Early Modern Art

Giorgio Vasari

Italian painter, architect, and writer, known for his biographies of Renaissance artists— The Lives of Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Florence: 1568 (on Michelangelo). He is often referred to as the first art historian.

Guild

An association of craftsmen or merchants, often holding considerable political and economic power

Arnolfo di Cambio, Palazzo Vecchio in Piazza della Signoria

Italian architect and sculptor, pivotal in the development of Gothic architecture in Florence. He is credited with designing the Palazzo Vecchio in Piazza della Signoria

Campanile

A freestanding bell tower, often attached to a church castle, or palace; notably, the Campanile of Florence.

Loggia

A gallery or room with one or more open sides

Humanism

The worldview centered on the nature and importance of humanity and human achievement, which emerged from the study of Classical antiquity

All’antica

in the manner of the ancients

Alberti, Santa Maria Novella façade

A facade designed by Leon Battista Alberti, known for its Renaissance style and the incorporation of classical elements.

Leon Battista Alberti

designed the Renaissance addition to the Santa Maria Novella

Magnificence

A moral virtue that consists of spending great amounts of money on appropriately large scale and grand, things, befitting to one’s station in society, and often for the public good.

Santa maria del Fiore, the Duomo, Filippo Brunelleschi dome

A cathedral in Florence, Italy, featuring a stunning dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, renowned for its innovative use of materials and techniques.

St John’s Baptistry

A notable structure in Florence, Italy, known for its octagonal shape and exquisite bronze doors, including the famous "Gates of Paradise" designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti.

horizon line

Where the sky appears to meet the ground

Vanishing Point

The vanishing point islocated near the center of the horizon line. The vanishing point is also where all orthogonals that run towards the horizon line appear to converge.

Orthogonals

All parallel lines that converge in a single vanishing point on a composition’s horizon line

Masaccio, The Holy Trinity

Cimabue, Santa Trinita Maestá

blend of Byzantine and emerging naturalistic styles

Giotto di Bondone, Ognissanti Madonna

significant transition from the late medieval Byzantine style toward the Renaissance

Maestà

A compositional format depicting an enthroned Madonna with the child Jesus, generally accompanied by angels and/or saints.

Naturalism

A lifelike accuracy, or artistic interest in representing things as they appear in real life

Fra Angelico, The Annucitation

proportions are not realistic

Filippino Lippi, Madonna and Child

• sense that they are real people

• love of the material world, velvet cushions and tassles, bronze candlestick, velvet robes

Renaissance

a term that means “rebirth” referring to a period of cultural dynamism between the 14th and 17th centuries in Europe

Baroque

a western style of artistic production from c. 1600-1750 characterized by material exuberance, dramatic, exaggerated motion, and a sense of gradeur, awe, or surprise

Sacra Conversazione

A composition type of Renaissance painting in which ‘attendant saints are grouped in a unified space around the centralized Virgin and Child in a single panel’

Pietá

the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Jesus Christ on her lap or in her arms, following the Crucifixion

Iconagraphy

symbolic representation, especially the conventional meanings attached to an image, and the identification, description and interpretation of such symbolic content

Stigmata

marks corresponding to those left on Jesus’ body by the Crucifixion, said to have been impressed by divine favor on the bodies of certain saints

*Condottiere

a leader or member of a troop of mercenaries

Diptych

a painting comprising two related parts often on hinged wooden panels

Virtú

a quality encompassing (manly) excellence in moral, physical, and mental achievement

Attributed to Fra Carnevale, The Ideal City

Spalliere

a decorated backboard mounted on a wall, often behind a cassone (a wooden chest used for storage), or as a headboard to a bed

*Arcade

a structural element consisting of a series of arches supported by columns or piers, creating a covered passageway

Studiolo/i

a room inside a residence designed for study and contemplation

Intarsia

a decorative form of wood inlaying in which different woods are placed together to create an image or design

Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ

Sprezzatura

a nonchalance or effortless elegance which conceals effort or ‘art’ required to perform this nonchalance