During the 15th century Italian Renaissance, major developments occurred in the arts and culture of Italian city-states. Artists studied classical styles and humanist ideals, developing techniques like linear perspective to create highly realistic paintings and sculptures. Wealthy ruling families commissioned large works that featured the nude human form and explored pagan themes. Architects like Brunelleschi and Alberti designed buildings using principles of proportion, symmetry, and light-filled interior spaces.

1. Italian Renaissance: 15th
Century
1400-1500
In Italian city-states: Ferrara, Florence, Mantua, Naples, Rome, Venice, etc.

2. Culture
• The fine arts influenced by CLASSICAL styles
• HUMANISM emerges – stresses secular alongside religious
• LINEAR PERSPECTIVE is realized – artists create realistic paintings
• Best understanding of human anatomy, large-scale nude sculpture
• Architecture emphasizes open light spaces, symmetry, and balance
• Artists encouraged to explore pagan past in relation to modern life.
• European explorers venture out = knowledge
• Growth/appreciation of the sciences and arts
History
• City-states controlled by ruling families who dominate politics
• Big spenders in the arts.
• Embellished palaces with innovative paintings
• The ruling families commissioned architecture

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Mathematics important in engineering these buildings!
Geometric designs stressed
Harmony achieved by ideal proportions (Vitruvius - architectural treatise)
Ratios, proportions, various elements, etc. express humanistic ideals
Often have unvaulted naves with coffered ceilings
Proportions
• Crossing is 2X the
nave
• Nave is 2X the side
aisles
• Side aisles 2X the side
chapels

4. • Ceiling
• Similar to Early Christian wooden
type
• Rectangular floor grids define the spaces
• Use of ratios
• Nave = two aisles
• Aisles = two side chapels
• Interior
• Cool and harmonious
• Sparse decoration
• Light and airy
• Not much stained glass
SAN LORENZO
Filippo Brunelleschi, 14211469, Florence, Italy

5. DOME OF FLORENCE CATHEDRAL
Filippo Brunelleschi, 1420-1436
Lantern completed 1471

6. Brunelleschi’s Dome
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Older domes didn’t have as much vertical thrust
• Raised on a drum to increase height
Dome is OGIVAL arch shape
New technique – putting one dome inside of another = strength/stability
• Built without centering devices
Lantern at top anchors dome into place
Architecture – light, order, clarity
• Buildings have wider window spaces, limited stained glass, wall paintings

7. PAZZI CHAPEL
Filippo Brunelleschi, 1423, Florence
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Rectangular chapel attached to a church of Santa Croce in Florence
Two barrel vaults on interior
Small dome over crossing
Restrained sense of color
• Muted tones
• Glazed terracotta tiles

8. PALAZZO RUCELLAI
Leon Battista, 1452-1470, Florence
• Three separate floors
• Separated by clear
“stringcourse”
• Pilasters divide space in square-ish
shapes
• Strong cornice at top
• Not rustic like Michelozzo’s palazzo
• Masonry joints are beveled
• Different style plasters
• Friezes have Rucellai family
symbols
• Ex. Billowing sails

9. SANT’ ANDREA
Leon Battista Alberti, 1470, Mantua
• Roman triumphal arch
• Huge pilasters on either side
• Pilasters support pediment
• First to be used in Christian architecture
• Ancient temple façade
• Wanted identical width/height
• Piazza in front of church is small = small
façade
• Large barrel vault canopy hangs over west
façade
• Shields nave window from sun
• Interior
• Huge barrel vaults
• No side aisles
• Coffered ceiling

10. • PALACES in Florence – dominating facades – three stories high, austere looking
• First floor
• Public areas with business transactions
• Rusticated (rough cut stone), heavily articulated stone
• Second floor
• Much lighter
• Strong horizontal marking the ceiling of one story and floor of another
• Family l
• Third floor
• Even more lightness
• Less articulation of stone
• Heavy cornice caps off roof
Palazzo Medici-Riccardi
Michelozzo, 1444, Florence
• Interior courtyard allows light
into interior rooms
• Expresses civic pride and political
power of Medici family
• Very symmetrical

11. Painting
• LINEAR PERSPECTIVE
• Attributed to Filippo Brunelleschi
• Developed while drawing Florence Cathedral Bapistry
• Artists create different artistic effects
• PROPORTION
• Artists start showing objects, scenery, and people proportionately
• People no longer dominate the image
• TROMP L’OEIL TECHNIQUE
• “trick the eye”
• PERSPECTIVE
• Even used in sculpture
• Carved at different depths to create a sense of space
• IMAGES
• Religious scenes
• Portraits
• Mythological scenes
• Depictions of humanist ideals/aspirations
• Exploration of the nude (especially male)

