Chapter 21 Humanism and the Allure of Antiquity: 15 th Century Italian Art Part 4 Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 12e

Renaissance Florence

Rise of Portraiture With humanism’s increased emphasis on individual achievement and recognition, portraiture enjoyed a revival in the fifteenth century. Commemorative portraits of the deceased were common, and patrons commissioned portraits of themselves and of family members. The profile was customary in Florence until 1470, when three-quarter and full-face portraits began to replace it. Bust-length portraits based on Roman precedents also became prominent.

Sandro Botticelli Giuliano de' Medici, c. 1478/1480 Giuliano, younger brother of Lorenzo, was nursing a bad knee on Easter 1478 and had to be helped to the cathedral—by men intending to kill him and his brother during mass. The assassins, members and supporters of the Pazzi family, banking rivals of the Medici, awaited their signal. As worshipers bowed their heads at the elevation of the host, Giuliano was brutally stabbed. Lorenzo escaped to the sacristy, remaining in its refuge while the Pazzi partisans attempted to seize the government. They soon failed, however, and Lorenzo resumed control. The murder of Giuliano shocked Florence, and a number of portraits were ordered for public display to serve both as memorials and as warnings to other plotters. Botticelli's painting may have been the prototype for that series. The open window was a familiar symbol of death, alluding to the deceased's passage to the afterlife. On the ledge is a dove, which mates for life; it is perched on a dead branch, the only place, according to Renaissance lore, doves alight after their mates have died.

SANDRO BOTTICELLI, Portrait of a Youth, early 1480s. Tempera on panel, 1’ 4” x 1’. National Gallery of Art, Washington (Andrew W. Mellon Collection).

DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO, Giovanna Tornabuoni(?), Oil and tempera on wood, approx. 2’ 6” x 1’ 8”. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid, Spain.

Leonardo da Vinci, Ginevra de’ Benci, about 1474

ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO, Portrait of a Man, about 1450.

SANDRO BOTTICELLI, Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Medallion, about

DONATELLO, Gattamelata (equestrian statue of Erasmo da Narni), Piazza del Santo, Padua, Italy, ca. 1445–1450. Bronze, approx. 11’ x 13’. First equestrian statue to rival the grandeur of the mounted portraits of antiquity, such as that of Marcus Aurelius. Unlike the Marcus Aurelius statue, however, Donatello did not represent the great commander as more than life- size.

ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO, Bartolommeo Colleoni (equestrian statue), Campo dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, Italy, ca. 1483–1488. Bronze, approx. 13’ high.

Alternate view of equestrian monument from front right. Verrochio placed the statue of the bold equestrian general on a pedestal even higher than that Donatelklo used for Gattamelata so tat viewers could see the dominating, aggressive figure above the rooftops from all the major approaches to the piazza. The Colleoni horse moves in a prancing stride, arching & curving its powerful neck. Colleoni himself is a portrait of savage and merciless might. © 2005 Saskia Cultural Documentation, Ltd.

Further Developments in Architecture Leon Battista Alberti was the first Renaissance architects to study seriously the treatise of the Roman writer Vitruvius & therefore the first to understand Roman architecture in depth. He advocated a system of ideal proportions & argued that the central plan was the ideal form for a Christian church. He also considered incongruous the combination of the column & the arch. He disposed the the medieval arcade used for centuries. In the Palazzo Rucellai, Alberti converted the ancient use of engaged columns into shallow pilasters that barely project from the wall, creating a large-meshed linear net. Alberti’s façade for Santa Maria Novella defined areas and related them to one another in terms of proportions that can be expressed in simple numerical ratios (1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 3:3, and so on). For example, the height (to the pediment) equals its width so that the entire façade can be inscribed in a square.

LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI, Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, Italy, ca. 1452–1470.

LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI, west facade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy, ca. 1458–1470.

LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI, diagrams of west facade, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy.