. His major contribution is in his lyrical use of color, a style which would influence and be formative for his greatest follower, Piero della Francesca. Though one of the outstanding personalities of his time, Domenico was not in the mainstream of painters in Florence, dominated at the time by Filippo Lippi and Andrea del Castagno. Very few pictures by Veneziano are now in existence. Of his few surviving works, the "Tabernacle of the Carnesecchi" in the London National Gallery, two versions of the "Virgin and Child," and the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and Child" painted for the church of S. Lucia de Magnoli (now in the Uffizi), are the most important.
$#PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA
##Piero della Francesca 1416-1492 ca.
Piero della Francesca was born in Borgo San Sepolcro at the beginning of the Quattrocento, and was one of the greatest Italian painters of that century. He is distinguished for having advanced the study of perspective. He began his career assisting Domenico Veneziano with the frescoes in the Church of S. Egidio in Florence (now almost completely lost, and his early work shows strongly an affinity with Masaccio. His masterpiece is the fresco in the Choir of the church of S. Francesco in Arezzo depicting the "Legend of the True Cross," in which he blended the human presence into precise perspective backgrounds, an accomplishment of supreme importance for painting in Italy. He is famous as a writer on higher mathematics and the laws of perspective as well as painter. He was one of the artists invited to Rome by Pope Nicholas V., whose works in the Vatican were destroyed in order to make room for the frescoes of Raphael.
In addition to the frescoes in S. Francesco, one of the monuments of the Italian Renaissance, Piero's major works include the altarpiece "Our Lady of Mercy with Saints" with the "Annunciation" and the Crucifixion" (Borgo, Pin.), "Flagellation of Christ (Urbino, G.N.), the great "Diptych of the Duke of Urbino" (Uffizi). Piero della Francesca's new vision of volume in space, perspective and light would influence many contemporary artists as well as those to follow, including Perugino, Raphael, Antonello da Messina and Giovanni Bellini.
$#GHIBERTI, LORENZO
##Lorenzo di Bartolo Ghiberti 1378-1455
Lorenzo di Bartolo Ghiberti was born in Florence. A goldsmith and sculptor, he also painted some pictures at Rimini, where he fled from the plague in 1398. He is best known by his bronze gates to the Baptistery of Florence, which Michelangelo thought "worthy to be the gate of Paradise," which is known by that name and have never been surpassed in some respects. There was much controversy as to who should obtain the honor of making these gates, and after Ghiberti received it, he spent twenty years on the first, and as much more time on the last. It is easy to see in them the marks of the goldsmith's minute and finished manner, but Ghiberti introduced a new feature in bas-relief when he attempted to represent distance in background. In beautiful ornamentation, and perfect form and finish of all minor parts, he has never been surpassed. Ghiberti also made three statues for the Church of Orsanmichele; two bas-reliefs for the Cathedral of Siena, and the Sarcophagus of Saint Zenobius, in Santa Maria del Fiore, of Florence. He was a leading figure in Florence for fifty years, establishing a formative workshop.
$#GHIRLANDAIO, DOMENICO BIGORDI IL
##Domenico Bigordi Ghirlandaio 1449-1494
Domenico Ghirlandaio. (Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi) was born in Florence. It is said that his father was a goldsmith, who made such exquisite garlands for the hair that he was called Ghirlandaio (the garland-twiner), which name descended to his children. There are certain characteristics of Domenico's pictures which might result from a knowledge of the goldsmith's art, such as precision in drawing, the modelling of figures, and the arrangement of drapery. Ghirlandaio was said to be a pupil of Alessio Baldovinetti, and became a mosaicist and the most celebrated fresco painter of his generation. They plainly show the advance from his earlier to his best manner: he introduced in his pictures the portraits of celebrated and important personages of his time, and was original in many ways. His life is a landmark in the history of Florentine art. His special greatness is in composition. He preferred large spaces, and worked in the old system of tempera. His portrait figures were not the actors in the scene represented, but he placed them, generally, in detached groups. This gave a solemn effect, and are comparable in their relation to the picture, to the chorus in a Greek tragedy. In the technicalities of these fresco-painting he excelled, and his works were highly finished. Ghirlandaio was the master of Michelangelo. Very little is of the mosaics which he executed, although he called mosaic work "painting for eternity." Major works include "St. Jerome" and the "Last Supper" in the Church of Ognissanti, Florence, the frescoes in the Sala dei Gigli in the Palazzo Vecchio, and the "Adoration of the Magi" now in the Uffizi.
$#GIOTTO DI BONDONE
##Giotto di Bondone 1276-1336
Giotto di Bondone was born in Vespignano. According to the legend, when tending his flock, Giotto was accustomed to draw on the large, flat stones, and while thus employed, Cimabue came upon him, was filled with admiration of his work, and obtained the consent of his father to his taking him to be his pupil. Though this is probably merely a story, it is entirely possible that Giotto did study with Cimabue in Florence. Giotto became a painter, sculptor, and architect. Giotto drew his inspiration from nature, and he is generally regarded as the father of modern painting. His principal works were his fresco paintings, the masterpiece of which is the series of paintings in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Giotto's ideas of space and perspective in architectural backgrounds, his placement of figures and use of gesture, all served to lead art in Italy from the Byzantine world into the western Gothic period. At the time of his death, Giotto had been architect and master of Santa Maria del Fiore two years. He was buried there, and afterwards a monument was erected to him upon which his portrait was carved by Benedetto da Maiano.
$#LIPPI, FILLIPPINO
##Filippino Lippi 1457-1504 ca.
Filippino Lippi, son of Fra Filippo Lippi and pupil of Botticelli, had the honor of having completed the series of frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, Florence, begun by Masolino and carried on by Masaccio. He ranks with Botticelli and Ghirlandaio in importance.
Characteristics.--His works are noted for high sentiment, grace, and beauty, rather than for strength of conception or rendering. His early work in the Brancacci chapel resembles Masaccio's, while it is sometimes difficult to distinguish some of his later painting from that of Botticelli. His work lacked the nervous energy seen in much of Botticelli's work. His faces are particularly sweet in expression. He liked to embellish his figures, in easel pictures especially, with varied draperies, headdresses, etc. Major works include the "Adoration of the Magi," and "Scenes from the Life of Esther" (London), the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints and a Donor," and the fresco cycle, "Scenes from the Lives of St. Philip and St. John the Evangelist" (Church of S. Maria Novella, Florence).
