Chapter 15: Early Renaissance in Italy: Fifteenth Century

Humanism

an intellectual movement in the Renaissance that emphasized the secular alongside the religious.

Quattrocento

the 1400s, or fifteenth century, in Italian art

Mullion

a central post or column that is a support element in a window or a door

Orthogonal

lines that appear to recede toward a vanishing point in a painting with linear perspective

Pietra serena

a dark-gray stone used for columns, arches, and trim details in Renaissance buildings

Trompe l’oeil

(French, meaning “fools the eye”) a form of painting that attempts to represent an object as existing in three dimensions, and therefore resembles the real thing.

Bottega

the studio of an Italian artist

Perspective

depth and recession in a painting or a relief sculpture.

linear perspective

Objects shown in \______ achieve a three-dimensionality in the two-dimensional world of the picture plane.

orthogonals

Lines that draw the viewer back in space to a common point, called the vanishing point.

vanishing point

Paintings, however, may have more than one \____, with the orthogonals leading the eye to several parts of the work.

aerial perspective

Landscapes that give the illusion of distance are in an atmospheric or \_____.

Madonna

the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ

Pearls

used as symbols in scenes of the Incarnation of Christ.

Neoplatonism

a school of ancient Greek philosophy that was revived by Italian humanists of the Renaissance

Mercury

is the patron of the arts and merchants, and therefore an appropriate symbol for the Medici.

Pazzi Chapel

• Designed by Filippo Brunelleschi

• Chapter house: a meeting place for Franciscan monks; bench that wraps around the interior provides seating for meetings.

• Rectangular chapel with an apse and an altar attached to the church of Santa Croce, Florence.

Palazzo Rucellai

• Designed by Leon Battista Alberti (c. 1450)

• The building format expresses classical humanist ideals for a residence

• The articulation of the three stories links the building to the Colosseum levels, which have arches framed by columns

Madonna and Child with Two Angels

• Painted by Fra Filippo Lippi (c. 1465)

• Pearl motif; symbolic landscape

• Scene depicted as if in a window in a Florentine home.

• Humanization of a sacred theme; there is a sense of domestic intimacy.

Birth of Venus

• Painted by Sandro Botticelli (c. 1484–1486)

• Medici commission; may have been commissioned for a wedding celebration.

• Painting based on a popular court poem by the writer Poliziano

• A revival of interest in Greek and Roman themes

David

• Sculpted by Donatello (c. 1440–1460)

• Made of bronze

• Life-size work, probably meant to be housed in the Medici palace courtyard

• The work depicts the moment where Goliath was defeated with a rock from a slingshot