The 14th century in Italy saw the beginnings of major changes that would define the Renaissance period. In cities like Florence and Siena, there was a shift away from Byzantine styles towards more naturalistic and observation-based representations influenced by classical examples. Artists like Cimabue and Giotto led this movement with more three-dimensional figural styles. In Siena, painters such as Duccio and Lorenzetti also advanced realism through emotional expression and convincing spatial illusions in their works. This period established many principles that would underpin Renaissance humanism, education, and the study of antiquity.

1. 1
ART 102 Gardners - Chapter 19
Jean Thobaben
Instructor
From Gothic to Renaissance:
The 14th-Century in Italy
PROTO RENAISSANCE
PROTO RENAISSANCE
HINTS of RENAISSANCE
PRE ~ ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
PROTO ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
Siena
Assisi
Florence

2. 2
The City States:
Politics and Economics
• Beginning in the 13th century, a combination of political, social,
economic, religious, and cultural factors contributed to a shift that
began to occur in European culture in the period known as the
Renaissance.
• These changes occurred first in Italy, where the growth of a new
secular culture fueled an interest in the classical past.
• Amid the social, economic, and religious upheavals of the 14th
century, there emerged a new interest in human values and the
everyday world, inspired and guided by classical examples.

3. 3
• In the 14th
century, Italy
consisted of
numerous city-
states, each
functioning
independently.
• Each city-state
consisted of a
geographic
region, varying in
size, dominated
by a major city.

4. 4
The
Black
Death:
• The eruption of the
Black Death in the
late 1340s
devastated
Europe and
created
economic turmoil.
• It also encouraged the commissioning of devotional images and
stimulated the construction of hospitals.

5. 5
• Italy's intellectual and cultural life was dramatically affected by the
development of an Italian vernacular literature, which, because
of its accessibility, greatly expanded the audience for philosophical
and intellectual concepts.
• Humanism, which was rooted in the study of the Latin classics,
developed models of civil conduct, education, and scholarly
discipline that underpinned the principles of the self-governing
republics.
• Humanism resurrected the spirit and ideals of classical antiquity
and, through the study of ancient Greek and Roman literature,
promoted the importance of the individual by focusing on human
virtues and values based on reason rather than religious dogma.

6. 6
The Birth of a New Artistic Culture:
• The transition from the Medieval to the Renaissance period
occurred in the 14th century.
• The medieval preoccupation with otherworldly values was
gradually modified to include a new interest in the natural world.
• This was coupled with a revival of interest in the art of classical
antiquity (ancient Roman sculpture and architecture), examples
of which were available for artists to study.
• The result was a new more naturalistic art in which both figures
and their surroundings are made to appear more as they might
in the real world.

7. 7
• Berlinghieri's
Altarpiece of Saint
Francis is painted in
the Italo-Byzantine
style, which is
characterized by a
strict formality, a linear
flatness, a shallow
space, and an
emphasis on the
spiritual.
Bonaventura Berlinghieri
(active 1235-1244)

8. 8
Artist’s Names in Renaissance Italy
• Today’s traditions of family surnames did not yet exist during this
time period.
• Often individuals adopted their home towns as one of their names;
for instance Leonard da Vinci was from the small town of Vinci. -
Such artists are most often referred to by their given names such
as Leonardo.
• Nicknames were also common. Guido di Pietro is better known as
Fra Angelico – the “Angelic Friar” and Cenni de Pepo is
remembered as Cimabue - “Bulls Head.” Perhaps a reference to
his appearance.

9. 9
• Nicholas Pisano used
classical elements in the
marble reliefs he carved for the
medieval-type pulpit (1235) in
the baptistery of Pisa
Cathedral.
• The pulpit's shape and the
geometrical organization of its
reliefs have been allied to the
harmonious proportional ratios
- associated since Pythagoras
with the divine proportion of the
cosmos - established by the
contemporary Pisan
mathematician Leonardo
Fibonacci.

10. 10
detail of Pisa baptistery pulpit, 1259–1260. Marble relief, approx. 34" x 45".

11. 11
• In the relief panels carved for the pulpit in Sant'Andrea at
Pistoia, Nicola Pisano's son Giovanni Pisano carved more
naturalistic figures whose supple and slender bodies, clothed in
sinuous draperies, twist and bend with greater animation and
emotional expression.
Massacre of the Innocents, detail from the pulpit, 1301Marble, 84 x 102 cm, Sant'Andrea, Pistoia

12. 12
• In his fresco of the Last Judgment in the church
of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome, Pietro
Cavallini abandons Byzantine conventions and
paints more sculpturally solid figures.
Seated
Apostles,
detail of the
Last Judgment,
ca. 1291.
Fresco. Santa
Cecilia in
Trastevere,
Rome.