$#LIPPI, FRA' FILIPPO
##Fra Filippo Lippi 1406-1469
Lippi Fra Filippo, the painter to whose name so much of romance and scandal clings, was influenced by both Fra Angelico and Masaccio, and blended the ideal of one with the real of the other. A lay brother at the Carmelite Abbey in Florence, he ran away with a nun (whose marriage the Pope legalized subsequently), and had one son, Filippino, who also became a painter. He established his reputation with three works: the "Barbadori Altarpiece" (Louvre); the "Coronation of the Virgin" (Uffizi); and the "Annunciation" (S. Lorenzo which best illustrate his early Florentine style. One of the most original and personal of his works is the lyrical "Madonna and Child" (Uffizi).
Characteristics: His works are marked by a stately composition and fine, golden color. The faces he painted are short and broad, with very wide jaws, and are marked by a grave but decidedly youthful expression. His Madonnas usually wear a delicate, filmy headdress, which was an adornment of the Florentine ladies of his time. His angels are lusty, merry-faced boys.
$#MANTEGNA, ANDREA
##Andrea Mantegna 1431-1506
Andrea Mantegna was adopted by Squarcione and registered as his foster-child in 1441. At the age of seventeen, he painted a much-admired Madonna for the Church of Santa Sophia. It is evident from the early efforts of Mantegna that he studied the works of other masters from Squarcione, his instructor. The earliest picture of his which is so preserved as to show his manner, is an altar-piece in the Brera, representing Saint Luke and other saints. This was executed in 1454, and is excellent in modeling, light and shade; it has a northern realism, but is far superior to most Squarcionesques, and equal in color to any tempera painting of Venice of the same time. After 1448 he worked on the chapel of Saints Jacopo and Christoforo in the Church of Eremitani at Padua. The whole left side, with the "Life of Saint Jacobo, " and the "Martyrdom of Saint Cristoforo", is his work. For his age and the state of Paduan art they are wonderful, although the some critics of Squarcione said that his figures were statuesque and lifeless. Mantegna had become disaffected towards his foster-father, had married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, and fully sympathized with the faction opposed to Squarcione. He had no doubt been much affected by the influence of Donatello at Padua; he had studied the antique as much as possible and imitated it in his architecture and figures. But the "Martyrdom of Saint Cristoforo" shows that he had discovered his mistake, and strangely displays his attempt to remedy his greatest fault. These works made him famous, and the Marquis of Mantua used every inducement to persuade him to leave Padua. But he was occupied with some pictures for San Zeno at Verona. The Marquis persistently followed Mantegna, and at length about 1460 he entered his service, in which he continued until his death. The Marquis required all kinds of work of him, from the most sacred subjects to turkeys. In the old castle two rooms remain decorated by Mantegna. An inscription in one gives the date of 1474. The subjects are full of grace and life. The achievements of Hercules, busts of Roman emperors, and a strutting peacock, with beautiful heads of women and children regarding it, are a part of them; and in the center he represented a great aperture through which, apparently, the blue sky is seen. Sometime in 1483, after a change in government and the death of his patron earlier, he found new a patron in the Duchess of Este. At length in 1488 he was sent to Rome to paint a chapel in the Vatican for Innocent VIII, whose request the Marquis could not refuse. Here he labored unceasingly for two years. He then resumed the "Triumphs of Caesar", in which he had been interrupted, and in 1491 the Marquis made him new presents of land as a reward for these excellent works. From this time his works all show the presence of his assistants. It was not, however, until 1495 that he produced his famous "Madonna della Vittoria",. He painted until his death, but he suffered much sorrow and loss in his later years. Mantegna was doubtless the greatest painter of Northern Italy in his day, and his influence was felt in all Italy. His works are full of meaning; his inventive powers were large; his foreshortening, perspective, chiaroscuro, and color were excellent. He also painted what may be called reliefs, or pictures in chiaroscuro, and was besides a good engraver. He was early in the practice of this art, and his knowledge of design greatly assisted him to excel.
$#MASACCIO, TOMMASO DI GIOVANNI
##Tommaso di Giovanni Masaccio 1401-1428
Tommaso di Giovanni Masaccio, one of the greatest masters of the Quattrocento, was born in San Giovanni, in the Val d' Arno. Masaccio came to Florence where the two great influences on his work were the sculptors, Brunelleschi and Donatello, from whom he would bring to his work a new consciousness of the human figure and sense of perspective. He was enrolled in the city guild of painters in 1424; and he died by in Rome in 1428. During his short life Masaccio made an almost phenomenal advance in painting.
Characteristics.-- The conventionalities that had hitherto clung to all pictured works were wholly dropped by Masaccio. His drawing of the human figure (tested by several nude figures in his pictures) is masterly. He puts animation and variety of expression into both figures and faces. In his work real life for the first time becomes the serious subject. While Giotto sought for the best means of telling the story selected as his subject, Masaccio sought, seemingly, a fitting incident which, as a theme, would enable him to portray most forcibly the characters he chose to represent. This study of individual character appears in the work of no earlier master, and was of great importance in the evolution of Italian painting. It marks the beginning of the tendency towards the predominance of the artistic treatment of a picture over its subject, and its inevitable end was to throw out the purely devotional aim which had before characterized painting. Masaccio made a great advance in both linear and aerial perspective; his figures were placed firmly on different planes in the same composition. His works include collaborations with Masolino on the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and St. Anne" (Uffizi), and on the cycle of frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel, S. Maria del Carmine in Florence.
$#PERUGINO, PIETRO DI CRISTOFORO VANUCCI
##Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci Perugino 1446-1524
Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci, born in the little town of Citta della Pieva, was called "Perugino" because at maturity he settled in Perugia, established an academy, and there won his fame. Much of the excellence of his work is due to the study of Florentine masters. He was one of the first artists in central Italy to handle the new oil medium successfully. For several years the young Raphael worked in his studio, and the younger artist's influence can be seen in a more delicate, brilliant line than previously seen in Perugino's work. Perugino was the foremost painter in Umbria at the end of the Quattrocento, and in his work is successfully blended the great Florentine discoveries with the gentle spirit of his local tradition. His most important surviving work is the fresco in the Sistine Chapel, "Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter."
$#POLLAIUOLO, ANTONIO DI JACOPO DEL
##Antonio di Jacopo del Pollaiuolo 1433-1498
Antonio di Jacopo del Pollaiuolo was born in Florence. He was a sculptor, goldsmith, a worker in bronze and silver ornaments and also a painter. His pictures were affected by his other occupations, showing precise, incisive line. He excelled in the knowledge of perspective and anatomy, and it is said that Antonio was the first artist who dissected the human body in order to know how to represent it. His work summarized the trends and discoveries in Florentine art of his time. His major works represented contests of strength and muscular action, such as the sculpture of "Hercules and Antaeus," and the painted "Martyrdom of St. Sebastian" (London, N.G.). Antonio was celebrated as the best goldsmith of his time, and one of the major painters, and received many important commissions from church and state, including the great patron of art, Lorenzo de' Medici. He made bronze monuments for the Popes Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII. The first is now in the Chapel of the Sacrament in Saint Peter's.
$#ROBBIA, LUCA DI MARCO DELLA
##Luca di Simone di Marco Della Robbia 1400-1482
Luca Della Robbia was born in Florence in 1400. He entered the sculptor's guild in 1432, and founded a family workshop which would last into the sixteenth century. He was influenced by the work of Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello, though Luca would later specialize in glazed terra cotta rather than marble and bronze, giving his name to the famed "Robbia ware." The only memorials of that time are the bas-reliefs in the side of the Campanile towards the Duomo, and two unfinished reliefs in the Uffizi. The first represent "Music, Philosophy, Geometry, Grammar, and Astronomy"; "Plato and Aristotle"; "Ptolemy and Euclid"; and a "Man Playing the Lute". The unfinished ones are the "Imprisonment" and "Crucifixion of Saint Peter". There are also the reliefs made for the balustrade of an organ in the Duomo. These were undertaken in 1445 and established him a with a high rank among Italian sculptors. They represented youths dancing, singing, and playing on musical instruments. He executed one of the finest of the many cinque-cento tombs for the Bishop Benozzo Federighi of Fiesole. A portion of the decorations of this tomb were enamelled tiles painted with fruits and flowers in their natural colors. In this enamel painting Luca excelled, and he made it so prominent that it has been known as Robbia ware. Luca made some changes by coloring his enamel for certain portions of the backgrounds, such as the plants, draperies, etc. Andrea, the nephew of Luca, worked with him and shared his property with another nephew, Simone, who was a shoemaker. After his death his secret of enamelling was carefully guarded by his family and created a fortune for them. They made a system of polychromatic architecture. Andrea and his son, Luca II, were employed eleven years in decorating the Ceppo Hospital, at Pistoia, with a frieze which represents the "Seven Acts of Mercy". The effect of this enamel painting is brilliant. Pope Leo X employed Luca II to pave the Loggie of the Vatican with colored tiles. Giovanni and Girolamo, brothers of Luca II, also worked in Robbia ware, and the latter went to France and was employed by Francis I in decorating his Chateau de Madrid, in the Bois de Boulogne.
$#UCCELLO, PAOLO DI DONO
##Paolo di Dono Uccello 1397-1475
Paolo was called Uccello on account of his love for birds and was at one time chiefly famous for his mastery of the science of linear perspective. His devotion to this study was so great that Vasari says he would often neither eat nor sleep, and when remonstrated with by his wife would only reply, "Oh! this delightful perspective!" The knowledge gained and put into practice by him was a great help to contemporary artists. Modern criticism however, emphasizes his gift for fresco, mosaic and other decorative work, and it is believed today that his preoccupation with perspective is apocryphal. Major works include the series of frescoes of the "Creation" in Florence S. Maria Novella, the "Flood" and the "Battle of San Romano", (Louvre, Uffizi and London, N.G.), His works were marked by such stiffness and exact drawing of detail, and by figures so designed that they exhibited to the fullest extent his knowledge of mathematical foreshortening.
$#ANGELICO, FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE
##Angelica, Fra Giovanni da Fiesole 1400-1456 ca
Fra Angelico, often called Il Beato (The Blessed) by the Italians, was for about thirty years a monk in the monastery of San Marco, Florence. His name owes its high rank (among the painters of his time) to the religious sentiment of his work. Today, however, his innovative style, influenced by Masaccio, and his welcoming of the new ideas of the Renaissance are recognized as most important and influential on the course of Italian painting.
Characteristics.--His most frequent subjects represent the lowliness of soul of God's servants and the devout beauty of angels. His figures are peculiarly quiet; many have passive, folded hands. The motion of his angels, dancing in Paradise, is a most gentle motion, which in no way disturbs the draperies. His execution is elaborate, sometimes almost miniature-like in delicacy. His coloring is most pure and simple and has been little affected by time. His latest works in Orvieto and Rome show the influence of the dawning Renaissance in a better drawing of the figure.
$#ANTONELLO DA MESSINA
##Antonello da Messina 1430-1479 ca.
Antonello was born in Messina. His family were painters for generations under the name of the Antonio. His grandfather and uncle are mentioned in the "Momorie de' Pittori Messinesi", and his father, Salvadore d'Antonio, was an architect and painter. The latter was his first instructor, and sent him as a young man to Rome to complete his studies. From Rome he went to Palermo, and then he went to Messina, and painted (as is believed) at this time the "Virgin and Child", in tempera, on panel, now in the Museo Peloritano of that city. He next went to Naples, probably about 1438, and became the pupil of Colantonio del Fiore. Here he was exposed to the work of Van Eyck, Patrus, Christus and other Netherlandish artists, which influenced his own work. In Venice he was employed, and painted many portraits. His work shows him to have acquired Flemish finish and execution. From this time his Italian tendencies seemed to strengthen as his later works show. In 1465 Antonello returned to Messina, where he received pupils, the best of whom was his son or nephew, Salvo d'Antonio. About this time he executed his most important works. In 1473 he went again to Venice and received important commissions. He was at one time in Milan, but when is not precisely known. He was also in Treviso in 1490, but returned to Venice where his genius had its most profound and lasting influence on the next generation of great Italian painters, including Mantegna and Carpaccio.
$#BARTOLOMMEO, FRA (BACCIO DELLA PORTA)
##Fra Bartolommeo 1472-1517
Fra Bartolommeo (Bacio della Porta), born near Florence, was a monk in the monastery of San Marco, the same to which Fra Angelico belonged. He had already won considerable fame as a painter under his real name, "Baccio", when the shock produced by the martyrdom of his friend Savonarola caused him to renounce painting and enter the monastery, which he did under the name of Fra Bartolommeo. After six years of utter seclusion, at the urgent entreaty of friends, he resumed his brush. About this time Raphael visited Florence, became strongly attached to Bartolommeo, learned from him his method of coloring, and, in return, gave him instruction in drawing. Both artists seem to have profited by their friendship. Bartolommeo's rank among Italian painters is high, and he is considered a key figure of the Renaissance in Florence in the early 16th century.