12. The First Signs of One Point Perspective
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Brunelleschi was the first architect to use
mathematical perspective in creating designs
for buildings during the early Renaissance

13. BEFORE PERSPECTIVE
AFTER PERSPECTIVE

14. Adoration of the Magi
Gentile da Fabriano, 1423, Florence
Tempera on panel
• Patrons
• The Strozzi family
• Figures in fancy dress
• “Courtly” outing to see baby Jesus at
the Epiphany
• Exotic animals reflect private zoos of
Renaissance princes
• Gold leaf used in frame and painting
• Kings are shown at various ages
• Symbolizes the ages of man
• Animals seen at different angles
• NATURALISM

15. Adoration of the Magi

16. Holy Trinity
Masaccio, 1427, Florence
Fresco in Santa Maria Novella
• Patrons
• The Lenzi family
• Created as a tombstone for the family
• Kneel outside arch
• Faces show realism
• Christ appears in two roles
• Crucified Christ
• Second person of the Holy Trinity
• God supports him
• Dove of the Holy Spirit is between the two of
them
• Mary and Saint John flank Christ
• Typically in crucifixion scenes
• Triangular figural composition dominated by
Brunelleschi-inspired architecture

17. Holy Trinity
• Vanishing point at the foot of the cross
• Skeleton below painting symbolizes death
• “I once was what you are; and what I
am you will become.”

18. Mary
Saint John
Christ
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Holy Spirit
• As a dove
The traditional symbol

19. Tribute Money
Masaccio, 1425, Florence
Fresco in Santa Maria del Carmine

20. Tribute Money
• Scene from New Testament
• Jesus is asked if he should pay tribute to civil authorities
• One big narrative
• Peter gets money from the fish (left)
• Jesus confronts the tax collector
• Peter pays tax collector (right)
• Narrative moves from center, to left, to right
• Figures are dominant and cast shadows on the ground

21. Expulsion from the Garden of Eden
Masaccio, 1425, Carmine, Florence
Fresco in Santa Maria del Carmine,
• Bold use of nude forms
• Intense expressions
• Adam
• Hides face in shame
• Eve
• Hides body in shame
• Bleak background
• Desolation outside Garden of Eden
• Angel is foreshortened

22. Battle of San Romano
Paolo Uccello, 1455
Tempera on wood

23. Battle of San Romano
• Battle between Florence and Siena (1432)
• Looks more like a ceremony
• Strong use of perspective and vanishing points
• Orthogonals in figures and weapons

24. Annunciation
Fra Angelico, 1438-1447
Fresco

25. Annunciation
• Architecture of painting reflects
architecture of monastery
• Serene and religious
• Humility of figures
• Solid forms – like Giotto
• Smoothly modeled figures
• Extreme delicacy
• Spare environment
• Focus on figures’ gestures and
simple settings
• Corinthian columns
• Brunelleschi-type arches

26. The Last Supper
Andrea del Castagno, 1447, Sant’ Apollonia, Florence
Fresco

27. The Last Supper
• Painted for a convent of cloistered nuns
• Red brick in painting matches red brick tiles in the
convent
• Figures are individualizes
• Little communication between them
• Everything in sharp focus with precise edges
• Judas is on the front side of the table
• Apart from others
• Symbolic of his guilt
• Marble pattern behind Judas’ head
• Symbolizes lightning pointing to his head
• Six marble panels on left and back walls and four panels
and two windows on right wall
• Implies the room is square – doesn’t appear
square
• 2:1 ratio of loops on stringcourse on back wall
implies the room is rectangular

28. Battle of Ten Naked Men (Battle of the Nudes)
Antonio del Pollaiuolo, 1465-1470
Engraving
• Dense vegetation
• Contrasts with figures
and “pushes” them
forward
• Imprecise anatomy
• Expressive flexed muscles
• Active posses
• Figures seem to be in
mirroring positions

29. Resurrection
Piero della Francesca, 1463, San Sepolcro
Fresco in the Palazzo Comunale
• Geometric shapes
• Christ
• Stepping out of tomb or has
foot on lid???
• Enormous figure who
conquers all
• Holds a labarum
• Symbol of victory over
death
• Height of drama
• Landscape (flat background)
• Might symbolize death and
new life (live tree/dead tree)
• Morality
• Left is bare area with
strong and mature trees
• Hard path
• Right is pretty with less
mature trees
• Easy path