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Cimabue
(c. 1240-1302)
• In his altarpiece of the
Madonna Enthroned with
Angels and Prophets,
Cimabue moves beyond the
strict conventions of the Italo-
Byzantine style towards an
increased naturalism in the
treatment of space and in the
solid three-dimensionality of
the Virgin's throne.

14. 14
• The Italo-Byzantine style
was abandoned altogether
by Giotto, who adopted a
more naturalistic approach
based on the observation of
nature.
• In his Madonna
Enthroned, forms are
foreshortened and modeled
in light and shade to create
figures that have sculptural
solidity and weight.
Giotto di Bondone
(ca. 1266-1337)

15. 15
• Giotto's frescoes in the Arena Chapel at Padua include 38
framed pictures peopled with sculpturesque, weighty, emotionally
expressive, quietly dramatic figures arranged in convincing
spatial depth on a shallow stage.
Interior of the Arena Chapel (Capella Scrovegni), Padua, 1305–1306.

16. 16
Giotto,
Lamentation,
1305. Fresco,
78 3/4" x 72
3/4". Arena
Chapel,
Padua.

17. 17
• The composition of Giotto's panel of The Meeting of
Joachim and Anna is simple and compact, with the
figures related to the architecture of the Golden Gate.
The
Meeting of
Joachim
and Anna,
ca. 1305.
Fresco, 6' 6
3/4" x 6'
3/4". Arena
Chapel,
Padua.

18. 18
• Taddeo Gaddi's version of the same scene in the Baroncelli
Chapel in Santa Croce in Florence is more complex as a
composition, and shows a more profound and subtle exploration
of the effects of light and shade as a means of producing both a
sense of volume and a sense of a time of day.
Meeting of Joachim and Anna, 1338. Fresco.
Baroncelli Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence.

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The Republic of Florence
• At the forefront of artistic change was the republic of Florence.
• Through the construction and embellishment of magnificent
churches, the government and citizens of Florence sought both to
honor God and to make apparent the economic and cultural
superiority of the city.
• Two large churches built in Florence in the 14th century exhibit
Gothic features (pointed arches and rib vaults) but are otherwise
unlike Gothic buildings in northern Europe in both design and
decoration.

20. 20
Florence
Cathedral
• The cathedral of
Florence, begun by
Arnolfo di Cambio, has
an exterior surface
ornamented in the
Tuscan fashion with
marble-encrusted
geometric designs.

21. 21
• Emphasis is placed on
the design's horizontal
elements, and the
building rests firmly and
massively on the ground.
• The Cathedral's façade
was not completed until
the 19th century.

22. 22
In contrast, the dome, built later in the 15h century, rises magnificently as a
crisp, closed, ogival silhouette against the sky behind it.

23. 23
• The Florence
campanile
(bell tower),
designed by Giotto,
stands apart from
the cathedral in the
Italian tradition.

24. 24
• It is
subdivided
into cubic
sections.
• The
spacious
nave of
Florence
Cathedral is
divided into
bays
separated
from the
shallow
aisles
by wide
arcades.

25. 25
The Dominican Church of Santa Maria Novella was
designed to hold large congregations.

26. 26
• Simple compound piers
support the rib-vaults of
the nave and aisles.
The ribs,
arches,
and the small oculi
(round openings) that
pierce the nave wall are
striped.
Nave of Santa Maria Novella,
Florence,
ca. 1246-1470

27. 27
• The gentle curvilinear
shapes and Gothic
sentiment of Bernardo
Daddi's painting of the
Madonna and Child
are offset by the sparkling
patterns of geometric
decoration that ornament
the pinnacled façade-like
design for the architectural
frame of the tabernacle in
Florence's Or San
Michele.
Andrea Orcagna, tabernacle, 1350–
1360. Mosaic, gold, marble, lapis
lazuli. Or San Michele,
Florence.

28. 28
The Republic of Siena
• In the rival city of Siena, examples of painting also exhibit
humanized figures in more naturalistic settings. Increasing attention
is paid to textures and to the modeling and placement of forms
within the pictorial space of the picture.
• Under the influence of French Gothic art and refined aristocratic
taste, the Siennese painter Simone Martini developed an elegant
and intricately ornamented manner which, because of its similarity
to other examples elsewhere in Europe, is called the "International
Style".
• Other painters, meanwhile, sought to enhance pictorial realism
through the depiction of convincing spatial illusions.

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Duccio di Buoninsegna(active 1278-1318)
• Duccio’s altarpiece of the Maestà is a polyptych in which the
main panel on the front side represents the Virgin enthroned in
majesty (Maestà) as Queen of Heaven.
Duccio shows relaxed, naturalistic figures modeled in light and dark and
painted with considerable sensitivity to color and texture.

30. 30
Drapery falls and curves
convincingly.
Virgin and Child Enthroned with
Saints, principal panel of the Maestà
altarpiece, 1308–1311. Tempera on
wood, panel 7' x 13'.
Museo dell'Opera
del Duomo, Siena

31. 31
In other panels, Duccio reveals his skills as a narrative painter, showing
figures who react to the central event with appropriate physical gestures
and expressions of emotion.
The rear side of the multi-paneled Maestà.

32. 32
Duccio, Betrayal of Jesus, detail from the back of the Maestà altarpiece, 1309–1311.
Tempera on wood, detail approx. 221/2" x 40". Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena.

33. 33
Simone Martini (ca. 1285-1344)
• Martini was a student of Duccio’s and a close writer of the
poet Petrarch who praised him for his portrait of Laura
(now lost to us), The woman for whom Petrarch dedicated
his sonnets.
• Martini adapted the luxuriant patterns of the French Gothic
manner to Siennese art and helped form the so-called
International Style.
Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi (?), Annunciation, 1333
(frame reconstructed in the 19th century).

34. 34
• Martini's Annunciation altarpiece is
characterized by elegant shapes, radiant color,
flowing and fluttering line, and weightless figures
placed in a spaceless setting.
• The painting is enhanced by the intricate tracery
of the richly tooled Late Gothic frame.

35. 35

36. 36
• Pietro
Lorenzetti's
The Birth of
the Virgin
shows pictorial
realism and
convincing
spatial illusions.
Pietro Lorenzetti
(active 1320-1328)

37. 37
• The Palazzo Pubblico of Siena is a symmetrical design abutted
by a lofty tower with galleries built out on corbels.

38. 38
• The interior of this town hall is filled with frescoes by 14th
century artists.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Pietro’s brother created these allegories
on good and bad government.

39. 39
Ambrogio Lorenzetti (active 1319-1348)
• Lorenzetti painted carefully observed and particularized views of
contemporary life in and around Siena.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Peaceful City, detail from the fresco Effects of Good Government in
the City and the Country, Sala della Pace, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, 1338–1339.

40. 40
• Peaceful Country represented one of the first appearances
of landscape in western art since antiquity.

41. 41

42. 42
• Lorenzetti also shows
us images of bad
government……
• Crumbling buildings.

43. 43
• And satanic rulers…

44. 44
• Ruined crops and soldiers on the hillsides.

45. 45
Summary:
• The ideas that gained momentum in the 14th century:
Humanism, direct observation, solidity of form
and interest in illusion became prominent in the following
centuries-the period known as the Renaissance.
• These changes occurred first in Italy, where the growth of a new
secular culture fueled an interest in the classical past.
• Italy's intellectual and cultural life was dramatically affected by
the development of an Italian vernacular literature.
• Cimabue moves beyond the strict conventions of the Byzantine
style towards an increased naturalism in the treatment of space
and in the solid 3-dimensionality of figures.
• His student Giotto adopted an even more naturalistic approach
based on the observation of nature.

46. 46
• In Siena,Duccio reveals his skills as a narrative painter,
showing figures who react to the central event with appropriate
physical gestures and expressions of emotion.
• Simone Martini adapted the luxuriant patterns of the French
Gothic manner to Siennese art and helped form the
International Style.
• In the frescoes in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, Ambrogio
Lorenzetti painted carefully observed and particularized views
of contemporary life in and around Siena.
• Italian architects abandon the fanciful Gothic in favor of a more
restrained and geometric regularity.

47. 47
Links:
• Art Gallery
http://www.christusrex.org/www2/art/gallery.htm
• Art of the Italian Renaissance
• Basilica di San Francesco, Assisi
• National Gallery of Art (D.C.)