Characteristics.--His composition is simple, almost architectural in its masses; his favorite form is the pyramid, within whose outline he has grouped few figures. Types of figures and faces tend to be abstract and contain little individuality. His figures are clothed with heavy masses of drapery, which is quite elaborate. He is said to have been the first artist to use the lay-figure. In many pictures of the Madonna little boy angels are introduced, sitting at her feet and playing musical instruments, or otherwise occupied in ministry. Raphael borrowed this fancy. His color is finer than usual with Florentine painters, but injured by the use of black pigment in shadows. His management of chiaroscuro shows the influence of Leonardo da Vinci.
$#BOTTICELLI, ALESSANDRO (SANDRO)
##Alessandro Botticelli 1444-1510 ca.
Alessandro Botticelli called Botticelli from the name of a goldsmith to whose service he was bound when a boy, was a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi, and is one of the most important among the fifteenth-century painters. Botticelli was closely associated with the Medici and his fortune paralleled theirs. The death of Lorenzo ended the world in which Botticelli had found honors and fame. Before him the old masters had drawn the inspiration for their works from the Bible; the great mass of pictures had been painted in the service of the church. Botticelli's nature was imaginative: he delighted in myths, fables, and poetry, and freely introduced into his painting all kinds of fanciful creations. Others were beginning to widen the field of art a little, but Botticelli was the first to step boldly forth and make his painting a means for the delight of the secular as well as the religious world. He was a leader in the great movement in the history of art in Florence that led to the protest by Savonarola against the "corrupting influence" as he called it and "of profane pictures". He became an ardent disciple of this great prophet. When Savonarola demanded that bonfires should be made of these "profane" works of art, Botticelli contributed many of his pictures to the burning pile.
Characteristics.--While Masaccio had taken a long step in advance of former artists by making humanity rather than events the chief center of interest in his works, Botticelli pictured not merely humanity, but also human feelings. We see this particularly in his sad-faced Madonnas, whose expressions seem born of a prophetic sorrow, sometimes further denoted by the introduction of the crown of thorns into the picture; it is also seen in the eager, sympathetic countenances of those who surround her. He created a type of face and figure that is most easily recognizable. His figures are unusually tall and graceful, often shown through almost transparent garments; the limbs are slender, the hands long and nervous. His faces are long and thin, with prominent, round chins and very full lips. His style of painting shows early training in the goldsmith's shop; he loved to elaborate with gold-painted embroideries and jewelry, and even gilded the lights upon the heavy locks of hair. His representation of figures in motion is far beyond anything that preceded him and has never been excelled.
$#BRUNELLESCHI, FILIPPO
##Filippo Brunelleschi 1377-1446
Filippo Brunelleschi, born in Florence, was a great architect who is known as the father of the Renaissance. His father, Filippo Lapi, intended him to be a lawyer or physician, but his love for mechanical pursuits was so great that he was placed with a goldsmith. He gradually came to be an architect and was the first Florentine who applied geometrical rules of the ancient Greeks to that branch of art. Masaccio and Benedetto da Majano profited by his example in the application of the rules of perspective to their pictures and mosaics. It is said that Brunelleschi spent much time in Rome studying the remains of ancient architecture and making drawings from them. In 1420 the Signoria of Florence called together the architects of all countries, to consider the completion of the dome of the Cathedral. Brunelleschi presented himself, armed with well-digested plans, and, although sneered at and opposed, the work was at length committed to him. He completed it, and, in spite of great trials and hindrances of every possible kind, he produced one of the greatest and boldest masterpieces of the world in any age. The church of San Lorenzo (1425) is a specimen of his designs; the Capella Pazzi, in the courts of Santa Croce, is a proof of his ability to design the graceful and elegant. The Badia of Fiesole, and the Hospital of the Innocenti are also fine examples of his work. In secular architecture he excelled, as may be seen in the Palazzo Pitti.. Brunelleschi was also a sculptor and a worker in bronze.
#CANALETTO,
##Giovanni Antonio Canaletto 1697-1768
Canaletto (Antonio Canale) was born in Venice and became a pupil of his father, Bernardo Canale, who was a scene painter for the theater. He went to Rome at an early age, where he carefully studied the ruins of the ancient city. Returning to Venice, he astonished his countrymen by his magnificent views of the palaces and edifices of their city, and by his representations of festivals and carnival scenes, in some of which there are at least 200 figures. He went twice to England, where he was much patronized. His interior views were excellent. However, it is in his Venetian pictures that the gondolas, with their gold and festive decorations, give the brightness to the scene as his figures were often done in neutral tints. He acquired a fortune. His works were very numerous. Some of his followers imitated him so closely that their works are sometimes mistaken for his own, and, indeed, there are large numbers of pictures similar to those of Canaletto.
$#PIERO DI COSIMO
##Piero di Cosimo 1462-1521
Piero di Cosimo was a pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, and accepted his Master's name. Although little is known about his life, about 50 paintings are attributed to him, including the altarpieces and devotional paintings. The influence of Filippino Lippi is clear in his early work, and as later works show the signs of Leonardo in the use of color, as well as Raphael's use of space and composition. Though his work reflects diverse influence, Piero was an artist of brilliant imagination and originality, and in his work he reworked impressions and made them his own. His unique character is especially clean and unravelled in his secular works. He was a painter of great originality and was the first real landscapist among the Florentines, and placed some of his mythical scenes in the midst of truly delightful landscapes. He painted the background in Cosimo Roselli's fresco, "Sermon on the Mount", in the Sistine Chapel, Rome. He was also a portrait painter of considerable note.
