1. 13th Century Italy – High Middle Ages
Chapter 14
Late Medieval Italy

2. FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY For publication, reproduction or transmission of images, please contact individual artists, estates, photographers and exhibiting institutions for permissions and rights.

3. 13th Century Italy timeline
th Crusade results in Venetians sacking Constantinople
1226 – Death of St. Francis of Assisi
1260 – Nicola Pisano creates the Pisa pulpit
1296 – Work on the Florence Cathedral begins
– The Popes move and live in Avignon, France
1306 – Giotto completes the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua
– Dante composes the Divine Comedy (first work in Italian)
1311 – Duccio’s Maesta completed in Siena
1341 – Petrarch is made Poet Laureate in Rome
– The Black Plague ravages Europe
– The Way of Salvation painted in the Guidalotti Chapel in Florence
1395 – Giangaleazzo Visconti becomes Duke of Milan

4. 13th century Italy Background
Developing urban economies and independent states in Florence, Pisa, Siena, Padua, and Milan become important centers for artistic patronage
Growing wealth and prosperity in Florence and Siena attributable to banking and the cloth business
Important private and ducal patrons emerge in the north of Italy, like Enrico Scrovegni in Padua and Giangaleazzo Visconti in Milan
Important to the development of late medieval spirituality, urban development, and artistic patronage are the Franciscan and Dominican orders
The Franciscans are formed by St. Francis of Assisi
The Dominicans are formed by St. Dominic
The ideal proportions of classical sculpture
The numeric harmonies found in the ruins surrounding them.

5. 13th Century Italy Background
Important sources of patronage are local governments that are developing a sense of how to rule these late medieval communes and duchies and how to represent that rule in the visual arts.
The Florentines build the Palazzo della Signoria
The Sienese commission Ambrogio Lorenzetti to paint frescoes in the Palazzo Pubblico representing good and bad government
Major disturbances affect the patronage and production of art.
Constant warfare led scores of banks and merchants into bankruptcy; internal upheavals shook governments.
Repeated crop failure and famine make life bleak and difficult.
The arrival of the plague, or Black Death, in devastates Europe.

6. Goals
Understand the influence of the Byzantine and classical worlds on the art and architecture.
Understand the rejection of medieval artistic elements and the growing interest in the natural world.
Examine the revival of classical values, in particular, the growth of humanism.
Examine elements of the patronage system that developed at that time, and the patronage rivalries among the developing city states.
Examine the architecture and art as responsive to the growing European power structures at that time.

7. 14.1 Rejection of Medieval Artistic Values
Understand the influence of the Byzantine and classical worlds on the art and architecture.
Understand the rejection of medieval artistic elements and the growing interest in the natural world.    
Examine the artistic interest in illusionism, pictorial solidity, spatial depth, and emotional display in the human figure.

8. Figure 14-2 NICOLA PISANO, pulpit of the baptistery, Pisa, Italy, 1259–1260. Marble, 15’ high.

9. Figure NICOLA PISANO, Annunciation, Nativity, and Adoration of the Shepherds, relief panel on the baptistery pulpit, Pisa, Italy, 1259–1260. Marble, 2’ 10” x 3’ 9”.

10. Figure GIOVANNI PISANO, Annunciation, Nativity, and Adoration of the Shepherds, relief panel on the pulpit of Sant’Andrea, Pistoia, Italy, 1297–1301. Marble 2’ 10” x 3’ 4”.

11. Figure BONAVENTURA BERLINGHIERI, panel from the Saint Francis Altarpiece, San Francesco, Pescia, Italy, Tempera on wood, 5’ x 3’ x 6”.

12. 14-5A Nave (looking west) of the upper church, San Francesco, Assisi, Italy, 1228–1253.

13. 14-5B GIOTTO, Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds, upper church, San Francesco, Assisi, Italy, ca. 1290–1300. Fresco, ?’ ?” high.

14. The Altered Byzantine Style
Examine the Byzantine styles and classical style that is seen in the religious panel painting.
Understand growing interest in the natural world and the presentation of more physically solid human figures.

15. Figure CIMABUE, Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets, from Santa Trinità, Florence, Italy, ca. 1280–1290. Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 12’ 7” x 7’ 4”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

16. Figure GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Madonna Enthroned, from the Church of Ognissanti, Florence, Italy, ca Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 10’ 8” x 6’ 8”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

17. 14-6B PIETRO CAVALLINI, enthroned apostles, detail of Last Judgment, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, Italy, ca. 1290–1295. Fresco.

18. Figure Giotto di Bondone, Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni; interior looking west), Padua, Italy, 1305–1306.

19. Interest in the Natural World
Understand the growing interest in the natural world and the interest in real space.
View how artists began to depict human emotion in their work (influence of humanism)
Explore how these elements are depicted in the art.

20. Interior of the Arena Chapel
Giotto di Bondone
Interior of the Arena Chapel
Padua, Italy
fresco
FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY For publication, reproduction or transmission of images, please contact individual artists, estates, photographers and exhibiting institutions for permissions and rights.

21. Figure GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Lamentation, Arena Chapel, (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy, ca Fresco, 6’ 6 3/4” x 6’ 3/4”.

22. Late Middle Ages

23. 14-8A GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Entry into Jerusalem, Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy, ca Fresco, 6’ 6 3/4" X 6’ 3/4".

24. 14-8B GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Betrayal of Jesus, Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy, ca Fresco, 6’ 6 3/4" X 6’ 3/4".