31. Room of the Newlyweds
Andrea Mantegna, 1465-1471, Mantua
Fresco in Ducal Palace
• Cube-shaped room “domed”
with painted central panel
• There is no real dome
• Oculus
• Two groups of women
leaning over a balustrade
• Some look down at viewer
• Foreshortening
• Angels seen from front and
back
• Rest their feet on painted
ledges
• Bird and flower pot are
unsettling

32. Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to Saint Peter
Pietro Perugino, 1482, Sistine Chapel in Rome
Fresco

33. Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom
to Saint Peter
• Left background
• Tribute money
• Right background
• Stoning of Christ
• Vast piazza in one-point perspective
• Arch of Constantine-like structures
• Central basilica reminiscent of
Brunelleschi or Alberti
• Open space around keys = emphasis
• Figures in contrapposto
• Many contemporary faces

34. Birth of Venus
Sandro Botticelli, 1485, Florence
Tempera on canvas

35. Birth of Venus
• Commissioned by MEDICI family
• Venus
• Emerges from sea foam
• Dreamy, far away look in her eyes
• Roses scattered before her
• Roses created at same time as her
• Thorns = love can be painful
• Physical beauty
• Lifts mind to God (divine love)
• Plato
• Venus was an earthly goddess of human
physical love
• Heavenly goddess who inspires intellectual
love
• Left
• Zephyr (west wind) & Chloris (nymph)
• Right
• Handmaiden rushes to clothe her
• Figures
• Floating, not anchored to ground
• Crisply drawn
• Many pale colors
• Landscape flat and unrealistic
• Simple v-shaped waves

36. Spring (La Primavera)
Sando Botticelli, 1482, Florence
Tempera on wood

37. Spring (La Primavera)
• Left
• Mercury holding a caduceus up
to the air to dispel storm clouds
• Right
• Zephyr reaches out to Chloris
• Chloris transforms into Flora,
goddess of Spring
• Center
• Venus wears a bridal wreath on
her head
• Cupid, son, is above her
• Three Graces dance together
• Embodiment of beauty Venus
creates
• Loose, long hair is a symbol of
virginity
• Narrow stage setting
• Figures closer to viewer
• FERTILITY SYMBOLS
• Fruit, flower, spring, Venus,
Cupid
• Large oranges may refer to Medici
coat-of-arms

38. Birth of the Virgin
Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1485-1490, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Fresco

39. Birth of the Virgin
• Religious scene in Florentine
home – MODERN setting
• St. Anne (Right)
• Mary’s mother
• Reclines in palace room
• Midwives to St. Anne
• GIOVANNI TORNABUONI
• Daughter of patron
• Center
• High status
• Upper left corner
• Story of Mary’s parents,
Joachim and Anna
meeting

40. Damned Cast into Hell
Luca Signorelli, 1499-1504, Orvieto Cathedral
Fresco

41. Damned Cast into Hell
• End of world scene – very common
• Upper right
• Heaven guarded by angels
• Upper left
• Angels carry off the damned
• Made to go against ideas of some Christian
heretics who questioned existence of hell and
heaven and purgatory
• Impenetrable mass of human bodies
• Many figures die by strangulation
• Largest treatment of human nudes to date
• Devils discolored = evil

42. Sculpture
• Interest in HUMANISM/Rebirth of Classical sculpture
• Peak an interest in Greek and Roman sculpture
• Medieval artists thought nudes were pagan
• 15th century Italian sculptures glorified the nude
• Like the ancients
• Revival of life-size nude sculpture
• Increased study of human anatomy
• Heroic bodies in stone and bronze
***Much sculpture made for Florence Cathedral Baptistry

43. Sacrifice of Isaac
Lorenzo Ghiberti, 1401-1403, Florence
Gilt Bronze
• Made for a competition to do a set of
bronze doors for Florence Cathedral
• Brunelleschi’s lost
• Story
• God asks Abraham to prove his love
by sacrificing son Isaac
• Abraham is about to kill Isaac when
an angel appears/reveals it’s a test
• Tells Abraham to kill a ram
instead
• Gothic quatrefoil pattern
• Had to match Gothic doors already on
the Baptistery
• Influence of Gothic style
• Gestures are graceful
• Figures are separated
• Helps with story’s clarity