$#LEONARDO DA VINCI
##Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519
Leonardo da Vinci was born in Vinci, in the Val d'Arno, below Florence, and is considered to be one of the greatest masters in the history of painting. He was a pupil of Andrea del Verrocchio. Leonardo has been well called a "universal genius." He was painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. He had a thorough knowledge of anatomy, mathematics, astronomy, and botany, and also was a poet and musician. It was his greatest delight to study the growth of plant life, the hidden laws that govern the mineral world, the movement of planets in the heavens, -- and this love for the deep things of nature he carried into his study of art. It is said that he always wore a sketchbook attached to his girdle, and would wander through the streets of Florence looking for some especially picturesque figure or some face possessing unusual subtlety of expression. He would excite the mirth of peasants so that he could study the line of their laughing faces. It is also said that he even followed criminals to their painful death so that he might gain some new experience that would aid his art. In this way he laid the foundation for the most eminent characteristics of his work. Yet, from the study of Leonardo's life, we must judge that he enjoyed more this study in and for itself than for its results, for he was never satisfied with his experiences when included them into one of his pictures. He was a most devoted and happy student and a most dissatisfied painter. Over and over again would he paint and then destroy his work. It is to this characteristic that the small number of his existing pictures is due. When Leonardo was about thirty, he went to Milan, where he worked, both in sculpture and painting, in the service of the reigning duke. He became master of the Milanese or Lombard school of painting. After many years of work he returned to Florence, and there, at one time, entered into a competition with Michelangelo in the decoration of the two end walls of the great Hall of the Council Palazzo Vechio. Leonardo chose for his subject "The Defeat of the Milanese by the Florentines at Anghiari"; Michelangelo chose "Pisan Soldiers Called Suddenly to Arms While Bathing in the Arno." The cartoons produced by the two masters mark an important epoch in Italian art. In them we find for the first time the human figure treated with all the truth and splendid fulness of expression of the High Renaissance. Neither picture was completed. A part of Leonardo's cartoon, called "The Battle of the Standard", is now known by an engraving after a copy by Rubens.
Characteristics.--In the latter half of the fifteenth century all the great principles which underlie the art of representation had been mastered. Each great preceding painter had made some important contribution to the general knowledge, until the artist found himself fully equipped for his work. Leonardo's greatest gift to painting was a perfected chiaroscuro. His treatment of this was a revelation to his contemporaries and followers, with his melting and mysterious shadows, and the bewitching way he illuminates his work with light. He used to say to his pupils, "Be as careful for the light in your picture as you would be of a rare jewel". His work shows how well he followed his own precept. His composition, seen at its best in the "Last Supper" was unsurpassed. His drawing is done extremely carefully, and his lines express wonderfully the subtlety of form. His color is clear and silvery, but has suffered very much from his habit of experimenting with technique. He used oils and painted and repainted, touched and retouched infinitely. His backgrounds show a mannerism that seems to have followed him from the studio of his master, Verrocchio: rocks and dark trees and running water, with diffused twilight mark nearly every one of his works. His ideal woman's face has dark eyes and hair, a long, slender nose, and a somewhat pointed chin, and is marked by a peculiar, languid, subtle smile, as is shown in his masterpiece, the "Mona Lisa".
$#DOMENICO VENEZIANO
##Domenico Veneziano 1405-1461 ca.
Domenico Veneziano was possibly born in Venice, but little is known of his early years. During four centuries Castagno, on Vasari's authority, bore the terrible accusation of having been the murderer of Veneziano through envy of the praises bestowed on the latter because of the beautiful results of his painting in the oil medium, which at this time, was being gradually introduced into Italy. It has, however, been conclusively proved that Veneziano did not die until several years after his alleged murderer. With regard to the use of oils, it is unlikely that Domenico was solely responsible for their introduction. His major contribution is in his lyrical use of color, a style which would influence and be formative for his greatest follower, Piero della Francesca. Though one of the outstanding personalities of his time, Domenico was not in the mainstream of painters in Florence, dominated at the time by Filippo Lippi and Andrea del Castagno. Very few pictures by Veneziano are now in existence. Of his few surviving works, the "Tabernacle of the Carnesecchi" in the London National Gallery, two versions of the "Virgin and Child," and the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and Child" painted for the church of S. Lucia de Magnoli (now in the Uffizi), are the most important.
$#PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA
##Piero della Francesca 1416-1492 ca.
Piero della Francesca was born in Borgo San Sepolcro at the beginning of the Quattrocento, and was one of the greatest Italian painters of that century. He is distinguished for having advanced the study of perspective. He began his career assisting Domenico Veneziano with the frescoes in the Church of S. Egidio in Florence (now almost completely lost, and his early work shows strongly an affinity with Masaccio. His masterpiece is the fresco in the Choir of the church of S. Francesco in Arezzo depicting the "Legend of the True Cross," in which he blended the human presence into precise perspective backgrounds, an accomplishment of supreme importance for painting in Italy. He is famous as a writer on higher mathematics and the laws of perspective as well as painter. He was one of the artists invited to Rome by Pope Nicholas V., whose works in the Vatican were destroyed in order to make room for the frescoes of Raphael.
In addition to the frescoes in S. Francesco, one of the monuments of the Italian Renaissance, Piero's major works include the altarpiece "Our Lady of Mercy with Saints" with the "Annunciation" and the Crucifixion" (Borgo, Pin.), "Flagellation of Christ (Urbino, G.N.), the great "Diptych of the Duke of Urbino" (Uffizi). Piero della Francesca's new vision of volume in space, perspective and light would influence many contemporary artists as well as those to follow, including Perugino, Raphael, Antonello da Messina and Giovanni Bellini.
$#GHIBERTI, LORENZO DI BARTOLO
##Lorenzo di Bartolo Ghiberti 1378-1455
Lorenzo di Bartolo Ghiberti was born in Florence. A goldsmith and sculptor, he also painted some pictures at Rimini, where he fled from the plague in 1398. He is best known by his bronze gates to the Baptistery of Florence, which Michelangelo thought "worthy to be the gate of Paradise," which is known by that name and have never been surpassed in some respects. There was much controversy as to who should obtain the honor of making these gates, and after Ghiberti received it, he spent twenty years on the first, and as much more time on the last. It is easy to see in them the marks of the goldsmith's minute and finished manner, but Ghiberti introduced a new feature in bas-relief when he attempted to represent distance in background. In beautiful ornamentation, and perfect form and finish of all minor parts, he has never been surpassed. Ghiberti also made three statues for the Church of Orsanmichele; two bas-reliefs for the Cathedral of Siena, and the Sarcophagus of Saint Zenobius, in Santa Maria del Fiore, of Florence. He was a leading figure in Florence for fifty years, establishing a formative workshop.
$#GHIRLANDAIO, DOMENICO BIGORDI IL
##Domenico Bigordi Ghirlandaio 1449-1494
Domenico Ghirlandaio. (Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi) was born in Florence. It is said that his father was a goldsmith, who made such exquisite garlands for the hair that he was called Ghirlandaio (the garland-twiner), which name descended to his children. There are certain characteristics of Domenico's pictures which might result from a knowledge of the goldsmith's art, such as precision in drawing, the modelling of figures, and the arrangement of drapery. Ghirlandaio was said to be a pupil of Alessio Baldovinetti, and became a mosaicist and the most celebrated fresco painter of his generation. They plainly show the advance from his earlier to his best manner: he introduced in his pictures the portraits of celebrated and important personages of his time, and was original in many ways. His life is a landmark in the history of Florentine art. His special greatness is in composition. He preferred large spaces, and worked in the old system of tempera. His portrait figures were not the actors in the scene represented, but he placed them, generally, in detached groups. This gave a solemn effect, and are comparable in their relation to the picture, to the chorus in a Greek tragedy. In the technicalities of these fresco-painting he excelled, and his works were highly finished. Ghirlandaio was the master of Michelangelo. Very little is of the mosaics which he executed, although he called mosaic work "painting for eternity." Major works include "St. Jerome" and the "Last Supper" in the Church of Ognissanti, Florence, the frescoes in the Sala dei Gigli in the Palazzo Vecchio, and the "Adoration of the Magi" now in the Uffizi.
$#GIOTTO DI BONDONE
##Giotto di Bondone 1276-1336
Giotto di Bondone was born in Vespignano. According to the legend, when tending his flock, Giotto was accustomed to draw on the large, flat stones, and while thus employed, Cimabue came upon him, was filled with admiration of his work, and obtained the consent of his father to his taking him to be his pupil. Though this is probably merely a story, it is entirely possible that Giotto did study with Cimabue in Florence. Giotto became a painter, sculptor, and architect. Giotto drew his inspiration from nature, and he is generally regarded as the father of modern painting. His principal works were his fresco paintings, the masterpiece of which is the series of paintings in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Giotto's ideas of space and perspective in architectural backgrounds, his placement of figures and use of gesture, all served to lead art in Italy from the Byzantine world into the western Gothic period. At the time of his death, Giotto had been architect and master of Santa Maria del Fiore two years. He was buried there, and afterwards a monument was erected to him upon which his portrait was carved by Benedetto da Maiano.
$#LIPPI, FILIPPINO
##Filippino Lippi 1457-1504 ca.
Filippino Lippi, son of Fra Filippo Lippi and pupil of Botticelli, had the honor of having completed the series of frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, Florence, begun by Masolino and carried on by Masaccio. He ranks with Botticelli and Ghirlandaio in importance.
Characteristics.--His works are noted for high sentiment, grace, and beauty, rather than for strength of conception or rendering. His early work in the Brancacci chapel resembles Masaccio's, while it is sometimes difficult to distinguish some of his later painting from that of Botticelli. His work lacked the nervous energy seen in much of Botticelli's work. His faces are particularly sweet in expression. He liked to embellish his figures, in easel pictures especially, with varied draperies, headdresses, etc. Major works include the "Adoration of the Magi," and "Scenes from the Life of Esther" (London), the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints and a Donor," and the fresco cycle, "Scenes from the Lives of St. Philip and St. John the Evangelist" (Church of S. Maria Novella, Florence).
$#LIPPI, FRA FILIPPO
##Fra Filippo Lippi 1406-1469
Lippi Fra Filippo, the painter to whose name so much of romance and scandal clings, was influenced by both Fra Angelico and Masaccio, and blended the ideal of one with the real of the other. A lay brother at the Carmelite Abbey in Florence, he ran away with a nun (whose marriage the Pope legalized subsequently), and had one son, Filippino, who also became a painter. He established his reputation with three works: the "Barbadori Altarpiece" (Louvre); the "Coronation of the Virgin" (Uffizi); and the "Annunciation" (S. Lorenzo which best illustrate his early Florentine style. One of the most original and personal of his works is the lyrical "Madonna and Child" (Uffizi).
Characteristics: His works are marked by a stately composition and fine, golden color. The faces he painted are short and broad, with very wide jaws, and are marked by a grave but decidedly youthful expression. His Madonnas usually wear a delicate, filmy headdress, which was an adornment of the Florentine ladies of his time. His angels are lusty, merry-faced boys.
$#MANTEGNA, ANDREA
##Andrea Mantegna 1431-1506
Andrea Mantegna was adopted by Squarcione and registered as his foster-child in 1441. At the age of seventeen, he painted a much-admired Madonna for the Church of Santa Sophia. It is evident from the early efforts of Mantegna that he studied the works of other masters from Squarcione, his instructor. The earliest picture of his which is so preserved as to show his manner, is an altar-piece in the Brera, representing Saint Luke and other saints. This was executed in 1454, and is excellent in modeling, light and shade; it has a northern realism, but is far superior to most Squarcionesques, and equal in color to any tempera painting of Venice of the same time. After 1448 he worked on the chapel of Saints Jacopo and Christoforo in the Church of Eremitani at Padua. The whole left side, with the "Life of Saint Jacobo, " and the "Martyrdom of Saint Cristoforo", is his work. For his age and the state of Paduan art they are wonderful, although the some critics of Squarcione said that his figures were statuesque and lifeless. Mantegna had become disaffected towards his foster-father, had married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, and fully sympathized with the faction opposed to Squarcione. He had no doubt been much affected by the influence of Donatello at Padua; he had studied the antique as much as possible and imitated it in his architecture and figures. But the "Martyrdom of Saint Cristoforo" shows that he had discovered his mistake, and strangely displays his attempt to remedy his greatest fault. These works made him famous, and the Marquis of Mantua used every inducement to persuade him to leave Padua. But he was occupied with some pictures for San Zeno at Verona. The Marquis persistently followed Mantegna, and at length about 1460 he entered his service, in which he continued until his death. The Marquis required all kinds of work of him, from the most sacred subjects to turkeys. In the old castle two rooms remain decorated by Mantegna. An inscription in one gives the date of 1474. The subjects are full of grace and life. The achievements of Hercules, busts of Roman emperors, and a strutting peacock, with beautiful heads of women and children regarding it, are a part of them; and in the center he represented a great aperture through which, apparently, the blue sky is seen. Sometime in 1483, after a change in government and the death of his patron earlier, he found new a patron in the Duchess of Este. At length in 1488 he was sent to Rome to paint a chapel in the Vatican for Innocent VIII, whose request the Marquis could not refuse. Here he labored unceasingly for two years. He then resumed the "Triumphs of Caesar", in which he had been interrupted, and in 1491 the Marquis made him new presents of land as a reward for these excellent works. From this time his works all show the presence of his assistants. It was not, however, until 1495 that he produced his famous "Madonna della Vittoria",. He painted until his death, but he suffered much sorrow and loss in his later years. Mantegna was doubtless the greatest painter of Northern Italy in his day, and his influence was felt in all Italy. His works are full of meaning; his inventive powers were large; his foreshortening, perspective, chiaroscuro, and color were excellent. He also painted what may be called reliefs, or pictures in chiaroscuro, and was besides a good engraver. He was early in the practice of this art, and his knowledge of design greatly assisted him to excel.
$#MASACCIO, TOMMASO DI GIOVANNI
##Tommaso di Giovanni Masaccio 1401-1428
Tommaso di Giovanni Masaccio, one of the greatest masters of the Quattrocento, was born in San Giovanni, in the Val d' Arno. Masaccio came to Florence where the two great influences on his work were the sculptors, Brunelleschi and Donatello, from whom he would bring to his work a new consciousness of the human figure and sense of perspective. He was enrolled in the city guild of painters in 1424; and he died by in Rome in 1428. During his short life Masaccio made an almost phenomenal advance in painting.
Characteristics.-- The conventionalities that had hitherto clung to all pictured works were wholly dropped by Masaccio. His drawing of the human figure (tested by several nude figures in his pictures) is masterly. He puts animation and variety of expression into both figures and faces. In his work real life for the first time becomes the serious subject. While Giotto sought for the best means of telling the story selected as his subject, Masaccio sought, seemingly, a fitting incident which, as a theme, would enable him to portray most forcibly the characters he chose to represent. This study of individual character appears in the work of no earlier master, and was of great importance in the evolution of Italian painting. It marks the beginning of the tendency towards the predominance of the artistic treatment of a picture over its subject, and its inevitable end was to throw out the purely devotional aim which had before characterized painting. Masaccio made a great advance in both linear and aerial perspective; his figures were placed firmly on different planes in the same composition. His works include collaborations with Masolino on the "Altarpiece of the Virgin and St. Anne" (Uffizi), and on the cycle of frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel, S. Maria del Carmine in Florence.
$#PERUGINO, PIETRO DI CRISTOFORO VANUCCI
##Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci Perugino 1446-1524
Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci, born in the little town of Citta della Pieva, was called "Perugino" because at maturity he settled in Perugia, established an academy, and there won his fame. Much of the excellence of his work is due to the study of Florentine masters. He was one of the first artists in central Italy to handle the new oil medium successfully. For several years the young Raphael worked in his studio, and the younger artist's influence can be seen in a more delicate, brilliant line than previously seen in Perugino's work. Perugino was the foremost painter in Umbria at the end of the Quattrocento, and in his work is successfully blended the great Florentine discoveries with the gentle spirit of his local tradition. His most important surviving work is the fresco in the Sistine Chapel, "Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter."
$#POLLAIUOLO, ANTONIO DI JACOPO DEL
##Antonio di Jacopo del Pollaiuolo 1433-1498
Antonio di Jacopo del Pollaiuolo was born in Florence. He was a sculptor, goldsmith, a worker in bronze and silver ornaments and also a painter. His pictures were affected by his other occupations, showing precise, incisive line. He excelled in the knowledge of perspective and anatomy, and it is said that Antonio was the first artist who dissected the human body in order to know how to represent it. His work summarized the trends and discoveries in Florentine art of his time. His major works represented contests of strength and muscular action, such as the sculpture of "Hercules and Antaeus," and the painted "Martyrdom of St. Sebastian" (London, N.G.). Antonio was celebrated as the best goldsmith of his time, and one of the major painters, and received many important commissions from church and state, including the great patron of art, Lorenzo de' Medici. He made bronze monuments for the Popes Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII. The first is now in the Chapel of the Sacrament in Saint Peter's.
$#ROBBIA, LUCA DELLA
##Luca di Simone di Marco Della Robbia 1400-1482
Luca Della Robbia was born in Florence in 1400. He entered the sculptor's guild in 1432, and founded a family workshop which would last into the sixteenth century. He was influenced by the work of Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello, though Luca would later specialize in glazed terra cotta rather than marble and bronze, giving his name to the famed "Robbia ware." The only memorials of that time are the bas-reliefs in the side of the Campanile towards the Duomo, and two unfinished reliefs in the Uffizi. The first represent "Music, Philosophy, Geometry, Grammar, and Astronomy"; "Plato and Aristotle"; "Ptolemy and Euclid"; and a "Man Playing the Lute". The unfinished ones are the "Imprisonment" and "Crucifixion of Saint Peter". There are also the reliefs made for the balustrade of an organ in the Duomo. These were undertaken in 1445 and established him a with a high rank among Italian sculptors. They represented youths dancing, singing, and playing on musical instruments. He executed one of the finest of the many cinque-cento tombs for the Bishop Benozzo Federighi of Fiesole. A portion of the decorations of this tomb were enamelled tiles painted with fruits and flowers in their natural colors. In this enamel painting Luca excelled, and he made it so prominent that it has been known as Robbia ware. Luca made some changes by coloring his enamel for certain portions of the backgrounds, such as the plants, draperies, etc. Andrea, the nephew of Luca, worked with him and shared his property with another nephew, Simone, who was a shoemaker. After his death his secret of enamelling was carefully guarded by his family and created a fortune for them. They made a system of polychromatic architecture. Andrea and his son, Luca II, were employed eleven years in decorating the Ceppo Hospital, at Pistoia, with a frieze which represents the "Seven Acts of Mercy". The effect of this enamel painting is brilliant. Pope Leo X employed Luca II to pave the Loggie of the Vatican with colored tiles. Giovanni and Girolamo, brothers of Luca II, also worked in Robbia ware, and the latter went to France and was employed by Francis I in decorating his Chateau de Madrid, in the Bois de Boulogne.
$#SOLARI (OR SOLARIO), ANDREA (DI MILANO)
##Andrea Solari di Milano 1495-1522 ca.
Andrea Solari was born in Milan and belonged to a family of architects and sculptors. He was influenced by the manner and spirit of Leonardo in many of his pictures, though he lived at one time in Venice and came under the influence of that school. The modeling of his figures, especially his hands, was remarkably fine. He excelled also in beauty of tone and power of expression. Some of his later works show such a decided Flemish character that it is thought he must have visited Flanders. His works include "The Virgin with the Green Cushion" (Louvre) and "Chancellor Morona" (Milan).
$#UCCELLO, PAOLO DI DONO
##Paolo di Dono Uccello 1397-1475
Paolo was called Uccello on account of his love for birds and was at one time chiefly famous for his mastery of the science of linear perspective. His devotion to this study was so great that Vasari says he would often neither eat nor sleep, and when remonstrated with by his wife would only reply, "Oh! this delightful perspective!" The knowledge gained and put into practice by him was a great help to contemporary artists. Modern criticism however, emphasizes his gift for fresco, mosaic and other decorative work, and it is believed today that his preoccupation with perspective is apocryphal. Major works include the series of frescoes of the "Creation" in Florence S. Maria Novella, the "Flood" and the "Battle of San Romano", (Louvre, Uffizi and London, N.G.), His works were marked by such stiffness and exact drawing of detail, and by figures so designed that they exhibited to the fullest extent his knowledge of mathematical foreshortening.
$#ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO
##Andrea Del Verrocchio 1432-1488
Verrocchio, was first a goldsmith, then a painter, but sculpture was his first loved art and he was the outstanding sculptor in Florence during the second half of the fifteenth century. He was also one of the most influential artists and teachers of that period. His pupils included such masters as Perugino, Botticelli and Leonardo. Among the sculptured masterpieces by Verrocchio are "Christ and St. Thomas" (Or San Michele), "David," the "Madonna and Child," and the "Woman with the Lovely Hands" (Florence National Museum). As a painter he has been overshadowed by the greatness of his pupils, especially Leonardo, but his work is distinguished by a keen insight into the psychological and intellectual motivation of his subjects, his knowledge of anatomy, and the magisterial command of space. Three paintings are assigned to him with varying degrees of certainty: the "Baptism of Christ" (Uffizi), which was completed by Leonardo, the "Altarpiece of the Madonna di Piazza" (Cathedral of Pistoia), and "Tobias and the Archangel," (two versions, Uffizi and London N.G.). The "Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Saints" (Budapest) is generally credited to him, but some critics believe it to be questionable.
$#CIMABUE,CENNI DI PEPO
##Cenni di Pepo Cimabue 1240-1301 ca.
Cenni di Pepo Cimabue was born in Florence between 1240 and 1250. It is believed that Cimabue may have been Giotto's teacher, but little is known of Cimabue's training, except that he did go to Rome in 1272 and was influenced by the classical style painters like Cavallini. There is only one work of Cimabue's which is known to be his for certain. The mosaic in the apse of Pisa Cathedral and most especially, the figure of St. John the Baptist (1302), has been documented as being Cimabue's. Cimabue was influenced by the Florentine painters such as Marcovaldo, as can be seen in a work generally attributed to Cimabue, the large "Maesta", which was originally done for the church of Saint Trinita in Florence and now housed at the Uffizi in Florence. Other works attributed to Cimabue include "Madonna of St. Francis", which is now in the Lower Church at Assisi and which has been repainted; frescos in the Upper Church in Assisi which have been partially destroyed and include "Crucifixions" and scenes from the "Life of the Virgin"; and the Crucifixes in San Domenico, Arezzo and St. Croce in Florence. The crucifixes resemble Coppo di Marcovaldo's work. Cimabue was expert at showing the feeling on his figure's faces and injected much passion into the works believed to be his. It is usually considered that Cimabue paved the way for modern art. Cimabue died in about 1302 in Pisa.
$#DUCCIO DI BUONINSEGNA
##Duccio di Buoninsegna 1255-1319 ca.
Duccio Di Buoninsegna was born in Siena about 1255. Duccio is first mentioned in 1278 and 1279 when he decorated twelve boxes for the town council and then a manuscript binding. It is not known with whom Duccio took his training. In 1285 Duccio was commissioned by the Florentine Brotherhood of the Virgin Mary to paint an altarpiece for the Rucellai Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria Novella . The altarpiece, "Rucellai Madonna" (Florence, Uffizi) broke tradition with the Byzantine period and began a new period of painting style in both Siena and Florence. Vasari states that the Madonna was actually done by Cimabue, however, it is usually attributed to Duccio. It is believed that Duccio did know Cimabue and was probably under his instruction at one time, as his early paintings definitely show a style similar to that of Cimabue. The painting features flowing movements, lavish materials and subtle coloring save for the bright ornaments. Duccio had problems with politics while he was living and was fined several times for his refusal to follow local tradition or to swear loyalty to the civic officials. From 1296 to 1297, there is a "Duche de Siene" mentioned as being in France during that period. 1302 finds Duccio back in Siena. The "Maesta Altarpiece" and "Madonna of the Franciscans" (1311, Siena, Pinocoteca) have definitely been attributed to Duccio. The "Maesta Altarpiece" is considered to be a masterpiece of fourteenth century Italian painting, and Duccio's masterpiece as well. The panels include "Madonna Surrounded by Saints" and other scenes from the "Life of Christ". Although most of the altarpiece remains in Siena, some of the panels are located in Fort Worth, Texas, London, Lugano, New York, and Washington D.C., and others are missing. Other works attributed to Duccio are located in Berne; Boston; Budapest; Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, Philadelphia and Utrecht. Duccio died in Siena in about 1318.
$#GHIBERTI,LORENZO
##Lorenzo Ghiberti 1378-1455
Lorenzo Ghiberti was born in Florence in 1378. He left Florence in 1400 but went back to his native city to enter a competition in 1401. Ghiberti won the competition, which was for the right to create the second pair of bronze doors for the Bapistry in Florence. It is from these doors, and another set of doors which he made for the same project, that Ghiberti achieved fame. Ghiberti won the contest from six other participants, including the sculptor Brunelleschi (who worked in architecture from that point on as a result of losing the contest). The doors themselves, based on the New Testament, consist of twenty-eight panels and took twenty one years to complete. After finishing the first pair of doors, Ghiberti was awarded a second pair. This second set of doors used the Old Testament for its subject and had only ten panels compared to the twenty eight of the first set. Between the designing of the two sets of doors, Ghiberti's style had changed. In the second pair, the Renaissance influence is apparent, both in the relief and in the perspective of the doors. Although Ghiberti was not supposed to do other work while he was working on the doors, he did, in fact, do some other projects. These included two large statues, one of St. John the Baptist (1414) and one of St. Matthew (1419-22). As well as being the sculptor who really linked the Trecento Gothic and Renaissance styles, Ghiberti was also a goldsmith, writer and architect. He was the first artist to write his own autobiography, which was enclosed within a work called "Commentarii". Michelangelo called Ghiberti's second set of doors the "Doors to Paradise".
