After the important thirteenth-century experience of Guido da Siena, considered the founder of the cityÆs school of painting, artists in Siena also tried to go beyond the immobility of Byzantine images, though they followed a line of their own that can be distinguished from contemporary developments in Florence.
Duccio is unanimously regarded as the initiator of this movement of renewal. He probably received his training working on the decoration of the cathedral in Assisi, under the guidance of Cimabue, but chose to emphasize the function of line and color over his teacherÆs plastic language of forms. By doing so he introduced the linear, chromatic and naturalistic ferments of the Gothic style into the painting of the thirteenth century, and these characteristics were long to be a feature of Sienese art.
A faithful follower and brilliant interpreter of DuccioÆs style was Ugolino di Nerio, who also worked in Florence, painting two large polyptychs for the churches of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella: significant examples of a meeting between the artistic cultures of the two cities.
Simone Martini took up the legacy of Duccio in full, accentuating the Gothic aspects of his painting. The time he spent in the service of the papal court at Avignon in the latter part of his career helped to spread Sienese culture widely through Europe. An artist with close ties to Simone Martini was Lippo Memmi, son of the painter Memmo di Filippuccio from San Gimignano and married to Simone MartiniÆs sister. Lippo collaborated with Martini on numerous works for Siena, Pisa and Orvieto, and would also accompany him to Avignon.
Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, on the other hand, were more deeply and profitably influenced by Giotto, from whom they derived their interest in a coherent representation of space and the solidity of their figures. Pietro combined these elements with a greater expressiveness, inspired by the sculptural work of Giovanni Pisano, while AmbrogioÆs painting is characterized by a lively vein of narrative.
The encounter between Sienese culture and the Gothic one of Northern Europe reached its climax in the work of Matteo Giovannetti, a painter originally from Viterbo who was active at the papal court in Avignon and responsible for many important cycles of paintings in the Palace of the Popes.
In the second half of the fourteenth century the Sienese school did not move in the direction of any major and significant renewal, and the link with the tradition of the first half of the century remained strong. The example of the Lorenzetti brothers, and their approach to space and perspective, had a particularly strong influence on Bartolo di Fredi, the author of the cycle of frescoes representing Scenes from the Old Testament in the Collegiate church of San Gimignano. This was equally true of the painting of Bartolomeo Bulgarini, formerly known as "Ugolino-Lorenzetti" owing to the thirteenth-century and Lorenzettian components of his style. The task of bringing the fourteenth century to a close and ushering in the new one was finally left to Taddeo di Bartolo. In his work, however, the influence of the great painters of the early Trecento was accompanied by a new openness to developments in other Italian artistic centers, like Pisa, Umbria and Liguria, and toward the example set by contemporary painters in those places, in particular Barnaba da Modena. This artist, of Emilian origin and formed by the Bolognese culture of the mid-fourteenth century, in close contact with Vitale da Bologna, would in turn be subjected to the same Tuscan, Pisan and Sienese influences during his stays in Liguria and Pisa.
Gothic tradition and taste, deeply rooted in the Sienese artistic culture of the fourteenth century, persisted and continued to develop in the Quattrocento as well, while adopting some elements of the new language of the Florentine Renaissance. Sassetta was certainly the most important and refined exponent of this renewal, which was marked by an opening up to the luministic and chromatic interpretation that Fra Angelico and Domenico Veneziano gave to the innovations of Masaccio: the only interpretation that could ensure the continuity and even relevance of such characteristic values of the Sienese figurative tradition as light and color.
The stylistic tendency inaugurated by Sassetta was pursued and taken further by the ôMaster of the Osservanzaö and Sano di Pietro in particular, artists who were bound together by a strong community of interests. Conversely, Giovanni di Paolo retained powerful links with the great models of the early Sienese Trecento and made use, at least in his juvenile phase, of stylistic modules of an archaic and markedly linear character.
This panel was attached to another of equal size depicting the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, now in the Zagreb Museum, to form a diptych. Despite the very small size of the picture, Pietro Lorenzetti is able to impart a sense of solemnity and grandeur to the image, thanks to the large dimensions of the figures and their calmly composed attitudes.
AmbrogioÆs brother, he was trained in the circle of Duccio at Siena but spent some time in Assisi as well, where Giotto made an impression on him. He was able to blend different experiences and influences to create a style where Sienese color and lineation are combined with a sound handling of perspective, the essential construction of Florentine painting and the expressiveness that he found in the sculpture of Giovanni Pisano.
This part of the polyptych painted by Simone Martini for Cardinal Napoleone Orsini represents Christ on the road to calvary, against the backdrop of the many-towered city of Jerusalem. He is followed by the Virgin, St. John, Mary Magdalene and the other holy women, while on the right we see a group of soldiers, with cruel and bloodthirsty expressions.
This small panel is part of the polyptych depicting scenes from the Passion of Christ painted by Simone Martini for Bishop Napoleone Orsini. The episode is set against the backdrop of the city of Jerusalem, ringed by walls and towers and crowded with tall buildings. Numerous figures are pouring out of the cityÆs central gate to follow Christ. His figure is set at the center of the composition, bearing the great cross. On the right a group of soldiers, with cruel and bloodthirsty expressions, are dragging his suffering body along. The Virgin, wrapped in her blue cloak, St. John, the pious women and the sorrowful figure of the Magdalene follow him. The latter, recognizable by her red dress and blond hair, is particularly striking, with her arms raised to underline the high pathos of the event. The marked Gothicisms and powerful expressiveness are typical features of the last phase of Simone MartiniÆs career, to which The Road to Calvary belongs.
Trained in DuccioÆs workshop, he established a great reputation in Siena as of his very first commission, the fresco of the Maestα that he painted in the cityÆs Palazzo Pubblico in 1315. Subsequently, he worked for the House of Anjou (panel depicting St. Louis of Toulouse Crowning Robert of Anjou, Capodimonte, Naples) and at Assisi, on the decoration of the chapel of San Martino in the Lower Basilica. In 1336 he moved to Avignon together with many of his collaborators, working there until his death (1344) as official painter to the papal court. His painting was the expression of a profound understanding of French Gothic culture and, in turn, SimoneÆs stay at Avignon permitted the diffusion of Sienese art in Europe.
These two small panels must have been the upper parts, in the form of cusps, of the wings of a polyptych or a Gothic triptych. On the left we see the figure of the angel with his long wings spread, kneeling to bring the news. On the right the Virgin is seated on a throne, with a book open in her hands, drawing back in fright from the angel.
A painter originally from Viterbo, he worked principally at Avignon in the service of the papal court, frescoing many of the rooms in the Palace of the Popes and the Abbey of Villeneuve. Deeply influenced by the Sienese Gothic style of Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers, he developed a highly original language, marked by a great freedom of composition and a new tendency toward characterization of features and expressions that was inspired by his contact with the lively artistic circles of Avignon and Northern European Gothic culture.
Although its lower part has been altered, this panel must once have formed part of an altarpiece. It shows Christ on the cross, with St. Francis kneeling in adoration at his feet. On the left is the group of mourners, with the Virgin swooning, St. John the Evangelist, the Magdalene and the other holy women. On the right we see a group of soldiers.
Faithful to the great Sienese pictorial tradition of the early fourteenth century, he drew his inspiration chiefly from Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti in his prolific output of panels. But he was also active in Liguria, Perugia and Pisa, where he came under the influence of contemporary painters like Barnaba da Modena and Gentile da Fabriano. His most important works are the huge frescoes in Pisa (church of San Francesco) and in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena.
This small panel must have originally been part of the predella of a large altarpiece. It depicts the crucifixion of Christ, whose gaunt and lifeless figure hangs from the cross at the center of the picture. At his side stands St. John the Evangelist, cloaked in blue and pink. On the left is the group of holy women, with the Virgin and Mary Magdalene. On the right is the group of soldiers.
(documented in Siena and Florence from 1337 to 1378)
An exponent of the Sienese school, he worked extensively for the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena. After recent discoveries in the archives, historians now attribute to this artist, mentioned by Vasari as a pupil of Pietro Lorenzetti, a large group of works that had previously been assigned to the two distinct and anonymous figures of ôUgolino Lorenzettiö and the ôMaster of Ovile.ö These paintings are distinguished by a precise effort to revive the style of the great masters of the early fourteenth century.
These five panels originally made up the predella of the Polyptych of the Jesuits, painted by Sano di Pietro in 1444, the central part of which is now in the Pinacoteca di Siena. They represent scenes from the life of St. Jerome in the following order: Saint Jerome and the Lion; Vision of Saint Jerome; Saint Jerome in the Desert; Flagellation of Saint Jerome; Death of Saint Jerome.
Strongly influenced in his formation by the works of Sassetta, Sano di Pietro completed some of the paintings that the former had left unfinished. His extensive output included many altarpieces and miniatures, characterized by their freshness of narrative and refinement of color and by the constant reuse of models from the great Sienese tradition of the fourteenth century.
This small panel was originally part of the predella of a large altarpiece painted by Sassetta for the church of San Francesco in Borgo San Sepolcro. The picture was located in the chancel of the church, above the tomb of the Blessed Ranieri Rasini (å 1304). The panels of the predella illustrate scenes from the life and miracles of the Blessed Ranieri.
His background is unknown, but can be linked to the great sources of early fourteenth-century Sienese painting, from Simone Martini to Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, updated by his contact with International Gothic and the new naturalism and perspective of Florentine painting. In fact he was the earliest and most attentive interpreter in Siena of the work of painters like Domenico Veneziano, Fra Angelico and Paolo Uccello, who at that time were reworking MasaccioÆs perspective in a luministic and chromatic key.
God the Father occupied the center of this painting, seated on the red cushion of a throne and crowning the Virgin kneeling before him. At the sides appear the standing figures of saints and, in the background, numerous angels supporting the beautiful piece of decorated cloth, which takes the place of the throneÆs back.
An extremely original personality in the panorama of fourteenth-century Italian painting, he was the founder of the Bolognese Gothic school, whose style diverged strongly both from the solemn language of Giotto and Florentine painting and from the elegant and refined accents of Simone Martini and the Sienese. With their great liveliness of description and imagination, his works take a more dramatic approach to the representation of reality, through an intense and attractive use of color. Among the most important of these are the great cycles of frescoes in Bologna (San Francesco and Santa Maria dei Servi), the oratory of Mezzaratta, Udine Cathedral and the abbey of Pomposa.
Part of the predella of an altarpiece, probably depicting other scenes from the life of St. Nicholas, this panel contains a representation of the saint providing three impoverished girls with a dowry. They are sleeping inside a very humble room along with their father, while St. Nicholas drops three balls of gold through the window.
PietroÆs brother, he was first active in Florence but from 1335 onward documents record his almost uninterrupted presence in Siena. It is legitimate to suppose that he received his training in Florentine circles and perhaps at Assisi: he combined the lesson of Giotto with the new expressive possibilities and rhythmic solutions discovered by sculptors (Tino da Camaino), so that the forms appear set within dynamic outlines, animated by human feelings. In contrast to the aristocratic world of Simone Martini, Ambrogio was interested in simple and everyday reality, which he described with a lively sense of narrative.
This small panel was originally part of the predella of a large altarpiece painted by Sassetta for the church of San Francesco in Borgo San Sepolcro. The picture was located in the chancel of the church, above the tomb of the Blessed Ranieri Rasini (å 1304). The panels of the predella illustrate scenes from the life and miracles of the Blessed Ranieri.
His background is unknown, but can be linked to the great sources of early fourteenth-century Sienese painting, from Simone Martini to Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, updated by his contact with International Gothic and the new naturalism and perspective of Florentine painting. In fact he was the earliest and most attentive interpreter in Siena of the work of painters like Domenico Veneziano, Fra Angelico and Paolo Uccello, who at that time were reworking MasaccioÆs perspective in a luministic and chromatic key.
These five panels originally made up the predella of the Polyptych of the Jesuits, painted by Sano di Pietro in 1444, the central part of which is now in the Pinacoteca di Siena. They represent scenes from the life of St. Jerome in the following order: Saint Jerome and the Lion; Vision of Saint Jerome; Saint Jerome in the Desert; Flagellation of Saint Jerome; Death of Saint Jerome.
Strongly influenced in his formation by the works of Sassetta, Sano di Pietro completed some of the paintings that the former had left unfinished. His extensive output included many altarpieces and miniatures, characterized by their freshness of narrative and refinement of color and by the constant reuse of models from the great Sienese tradition of the fourteenth century.
This small picture was one of many panels that flanked the large picture of the Maestα painted by Guido da Siena for the Sienese church of San Domenico. It represents the Nativity of Jesus Christ, with the Virgin lying on her cloak at the center, surrounded by the figures of adoring angels and, in the foreground, two maidservants taking care of the newborn Child.
This small picture was originally part of a large altarpiece painted by Guido da Siena for the Sienese church of San Domenico. The central panel, depicting the Maestα, is now in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, while the numerous side panels of smaller size, containing Scenes from the Childhood and Passion of Christ, are currently found in various museums in Europe and America. This panel is one of them and illustrates the Nativity of Jesus Christ. The composition follows the iconography of the Byzantine tradition, with the Virgin depicted lying down, wrapped in her cloak, after the moment of birth. Behind her the Child is in his cradle, guarded by the donkey and ox. In the foreground we see two maidservants, washing and caring for the newborn Child. A rocky mountain, modeled in brushstrokes of white light, frames and shelters the central group of figures. St. Joseph is seated on the left. On the right we see the shepherds and their animals, come to adore the Child. The circle is closed by six angels with widespread wings, set above the mountain in various attitudes of prayer and veneration.
(active in the second half of the thirteenth century)
Not mentioned in any documents, the name of Guido da Siena is known to us from the signature on the Maestα in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, whose faces were repainted by an artist from DuccioÆs circle at the beginning of the fourteenth century. His work, though influenced by PisanÆs and BerlinghieroÆs painting in particular, is fully autonomous in style and would serve as a point of reference for the Sienese painters of the late thirteenth century, especially Duccio. In his pictures it is also possible to find echoes of Coppo di Marcovaldo, the Florentine painter who, taken prisoner by the Sienese at the battle of Montaperti, painted the Madonna del Bordone in the Servite church of that city in 1261.
This painting must originally have been flanked by two side panels containing standing figures of saints. The artist has set the scene of the Presentation in the Temple inside a building represented in daring foreshortening and perspective, reminiscent of the spatial solutions introduced into Sienese painting by the Lorenzetti brothers in the first half of the fourteenth century.
The author of numerous works for the churches of Siena, Pienza, Montalcino, San Gimignano and Volterra, he interpreted the lesson of the Sienese masters of the early fourteenth century, and of Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers in particular, in an old-fashioned style. In the large cycle of Scenes from the Old Testament in the collegiate church of San Gimignano, signed and dated 1367 and partly inspired by Taddeo GaddiÆs frescoes in the Camposanto at Pisa, he offered an updated interpretation of the LorenzettiÆs handling of space, but spurned the rigor and unity sought by the two brothers in favor of lively representations dominated by a sense of the fabulous and grotesque and new touches of naturalism and expressiveness.
This small picture was one of the many side panels that flanked the large picture of the Maestα painted by Guido da Siena for the Sienese church of San Domenico. The scene is set against the backdrop of a Byzantine building of distinctly archaic character, flanked by two more buildings with towers
(active in the second half of the thirteenth century)
Not mentioned in any documents, the name of Guido da Siena is known to us from the signature on the Maestα in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, whose faces were repainted by an artist from DuccioÆs circle at the beginning of the fourteenth century. His work, though influenced by PisanÆs and BerlinghieroÆs painting in particular, is fully autonomous in style and would serve as a point of reference for the Sienese painters of the late thirteenth century, especially Duccio. In his pictures it is also possible to find echoes of Coppo di Marcovaldo, the Florentine painter who, taken prisoner by the Sienese at the battle of Montaperti, painted the Madonna del Bordone in the Servite church of that city in 1261.
In this small panel Giovanni di Paolo, a painter with a great feeling for narrative, depicts the long procession that accompanied St. Gregory to Castel SantÆAngelo. The great bulk of the castle and other Roman buildings are visible in the background, in a daring perspective from a raised viewpoint.
He worked in Siena as an illuminator and painter of biccherne, small panels that were used as covers for office registers. His figurative language seems to be deeply rooted in the great tradition of Sienese Gothic culture, but he was also open to the influences of Gentile da Fabriano and Florentine painting, showing an interest in the formal problems of the Renaissance.
Ugolino di Nerio, a talented pupil and follower of Duccio, painted numerous pictures of the Virgin and Child, either as central panels of larger polyptychs or as individual images for devotional use. In this work the affectionate relationship between mother and son is handled in a particularly effective manner, notably in the tender gesture of the Child embracing the VirginÆs white veil.
A faithful follower of Duccio, Ugolino is the most sensitive and brilliant interpreter of his masterÆs stylistic innovations. Praised by Vasari ôfor his fine work without straying at all from the manner of his teacher,ö he painted numerous altarpieces for churches in Siena and the surrounding region, as well as a magnificent polyptych commissioned from him by the Franciscan friars around 1325 for the high altar of the church of Santa Croce in Florence.
Separated at the beginning of the nineteenth century and currently dispersed among various museums in Europe and America, UgolinoÆs polyptych, along with DuccioÆs Rucellai Madonna, is an important testimony to the prestige enjoyed by Sienese painting in Florence and a significant example of a meeting between the two artistic cultures.
This panel depicts the Virgin offering her breast to the Child. It is still strongly influenced by the Byzantine tradition, evident in the monumental beauty of the figure and its still archaic appearance, like that of a ôGreek icon.ö In fact this tradition was dominant in Genoa, the city where Barnaba da Modena lived and worked for a long time.