44. Sacrifice of Isaac
Filippo Brunelleschi, 1401-1403, Florence
Bronze
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Lost the competition
Dense group
Great drama
Dramatic tension and rigor
Figures are heavy looking
Figures spill over the edges of the
quatrefoil

45. Gates of Paradise
Lorenzo Ghiberti, 1425-1452, Florence
Gilt bronze
• Ghiberti gets this commission after winning
“Isaac contest”
• More sophisticated spatially than his other
doors
• Figures have more convincing volume
• Lean, elegant, elongated bodies
• Different facial expressions
• 10 Old Testament scenes

46. Four Crowned Saints
Nanni de Banco, 1409-1417
Part of “Or San Michele” in Florence
Marble
• Built for guild of wood and stone carvers
• Shows four Christian sculptors
• Refused to carve a statue of a pagan god for the
Roman Emperor Diocletian/martyred for that
• Saints
• Wear Roman togas
• Heads look like portraits of Roman emperors
• Seem to be discussing their fate
• Feet step outside of arch
• Pedestal carved in arc
• Follows their positioning
• Figures are independent of the niche
• Bottom scene has view of sculptors at work on their
craft

47. David
Donatello, 1420’s – 60’s
Bronze
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First large-scale bronze since antiquity
Exaggerated contrapposto of the body
Probably displayed in Medici palace
David
• Looks androgynous
• Stance is nonchalant
• Contemplating victory over Goliath
• Foot on Goliath’s head
• Head lowered to show humility
• Hat has laurel leaves on it
• Means he was a poet
• Special strength comes from God
• Story of triumph of good over evil
• Story
• Israelites fighting Philistines
• Philistines’ best warrior wants to fight Israelites
best warrior – David volunteers
• David refused armor, hits Goliath in the head
with a stone/cuts off his head

48. Mary Magdalene
Donatello, 1430-1450, Florence
Wood
• Mary
• Was a reformed sinner – followed Christ
• Hair covers her body
• Wiped Christ’s feet with hair
• Gilded hair indicated spirituality
and former beauty
• Emaciated from 30 years of penitence
• Hallowed cheeks, missing
teeth, sunken eyes
• Face shows torture of a badly left life
• Ravages of time on her body
• Gesture of prayer expresses a world of
spirituality
• Eyes focused on an inner reality and a
higher form of beauty
• Completely, introspectively fixated on
Christ

49. GATTAMELATA
Donatello, 1445-1450, Padua, Italy
Bronze
• Nickname for warrior
• “Honeyed Cat”
• Gatamelata
• Commemorative monument
for a cemetery
• Face reflects stern
expression of a military
commander
• Horse is spirited, resting one
leg on a ball
• Rider is in control

50. Madonna and Child
Luca della Robbia, 1455-1460, San Michele, Florence
Terra cotta
• White glazed terra-cotta of flesh areas
simulates marble
• Ceramic is cheap
• Retains color and polish even
outdoors
• Drapery has rich colored glazes
• Creates luminous ceramic forms
• Soft quality of ceramic adds gentility to
the artistic expression

51. Hercules and Antaeus
Antonio del Pollaiuolo, 1475, Florence
Bronze
• Shows ancient myth
• Hercules must lift Antaeus off the ground
to defeat him
• Antaeus gets his strength from his mother,
who is the earth goddess
• Active composition with limbs jutting out in
various directions
• Strong angles of the body
• Sinewy, strong muscles

52. Colleoni
Andrea del Verrocchio, 1481-1496, Venice
Bronze
• Military leader, fought for the
Venetians
• Very powerful and spirited
animal tamed by an
animated, victorious leader
• Dramatically alive and forceful
appearance
• Bulging, fiery eyes
• Erect position in saddle

53. VOCABULARY
1. BOTTEGA – the studio of an Italian artist
2. HUMANISM – an intellectual movement in the Renaissance that emphasized the secular
alongside the religious. Humanists were attached the achievements of the classical past, and
stressed the study of classical literature, history, philosophy, and art
3. LANTERN – a small structure with openings for light that crowns a dome
4. OTHOGONAL – lines that appear to recede toward a vanishing point in a painting with linear
perspective
5. PILASTER – a flattened column attached to a wall with a capital, a shaft, and a base
6. QUATTROCENTO – the 1400s (15th century) of Italian art
7. RUSTICATE – to deeply and roughly incise stones to give a rough and rustic texture to its
appearance
8. STRINGCOURSE – a horizontal molding
9. TROMPE L’OEIL – “fools the eye” – a form of painting that attempts to represent an object as
existing in three dimensions, and therefore resembles the real thing