(active in the second half of the fourteenth century)
A painter who received his training in Bologna around the middle of the fourteenth century, in close contact with Vitale da Bologna. Later he worked in Genoa, a city with deep roots in the Byzantine tradition and it is to this influence that we can ascribe the artistÆs numerous panels in a sumptuous and extremely archaic style. In 1380 he was in Pisa, where he had been summoned to complete the Scenes from the Life of Saint Ranier in the Camposanto, though he did not fulfill the commission. His work had a very wide influence, from Liguria and Piedmont as far as Siena, the coasts of Catalonia and Sicily.
These five panels originally made up the predella of the Polyptych of the Jesuits, painted by Sano di Pietro in 1444, the central part of which is now in the Pinacoteca di Siena. They represent scenes from the life of St. Jerome in the following order: Saint Jerome and the Lion; Vision of Saint Jerome; Saint Jerome in the Desert; Flagellation of Saint Jerome; Death of Saint Jerome.
Strongly influenced in his formation by the works of Sassetta, Sano di Pietro completed some of the paintings that the former had left unfinished. His extensive output included many altarpieces and miniatures, characterized by their freshness of narrative and refinement of color and by the constant reuse of models from the great Sienese tradition of the fourteenth century.
These five panels originally made up the predella of the Polyptych of the Jesuits, painted by Sano di Pietro in 1444, the central part of which is now in the Pinacoteca di Siena. They represent scenes from the life of St. Jerome in the following order: Saint Jerome and the Lion; Vision of Saint Jerome; Saint Jerome in the Desert; Flagellation of Saint Jerome; Death of Saint Jerome.
Strongly influenced in his formation by the works of Sassetta, Sano di Pietro completed some of the paintings that the former had left unfinished. His extensive output included many altarpieces and miniatures, characterized by their freshness of narrative and refinement of color and by the constant reuse of models from the great Sienese tradition of the fourteenth century.
This painting must have been one of the side panels of a large polyptych with many compartments. It is likely that this was the altarpiece painted by Lippo Memmi for the monastery of San Francesco at Colle Val d'Elsa. The other panels are now in different museums in Europe and America.
(Siena, active in the first half of the fourteenth century)
Son of the ôcivic painterö of San Gimignano, Memmo di Filippuccio, Lippo was trained by his father, probably in the same city, which has the oldest of his works to have come down to us, the Maestα painted in fresco in the Palazzo del Popolo. This is signed and dated 1317 and inspired by the one painted by Simone Martini in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena in 1315. He went on to collaborate with Martini, who was his brother-in-law, on the execution of various polyptychs for the cities of Pisa and Orvieto, and in particular on the Annunciation now in the Uffizi, painted in 1333 for the chapel of Sant'Ansano in Siena Cathedral and signed by both artists. In the fourth decade of the century, he accompanied Simone Martini to Avignon along with other members of the Memmi workshop.
This small painting is probably a fragment of a panel from an altarpiece consecrated to St. Anthony Abbot. The saint was probably depicted full length, standing. He is holding a fine red book.
One of the most fascinating personalities in Sienese painting, his figure has emerged out of a revision of the catalogue of works that had long been attributed to Sassetta. Often showing close parallels with the activity of Sano di Pietro, his painting is characterized by a continuous investigation of SassettaÆs legacy, accompanied by a significant modernization under the influence of the new use of color and perspective by Florentine painters (especially Fra Angelico, Domenico Veneziano and Paolo Uccello).
These two small panels must have been the upper parts, in the form of cusps, of the wings of a polyptych or a Gothic triptych. On the left we see the figure of the angel with his long wings spread, kneeling to bring the news. On the right the Virgin is seated on a throne, with a book open in her hands, drawing back in fright from the angel.
A painter originally from Viterbo, he worked principally at Avignon in the service of the papal court, frescoing many of the rooms in the Palace of the Popes and the Abbey of Villeneuve. Deeply influenced by the Sienese Gothic style of Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers, he developed a highly original language, marked by a great freedom of composition and a new tendency toward characterization of features and expressions that was inspired by his contact with the lively artistic circles of Avignon and Northern European Gothic culture.
These five panels originally made up the predella of the Polyptych of the Jesuits, painted by Sano di Pietro in 1444, the central part of which is now in the Pinacoteca di Siena. They represent scenes from the life of St. Jerome in the following order: Saint Jerome and the Lion; Vision of Saint Jerome; Saint Jerome in the Desert; Flagellation of Saint Jerome; Death of Saint Jerome.
Strongly influenced in his formation by the works of Sassetta, Sano di Pietro completed some of the paintings that the former had left unfinished. His extensive output included many altarpieces and miniatures, characterized by their freshness of narrative and refinement of color and by the constant reuse of models from the great Sienese tradition of the fourteenth century.
Giotto is the artist responsible for the great renewal in Italian painting that took place at the beginning of the fourteenth century. He introduced a new concept of space, through which the figures moved with greater naturalness and realism. He also showed a new sensitivity to the human and dramatic characterization of his models, expressed through their natural gestures and expressions.
GiottoÆs pictorial language constituted a fundamental reference point for Florentine painting throughout the fourteenth century.
One of his earliest followers, Bernardo Daddi, developed the lyrical side of his masterÆs work, while adapting the lessons of the Sienese school and Northern European Gothic culture. This resulted in the introduction of decorative linear effects and precious colors into his work.
At the end of the century, Lorenzo Monaco imbibed the Giottesque tradition through his teacher Andrea Orcagna, but was also profoundly influenced by the innovations of the International Gothic style and of the manner introduced into Florence, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, by Lorenzo Ghiberti.
The style of the next generation of Florentine painters was shaped by the revolution in pictorial language brought about by Masolino and Masaccio.
Fra Angelico, a Dominican friar at the monastery of San Marco, created a language of high religious spirituality that reconciled MasaccioÆs new plastic and spatial ideas with the culture of the Humanists. He had a strong influence on the work of Benozzo Gozzoli, who was the friarÆs close collaborator and developed great skills as a lively and attractive painter of decorative frescoes.
The paintings of another monk, Filippo Lippi, show the influence of Masaccio in their simplified and sculptural forms, which are set inside in the Flemish manner, with their pale and transparent shades of color and linear elegance. The painters known as the Master of the Castello Nativity and Pesellino were at times strongly affected by Filippo LippiÆs teachings, as well as those of his collaborators. In their production of small works of a devotional character in particular, they stuck closely to the friarÆs style.
Giovanni di Francesco, another painter active in Florence around the middle of the century, was initially influenced by Paolo Uccello but then came to adopt the tendency introduced by Domenico Veneziano and develop it further, painting pictures bathed in a clear light that defines the outlines of forms and underlines the rigorous perspective of the compositions.
One of the outstanding figures in the panorama of Florentine painting in the second half of the century was Sandro Botticelli, who had close ties to the court of the Medici family, particularly Lorenzo the Magnificent. He imparted a more graceful and precious quality to the manner of his teachers, Verrocchio and del Pollaiolo. This allowed him to present an ideal world set in a realm of perfection remote from the contingencies of daily life, evoking a serenity that had long vanished and was regarded with nostalgia and regret.
The first symptoms of crisis, linked to the expulsion of the Medici from Florence and the crumbling of the great ideals of the Renaissance, were already discernable in the works of Filippino Lippi, FilippoÆs son. He took the examples set by his teachers, Botticelli, Leonardo and Signorelli, as well as by painters from across the Alps, and reworked them in an original and troubled manner, producing works that are a clear expression of the uneasy climate of the day and of his individual search for unfettered innovation.
With Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino the new period of Mannerism opened in Florence, at the start of the Cinquecento. Restless, introverted, gloomy and solitary spirits, they gave rise to a new and fascinating current in art, which set out to discover new possibilities of expression through an exploration of the artistÆs inner world that relied on abstractions of the imagination or intellectual concentration. PontormoÆs pupil, and initially his assistant, was Angelo Bronzino, who went on to become court painter to the Medici, executing numerous famous portraits of members of the family. In his paintings he soon moved away from PontormoÆs individualistic and fantastic vision, returning to a lucid and objective representation of reality and eventually developing a style in which extreme purity of form and cold-eyed analysis led him toward abstraction.
Another painter of portraits was Paolo Zacchia, an artist from Lucca who received his training in Florence at the beginning of the century and then in Rome, where he was influenced by Raphael.
This small tondo was undoubtedly part of a larger altarpiece. It depicts Jesus Christ, dressed in a blue cloak with his arm raised in blessing. The position of the figure, viewed in profile, and the foreshortening of the hands and halo show that Fra Angelico had mastered the new rules of perspective and spatial representation introduced by Renaissance painting.
Already working as a painter in 1417, he entered the monastery of San Domenico in Fiesole shortly afterward. His early works can still be placed within the late-Gothic current and the ambit of Lorenzo Monaco and Gentile da Fabriano in particular. But the painter soon fell under the spell of the innovations introduced by Masaccio, in terms of a new conception of form and space. He made a conscious attempt to lay the foundations of a modern form of ôsacred art,ö in which an authentic religious spirituality would be reconciled with the new culture of Humanism and the Renaissance.
These panels must have belonged to the predella of the altarpiece painted by Lorenzo Monaco for the Nobili chapel in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. Both the Meeting of Saint James the Greater with Hermogenes and the Martyrdom of Saint James are depicted in the first panel. The central panel represents the Crucifixion of Christ, while the third depicts HerodÆs Banquet and, on the right, the presentation of the severed head of John the Baptist.
Devoting himself to illumination after his ordination as a priest in the Camaldolensian monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, he completed his apprenticeship as a painter in the late-Giottesque circles of Agnolo Gaddi, Spinello Aretino and Andrea Orcagna. His encounter with Lorenzo Ghiberti in the early years of the fifteenth century led to a fundamental renewal of certain elements of his style. While some aspects of his work, such as the use of a rhythmic and modulated line, indicate the influence of late-Gothic culture, they are contained within clearly Florentine canons, so that his pictures are remote from the fairy-tale and chivalrous atmosphere of International Gothic and his interpretation of the sacred theme is always spare and unadorned.
Originally located in Pisa Cathedral, the picture represents The Triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas, with Plato and Aristotle standing on either side and an Oriental sage lying prostrate in defeat at his feet. The iconography affirms the recognition by Catholic orthodoxy of the role of Thomist philosophy as heir to the thought of the ancients.
The picture was painted by Benozzo Gozzoli during his Pisan period, at the time when he was working on the monumental undertaking of the frescoes in the Camposanto. It is a large painting on panel that used to be located in a particularly important place: according to Vasari, ôbehind the throne of the Archbishopö in Pisa Cathedral. The panel, shaped and arched, depicts Christ, flanked by the four Evangelists, St. Paul and St. Peter, in the act of approving the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. In fact the phrase at the top reads BENE SCRIPSISTI DE ME THOMMA. The saint is seated in the middle between Aristotle and Plato and an Oriental sage lies prostrate in defeat at his feet. This was probably meant to represent Averroδs and to signify that Thomist philosophy, as heir and successor to the thought of the ancient Greeks, constituted a powerful bulwark of religious orthodoxy. At the bottom of the picture, in a crowded scene where the painter has shown cunning originality by arranging the figures around an empty space, we see numerous scholars discussing the works of St. Thomas. They include a portrait of Pope Sixtus IV, along with cardinals and the heads and generals of various religious orders. Vasari praised this picture as ôBenozzoÆs best and most finished work.ö
He began his career as an assistant to Fra Angelico on the decoration of the Florentine monastery of San Marco, as well as in Rome and Orvieto, and to Ghiberti on the second door of the Baptistery in Florence. His painting was also influenced by Domenico Veneziano and Filippo Lippi, and later on by Andrea del Castagno and Piero della Francesca. Praised for his gifts as a brilliant decorator, he did his best work at Montefalco, in the chancel of the church of San Francesco, in the frescoes of the Medici Chapel on Via Larga in Florence, and in the Scenes from the Old Testament in the Camposanto at Pisa.
Part of the predella of an altarpiece, this small panel represents the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary. She is portrayed inside a building of slender structure and in front of a precious piece of embroidered cloth set against the gold ground. Gabriel is kneeling on the left, accompanied by another angel, while God the Father is releasing the dove of the Holy Spirit in the top left-hand corner.
A pupil of Giotto, he echoed his masterÆs style in the emphasis given to forms and in the marked use of chiaroscuro, but was also influenced by the monumental plasticity of Maso di Banco and the linearity and precious colors of the Sienese school. His most successful works were the small paintings produced in large numbers by his workshop, in which the quest for decorative effects and the use of soft shadings of color are indicative of the growing influence of Gothic culture.
These panels must have belonged to the predella of the altarpiece painted by Lorenzo Monaco for the Nobili chapel in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. Both the Meeting of Saint James the Greater with Hermogenes and the Martyrdom of Saint James are depicted in the first panel. The central panel represents the Crucifixion of Christ, while the third depicts HerodÆs Banquet and, on the right, the presentation of the severed head of John the Baptist.
Devoting himself to illumination after his ordination as a priest in the Camaldolensian monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, he completed his apprenticeship as a painter in the late-Giottesque circles of Agnolo Gaddi, Spinello Aretino and Andrea Orcagna. His encounter with Lorenzo Ghiberti in the early years of the fifteenth century led to a fundamental renewal of certain elements of his style. While some aspects of his work, such as the use of a rhythmic and modulated line, indicate the influence of late-Gothic culture, they are contained within clearly Florentine canons, so that his pictures are remote from the fairy-tale and chivalrous atmosphere of International Gothic and his interpretation of the sacred theme is always spare and unadorned.
These panels must have belonged to the predella of the altarpiece painted by Lorenzo Monaco for the Nobili chapel in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. Both the Meeting of Saint James the Greater with Hermogenes and the Martyrdom of Saint James are depicted in the first panel. The central panel represents the Crucifixion of Christ, while the third depicts HerodÆs Banquet and, on the right, the presentation of the severed head of John the Baptist.
Devoting himself to illumination after his ordination as a priest in the Camaldolensian monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, he completed his apprenticeship as a painter in the late-Giottesque circles of Agnolo Gaddi, Spinello Aretino and Andrea Orcagna. His encounter with Lorenzo Ghiberti in the early years of the fifteenth century led to a fundamental renewal of certain elements of his style. While some aspects of his work, such as the use of a rhythmic and modulated line, indicate the influence of late-Gothic culture, they are contained within clearly Florentine canons, so that his pictures are remote from the fairy-tale and chivalrous atmosphere of International Gothic and his interpretation of the sacred theme is always spare and unadorned.
In the small panel of a predella, the painter has depicted, in sequence, the scene of the beheading of St. John the Baptist by an executioner and the presentation of his head at HerodÆs feast. On the right, in pink, we see the dancing figure of Salome
Already working as a painter in 1417, he entered the monastery of San Domenico in Fiesole shortly afterward. His early works can still be placed within the late-Gothic current and the ambit of Lorenzo Monaco and Gentile da Fabriano in particular. But the painter soon fell under the spell of the innovations introduced by Masaccio, in terms of a new conception of form and space. He made a conscious attempt to lay the foundations of a modern form of ôsacred art,ö in which an authentic religious spirituality would be reconciled with the new culture of Humanism and the Renaissance.
This picture used to be part of the predella of the altarpiece painted by Filippo Lippi for the chapel of the Novitiate in Santa Croce at Florence. Pesellino collaborated with his master on this work, executing the panels of the predella. On the left we see Saint Francis, kneeling as he receives the stigmata. On the right, in an indoor scene, Cosmas and Damian, patron saints of the Medici family, are healing a man by replacing his wounded leg with that of another man.
An artist greatly esteemed by his contemporaries and patronized by the Medici, he is famous chiefly for his paintings of small size, and in particular a series of chest fronts with Biblical, allegorical or classical subjects that are of very high quality. He painted few altarpieces or other large works, but concentrated chiefly on small Madonnas intended for private devotion. It is not clear where the painter served his apprenticeship. In his early works there are strong signs of the influence of Filippo Lippi, with whom he collaborated on several occasions, as well as Fra Angelico and Ghiberti. His style is based on a more approachable and intimate version of the art of Filippo Lippi, in which the reference to contemporary Florentine sculpture is also very strong.
An early work by Sandro Botticelli, this painting depicts the Virgin seated on the ground with the Child in her arms. She is ringed by the figures of five angels, whose gentle faces are reminiscent of the work of Filippo Lippi. The angels on the right are holding long sprays of lilies, the one on the left a crown of flowers.
Initially linked to the prestigious workshop of Filippo Lippi, in 1467 Botticelli moved to that of Andrea Verrocchio, where the brightest talents of the new generation of painters of the Florentine Renaissance were trained. The artistÆs long career was characterized by the constant patronage of the Medici family, and of Lorenzo the Magnificent in particular, from whose refined Humanistic culture the painter drew his inspiration. In his maturity Botticelli developed a profound sense of unease and religious tension, linked to the collapse of Humanistic certainties and the preaching of Girolamo Savonarola in Florence. This resulted in old-fashioned pictures of vehement spirituality, challenging contemporary ideals.
This painting represents the Virgin and Child adored by the figures of four young angels. Their features and gentle expressions are strongly reminiscent of the works of the painter Filippo Lippi, of whom the Master of the Castello Nativity was a direct follower and even collaborator.
(Florence, active during the mid-fifteenth century)
This anonymous artist received his training in the 1440s in Filippo LippiÆs workshop, where he probably collaborated with his master on several works, displaying a style deeply influenced by the friar. Later his cultural and figurative references broadened to include Domenico Veneziano, Pesellino, Donatello and Luca della Robbia. He showed a preference for devotional themes, in which the artist was best able to express the gentle poetics of his feelings, with extremely accurate drawing and dense and gleaming colors. The name given to the anonymous artist derives from a panel that was found in the Medici villa of Castello, now in the Galleria dell'Accademia at Florence.
The work is one of the most important and imposing altarpieces painted by the friar Filippo Lippi and the spatial and scenographic orchestration of the whole demonstrates his great mastery of composition. The figures of St. Frediano and St. Augustine are included in the painting because it was commissioned by the Barbadori family for the Augustinian church of Santo Spirito in Florence.
Painted for the altar of the Barbadori family in the sacristy of the Florentine church of Santo Spirito, the panel presents a lavish composition of great scenic effect. Set inside a frame that by now merely hints at the divisions of the Gothic triptych, we see the Virgin, standing in front of the throne and holding the Child in her arms. She is flanked by six graceful angels holding bunches of lilies in their long and slender hands. In the foreground kneel the two saints: Frediano and Augustine. The small figures of several friars are visible behind the rich marble balustrade. It has been suggested that the one on the left, with dark hair and his back turned to the observer, is a self-portrait of the painter Filippo Lippi, who used to be a monk in the Carmelite monastery in Florence. The space is closed off, at the back, by a wall decorated with panels of imitation marble, but a cloudy sky can be glimpsed through an open window on the left. Frediano, in the foreground on the left, is the patron saint of the Florentine quarter in which the church of Santo Spirito, for which the picture was commissioned, is located. St. Augustine, on the right, is included because he was the founder of the order of Augustinian monks housed in the same church of Santo Spirito.
In 1421 he took his vows at the Carmelite monastery in Florence, where a few years later Masaccio was to fresco the Brancacci Chapel. And his early work was profoundly influenced by this cycle of paintings, as is evident from the plasticism of the figures and the simplicity of the forms. After a brief stay in Padua, the impact of DonatelloÆs sculptures in that city prompted Lippi to take a new interest in plasticism and relief and from then on his pictures displayed a dynamic and expressive linearity that was derived from the work of the great Florentine sculptor. His figures are set in minutely described interiors, in the Flemish manner. Later on, fluid and transparent colors and an elegance of line attenuated the vigorous solidity of his earlier pictures.
Seated on a large cushion on the ground, the Virgin is represented in the act of offering her breast to the child, an iconographic theme known as the ôMadonna of Humilityö that was introduced into painting at the beginning of the fourteenth century. In the long and animated borders of the clothing the painter shows the taste for the ornate and for rich decoration that was typical of the late-Gothic style.
Devoting himself to illumination after his ordination as a priest in the Camaldolensian monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, he completed his apprenticeship as a painter in the late-Giottesque circles of Agnolo Gaddi, Spinello Aretino and Andrea Orcagna. His encounter with Lorenzo Ghiberti in the early years of the fifteenth century led to a fundamental renewal of certain elements of his style. While some aspects of his work, such as the use of a rhythmic and modulated line, indicate the influence of late-Gothic culture, they are contained within clearly Florentine canons, so that his pictures are remote from the fairy-tale and chivalrous atmosphere of International Gothic and his interpretation of the sacred theme is always spare and unadorned.
The painter has chosen to set the two episodes of the nativity, on the left, and the long procession of the adoration of the Magi, on the right, in a single panel, no longer divided into the separate sections of a predella. A clear light defines the forms of the figures and the background, in a manner that makes Giovanni di Francesco one of the most faithful followers of the limpid and luminous painting of Domenico Veneziano.
The references in the registries to Giovanni di Francesco del Cervelliera, a Florentine artist who enrolled in the guild of painters known as the Arte dei Medici e Speziali in 1442, are vague and contradictory. He is identified with the so-called ôMaster of the Carrand Triptych,ö a name previously assigned by critics to a well-defined group of works. The painterÆs work suggests that he was initially influenced by Paolo Uccello, but then came to adopt Domenico VenezianoÆs tendency to paint pictures bathed in a clear light that defines the outlines of forms and gives a hard edge even to shadows.
Originally in the Florentine church of Santo Spirito, this painting illustrates the Gospel passage known as Noli me tangere, in which the risen Christ appears to Mary Magdalene in the guise of a gardener. It belongs to the mature phase of the artistÆs career in which late-Mannerist stylistic features predominated.
The picture was painted by Angelo Bronzino for the chapel of the Cavalcanti family in the Florentine church of Santo Spirito.
It belongs to the latter part of the artistÆs career, when his work was dominated by motifs of Counter-Reformation inspiration and late Mannerist stylistic features.
This is apparent in the ivory-white figure of Christ, assuming an elegant and refined pose on the approach of Mary Magdalene, as well as in the position of the latter, viewed in profile from below and showing consternation at the appearance of the risen Christ.
The painting is a faithful illustration of the passage in the Gospel according to St. John where it is told how Jesus Christ appeared, after the Resurrection, to the Magdalene, who believed him to be the gardener.
The woman is clothed in ample drapery colored an iridescent blue and green, covered by a red cloak and adorned with pearls and jewelry that mixes with the blond curls of hair at her breast.
Two other women are looking on while an angel, dressed in white, is seated with ChristÆs disciples on top of the empty tomb.
In the background are set a clean and limpid landscape in shades of blue and green and the profile of a city. Behind Christ the painter has included several fine pieces of still life, such as the spade Christ is holding, the MagdaleneÆs pot of ointment and the colored fruit and flowers of the earth.
A pupil of Pontormo, with whom he collaborated initially, he went on to assume the role of court painter to the Medici. Thus he became the vehicle used by the duke to convey his aspirations to absolute power, to which he gave expression in the cycle of frescoes for the chapel of Eleonora of Toledo in Palazzo Vecchio and in a series of stately portraits of members of the Medici family. After a stay in Rome, he started to paint religious works, which seem to show the signs of a moral crisis sparked off by the climate of the Counter Reformation.
The subject of this beautiful painting is probably a goldsmith, judging by the burin in his hand and the goldsmithÆs tool on the table. It is likely to have been a portrait of a goldsmith or gem-cutter working at the Medici court in Florence.
Silhouetted against a dark ground, a young man of around twenty-five to thirty is depicted in a three-quarter position, with his head turned to look over his shoulder out of the frame. He is wearing a broad black hat and a lined black cloak with a fur border out of which protrudes, at the level of the collar, a piece of white cotton lace that brightens up the figureÆs face. He has allowed his sideburns to grow and his hair is swept forward past his ears. On the right, in a fine foreshortened view of his hand, the man is holding a burin, and a small goldsmithÆs tool is visible on the edge of the table. While the figureÆs identity is unknown, these instruments refer to the work of a goldsmith, making PontormoÆs painting one of the earliest emblematic portraits painted in Florence. Various proposals have been put forward identifying the subject of the picture with one of the jewelers and gem-cutters working at the Medici court in Florence.
He trained in Florence, in the workshops of Leonardo, Piero di Cosimo, Mariotto Albertinelli and Andrea del Sarto. With a cantankerous temperament verging, according to contemporary accounts, on misanthropy, Pontormo was, along with Rosso Fiorentino and Domenico Beccafumi, one of the leading representatives of early Tuscan Mannerism. In fact the way that his painting grafted formal elements derived from Michelangelo (contraposition, plasticism, iridescent colors) and Dⁿrer (geometric schematization, haunted expressions) onto a classical language drawn from M. Albertinelli and Andrea del Sarto was to strain the rules of Renaissance art to the breaking point.
This picture is the portrait of a young man, turned slightly to offer a three-quarter view. He is wearing a black hat and a full dark cloak, beneath which the white collar of his shirt reflects light onto the figureÆs face. The squaring of the background creates the effect of a double frame.
Initially linked to the prestigious workshop of Filippo Lippi, in 1467 Botticelli moved to that of Andrea Verrocchio, where the brightest talents of the new generation of painters of the Florentine Renaissance were trained. The artistÆs long career was characterized by the constant patronage of the Medici family, and of Lorenzo the Magnificent in particular, from whose refined Humanistic culture the painter drew his inspiration. In his maturity Botticelli developed a profound sense of unease and religious tension, linked to the collapse of Humanistic certainties and the preaching of Girolamo Savonarola in Florence. This resulted in old-fashioned pictures of vehement spirituality, challenging contemporary ideals.
This picture is a portrait of a young man, viewed in profile. He is leaning on a balustrade and indicating a musical instrument û a violin û behind him. The typology is typical of mid-sixteenth-century Tuscan portraits.
(Vezzano? end of fifteenth century - Lucca after 1561)
Originally from Lucca, he probably studied in Domenico GhirlandaioÆs workshop in Florence, judging by his earliest work, an Adoration of the Shepherds signed and dated 1519. Subsequently he went to Rome to study the work of Raphael. Around 1520 he settled in Lucca. His works include the Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John in the Berlin Museum, the Portrait of a Musician in the MusΘe du Louvre and Christ Crowned with Thorns in the MusΘe de Montpellier. Other paintings by the artist can be seen in the Pinacoteca di Lucca.
It is likely that this painting was originally part of the front of a chest. The complex and crowded scene illustrates an episode from the story of Virginia, as recounted by Livy. The picture shows how close Filippino LippiÆs style was to that of Botticelli.
The son of Filippo Lippi, he lived with his father as a child, quickly learning the craft and assisting him in the decoration of Spoleto Cathedral. His early works were strongly influenced by Botticelli in their intricacy of line. He went on to develop a sentimental vein and a lively approach to description, while his color grew warm and deep under Flemish influence. In the Roman frescoes he introduced a capricious formalism, which shows traces of the anti-classical tendencies that emerged in Florence at the end of the century. His late works continue in this direction, attaining effects of true expressionism through their fantastic and bizarre images, permeated by a disquieting tension that anticipates the sensibility of the Mannerists.
The superceding of Byzantine culture, deeply rooted in the Venetian artistic tradition of the Trecento and the work of Paolo Veneziano in particular, came chiefly through the efforts of Lorenzo Veneziano, a painter active in the third quarter of the fourteenth century who introduced a greater concern for naturalism into his compositions and bestowed a more solid and sculptural character on his figures.
Later it was Giovanni Bellini who led Venetian painting away from the tired formulas of the local late-Gothic style toward the more modern language of the Renaissance. Initially influenced by his brother-in-law Mantegna, whose highly sculptural forms he adopted, he went on to renew this manner through his contact with the works of Antonello da Messina, and opened up a new direction in art, that of ôtonal painting,ö which would later be followed by the greatest Venetian painters of the sixteenth century.
Antonello da Messina also had a decisive influence on artists in Veneto, like Bartolommeo Montagna and Cima da Conegliano. Both of them came from the mainland but then moved to Venice and worked in close collaboration with Giovanni Bellini himself. Echoes of the art of Albrecht Dⁿrer, the great German painter and engraver who visited Venice several times between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, are to be found instead in the works of Marco Marziale, also trained in the workshop of the Bellini family.
Giorgione is the painter who marks the turning point between the Venetian painting of the Quattrocento and that of the following century. Breaking with the representative conventions of the Renaissance, he experimented with the possibilities of reproducing natural phenomena in painting and began research into a new mode of representing space, based on light and atmosphere.
Sebastiano del Piombo was a direct follower of Giorgione, though he managed to impart a more accentuated and constructive plasticity to his masterÆs style. A fundamental push in this direction came from his subsequent stay in Rome and study of the works of Michelangelo, which prompted him to seek highly sculptural effects and violent tonalities.
Another artist influenced by the painting of Giorgione and Titian was Palma il Vecchio. Devoting himself chiefly to the theme of the Sacra Conversazione, he showed a tendency to dilate forms and simplify colors, in order to achieve effects of placid calm and serene grace. These features can also be found to some extent in the painting of Vincenzo Catena, who was a follower of Giovanni Bellini but also open to the influence of Giorgione and Palma il Vecchio.
Conversely, a sharp contrast to the work of Giorgione and Titian and the courtly language of sixteenth-century classicism is provided by Lorenzo Lotto, an artist from Veneto but much closer in his style to the naturalism of Lombardian painting. He still paid great attention to ônatural light,ö the solidity of bodies and the definition of the form and character of his figures, studied with unprecedented psychological insight.
In the second half of the Cinquecento Venetian painting too came under the influence of Tusco-Roman Mannerism. Veronese looked back to the origins of Venetian painting and restored color to its primary function of natural splendor, finding a new fullness and serenity of form. Yet in his use of extreme foreshortening and consequent deformation of the human figure and in the at times unnatural quality of the lighting we can recognize, even in his painting, the signs of an adherence to the intellectual approach of the Mannerists. These elements are still more evident and consciously adopted in the work of Tintoretto, who showed a preference for animated compositions in precarious equilibrium and daringly twisted figures, creating highly dramatic scenes with strong contrasts of light and shade.
An artist influenced by Venetian painting and, in particular, the example set by Titian was the Dutchman Anthonis Mor, who was in Italy around the middle of the century. An exquisite portrait painter, his discovery of Titian led him to adopt a courtly style, but one that was still attentive to the character and mood of his subjects.
This painting shows the Virgin bending slightly forward as if to present the Child for adoration by the shepherds. In the middle the standing figure of St. Joseph looks on with a kindly expression, while a female saint, or more likely a donor, prays to one side. The solidity and breadth of the composition are strongly influenced by Titian, whose work was closely imitated by Palma il Vecchio.
Trained in Venice at the school of Alvise Vivarini and Giovanni Bellini, he soon adopted the new style inaugurated by Giorgione and Titian. Alongside pictures of mythological subjects inspired by Giorgione and portraits, he chiefly cultivated the theme of the Sacra Conversazione, renewing the BelliniÆs approach to the theme by multiplying the iconographic and compositional possibilities through the use of new landscapes as setting. Typical of the artist are a tendency to dilate forms, especially in his female figures, which take on a singular opulence, and a fondness for monumental layouts derived from Titian.
In this painting Lotto depicts the Gospel story of Christ and the woman taken in adultery with great emotional sensitivity, giving the woman a gentle and humble appearance even though she is a sinner. ChristÆs gesture, raising his hand to defend her, is a decisive one. Their figures contrast strongly with the vulgarity and viciousness of the attitudes assumed by the Pharisees around them.
This picture illustrates the famous passage in the Gospels dealing with the encounter between Christ and the woman taken in adultery, a subject that must have been fashionable at the time in Venice as almost no painter of any standing failed to try his hand at it. Lotto manages to impart to it the tender pathos that suited his temperament. Although a sinner, the figure of the beautiful woman is handled with great delicacy: she is given a languid pose, with her head and whole body bowed. She retains a sense of purity and humility, in spite of the flagrant nature of her offense, when compared with the vulgar expressions, prurient excitement and unseemly gestures of the Pharisees around her. Their deliberately disgusting and vulgar appearance undoubtedly derives from engravings by Northern European artists, such as Dⁿrer and Lucas van Leyden, which were well known in Italy and widely copied, especially by Venetian painters. In the background the artist has painted a crowd that gradually fades into the darkness, revealing a great capacity for modeling forms in shadow. The light effects are carefully studied, including the glints on the armor of the soldier on the left behind the adulteress. At the center of the painting, ChristÆs decisive gesture, as he protects the woman with his raised right arm, stems the rising tide of excitement among the Pharisees. With his left hand he is making the sign of blessing, but upside down, with the fingers pointing downward.
Probably trained by Giovanni Bellini, he took a strong interest in the innovations introduced to Venice by Antonello da Messina and the Northern European ideas proposed by Albrecht Dⁿrer. During a stay in Rome he came into contact with the works of Raphael, which had a decisive influence on the evolution of his artistic personality. He was a sensitive, unstable and restless artist, concerned with troubling moral and religious problems. He proposed a non-courtly and psychologically subtle language inclined toward traditional Lombardian naturalism, which he absorbed during his long stay in Bergamo. His work, pervaded by a subtle vein of anti-classicism, is recognized as a genuine ôalternativeö to the current of Venetian tonal painting represented by Giorgione and Titian and to the courtly style of sixteenth-century classicism.
The painting is an early work by the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini. It represents the Crucifixion of Christ, set in an open landscape pervaded by a warm, atmospheric light. Alongside the cross stand the mourning figures of the Virgin and St. John the Evangelist.
An early work by Giovanni Bellini, the panel represents the Crucifixion of Christ flanked by the two mourning figures of the Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist. Against the background of a rocky landscape reminiscent of the paintings of Andrea Mantegna and symbolizing Mount Golgotha, stands the wooden cross. From it hangs the stiff and gaunt body of Christ the man, viewed from a low position which is the central vanishing point of the whole composition. Cloaked in ample drapery in the classical style, St. John and the Virgin look on with expressions of pain and suffering. A fine landscape stretches into the background, traversed by a river, framed by trees and mountains and bounded on the right by a medieval building with towers. The skulls and bones at the foot of the cross are an allusion to ChristÆs death and passion. The painting is steeped in the warm light of afternoon and pervaded by an atmospheric quality that is the dominant characteristic of the pictures of Giovanni Bellini, the great founder of the Venetian school of the fifteenth century.
Son of the painter Jacopo, Giovanni Bellini began his career in his fatherÆs workshop, together with his brother Gentile. In the paintings of his early period Giovanni still adopted the late-Gothic manner of his father, but he soon came under the influence of the work of his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna, though he developed a more intimate relationship between figures and landscape and a greater softness of tone and transitions between colors. There are also early signs of a familiarity with Piero della Francesca and contemporary Flemish artists. When Antonello da Messina spent the period from 1474 to 1476 in Venice, the two painters established a relationship of mutual influence. A profound renewal took place in BelliniÆs art at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when he showed no hesitation in accepting the challenge offered by the new generation, in particular Giorgione and the young Titian.
The imposing figure of Christ is silhouetted against a dark background that emphasizes his body, giving it a sculptural quality. The anatomical structure is carefully depicted and bathed in a warm and suffuse light. On the left, a white scroll bears the artistÆs signature.
In Venice between 1469 and 1474, he probably worked in Giovanni BelliniÆs workshop before settling in Vicenza, where he did most of his work. He was the first to bring the innovations of the Bellini family to the Veneto hinterland. His works also clearly reveal his admiration for the energetic plasticism of MantegnaÆs style and the rigorous and solemn architectural layout of the paintings of Antonello da Messina, which Montagna was able to study during a second stay in Venice in 1482.
This picture illustrates the Book of Esther in the Old Testament, which tells of the Jewish wife of King Ahasuerus of Persia. Esther was able to persuade her husband to rescind a decree calling for the massacre of the Jews in Persia.
With a Mannerist background, he developed an unmistakable style that proved highly popular with Venetian society. He painted decorations for churches, palaces and villas. He used vivid and brilliant colors in sweeping and theatrical compositions, holding up a mirror to elegant Venetian society. His worldly inspiration got him into trouble with the religious authorities. He collaborated with the major architects of his time, such as Sanmicheli and Palladio.
This was the preparatory sketch for a large canvas that Tintoretto painted for the Salone del Maggior Consiglio in the DogeÆs Palace at Venice. The enormous picture (7 x 22 m./23 x 72 ft.) was placed on the wall above the DogeÆs throne. The overall effect is one of grandeur and fanciful suggestion, in a true monument to the Catholic triumphalism of the Counter Reformation.
Initially a pupil of Titian, he was influenced during his formative years by the penetration into Veneto of motifs of taste and culture typical of Tusco-Roman Mannerism. He did most of his work in the service of the Republic and the Scuole and churches of Venice. His paintings place great emphasis on the dramatic tension of the action, through an accentuation of foreshortening and of the gestures of his figures. This was reinforced by the rapid and discontinuous character of his brushwork, charged with tension, by the contrasted effects of lighting and by the agitated movements and gestures of the people he represented. This generally resulted in highly dramatic scenes, which aimed at a more profound emotional involvement on the part of the observer.
This picture was painted for the church of San Domenico in Parma. It represents a Sacra Conversazione, a very popular subject among the Venetian painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. It shows John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene approaching the Virgin in a particularly welcoming manner, while a broad natural landscape extends behind them.
Cima painted this picture for the church of San Domenico in Parma. A scroll on the pedestal of the throne bears his signature: IOANIS BAPTE GONEGLANESO OPUS. The composition adheres to the typical scheme of the Venetian Sacra Conversazione, and depicts the Madonna and Child flanked by John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene. St. John carries a scroll with the inscription ECCE AGNUS DEI and the Magdalene a pot filled with ointment, the traditional iconographic attributes of the two saints. Overall, the composition is a ôrusticö and somewhat reduced version of the solemn Venetian altarpiece, as the painter has chosen to set the sacred scene in the open countryside, in the midst of nature. In fact only a low parapet and, behind the Virgin, a high strip of embroidered cloth separate the figures in the foreground from the background, permitting an unobstructed and sweeping view of the hilly landscape in the distance. The figures have a friendly appearance, with kindly and generous expressions on their round faces, and with the tender gesture of the two saints reaching out to the Virgin, Cima has created one of the most intimate of all Sacre Conversazioni. It is within the bounds of possibility that this work, located in Parma, had an influence on the soft and gentle manner adopted by Correggio.
Born at Conegliano, he worked for almost the whole of his professional career in Venice. The fundamentals of his early style reveal the influence of Giovanni Bellini alongside echoes of Alvise Vivarini. For the most part he painted altarpieces with religious subjects, for churches in Venice as well as on the mainland of Veneto, and in the nineties he became the chief exponent of religious painting in the city. In his works volumes and space are constructed in a rigorously architectural manner derived from Bellini and Antonello, establishing a relationship of limpid harmony between the figures and architecture, steeped in the clear light of the Veneto landscape.
The group of the Virgin and Child is set inside a sumptuous and elaborate Gothic aedicule, whose pinnacles and cupola rise above the throne. The Madonna is holding a flower, to which the Child reaches out in a particularly affectionate manner.
Though active in the workshop of Paolo Veneziano around the middle of the fourteenth century, Lorenzo moved away from the Byzantine elements of his predecessorÆs style, placing a greater emphasis on naturalism and narrative. The author of numerous works for Venice and the mainland, especially Verona, he became the leader of the school of Venetian painting, representing an important opening to the influence of International Gothic culture.
This picture is a grotesque and curious portrait of the dwarf at the court of Cardinal Granvella, an important figure in the government of the Low Countries during the reign of Queen Margarita of Parma. The deplorable specimen of humanity represented by the dwarf is contrasted with the handsome breed of dog, whose collar bears the coat of arms of Cardinal Granvella.
A Dutch painter of very fine portraits, Anthonis Mor worked at many European courts in the sixteenth century. This picture was painted while the artist was working in the Low Countries, at a time when the country was ruled by King Philip of Spain and his sister Margarita of Parma. One of the most prominent figures at the court, a minister and regulator of the kingdomÆs affairs, was the powerful Granvella, made a cardinal in 1561, and whose house at the gates of Brussels was famous for its luxury and splendor. But Granvella was also a great lover and patron of the arts and literature. The dwarf portrayed in this beautiful canvas was part of the cardinalÆs household. The principles of courtly severity and profound decorum that were typical of the painterÆs portraits of great personages of the time were applied to this picture as well. In reality, this produces an extremely grotesque effect, stemming from the contrast between the appearance of the dwarf and the gesture of power and rigid control that he exercises over the dog, which has a truly noble appearance and is almost bigger than him. The dwarf is decked out in luxurious and heavy garments, weighed down even more by the imposing gold chain around his neck and girded by a sword that is completely out of proportion to his size. And it is on the collar of the animal, a specimen of a handsome breed of dog contrasting strongly with the deplorable example of humanity offered by the dwarf, that the painter chose to set the gleaming coat of arms of Cardinal Granvella.
ANTHONIS MOR VAN DASHORST, sometimes known as Antonio Moro Dutch painter
(Utrecht c. 1519 - Antwerp c. 1575)
A pupil of Jan van Scorel, he completed his training with a long journey to Rome. After a stay in Lisbon and then Spain, in the service of Prince Philip, on whose behalf he also went to London, he returned to the Low Countries. He devoted himself almost exclusively to portrait painting, combining the tradition of the Northern European portrait with the Italian one. In particular, he was influenced by the work of Titian, which he took in the direction of a courtly portraiture, but one that was still capable of capturing the sitterÆs character and mood.
This picture has been identified, though with reservations, with the portrait mentioned by Boschini (1660) in Casa Nani at Venice. It is considered one of the finest examples of VeroneseÆs portraiture, chiefly for the brilliance of its colors and the graceful form of the figure.
With a Mannerist background, he developed an unmistakable style that proved highly popular with Venetian society. He painted decorations for churches, palaces and villas. He used vivid and brilliant colors in sweeping and theatrical compositions, holding up a mirror to elegant Venetian society. His worldly inspiration got him into trouble with the religious authorities. He collaborated with the major architects of his time, such as Sanmicheli and Palladio.
This painting is a fine portrait of Giangiorgio Trissino (1478-1550), the famous poet, philologist and great connoisseur of architecture. Vincenzo CatenaÆs connection with the subject of the portrait can be explained by the links that the painter is known to have had with the Venetian Humanist circles headed by Trissino. The man is holding a book covered in violet cloth.
An old-fashioned follower of Giovanni Bellini. His later study of the works of Giorgione and Palma il Vecchio allowed him to introduce a greater breadth in the disposition of forms and delicacy of chromatic transitions. He painted portraits and pictures with religious subjects.
This is the portrait of a young man, turned slightly to offer a three-quarter view. He is wearing a red hat, a black fur-lined cloak and a red robe. The light reflected from the white shirt lights up the figureÆs face. The man is placed on the other side of a low parapet, an iconographic model first proposed by Flemish painters and used in Italy by Antonello da Messina and the Venetian painters of the late fifteenth century in particular.
An artist with initial ties to the circles of the Bellini family, he was active in Venice, where he participated in the decoration of the Hall of the Great Council in the DogeÆs Palace and painted religious pictures. His forms were hard and rough and his later works show the influence of the engravings and paintings of Dⁿrer.
The subject of this picture is a young man with long hair, turned slightly to present a three-quarter portrait. He is set against the background of a blue sky flecked with clouds. This type of portrait, often painted to celebrate a wedding, is based on Flemish prototypes and was particularly widely practiced by Venetian artists, as well as by Antonello da Messina.
Son of the painter Jacopo, Giovanni Bellini began his career in his fatherÆs workshop, together with his brother Gentile. In the paintings of his early period Giovanni still adopted the late-Gothic manner of his father, but he soon came under the influence of the work of his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna, though he developed a more intimate relationship between figures and landscape and a greater softness of tone and transitions between colors. There are also early signs of a familiarity with Piero della Francesca and contemporary Flemish artists. When Antonello da Messina spent the period from 1474 to 1476 in Venice, the two painters established a relationship of mutual influence. A profound renewal took place in BelliniÆs art at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when he showed no hesitation in accepting the challenge offered by the new generation, in particular Giorgione and the young Titian.
This large picture was painted during Sebastiano del PiomboÆs stay in Rome, as a gift to be sent to the Queen of France. The monumentality and solidity of the figures in the foreground reveal the strong influence of Michelangelo, and the iridescent colors, particularly in the clothing of the two women, show a parallel with the work of the Mannerists.
He received his early training in the workshop of Giovanni Bellini, and then came under the sway of Giorgione. It was from the latter that he derived the mellow picturesqueness of his works, though he interpreted it in a more constructive sense, with a more marked plastic definition of the images and a greater interest in the relationship between figures and architecture. In 1511 he left Venice and moved to Rome. His encounter with RaphaelÆs frescoes in the Vatican Stanze and MichelangeloÆs on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel induced him to accentuate his own inclination to the ôgrand mannerö and to seek, even in his panel paintings, sculptural and opulent effects, enhanced by a sensuous coloring.
Of Milanese origin, though active chiefly in Liguria, the painter Carlo Braccesco was one of the most significant figures with links to the region of Lombardy at the end of the fifteenth century. He was also in close contact with Franco-Provenτal and Flemish currents. Though sometimes assigned to the anonymous figure of the ôMaster of the Louvre Annunciationö, the altarpiece with this title in the Louvre, one of the finest examples of the Ligurian and Lombardian painting of the time, is generally considered to be a work from the latter part of BraccescoÆs career.
The great renewal of the Lombardian school took place following Leonardo da VinciÆs stay in Milan, where he worked for Duke Ludovico il Moro from 1482 to 1499 as a military and hydraulic engineer and constructor of arms, as well as architect, sculptor and painter. In his painting he returned to the rigorous standards of construction and perspective applied in the Renaissance, introducing a new approach to chiaroscuro and sfumato, which he used to soften the hard outlines of forms, making them blend into the atmosphere and lending them a new vitality.
Among Leonardo da VinciÆs pupils were Bernardino Luini, who proposed measured and simplified compositions in a calm classical style, and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio who, in addition to religious scenes, painted fine portraits in which he paid great attention to the psychological interpretation of the sitter.
In Umbria, Perugino took up the ideas of Renaissance painting, combining the lesson of Piero della Francesca with the Florentine one of Verrocchio and the masters of the early fifteenth century. He produced orderly compositions in which the figures are rhythmically arranged, in devout attitudes, set in vast spaces and limpid, typically Umbrian landscapes. PeruginoÆs apprentice was the young Raphael, who soon came under the spell of the innovations proposed by Leonardo and Michelangelo, whose work the artist saw during his stay in Florence at the very beginning of the sixteenth century. Moving to Rome subsequently, in the service of the popes, Raphael attained the highest peaks of sixteenth-century classicism in his works, as well as initiating a trend that, spread through Italy by his pupils, would give rise to the more tormented and complicated current of Mannerist painting.
Also influenced by PeruginoÆs classicism were the painters Lorenzo Costa and Francesco Francia, in Bologna, who proposed balanced compositions in a soft and relaxed style.
In Parma, a center of great importance for the Emilian painting of the Cinquecento, Correggio applied his keen intelligence to the development of one of the richest and most original pictorial languages to come out of the artistic renewal that took place at the beginning of the sixteenth century. His broad and complex cultural background permitted him to produce a style that charms the observer through the delicacy of the figuresÆ attitudes, the splendor of the colors and the freshness of carefully-laid out and airy compositions. Another artist from Parma was Francesco Marmitta, who for the most part painted precious miniatures characterized by vivid imagination and elegant stylization, influenced by the work of the Ferrarese painter Ercole de' Roberti.
This scene is set in an open natural landscape, steeped in warm light. In the background we can see a hut and the profile of the mountains. In the foreground are the Virgin and St. Joseph, flanked by two angels who are adoring the Child. The figures are given attitudes and expressions of gentle and calm classicism.
He commenced his career as a goldsmith. His early pictorial works suggest a study of the Ferrarese, especially Ercole deÆ Roberti and Lorenzo Costa, and of Flemish painting. However, his precocious preference for balanced and rhythmic composition clearly indicate contacts with contemporary Tuscan painting. Subsequently, his style tended toward a mild and simple classicism, based on calm gestures, symmetrical rhythms and harmonious forms that underwent no further substantial change for the rest of his career.
Painted for Isabella dÆEste GonzagaÆs Studiolo in the Ducal Palace of Mantua, this picture is an allegory of her court and the marchesa herself is depicted at the center, crowned by Cupid. Many of the other figures are allegorical personifications of the erudite pleasures of the court, in particular the arts, poetry and music.
Along with Lorenzo CostaÆs painting of the Allegory of the Court of Isabella dÆEste, this work by Perugino must have been part of the pictorial decoration commissioned by Isabella dÆEste Gonzaga for her Studiolo in the Ducal Palace of Mantua. The subject and iconographic content of the picture were chosen by the marchesa herself: it was to represent the Loves of the Gods, inspired by OvidÆs Metamorphoses, and in particular the Combat between Love and Chastity, that is to say a struggle between Pallas Athena and Artemis on the one side and Aphrodite and Eros on the other. On the left we see Pallas, the goddess of wisdom, who defeats Eros, holding him by his veil and raising her spear as if to strike him. ErosÆs eyes are blindfolded and his silver bow lies broken at his feet. In the middle we see Artemis, shooting an arrow from her bow, locked in open combat with Aphrodite. All around, the chaste nymphs of Pallas Athena and ArtemisÆs retinue are fighting with a lascivious horde of fauns, satyrs and a multitude of little cupids. Near Pallas, on the left, grows an olive tree, one of the goddessÆs attributes; close to Aphrodite is a myrtle, her sacred plant. In the background, set in an open landscape crossed by a river, some of the best-known amorous adventures of the gods are illustrated: (from the left) Zeus, in the form of a bull, carrying off the beautiful Europa; at the top, Hermes flying around Glaucera, one of AthenaÆs nymphs; Apollo and Daphne, already turned into a laurel tree; Hades taking Persephone down to his underworld kingdom. The final victory of Chastity over Love, and thus of Virtue over Ignorance, presents a portrait of the moral character of Isabella dÆEste, at whose court order and moral virtue held sway.
Trained in Ferrarese circles, he later moved to Bologna, testifying to the exhaustion of the Ferrara school and the contemporary rise of a new artistic center. His altarpieces have a classical breadth, though they still show the fanciful taste typical of Ferrarese painting. Later he adopted the soft and relaxed manner of Perugino and Francia, falling at times into mannered cadences and a tone of facile devotion.
This painting used to be part of the original decoration of Isabella dÆEste GonzagaÆs Studiolo in the Ducal Palace of Mantua. The various female figures are allegorical personifications of Virtue: the woman at the center is Minerva, the one on the left embodies the Cardinal Virtues and the one on the right represents Astronomy. The picture is meant to be an allegory of the reign of Isabella dÆEste, made benevolent by the guidance of the virtues and the highest of sciences, those of the heavens.
This painting, a companion piece to the Allegory of Vice also in the MusΘe du Louvre, used to be part of the decoration of Isabella dÆEste GonzagaÆs Studiolo in the Ducal Palace of Mantua. Its rich and complex iconography is generally interpreted as follows: the figure at the center of the composition is Minerva, triumphant, wreathed with laurel and in the act of receiving the palm of victory from the female figure standing behind her. Minerva holds a helmet in her left hand and the broken spear symbolizing her victorious combat in her right. She is trampling the dragon under foot. The woman on the left personifies, through her attributes, the four cardinal virtues: Fortitude (symbolized by the lion skin), Prudence (the serpent), Justice (the sword) and Temperance (the reins). On the right a third female figure holds a pair of compasses against the celestial globe and is indicating the sky with her other hand: she has been identified as an embodiment of Astrology. Close to her, a naked child is also pointing at the globe. Above, three figures in flight hold a trumpet and lyre. The picture is meant to be an allegory of the reign of Isabella dÆEste (symbolized by Minerva), whose benevolence is guaranteed by the guidance of the Virtues and the highest of sciences, those of the heavens.
The elements of his style derive from his early experience in Mantuan circles, in contact with Mantegna and Lorenzo Costa, subsequently enriched by his encounter with LeonardoÆs sfumato, GiorgioneÆs stress on tonality and RaphaelÆs work. In the huge cycles of frescoes that he painted in many of ParmaÆs churches, he developed a new monumentality and a tendency to take Raphaelesque classicism in the direction of a greater immediacy of expression, establishing a more intimate communication between painting and observer. He achieved effects of vibrant lineation and chiaroscuro as well as great spatial dynamism that were to have a powerful influence on the great baroque decorators of the following century.
This beautiful figure of an angel was originally part of the Saint Nicholas of Tolentino Altarpiece painted by Raphael for Cittα di Castello. Executed in 1501, it is the earliest documented work by the artist, but unfortunately suffered serious damage in 1789. Today only a few fragments are left. The grace and courteous manners of the angel still show the influence of the art of Perugino, who was RaphaelÆs first and most important teacher.
He was trained at Urbino, the cradle of Piero della FrancescaÆs mathematical Humanism, but went beyond this influence through his apprenticeship under Perugino. A stay in Florence brought him closer to Leonardo and Michelangelo. Moving to Rome, he became the ideal artist of the Renaissance. He painted the rooms of the papal court, practiced architecture and absorbed classical art, creating a universal language. His sudden death left a gap that could not be filled: while the Humanists idealized him, his pupils spread the current of Mannerism.
The small picture was probably the predella of a large altarpiece and must have been painted in the early part of LeonardoÆs career, in Florence. Despite the small dimensions of the panel, the artist displays great skill in the organization of space and the balanced arrangement of the two figures within it. The warm and atmospheric tone of the light contributes to the unity of the whole.
Probably part of the predella of a large altarpiece, this small but extremely valuable painting is generally linked with the name of Leonardo da Vinci, although it has been suggested that it is not entirely his own work but a collaboration with his pupil Lorenzo di Credi. The composition of the painting is very similar to the Annunciation now in the Galleria degli Uffizi, painted by da Vinci when he was in Florence. The small work is notable for the compact way in which space is handled and the balanced arrangement of the two figures within it. Their inclined positions form an imaginary arch that underlines their union and closeness. Kneeling in a garden filled with flowers and opening onto a valley, the angel, his great wings spread, is bringing the news to Mary. Located inside a more enclosed space, the Virgin responds with a gesture of delicate spirituality, her hands crossed on her breast. The form of her face and the delicacy of her expression suggest a direct derivation from the Florentine tradition of Madonnas established by Filippo Lippi and Verrocchio. In the background, the dark shapes of the trees contrast with the pale and luminous sky in the distance, while a warm light plays over the figures and contributes to the atmospheric intensity of the whole.
He served his apprenticeship in VerrocchioÆs workshop at Florence, and then spent a long time at the court of Ludovico il Moro in Milan, devoting himself to scientific and artistic research as complementary activities. He spent his last years as a guest of Francis I in France. A multifaceted genius, he probed every area of science in search of the laws that govern nature. He saw art as the synthesis of his experimental science.
An exquisite example of late fifteenth-century Ligurian painting, the picture takes the form of a triptych with the scene of the Annunciation in the middle and the standing figures of Saints Benedict, Augustine, Stephen and Albert in the side panels. The paternity of the work is still disputed between the painter Carlo Braccesco and the anonymous figure known, on the basis of this very painting, as the ôMaster of the Louvre Annunciation.ö
The picture is a highly original masterpiece of late fifteenth-century Ligurian painting, and its paternity is still disputed between the painter Carlo Braccesco and the still anonymous figure known as the "Master of the Louvre Annunciation.ö
At the center of the triptych is set the scene of the Annunciation, where the Virgin is depicted in an attitude of fright at the apparition of the angel, whom we see on the right, hovering over a sort of gilded plate. The event is set in an elegant loggia supported by two slender columns that frame an open terrace. This is bounded by a marble parapet and has a floor with a checkerboard pattern viewed in perspective. A natural landscape, the sky and a view of a city, perhaps Pavia, are all visible far away in the background. The picture is dominated by a golden hue, used both as a color and to represent light. In the side panels, against a backdrop of red and gold brocade, appear the four saints: on the left Benedict, with a crosier and an open book in his hands, and Augustine, with a large miter and his gloved hands raised in a gesture of blessing; on the right Stephen, in a blue dalmatic with gold appliquΘs and with stones on his head, and Albert, transfixed by daggers and bearing the palm of martyrdom.
The unity of the whole is underlined by the position of the saints at the sides, arranged in a semicircle turned toward the Virgin.
The artist who signed the polyptych in the sanctuary of Montegrazie (Imperia), dated 1478, he was subsequently active in Genoa and Liguria up until 1501. Roberto Longhi also attributes to him the triptych depicting the Annunciation and Saints (Louvre, Paris), a very fine example of late fifteenth-century Ligurian painting which contains elements of Lombardian culture as well as demonstrating a familiarity with developments in Flanders, the South of France and Southern Italy. Other scholars, however, prefer to keep the two personalities distinct, ascribing the triptych in the Louvre to an as yet unidentified artist (Master of the Louvre Annunciationö) of distinctly superior talent to Carlo Braccesco.
Painted for Isabella dÆEste GonzagaÆs Studiolo in the Ducal Palace of Mantua, the picture represents The Combat between Love and Chastity, symbolized by the victory of Pallas Athena over Eros û on the left û and of Artemis over Aphrodite û in the middle. In the background some of the best-known love affairs of the gods are illustrated. The painting is intended as an allegory of the reign of Isabella dÆEste, in which virtue and morality hold sway over vice and ignorance.
Along with Lorenzo CostaÆs painting of the Allegory of the Court of Isabella dÆEste, this work by Perugino must have been part of the pictorial decoration commissioned by Isabella dÆEste Gonzaga for her Studiolo in the Ducal Palace of Mantua. The subject and iconographic content of the picture were chosen by the marchesa herself: it was to represent the Loves of the Gods, inspired by OvidÆs Metamorphoses, and in particular the Combat between Love and Chastity, that is to say a struggle between Pallas Athena and Artemis on the one side and Aphrodite and Eros on the other. On the left we see Pallas, the goddess of wisdom, who defeats Eros, holding him by his veil and raising her spear as if to strike him. ErosÆs eyes are blindfolded and his silver bow lies broken at his feet. In the middle we see Artemis, shooting an arrow from her bow, locked in open combat with Aphrodite. All around, the chaste nymphs of Pallas Athena and ArtemisÆs retinue are fighting with a lascivious horde of fauns, satyrs and a multitude of little cupids. Near Pallas, on the left, grows an olive tree, one of the goddessÆs attributes; close to Aphrodite is a myrtle, her sacred plant. In the background, set in an open landscape crossed by a river, some of the best-known amorous adventures of the gods are illustrated: (from the left) Zeus, in the form of a bull, carrying off the beautiful Europa; at the top, Hermes flying around Glaucera, one of AthenaÆs nymphs; Apollo and Daphne, already turned into a laurel tree; Hades taking Persephone down to his underworld kingdom. The final victory of Chastity over Love, and thus of Virtue over Ignorance, presents a portrait of the moral character of Isabella dÆEste, at whose court order and moral virtue held sway.
(Cittα della Pieve, Perugia c. 1445 - Fontignano, Perugia 1523)
A prominent artist of the second half of the fifteenth century, his development was influenced by the works of Piero della Francesca and the school of Verrocchio, with whom he studied in Florence. His compositions, in fresco and on panel, are on a grand scale and are characterized by the insertion of figures in a classical style into sweeping landscapes of Northern European inspiration. PeruginoÆs mellow classicism was fundamental to the diffusion of the Renaissance in Italy and he also trained Raphael, influencing his style in a decisive manner.
This painting originally formed part of the pictorial decoration of Isabella d'Este GonzagaÆs Studiolo in the Ducal Palace of Mantua. It hung alongside other pictures, two of them by Mantegna, one by Perugino, two by Correggio and another by Costa himself. All of them represent allegorical and mythological themes linked to the celebration of the figure of Isabella d'Este and her reign.
Trained in Ferrarese circles, he later moved to Bologna, testifying to the exhaustion of the Ferrara school and the contemporary rise of a new artistic center. His altarpieces have a classical breadth, though they still show the fanciful taste typical of Ferrarese painting. Later he adopted the soft and relaxed manner of Perugino and Francia, falling at times into mannered cadences and a tone of facile devotion.
A splendid example of PeruginoÆs art, this work is typical of the very high level of quality attained by works painted for private devotion in the High Renaissance. The fact that the painting was intended for private rather than public use is evident from its round shape, typically adopted for this purpose.
The distribution of color tones shows that the painter also took great care to attain a balanced composition: the sequence of reds running diagonally through the three figures in the foreground is matched by a series of shades of green running in the same direction and contrasted by the cold tone of the two dull blue dresses in the opposite one. Our attention is caught by the sky blue of the VirginÆs cloak in the middle of the painting.
(Cittα della Pieve, Perugia c. 1445 - Fontignano, Perugia 1523)
A prominent artist of the second half of the fifteenth century, his development was influenced by the works of Piero della Francesca and the school of Verrocchio, with whom he studied in Florence. His compositions, in fresco and on panel, are on a grand scale and are characterized by the insertion of figures in a classical style into sweeping landscapes of Northern European inspiration. PeruginoÆs mellow classicism was fundamental to the diffusion of the Renaissance in Italy and he also trained Raphael, influencing his style in a decisive manner.
The presence of St. Benedict and St. Quentin in this painting is explained by the fact that it was commissioned for the high altar of the church annexed to the Benedictine monastery of San Quintino in Parma.
It is one of the highest achievements of Francesco Marmitta, an Emilian artist who is known chiefly for his miniatures.
This large altarpiece was executed by Francesco Marmitta, a painter and illuminator from Parma, for the high altar of the church annexed to the Benedictine monastery of San Quintino in Parma. The composition has the symmetrical, well-balanced layout still typical of fifteenth-century altarpieces. The figures are set out in measured and rhythmic poses. At the center, the Madonna is seated with the Child in her arms on a simple cubic throne, raised two steps above the ground. The Child is turned to the right, in order to bless the figure of St. Quentin. On the left stands St. Benedict and on the right St. Quentin, to whom the church for which the picture was painted is dedicated. At the foot of the throne two young angels are playing music. The Madonna, St. Quentin (on the right), and the angel playing the lute have mild and gentle expressions. The picture is bathed in light, which enters through a loggia with columns located behind the Virgin. Beyond it, a broad swathe of countryside and a patch of pale and open sky are visible. The artist has taken a great deal of trouble over some of the compositionÆs refined details, making it a work of great richness and stylistic originality: at the base of the throne we see a painted relief depicting the Flight into Egypt, surrounded by a swarm of angels; a tondo showing the serpent tempting Adam and Eve is set like a cameo in the pedestal; a precious Annunciation appears on the clasp of St. BenedictÆs cope, painted with great rapidity of touch as if it were a grisaille; the glints and reflections of light on St. QuentinÆs armor are carefully studied; finally, the painter imitates the material effect of St. BenedictÆs silk cope, in the manner of Flemish artists.
(Parma, active between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries)
The author of precious illuminations û including those of the Petrarchan codex in the Kassel Library and those of the della Rovere Missal in the Museo Civico of Turin û he was a close follower of Ercole deÆ Roberti and a significant figure in the artistic culture of the Po Valley toward the end of the fifteenth century, serving as a link between painters like Mazzolino in Ferrara and Boccaccio Boccaccino in Cremona.
This altarpiece was commissioned from Boltraffio in 1500 by Girolamo Casio, a Bolognese poet, for a chapel in the church of the Misericordia at Bologna. The kneeling figure of the client can be recognized as a portrait of Girolamo Casio and those of the Madonna and Child as CasioÆs wife and one of their children. The other figures are Saints John the Baptist and Sebastian.
Trained in the circles of Vincenzo Foppa, he soon came under the influence of Leonardo, becoming one of his most attentive and gifted disciples. Particularly important are his portraits, where Boltraffio, through drawing heavily on Leonardo, developed an approach that was more attentive to reality and to the psychological interpretation of the sitter. His Madonnas, elegant variations of LeonardoÆs schemes, are famous.
This painting follows the traditional iconography of St. Veronica, the holy woman who used her clothing to wipe ChristÆs face when he fell under the weight of the cross on the road to Calvary. The woman is holding the veil on which the image of ChristÆs face has been imprinted. In fact the name Veronica derives from the phrase vera icona, or ôtrue image.ö
Trained in Ferrarese circles, he later moved to Bologna, testifying to the exhaustion of the Ferrara school and the contemporary rise of a new artistic center. His altarpieces have a classical breadth, though they still show the fanciful taste typical of Ferrarese painting. Later he adopted the soft and relaxed manner of Perugino and Francia, falling at times into mannered cadences and a tone of facile devotion.
The Lombardian painter Bernardino Luini was a close follower of Leonardo da Vinci and the figure of Salome is typically Leonardesque. The calm and peaceful expression on the womanÆs face contrasts with the cruel gesture of the manÆs hand on the right, holding the BaptistÆs severed head.
An artist who developed his own style out of the example set by the Lombardian painters Bernardino Zenale and Vincenzo Foppa, as well as by Bramantino and Leonardo, producing extremely measured and simplified figurations and compositions that may also have been influenced by Raphael. These essentially old-fashioned and purist works show that Luini had an extremely persuasive narrative vein and an expressiveness that was always contained and toned down, creating an effect of intimate contemplation.
These three panels depict, respectively: Christ rising from the sarcophagus and displaying his hands pierced by nails, in the middle; St. Jerome supporting the naked figures of two young men hanging from a gallows, on the left; St. Jerome reviving Bishop Andrea on his death bed for the time necessary to hear his confession, on the right.
(Cittα della Pieve, Perugia c. 1445 - Fontignano, Perugia 1523)
A prominent artist of the second half of the fifteenth century, his development was influenced by the works of Piero della Francesca and the school of Verrocchio, with whom he studied in Florence. His compositions, in fresco and on panel, are on a grand scale and are characterized by the insertion of figures in a classical style into sweeping landscapes of Northern European inspiration. PeruginoÆs mellow classicism was fundamental to the diffusion of the Renaissance in Italy and he also trained Raphael, influencing his style in a decisive manner.
In Bologna, at the end of the sixteenth century, the Carracci carried out a reform of painting, which had become discredited by the excesses of Mannerism. They reasserted the values of nobility and decorum, looking back to the example set by the masters of the Renaissance, and advocated a return to history and nature. The reform set in motion by the Carracci was to have a powerful influence on seventeenth- century classicism and above all to point the way for the devotional and pietistic painting called for by the Counter Reformation.
Followers of the Carracci included Guido Reni, Domenichino and Guercino, who brought their own contributions and innovations to the new style.
In sculpture, the shift away from Mannerist tendencies came with Gianlorenzo Bernini, the highest exponent of baroque spirituality and the originator of a new conception of the statue. Displaying extraordinary virtuosity in working his materials, he turned it from a closed form into an open and dynamic one, standing freely in the space that surrounds it.
In painting, the principal exponent of the baroque style was Pietro da Cortona, in whose work the vivid colors of Venetian derivation, the expressive naturalness of the figures and the power of the plastic and scenic effects were admirably blended into a style, known as cortonismo, that was to have great success and be widely imitated.
The presence of foreign artists in Italy, during the seventeenth century, often exercised a decisive influence on the development of many of the countryÆs schools. The French painter Poussin played an important role in the affirmation of the classicist current in Rome, while in Genoa it was the Flemish artists Rubens and Van Dyck who made the greatest contribution to the renewal of painting, influencing the work of local artists like Bernardo Strozzi and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, called il Grechetto. Another painter who emerged from the Genoese artistic circles that had been invigorated by the visits of Rubens and Van Dyck was Giovanni Battista Gaulli called Baciccio, who, after a period under the influence of Correggio, found the best environment for the expression of his imagination in Rome, through an exaltation of the values of the Counter Reformation in paintings characterized by daring perspectives and a strong emphasis on the decorative.
The Settecento was a century of great splendor for Venice, whose painters achieved success and renown throughout Europe. Direct heirs of the courtly tradition of the seventeenth century, with its whole stock of mythological and allegorical themes, were the two main ôhistoryö painters of eighteenth-century Venice, Piazzetta and Tiepolo. The former, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta was the ôdarkerö in tone, favoring strong contrasts of light and shade and a fleshy and popular vision of humanity. Giambattista Tiepolo painted much more luminous pictures. Through a carefully-considered revival of the Venetian pictorial tradition of the sixteenth century, he lightened his palette, adopting liquid and transparent tones of color. In his magnificent and lavish decorations, chiefly in fresco, he proved himself a late exponent of the grand baroque style and a forerunner of the new rococo taste.
GiambattistaÆs son and pupil was Giandomenico Tiepolo, who collaborated with his father on numerous decorative undertakings but was also an artist with a personality of his own and a style that tended more to caricature and the grotesque.
Another genre for which the Venetian painters of the eighteenth century showed a particular preference was the painting of landscapes and views, to which Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto and Francesco Guardi devoted themselves with results of the highest expressiveness. Guardi, in particular, liked to paint ôcapricesö and views in which the vision of reality was often altered and transfigured by the artistÆs fanciful and restless spirit.
In Rome the painting of landscapes and views was extensively practiced by Giovanni Paolo Pannini, who produced highly popular views of ancient ruins, in which different sites were often mixed up, or of the modern city, animated by figures and illustrious onlookers. The theatrical effect of these scenes reveals the talents of a true set-designer.
This large altarpiece has a rich and crowded composition, cunningly arranged in space, and depicts the adoration of the Infant Jesus by the shepherds. It presents stylistic features that hark back to the artistÆs early training, which took place in Genoa under the influence of the Flemish painters Rubens and van Dyck.
IL GRECHETTO, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, called
Italian painter and engraver
(Genoa c. 1610 - Mantua 1665)
He was trained in Genoa under Giovan Battista Faggi and Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari, but the main influence on his style came from the works left by Van Dyck in Genoa and Poussin in Rome. He was particularly fond of biblical and pastoral subjects, which allowed him to devote ample space in his canvases to the realistic representation of animals and objects. He also painted religious, mythological and philosophical themes, rendered with an acute feeling for color and according to an emotional and vitalistic conception of reality.
This canvas depicts the famous myth of Apollo and Daphne, and the woman already shows signs, in the hand of her raised arm, of her imminent transformation into a laurel tree. TiepoloÆs choice of colors for the scene is particularly effective, especially in the rosy nudity of Daphne.
One of the greatest figures in eighteenth-century culture, he was the author of large numbers of paintings, drawings, etchings and above all imposing fresco decorations in churches and palaces in the Venetian region and elsewhere in Europe. Influenced in his youth by the examples of Piazzetta and Sebastiano Ricci, he made an increasingly thorough study of the art of Veronese, drawing from it his pale and luminous tones of color and the harmonious complexity of his compositions. From 1750 to 1753 he was in Wⁿrzburg working on the decoration of the Residenz for the Prince-Bishop Karl Philip von Greiffenklau and in 1762 went to the court of King Charles III in Madrid, where he decorated the Royal palace. He left behind him some of the highest pictorial achievements of the European rococo.
This large and imposing picture represents the Assumption of the Virgin, in a skillfully handled composition crowded with figures.
In the lower part we see the Apostles, surprised and dismayed at the sight of the empty tomb, while above them youthful angels are soaring into the sky with the Virgin.
This picture was painted by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta around 1735 to a commission from the Elector of Cologne, and intended for the church of the Teutonic Order in Frankfurt am Main.
It depicts the Assumption of the Virgin, in a skillfully handled composition crowded with figures.
In the lower part of the painting, gathered around the VirginÆs empty tomb, the Apostles are carefully characterized, with varying expressions of curiosity, surprise and wonder on their faces. The group is dominated by the figure in a white tunic with widespread arms. A contrast to this more static group is provided by the adolescent figures of the angels, depicted in full flight as they raise the Virgin up to Heaven. The one on the right who is looking toward the observer with a witty smile on his face is evidently derived from the angels frescoed by Correggio in Parma Cathedral. The composition is bathed in the clear light of day, in a manner reminiscent of the paintings of Sebastiano Ricci, used to define the atmospheric luminosity of the sky.
After a period in Bologna in the workshop of Giuseppe Maria Crespi, he was active chiefly in Venice, at the head of a very lively workshop of his own. He painted religious works, pictures with figures represented as ôgenreö motifs, and scenes with profane and Biblical themes, where the style of the Bolognese and Neapolitan baroque was renewed through the use of a typically Venetian palette, partly based on the example set by Sebastiano Ricci. He was a significant exponent of the late-baroque decorative current, which was later to find its most poetic expression in the work of Giambattista Tiepolo.
The scene of the struggle between Hercules and Cacus, one of the twelve labors of Hercules, is set by Domenichino in an open and majestic sweep of nature. This was in line with a practice common among the painters of the Bolognese school, who liked to present religious, mythological and allegorical subjects against the backdrop of a broad stretch of landscape.
First a pupil of Denys Calvaert in Bologna, he then followed the example of his older contemporaries Albani and Reni and, around 1595, entered the CarracciÆs Accademia degli Incamminati. In 1602 he moved to Rome, where he was introduced into the circle of Annibale Carracci and collaborated with him on the Galleria Farnese. The study of Raphael led him to develop an ideal of classicistic painting in which the figures are harmoniously arranged in airy and well-balanced compositions. He also painted important pictures with landscapes, in which the feeling for nature is transformed into vast scenes of classically idealized beauty.
This picture was painted to mark the magnificent celebration that took place at the Teatro Argentina in Rome on July 15, 1747, on the occasion of the second marriage of the Dauphin of France, Louis, the son of Louis XV. The painter captures the pomp of the grandiose festivals of the day, paying minute attention to the details as well as to the spectacular effect of the painting as a whole.
In Rome, Giovanni Paolo Pannini came into contact with the circle of French artists and important patrons. Out of this came a series of pictures representing the grandeur and pomp of the great national festivals of France that were held in Rome around the middle of the eighteenth century.
One of these was the famous celebration that took place at the Teatro Argentina in Rome on July 15, 1747, on the occasion of the second marriage of the Dauphin of France, Louis, son of Louis XV, to Marie-JosΦphe of Saxony.
Pannini depicts the moment in the festival when the assembled nobility was served with lavish refreshments, accompanied by music and song.
At the center of the theater, thronged with people and richly adorned with red drapes, stands a large stage. Above it, the coat of arms of the French royal family is supported by two winged figures with trumpets, symbolizing Fame. In the corners small putti hold the coats of arms of the Dauphin and his bride.
On the stage, the figures of the musicians, solo singers and choir are disposed, seated or standing, on clouds, underneath a fantastic pergola ornamented with caryatids, sphinxes and garlands and topped by a dome.
Below the stage two allegorical figures, the Tiber and the Seine, hold hands to symbolize the understanding between Rome and Paris, between the French Crown and the Holy See.
He studied initially with the Emilian quadraturisti in Piacenza, from whom he derived the predominantly scenographic conception of his compositions. In 1771 he moved to Rome, where he managed to attain a position of absolute dominance in the cityÆs artistic circles with his original ôarchitectural caprices.ö He also painted realistic views, interiors, galleries, pictures of ceremonial occasions, theater sets, scenery for festivals and palace decorations.
This picture is one of the numerous views of Venetian squares and churches painted by Francesco Guardi. The view takes in the Scuola di San Marco, the faτade and side of the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo with Andrea del VerrocchioÆs monument to Colleoni, and closes on the right with a row of houses seen in perspective. In the foreground gondolas and boats ply the Rio dei Mendicanti.
He was, together with his brother Giannantonio, a painter of figures and, following the example of Canaletto, one of the most important of Italian vedutisti, following the fashion in the Venetian artistic circles of the mid-century. His favorite subjects were landscapes, in which he showed a particular sensitivity to the atmospheric link between figures and setting, and ôcaprices,ö imaginary views inspired in part by the works of Marco Ricci. He developed a fanciful and whimsical interpretation of the theme of the veduta, in which any documentary concern was abandoned and the forms of the architecture and nature lost their solidity in the vibrant atmosphere of the light.
This beautiful marble bust is a portrait of Cardinal Richelieu. Bernini has shown great sensitivity in rendering the psychological intensity of the expression and the severity of the gaze. He also displays great virtuosity in the way the marble has been carved to represent the clothing, once again demonstrating the skill with materials that was such a constant feature of the famous Roman sculptorÆs work.
With Cardinal Antonio Barberini acting as a go-between, the French cardinal Richelieu asked Gianlorenzo Bernini to carve his portrait. The bust was made between the fall of 1640 and the summer of 1641, and was taken to Paris by assistants from BerniniÆs studio. Although it was noted that the work did not actually resemble Richelieu at all, Bernini was rewarded with great praise and gratitude. The measurements of the bust, cut off well below the shoulders to allow the artist to emphasize his subjectÆs breast and part of his clothing, is typical of the famous Roman sculptorÆs portraits. BerniniÆs great capacity to express the most profound spirituality of the baroque era and to capture, in the expressions on the faces of his figures, the psychological depth of their characters and the intensity of their inner thoughts is apparent in this work too. The expressiveness of the face is very great, with its austere and intense gaze, underlined by the hard and sharp lines of the nose and chin. Above the high and severe forehead, the hair is clumped into small locks, finely carved in the marble, and falls softly at the sides of the head. BerniniÆs virtuoso skill in working material is still more evident in the way the marble has been carved to represent the clothing: in the stiff and impeccable collar of the shirt, as well as in the soft folds of the cloak, which curve to catch and reflect the light and create a unique effect.
The late-Mannerist sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini received his training in his fatherÆs workshop, devoting himself to an enthusiastic study of the great masters of the sixteenth century and ancient statuary. With the election of Pope Urban VIII (1623) he assumed a dominant position in Roman artistic circles and commenced his long involvement with the construction of the new St. PeterÆs. In his numerous architectural and sculptural works he was an exquisite exponent of the scenographic and dynamic conception of baroque space, making masterly use of the effects of light and fusing the different arts. In his many portraits he was capable of great immediacy and psychological penetration, interpreting the baroque concept of spirituality through the representation of feelings of exaltation and mystic transport.
This painting illustrates the famous story of the abduction of Helen by the youthful Paris. Although this was the cause of the tragic Trojan War, the artist has chosen to depict the subject in an atmosphere of grace and serenity, underlined by the courtly elegance of the figures and the brilliant light that floods the canvas.
This picture was commissioned from Reni by the count of Onate. The artist finished it in 1631. The painting dates from the artistÆs maturity, a period in which Guido Reni showed particular skill in the narration of ôstories,ö some of them drawn from the classical world, with great liveliness, using a palette of pale and luminous colors derived from Veronese.
And it is with courtly rhythms and elegance that the painter interprets the famous episode of the abduction of Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, by the youthful Paris.
In the right-hand corner we see the little Cupid-Eros with his bow and arrow, while the center of the composition is taken up by Helen and Paris, in elegant attitudes and accompanied by young soldiers and three graceful handmaidens.
On the left, a young Black reminiscent of some of VeroneseÆs figures lends a theatrical effect to the picture, along with the two small animals playing at the center of the image.
In the background the horizon opens onto a view of the sea, which is probably intended to evoke the voyage they would have to make to reach the city of Troy.
After an apprenticeship in the workshop of Denys Calvaert, he entered the Carracci academy at a very early age. Here he was able to join in the debate over the problems of a modern naturalism and devote himself to the study of the Antique and Raphael. Moving to Rome at the beginning of the seventeenth century, he came into contact with a vast range of experiences, including that of Caravaggio. He did a great deal of work for the pontificate and for the family of Scipione Borghese in particular. Returning to Bologna, he carried on with his research, becoming an outstanding exponent of seventeenth-century classical painting with a reputation that spread to the rest of Europe.
This painting illustrates the story of the discovery of the twin brothers Romulus and Remus, the sons of Mars and Rhea Sylvia who were the legendary founders of Rome. Abandoned in the waters of the river Tiber, the infants are found by the shepherd Faustulus, depicted at the center of the painting, who has them brought up by his wife Acca Larentia.
He received his training in the Roman artistic environment of the early seventeenth century, so that the study of RaphaelÆs painting and the Venetian artists of the sixteenth century, familiarity with the work of Annibale Carracci and the early sculpture of Gianlorenzo Bernini and his friendship with Cassiano dal Pozzo and Marcello Sacchetti, his patrons, were all important influences. He frescoed the Allegory of Divine Providence on the ceiling of the Roman palace of the Barberini family, a spectacular composition based on multiple points of view and trompe-l'oeil, inaugurating the phenomenon known as cortonismo. He was one of the leading exponents of baroque art, playing a primary role in the field of architecture as well.
This picture was painted by Pannini for Cardinal Melchior de Polignac, the French ambassador in Rome. In fact the painting represents the ambassadorÆs visit to St. PeterÆs. The topographic precision with which the location is depicted is associated in this work with PanniniÆs great ability to create spectacular scenic effects.
He studied initially with the Emilian quadraturisti in Piacenza, from whom he derived the predominantly scenographic conception of his compositions. In 1771 he moved to Rome, where he managed to attain a position of absolute dominance in the cityÆs artistic circles with his original ôarchitectural caprices.ö He also painted realistic views, interiors, galleries, pictures of ceremonial occasions, theater sets, scenery for festivals and palace decorations.
This picture is one of a series of twelve painted by Francesco Guardi to illustrate dogal festivals and ceremonies. The scene is set in the Sala del Collegio of the DogeÆs Palace in Venice. The Doge, seated on his throne, is flanked by members of the Signoria as was the custom. A large group of ladies and gentlemen look on.
He was, together with his brother Giannantonio, a painter of figures and, following the example of Canaletto, one of the most important of Italian vedutisti, following the fashion in the Venetian artistic circles of the mid-century. His favorite subjects were landscapes, in which he showed a particular sensitivity to the atmospheric link between figures and setting, and ôcaprices,ö imaginary views inspired in part by the works of Marco Ricci. He developed a fanciful and whimsical interpretation of the theme of the veduta, in which any documentary concern was abandoned and the forms of the architecture and nature lost their solidity in the vibrant atmosphere of the light.
This is the largest landscape that Domenichino ever painted on canvas and conveys a strong sense of the majesty of nature. In the middle of the foreground we see the figures of fishermen pulling in their nets and, on the left, a group of musicians in a boat. The figures on the right have been identified as the Holy Family on the Flight into Egypt.
First a pupil of Denys Calvaert in Bologna, he then followed the example of his older contemporaries Albani and Reni and, around 1595, entered the CarracciÆs Accademia degli Incamminati. In 1602 he moved to Rome, where he was introduced into the circle of Annibale Carracci and collaborated with him on the Galleria Farnese. The study of Raphael led him to develop an ideal of classicistic painting in which the figures are harmoniously arranged in airy and well-balanced compositions. He also painted important pictures with landscapes, in which the feeling for nature is transformed into vast scenes of classically idealized beauty.
This painting belongs to an extensive series of Landscapes that Annibale started to paint right at the beginning of his career, an indication of his direct and constant relationship with nature. The everyday human activity of fishing provides the painter with the pretext for a keen investigation of the landscape, with diagonal vistas running its entire depth.
Along with his brother Agostino and cousin Ludovico, Annibale Carracci worked in Bologna and was responsible for an important renewal in painting, calling for a return to nature and history as a reaction to the decadence of Mannerist culture. This innovative tendency was based on study from life and a return to the great masters of the Cinquecento (Raphael and Correggio, the Venetian school). After painting numerous works in Bologna, the Carracci moved to Rome. Here they carried out the grand decoration of the Gallery of Palazzo Farnese which, drawing on Michelangelo and RaphaelÆs models, represented a fundamental premise for the development of the sumptuous style of baroque decoration.
Baciccio chooses to set the scene of St. John the Baptist preaching in an open and luxuriant landscape, with a tree forming a backdrop to the saint on the left, while the landscape stretches into the distance behind the large crowd in the middle.
BACICCIO, Giovan Battista Gaulli called Italian painter
(Genoa 1639 - Rome 1709)
He moved at an early age to Rome, where he assimilated the lesson of Piero da Cortona, interpreting his style freely in exuberantly decorative works. Later he came under the influence of Correggio, whom he met on a journey to Emilia. Through his friendship with Bernini, he became one of the favorite artists of the lay and church aristocracy and one of the principal exponents of the triumphant Roman baroque.
This oval painting must have been part of a long series of pictures devoted to the Life of Alexander, painted by various artists for Cardinal Peretti Montalto and intended for his Roman villa at DiocletianÆs Baths, no longer in existence.
First a pupil of Denys Calvaert in Bologna, he then followed the example of his older contemporaries Albani and Reni and, around 1595, entered the CarracciÆs Accademia degli Incamminati. In 1602 he moved to Rome, where he was introduced into the circle of Annibale Carracci and collaborated with him on the Galleria Farnese. The study of Raphael led him to develop an ideal of classicistic painting in which the figures are harmoniously arranged in airy and well-balanced compositions. He also painted important pictures with landscapes, in which the feeling for nature is transformed into vast scenes of classically idealized beauty.
The son of Giambattista, Giandomenico Tiepolo developed a style independent of his fatherÆs, often tending toward caricature and the grotesque. But he was also, like his father, a painter of religious subjects, as is demonstrated by this Last Supper, set against the backdrop of a monumental architectural scene reminiscent of the sixteenth-century works of Veronese.
Taught by his father Giambattista, he was his faithful collaborator on numerous pictorial decorations, in Veneto as well as Wⁿrzburg and Madrid. But he also worked independently and soon developed an independent personality and a new style of his own, tending to caricature, the grotesque and the ôgenreö scene. Here, in the bizarre games of Pulcinella, illustrated with fanciful wit and powerful symbolism, Giandomenico presents us with the actors of the comedy of life. He also worked as an engraver.
Egyptian society was hierarchically structured. The pharaoh was the master of both lands and people and, through his functionaries, controlled all activity in the kingdom.
Free people had to pay levies on the lands they possessed and, periodically, did forced labor for their ruler.
Even within the world of work there was a hierarchy: at the summit was the scribe. Below him came specialized artisans, often employed in the palace or temples. Among the most important crafts were the manufacture of linen, from which all textiles were made, and papyrus, which was used not only as a writing material, but also for rope, sandals and boats.
Other wage earners included the men who worked in the stone quarries and on the construction of royal tombs. They were also paid, chiefly with cereals.
However the majority of the Egyptian population was made up of peasants, or fellahin as they are called in Arabic.
Work in the fields was limited to short periods. October, when the waters of the Nile receded from the flooded land, was the sowing season. Harvest time was between February and June. In the intervening months, peasants devoted themselves to raising stock.
On the bottom rung of the social ladder were the slaves, usually foreigners taken prisoner in war. They did domestic work or were used as laborers.
The least fortunate ended up in the Sinai and Nubia mines.
Hunting birds in the marshes, with boomerangs or nets, was one of the favorite sports of the Egyptian nobility and of the sovereign himself.
Scenes of this kind gave artists a pretext for displaying their skills in the description of nature.
Quails, partridges, pelicans, herons, magpies, swallows, ducks and numerous other birds appear in many paintings and reliefs, where attention is paid to the distinctive features of each species.
Egyptian artists developed a precocious sensitivity to natural forms and colors.
In this painting, the abundant use of green and blue immediately conjures up an aquatic environment. Various species of birds are taking flight on the shores of a marsh, represented by a simple patch of blue, amidst papyrus plants.
They have probably been chased away by hunters: hunting birds with nets and cages was one of the EgyptiansÆ favorite sports.
The painting shows a keen eye for detail in its representation of various species of animals and plants. Close examination reveals a number of realistic details: the yellow bird with a gaping beak seems to be signaling the alarm; others are busy feeding their young, waiting in the nest, while the hawk in the middle is sitting on her eggs.
On the two lower levels, servants are carrying trays and baskets filled with fish, flat loaves of bread, meat and amphorae and leading animals and fowl to slaughter.
The upper level shows a cow being butchered, while a servant carries away a haunch.
The relief comes from the tomb of Unsu, bookkeeper of the storehouses belonging to the temple of Amon at Thebes, who was probably also in charge of the kitchens.
Almost all the cultivable land in Egypt was exploited.
The fields were irrigated by a network of canals, which were used to distribute the providential floodwaters of the Nile.
Diodorus of Sicily wrote, ôas the water flows slowly by, they divert it easily by means of small dikes and draw on it without difficulty by opening these whenever they consider necessary. This flooding so lightens the work in the fields that the majority of farmers are content to scatter the seed, bring in flocks of sheep that tread it into the ground and then return four or five months later to reap the harvest.ö
Barley, grain and winter wheat formed the basis of the Egyptian diet and economy.
Harvest time was the most demanding season.
The wheat was reaped with small sickles of wood with flint blades. The ears were placed in nets and then transported on the backs of donkeys to the threshing floor or piled up in heaps before being trampled by donkeys and cattle.
The grain threshed in this way was then thrown into the air with wooden shovels and forks so that the wind could separate the grain from the chaff.
After sifting and cleaning, the grain was measured out, placed in sacks and stored in granaries.
The relief depicts the preparation of lirinon, an essence of lily that the Egyptians liked to use as a perfume.
The work is being done by Ethiopian women, identifiable by a long dress leaving one breast bare and a characteristic collar hooked to the diadem so that it does not get in the way. They are carrying the flowers and squeezing out their juice with a rudimentary press formed out of two sticks inserted in the holes of a sack containing the lily petals.
This relief shows various stages in the production of lirinon, an essence of lily that the Egyptians used to sprinkle themselves at banquets.
In the surviving fragment, a woman is carrying the freshly-picked flowers in a basket balanced on her head; in the middle, two women are operating a press. The petals are placed in a sort of canvas bag with a stick inserted at each end. When the sticks were twisted, the bag was squeezed and the juice from the flowers was collected in the amphora underneath.
It is likely that these women are slaves. Their features and curly hair suggest that they come from Ethiopia. The large rings attached to their hair bands are probably neckbands that they have removed so that they do not get in the way of their work.
This relief, along with another relief decorated with similar scenes in the Louvre, comes from a tomb where it served as the lintel over a door.
It is probably a symbolic representation of the offering of ointment to the deceased.
Unsu was the bookkeeper of the granaries belonging to the Theban temple of the god Amon. Thus the reliefs that decorated his tomb illustrate various moments of his working day. In this relief, which follows the scene of harvest and threshing from the same tomb, the grain, after being winnowed and placed in sacks, is loaded onto a boat to be transported to the templeÆs granaries.
Products derived from wheat played a fundamental part in the Egyptian diet, in particular bread and beer.
This painted limestone stele presents a scene of bread making: a cook, realistically represented as a bald and hoary old man, is stirring a cauldron set on a stove. The inscription tells us that he is preparing the dough for bread flavored with nenuphar, or lotus.
The aspects of daily life and work in Egypt are known to us chiefly through funerary art: not just paintings and reliefs, but also wooden models reproduce the objects and crafts of the world of the living. This is one of the most interesting aspects of Egyptian art: these statuettes are set organically in space, without the rigidity that often characterizes larger statuary. They often interact with one another in lively fashion, creating scenes from a narrative, as in the case of this farmer holding the beam of a plow drawn by a pair of oxen.
This fragment of a relief from a Theban tomb illustrates the various stages in the cultivation of grain. The lower level depicts the plowing of the fields. As the furrows are plowed, one of the men is sowing seed.
Above is set a scene of harvest: the men are wielding sickles, while gleaners are bending over to collect the ears that have fallen to the ground.
The upper level shows the threshing of the grain. This is carried in large wicker baskets to the platform where it will be threshed with a millstone turned by oxen.
A series of painted limestone reliefs depicting people at work in the fields were found in the shrine of the tomb of Unsu, at Thebes.
The lower level illustrates the plowing of the fields: the men are making furrows with the plow, with the aid of an ox. The second figure on the right is already scattering seeds from a bag.
A harvest scene is set immediately above it. The men are cutting ears with a sickle, while two youths collect the fallen ears. On the left, a woman is carrying a basket and a bag filled with food for the harvesters.
The upper level shows the threshing of the grain. The ears are carried in large wicker baskets to the platform on the left, where they are threshed with a millstone turned by oxen.
The work in the fields is illustrated in a fresh and lively style: there are plenty of realistic details. Note, for example, the reaper in the middle who, having finished his share of work, is refreshing himself by drinking from an amphora.
Unsu was the bookkeeper at the granaries belonging to the temple of the god Amon: thus these reliefs depict his daily occupation.
The scribe enjoyed a position of great prestige in Egypt.
He was the one who imposed taxes and collected them. He was the one who did the calculations, and who exercised control over all the countryÆs economic activity.
In a land of illiterate people, those who knew how to read and write held power.
Egyptian writing is ôideogrammatic,ö that is to say made up of ideograms, over 700 figures and signs known as ôhieroglyphs.ö
The signs do not correspond to letters or words, but concepts: a drawing of a fish signified ôfish,ö a house meant ôhouse.ö
Representations were not used for abstract ideas, but signs that had a purely phonetic value. These are called ôphonograms.ö
They were the same figures as were used to represent things, but interpreted only in terms of their sound. When writing with a quill on papyrus, a simplified script was adopted, known as ôhieratic.ö
Around 1600 BC another form of writing appeared on papyrus. This was ôdemoticö or the ôpeopleÆs script,ö which made it possible to draw up documents much more rapidly.
The Egyptians attached no importance to vowels and only consonants were written down.
Monuments representing scribes show them writing while seated on the ground with their legs crossed, surrounded by the materials required by their profession.
The basic tools of the trade were: the palette, a long wooden case in which the brushes and styluses were kept and which had hollows for mixing paint; papyrus scrolls bound together in bundles and placed in special containers; a bowl that served as an inkwell.
This life-sized wooden statue represents the scribe Nakhti, who lived during the reign of Sesostris I. It is a funerary statue, placed in the tomb along with the dead man that it portrays.
Nakhti is depicted with a certain solemnity, advancing while holding the hem of his skirt back with one hand.
As was customary for scribes and officials, his head is shaved.
The details of the youthful face are rendered with great realism, using the technique of incrustation as well as touches of paint.
This life-sized statue in wood, polished and painted red, comes from a tomb at Assiut, in Middle Egypt.
It represents a man marching, with his arms held close to the body, in the classic pose adopted by Egyptian artists to bestow solemnity on their figures.
The clothing consists of a knee-length skirt, with one hem held back by the right hand.
The details of the face are rendered with great realism: the technique of incrustation is used for the eyes, and the cavities are filled with colored glass paste. The edges of the eyelids are underlined with lists of black wood. The lips and eyebrows are outlined in black paint. The skull is shaven.
The name of the personage is inscribed on the base. It is that of the chancellor Nakhti, who may have lived during the reign of Sesostris I.
The statue was made to be placed with the dead man in his last resting place and to preserve his features: it was supposed to house his soul and ensure its survival after the decay of the body.
The Egyptians of ancient times saw their world as a closed box.
In the north lay the ôGreat Green,ö as they called the sea, in the south the Cataract, in the west the Libyan Desert and in the East the Sinai and the mountains of Arabia.
The sky arched above, the earth lay below. The sky rested on four great mountains, or pillars, situated at the four cardinal points, and it was the Mother Goddess Nut who supported the heavenly bodies.
The two oldest cults in Egypt were worship of the sun and worship of nature.
The prime figure in the first was the sun god Amon-Ra, the Creator, while in the latter it was Osiris.
Everyday Amon-Ra crossed the sky in his boat. Since darkness fell when he went beneath the earth, he had Thoth, the moon god, take his place.
Amon-Ra had four children: Shu, god of air, Tefnut, goddess of dew and rain, Geb, the earth god, and Nut, goddess of the sky.
The sky goddess Nut and earth god Geb also had four children.
These were the gods of nature: Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys.
Osiris and Isis had a son, Horus.
When Horus was grown up and sufficiently strong, he avenged the death of his father, killed by Seth.
Horus traveled a long time in search of Seth, his fatherÆs murderer, facing innumerable dangers: he was the protagonist of many adventures, all narrated in myths.
This was how Horus mounted the earthly throne of his father, Osiris, and became the first ancestor of the king, who from then on was believed to be his reincarnation.
The prehistoric traditions of local animal worship survived in religion.
In the Fayyum and at Kom Ombo, the crocodile god Sebek was worshiped. At Oxyrhynchus a species of fish living in the Nile was venerated.
The worship of dogs, cats and ichneumons persisted locally until the advent of Christianity.
Amon-Ra was the supreme deity, equated with the sun.
He was represented in human form with two tall plumes on his head, and sometimes with the head of a ram.
Bast (Bastet) was the goddess of joy and the warmth of the sun.
She is represented as a lion or a cat.
Hathor (Athyr) was the goddess of music and of love. She was also the kingÆs wet nurse.
She can have the appearance of a woman with the head of a cow or even of a woman, but with the horns and ears of a cow, with the solar disc set between them.
Horus is presented as a hawk, or as a man with a hawkÆs head. He was considered the son of Osiris and Isis. He presided over the observance of rites and laws, and the pharaoh was his incarnation on earth.
Isis was the protective deity of prosperity, births, navigators and the state. When her husband Osiris was killed and dismembered by her brother Seth, she managed to put the pieces back together and conceive Horus with him. She is represented as a woman bearing the solar disc between cowÆs horns on her head.
Nut is the goddess of the sky. She is represented arched, with only her hands and feet resting on the earth.
Osiris was the spirit of vegetation. Originally he had been a human king, the one who had brought civilization to Egypt.
He is represented with the aspect of a mummy. He bears the royal attributes: the scepter, flail and crown flanked with feathers.
In the oldest of the myths, Hathor was considered the wet nurse of the sun god Horus. As a consequence, royal ideology made her the wet nurse of the pharaoh, who was identified with Horus.
Thus the goddess Hathor is considered the protectress of the sovereign.
Here she is represented alongside Seti I, in the act of offering the menat necklace, attribute of the goddess, to the king. Through contact with this sacred object, Seti received divine power.
This relief from the tomb of Seti in the Valley of the Kings shows the divine investiture of the king by the goddess Hathor.
It tells us a great deal about royal dress. The pharaoh is wearing a veil-like over garment: note the artistÆs skill in rendering the filmy consistency and puckering of the material. The profusion of jewelry is also remarkable: imagine the ornamental plate hanging from the belt in gold and enamel; the necklace turns into a scarf at the nape.
The forehead is adorned with the uraeus, the sacred cobra who destroyed the kingÆs enemies.
The goddess is wearing her typical crown with the solar disc between cowÆs horns. Her wig is adorned with a diadem. A pendant hangs down her back from the band tied around her head at the height of the ears. A finely embroidered dress reaches down to her ankles.
Hathor is offering the menat necklace to the king: a symbol of rebirth and renewal, this object served to transmit the powers of the goddess to the sovereign.
The power of the pharaoh was legitimized by a divine investiture. Here the god Amon places his hands on TutankhamenÆs shoulders as a mark of his protection.
The god is wearing the characteristic headgear with two long feathers, symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Reacting against the religious reform carried out by his predecessor Amenhotep IV, who had imposed worship of the single god Aton, Tutankhamen revived the traditional cults, and in particular that of Amon.
The monumental dimensions of this sculptural group in gray granite are intended to convey the superhuman nature of the pharaoh, the godsÆ favorite. The figure seated on the throne is Amon, the sun god.
He is wearing a striking hat, formed of two tall feathers. The feathers represent the two regions of Egypt, the North and South. They stand on a modius, a container for grain in the shape of a truncated cone.
This crown is a symbol of the prosperity guaranteed to the whole country through the ripening of crops.
The pharaoh Tutankhamen is standing between the godÆs feet. AmonÆs hands rest on his shoulders as a mark of protection.
The sculpture had been damaged, and the godÆs hands, TutankhamenÆs head and the kingÆs scroll were destroyed by blows from a scalpel in ancient times.
It is likely that the pharaohÆs political opponents tried to weaken his power by breaking the contact between the king and the god. In fact it was believed that the divine fluid was transmitted to man through physical contact with the god.
From about 900 BC onward, the goddess Bast is represented in the form of a cat. She was a multisided deity: goddess of the pleasures of life and of the heat of the sunÆs rays, as well as a lunar divinity. Under the Twenty-second dynasty she became a dynastic deity, when the capital was shifted to Bubastis, the site of the goddessÆs most important sanctuary.
Here she is represented with one of her most characteristic attributes: the aegis, a bronze crescent-shaped pendant hanging from the collar.
The Egyptians worshiped the goddess Bast, or Bastet, in the form of a cat.
Bast was originally considered a solar deity with the aspect of a lioness. Later she was given a gentler image and identified with the domestic cat.
In this form Bast was associated with the pleasures of life and with femininity in general: the goddess is sometimes represented with the head of a cat and the body of a woman, at others suckling her kittens.
In the late period, that is from 900 BC onward, bronze statuettes of cats dedicated to the goddess became increasingly common. They come chiefly from the shrine of Bubastis, where they were deposited as votive offerings.
This statuette is an example of one of these. It has a collar around its neck from which hangs a pendant.
The artist has represented the animalÆs slim and lithe body with great skill, emphasizing anatomical details like the way the bones protrude at the joints. Even the pointed muzzle is typical of the Egyptian wildcat.
This image sums up the Egyptian conception of the universe. At the top we see Nut, the heavenly vault, shown arched over a semi-recumbent male figure which she touches with her hands and feet.
This is Geb, god of the earth and NutÆs husband.
The boat of the sun is making its daily voyage under the vault of heaven: aboard it we can recognize the sun god Osiris, accompanied by the serpent uraeus and by Maat, the goddess of cosmic order.
On the left stands one of the pillars that support the sky and represent the cardinal points.
Osiris, Isis and Horus are the protagonists of the most important myth of ancient Egypt, linked to the belief in reincarnation. In addition Osiris, and then his successor Horus, are the mythical archetypes of the pharaohÆs power.
Osiris is depicted in the middle. He is wearing the atef crown with two feathers and the uraeus.
On his left is his wife, Isis, with the characteristic headgear of Hathor, the solar disc between a pair of cowÆs horns. On the right is their son Horus, with a falconÆs head.
This piece of gold work can be considered one of the masterpieces of Egyptian sculpture, in spite of its small dimensions.
It represents the most important triad of deities in ancient Egypt: Osiris, Isis and Horus.
In the middle is Osiris, crouching on a pillar faced with lapis lazuli and inscribed with the name of Pharaoh Osorkon II.
He is wearing the characteristic atef crown, consisting of a conical element flanked by two feathers, with a pair of horns at the base.
The myth recounts how Osiris was murdered by his brother Seth, who cut the body into pieces. OsirisÆs wife, Isis, reassembled the body piece by piece. With OsirisÆs body, Isis generated a son, Horus, who revenged his father by defeating Seth.
Alongside Osiris we see his wife and son, who is stretching out his hand to his father in a sign of reverence.
Isis is wearing a long and clinging tunic and a crown consisting of a pair of cowÆs horns and the solar disc.
Horus is represented as the falcon-headed god: in fact he was the lord of the sky.
The Egyptian temple, like the Greek one, was considered the house of the god. The faithful were not permitted to go into it, and only the priests could come into contact with the deity.
However, they had to keep themselves pure, through a series of hygienic precautions: they had to shave their hair and eyebrows, abstain from impure foods and sexual relations, perform ablutions before entering the sanctuary and be circumcised.
It was believed that the god was incarnated in the effigy that represented him.
For this reason the priests lavished on the statues of the deity all the care that they would have taken over living beings: from waking them up in the morning to offering them food and drink and dressing them.
In fact the people were only able to see the god on religious festivals, when the statue was brought out in procession, riding in a boat carried on the shoulders of attendants. Sometimes the idol was taken along the Nile on a sacred vessel.
These ceremonies were often accompanied by performances of music and dance or by mimes evoking the exploits of the god.
From the temple of Medamud, this relief represents the same scene twice, reversed as if in a mirror: the pharaoh Sesostris III making an offering to a deity.
The god is Menthu with a falconÆs head. Also known as Mont, he was the lord of war whose favor assured the king of victory. In fact the pharaoh is dressed as a warrior, with a sword hanging at his side. Sesostris is bringing loaves of bread and other offerings are listed in the hieroglyphic text.
Made out of wood covered with plaster and then painted, this statuette of a woman making offerings stands out from other examples of the kind for the elegance of its forms and the refined design of the clothing. She is represented in the act of bringing offerings to a tomb: she is carrying a trapezoidal container on her head, which we can imagine as being filled with flour. A haunch of beef is placed on its lid and she is carrying an amphora of water in her hand.
This illustration is a detail from a papyrus on the subject of mythology that was placed in the tomb of Nespakashuti, bookkeeper of the granaries belonging to the temple of Amon.
The goddess Nut is depicted standing in front of a sycamore tree and pouring water into the hands of Nespakashuti, kneeling in front of her.
The sycamore was considered to be the tree that grew in front of the eastern gate of heaven, from which the sun emerges every morning. So the sycamore is a symbol of rebirth. Nut, mother of the sun to which she gives birth every morning, is also connected with the symbology of resurrection.
This damascened bronze statuette represents Karomama, priestess of the god Amon. She held the post of ôdivine worshiperö in the temple of Karnak, which means that she was the bride of the sun god, a religious function reserved for daughters of the pharaohs from the Twenty-second Dynasty onward.
This allowed the ruler to exercise control over the templeÆs great wealth and keep the ambitions of the priestly caste in check.
Although only sixty centimeters or twenty-three and a half inches high, this bronze statuette is considered one of the finest examples of Egyptian sculpture.
It represents Princess Karomama, whose name is engraved on the clasp of her necklace.
The young woman is wearing a long and close-fitting tunic, whose tiny folds outline a sinuous body. The liveliness of the modeling is enhanced by the insertion of gold leaf in the grooves of the drapery, a technique known as damascening.
A wide pectoral hangs from her neck.
A fringe of natural hair peeps out from under her wig.
She is represented in the customary solemn pose with her arms held close to her body.
The holes in her hands must have held objects that have now vanished: offerings that the princess was bringing to the god Amon.
In fact Karomama held the position of ôdivine worshiper of Amon,ö bride of the sun god and administrator of the great temple of Karnak. During the Twenty-second Dynasty this role was reserved for daughters of the pharaohs.
The inscription on the base tells us that the statuette was dedicated to an official of the temple.
This wooden stele, found in a tomb, shows the dead man, Taperet, worshiping the sun god. Ra, with a falconÆs head surmounted by the solar disc, is standing under a shrine supported by papyrus stems and with an arched ceiling that symbolizes the vault of heaven. In his right hand he holds an ankh, the key of life, and a flail, and in the left a scepter and staff. Taparet, who is bathed in rays of light issuing from the solar disc on the godÆs head, is seated in front of him.
In the middle we see an altar laden with offerings.
After its conquest by Alexander the Great, Egypt was dominated by a Greek-speaking ruling class. Yet the old Pharaonic culture continued to survive, both in the figurative arts and in the use of the language and traditional scripts.
Around the middle of the first century AD Christianity reached Egypt. The holy scriptures of the new religion were written in Greek, which was not understood by the whole population in Egypt, especially in the countryside.
Thus it was necessary to translate the holy scriptures into the native tongue. The difficulty of transcribing the Bible in hieroglyphic characters led to the creation of a new script. This was an adaptation of the Greek alphabet so that it could be used to express the Egyptian language.
This script is called Coptic. The Egyptian Christians are also known as Copts.
The name derives from Arabic. When the Arabs conquered Egypt in 640 AD, the country was completely Christian. The Arabs used the Greek term aigyptos for the country, which became qubt in Arabic phonetics and it is from this that the word Copt has come.
Egyptian Christianity assumed particularly austere characteristics, giving rise to the phenomenon of monasticism. In 451 the Egyptian church split with the rest of the Christian community: in fact the Egyptians upheld the Monophysite doctrine, which recognized only the divine nature of Christ.
This panel painting representing Christ and the abbot Mena comes from the monastery of Bauit.
The word soter, savior, is inscribed in Coptic lettering alongside ChristÆs face. He has a precious evangeliary under his left arm and his right arm around the abbotÆs shoulders, as a sign of his protection.
The abbot, or apa as he is described in the inscription next to his face, is represented on the same plane as Christ. In fact the Coptic religion is based on a direct relationship with God and the legends of the saintsÆ lives often tell of divine visions.
The spread of the Christian religion to Egypt gave rise to a distinct culture that developed as the ancient world was drawing to an end, between the fifth and ninth century AD.
Called the Coptic civilization, it was created out of a fusion of Pharaonic culture with the successive influences exercised on it by the Greeks, the Romans and finally the Arabs.
This painting on wood, from the monastery of Bauit, represents Christ with his arm around the shoulders of the abbot of the monastery, a sign of blessing.
The two figures are identified by an inscription in Coptic lettering: Christ, who is holding the Gospels, is described as soter, the Savior. The name of the other figure is written on the left: apa Mena, or Abbot Mena.
Both Christ and the abbot have haloes, a sign of the latterÆs sanctity. In fact Egyptian Christianity was characterized by its strict asceticism. The severity of the image and frontality of the figures are reminiscent of Byzantine icons and anticipate the art of the Middle Ages.
The arid climate of the Egyptian desert has allowed the preservation of numerous pieces of embroidered cloth, which represent one of the most original manifestations of Coptic art.
This fragment comes from a church vestment woven out of linen and wool.
It shows the prophet Jonah emerging from the belly of the ôgreat fish.ö The Scriptures tell how he found shelter under a gourd plant, which is depicted here with its yellow fruit hanging all around the prophet. Thus the embroiderer has fused together two successive episodes from the legend within the limited space of the panel.
Coptic art, which flourished in the Christian Egypt of late antiquity, found its finest expression in the production of textiles. Numerous pieces of cloth have been found in the refuse heaps of cities and the cemeteries of the Fayyum.
Fabrics embroidered in vivid colors were used as shrouds or as hangings in churches.
This fragment was part of a linen and wool tapestry decorated with figured and plant motifs arranged in several rows, in panels bounded by spiral columns.
The panel on the right illustrates the Biblical story of Jonah. The prophet is depicted emerging from the mouth of the ôgreat fish,ö with his arms spread in an attitude of prayer.
He finds shelter under the branches of a tree laden with yellow fruit, represented here as if it were surrounding him: it is probably the gourd plant mentioned in the Book of Jonah.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the human being had a material part and a spiritual part. The latter was made up of three components: the ka, or vital force, the ba, which constituted individuality, and lastly the akh, which existed before the birth of the individual and survived after his death.
However, the spirit could only survive in the next world if the body was preserved as well. This was the reason for the mummification of the dead. It was accompanied by a series of rituals: the priest whose task it was to embalm the body wore a mask with the features of Anubis, the god with a jackalÆs head.
The internal organs removed from the body were kept in special containers called Canopic jars, with lids in the shape of a human face. While the mummy was being wrapped a series of ritual formulas were recited and amulets were placed between the bandages.
The deceased was then carried to the tomb by a long funeral procession accompanied by the weeping of mourners.
In front of the door of the tomb the ceremony of the opening of the mouth was staged: this was supposed to magically restore life to the corpse.
At this point the mummy could be deposited in its sarcophagus, decorated with magical formulas. The Book of the Dead, a sort of handbook of the afterlife, was placed alongside it.
This type of funeral was very costly and reserved for the highest classes.
The Egyptians believed in the survival of the spirit, but they also held that this was only possible if the body were preserved as well.
For this reason they devoted extreme care to methods of conserving the body, both through mummification and by placing statuettes in the tomb that reproduced the appearance of the deceased.
In addition, the tomb was filled with food and everyday objects, for the dead were believed to still have the same needs as the living.
Before starting their new life in the other world, the deceased had to appear before the court of Osiris. Here their souls were weighed on a pair of scales.
Once they had been judged, the souls of the dead could begin their life in the other world, which the Egyptians believed to be located in the sky. Here they would be able to lead a life exactly like that on earth.
During the day, souls could also return to their tombs and eat the offerings that were deposited there, but when night fell they had to go back to the kingdom of the dead.
Models of wooden boats have often been found in tombs. They are symbols of the passage from one state to another and were supposed to assure the deceased a safe voyage to the other world.
These statuettes also had an auspicious value: in fact they were linked to the hope that the deceased could ôsail on the boat of the sun,ö in other words would be able to return to the light.
The funerary character of this model is certain: in fact the boat carries the mummy of the deceased, sheltered by a canopy.
The objects deposited in tombs frequently included ushabti statuettes, placed in special caskets.
They represented figures in the form of mummies. Their function was to take the dead manÆs place in the labor that he had to carry out in the other world. It was believed that this work was agricultural in nature and the ushabti are provided with such implements as hoes, picks and baskets.
The inscriptions that cover these statuettes contain the text of the sixth chapter of the Book of the Dead, which describes the role of the ushabti in the afterlife.
Numerous statuettes like this have been found in Egyptian tombs.
Made out of painted wood, it represents a mummy wrapped in bandages and covered with inscriptions, with the usual accessories of the high-ranking dead: a wig and neckband.
The hands crossed on the chest hold amulets or objects used in daily life: in this case, the figure is holding two small hoes.
These statuettes are called funerary servants, or ushabti. They were supposed to take the dead manÆs place in the labor that he had to carry out in the other world in order to win rebirth. Thus they were placed in tombs to act as slaves for their owner.
The ushabti were placed in special caskets, decorated with funeral scenes.
This one, which is inscribed with the name Kabekhent, shows a couple inside a shrine during the funeral banquet. The male figure, who probably represents the dead man himself, is sniffing a lotus flower. It was believed that the scent of the lotus brought life and ensured rebirth.
This relief comes from a tomb in the necropolis of Saqqarah and represents a funeral scene.
At the bottom we can see a door, probably that of the tomb. All around it, the mourning women are set in two rows, making the conventional gesture of beating their foreheads in sorrow. All of them have their hair tied back by a ribbon as a token of mourning.
The fluidity of these figuresÆ profiles and the liveliness of their gestures are signs that the influence of Amarna art persisted in this work dating from the reign of Tutankhamen.
This stele represents a funeral banquet held for a woman belonging to the family of the pharaoh Cheops.
She is seated at a table laid with offerings of food: the objects arranged in a row are slices of bread. The others are listed in graphic form above the table: pieces of meat, a fowl, cereals.
The hieroglyphic text at the sides of the table and in the panel on the right lists everything with which the tomb had been stocked for the deceasedÆs use in her next life: incense, oil, fruit and wine, as well as cosmetics and textiles.
The stele, which was set in the wall of a tomb in Giza, is worked in very low relief but brought to life by the use of color.
It represents a funeral banquet held for a woman of high rank.
The hieroglyphs record the name and titles of the dead woman. Above her head is written, ôthe kingÆs daughter, Nefertiabet.ö
She was probably a sister of the pharaoh Cheops.
The princess is sitting on a seat with feet carved in the shape of bullÆs hooves. She is wearing a panther skin and a long wig. He neck and wrists are bedecked with jewelry.
Fifteen slices of bread are lined up on the table in front of her. A series of drawings above represents the food offered to the deceased: cutlets, the leg of an ox, a basket full of seeds, a fowl.
At the sides of the table, the hieroglyphic text lists another series of ritual offerings: incense, oil, cosmetics, fruit, wine. Various textiles are listed in the panel on the right, along with their dimensions.
Everything that Nefertiabet would need in the afterlife was ritually provided.
The sarcophagus was the house of the dead and it was made in the shape of the pharaohÆs palace.
The deceased could ôobserveö the world through eyes carved or drawn on the sarcophagus and could emerge through the false door to inspect the treasure stored in the chambers of the tomb.
At the end of the Old Kingdom the wooden sarcophagus made its appearance. This was a parallelepiped painted with representations of the things that the deceased held most dear.
The funerary texts, previously written on the walls of the burial chamber, were now inscribed on the sides of the sarcophagus.
During the New Kingdom, the sarcophagus underwent a further modification and took the form of the now mummified human body.
A mask reproduced the features of the deceased, the inscriptions were taken from The Book of the Dead and the decorations were rich and joyful.
The mummies of pharaohs were buried in sarcophagi that were often made entirely of gold, studded with precious stones, lavishly embellished and placed one inside the other.
These ôChinese boxesö in the shape of mummies were then placed inside a large, quadrangular sarcophagus carved out of costly stone.
Anthropomorphic sarcophagi carved from hard stone started to appear at the time of the Twenty-fourth Dynasty.
The high-ranking dead were often deposited in their tombs inside sarcophagi that were placed one inside another: the mummy was set inside a case that was not a real sarcophagus, but composed of a series of separate elements that were used to cover the various parts of the body.
It was then placed in the so-called inner sarcophagus and this in turn was placed in the outer sarcophagus.
All three elements were covered with colored scenes of a religious character: the most prominent figure on the lid is the goddess Nut with her vultureÆs wings, a symbol of the heaven where the deceased will make his journey.
The sarcophagus reproduces the appearance of the mummy wrapped in bandages, on which the name of the deceased is written. The bandages intersect to form spaces filled with representations of ceremonies and sacred figures. On the left two people are bearing offerings. In the middle a couple are taking part in a funeral banquet. Next comes Osiris in the form of a mummy and then the eye of Horus, a symbol which was intended to attract divine protection of the deceased.
This inner sarcophagus, made of pressed cloth, reproduces the appearance of the mummy that it contained. It was placed inside a larger sarcophagus, carved from stone.
The lid is decorated with bands covered with inscriptions that imitate the bandages in which the mummy was wrapped. The spaces between the bands are filled with sacred images: at the center is set a crown surmounted by two tall feathers and the solar disc, symbol of the god Amon. The figure located in the position of the mummyÆs knees is the goddess Nut, with the wings of a vulture.
On the back of the sarcophagus is represented the djed pillar, sacred to Osiris.
This example of a sarcophagus made of pressed cloth, covered with stucco and painted, reproduces the appearance of the mummy that it contained.
The deceased is shown with the insignia of his rank: wig, diadem on the forehead and pectoral.
The face, painted in red, is no more than a vague and idealized representation of the manÆs features.
The figure is traversed by bands with hieroglyphic inscriptions that imitate the bandages in which the mummy is wrapped.
These strips divide the surface of the lid into a series of panels, filled with images of deities and sacred symbols.
On the back of the sarcophagus we find the pillar sacred to Osiris, called djed and considered the godÆs spinal column and a symbol of the permanence of the universe. The design is in the position of the dead manÆs own backbone, identifying him with the god.
Two deities guard the pillar: Thoth, with the head of an ibis, and Horus, with a falconÆs head.
Two female figures with green skin, demons of the other world, appear toward the bottom.
From the time of the New Kingdom onward, the mummies of rich Egyptians were buried with a book, generally written on papyrus and placed in a special casket bearing an effigy of Osiris.
This was The Book of the Dead, an illustrated text containing all the religious and magical beliefs relating to the deceasedÆs journey to meet his destiny.
The Egyptians called it The Book of Going Forth by Day and it contained phrases capable of deifying and resurrecting the dead.
The Book of the Dead often had splendid drawings and pages and pages of beautiful hieratic calligraphy and provided all the instructions needed for a good life in the next world.
Above all it explained how the deceased could identify himself with Osiris, sing hymns to the sun, defeat his enemies and kill the crocodile and the serpent.
It taught how to get into the good graces of the guardians of the gates of the next world and win the favor of the souls of the dead.
The Book of the Dead also taught how to make the ushabti work in place of the dead, how to hold on to the soul so that it remained in the body and how to live among the gods.
This detail of the Book of the Dead of the scribe Nebked illustrates the funeral procession that accompanied the dead man to his tomb.
On the left we see the mourners. Servants are dragging the casket containing the deceasedÆs vital organs, placed on a sled and watched over by the jackal god Anubis. In the middle, the sarcophagus is set on a boat symbolizing the boat of the sun.
On the right we see the tomb, where vases containing offerings are stacked.
The mummy has been set upright in front of the door and a priest is celebrating the ritual of the opening of the mouth.
The Book of the Dead can be considered the oldest illustrated book in the world.
It was a papyrus scroll that was placed in the sarcophagus or inserted between the bandages of mummies. It contained a sort of ômapö of the next world, with a series of formulas that the deceased had to recite in order to be reborn.
The text is divided into columns and illustrated by colored drawings.
This papyrus containing the Book of the Dead was placed in the tomb of the scribe Nebked. The pictures illustrate the progress of the funeral procession toward the necropolis: on the left we see the mourners, with their arms raised to express their sorrow. They are followed by the casket containing the dead manÆs viscera, watched over by the dog-headed Anubis. In the middle, the sarcophagus is set on a boat drawn by oxen, symbolizing the boat in which the sun god crosses the ocean of the heavens. Finally the procession arrives at the tomb, where the offerings for the dead man are deposited.
The mummy is set upright in front of the door. A priest with a curved scepter is celebrating the ritual of the opening of the mouth, which was supposed to permit the vital spirit to reenter the body of the dead man.
It may be asked why the Egyptians were so interested in preservation of the body.
Perhaps the answer can be found in the religious belief linked to the myth of Osiris.
This god died and was dismembered.
His members were found, reassembled and his body reconstituted inside a tightly wound bandage.
Thus Osiris was prepared for the resurrection that was to take place in the world beyond.
Herodotus describes the method of embalming:
ôIf the most elaborate technique has been chosen, they first of all extract the brain through the nostrils by means of a metal hook and inject substances in its place. Then they make an opening near the hip, draw out all the intestines and clean the abdomen by rinsing it with palm wine and roasted spices. Next they fill the abdomen with crushed pure myrrh and other spices and sew up the anus.
This done, they place the body in saltpeter for sixty-six days û this is the time laid down for embalming. When sixty-six days have passed, they wash the body and wrap it entirely in linen bandages hardened with mastic. Then they hand over the remains to the relatives of the deceased.ö
ôThe Egyptians are the only people who raise animals in the home alongside human beings,ö wrote the Greek historian Herodotus in amazement. But domestic animals did not just share their mastersÆ homes: they were also placed in their tombs.
In fact a large number of mummified domestic animals have been found in tombs and sometimes even inside sarcophagi.
They rarely preserve their original form, but are reduced to a sort of bundle from which only the head emerges, covered with a mask of painted linen reproducing the animalÆs muzzle.
The practice of mummification, developed at the beginning of the Pharaonic era, persisted through the Hellenistic period and right up to the advent of Christianity.
In the late period, however, bodies were treated in an increasingly summary fashion.
This mummy of an individual from the Ptolemaic period is covered with a cartonnage in four pieces, laid over the face, breast, legs and feet.
The technique of cartonnage entailed molding several layers of linen or pressed papyrus around the dead manÆs body. This covering was then plastered and painted.
Egyptian society was a ôtheocraticö one, that is to say ruled by personages who were believed to have a divine nature.
The term ôpharaohö first appeared in the Bible and was unknown to the rulers of Egypt.
The monarch was sometimes called ôGreat House,ö or Per-O, and it is from this that the word pharaoh was derived.
The government of Egypt was established by an elite that created a god-king, the unifier of the country.
There was little difference between religion and politics in Egypt and the balance of power often shifted between the king and the priests of Heliopolis, the seat of the temple of sun worship.
Over the course of the Old Kingdom Egypt was divided up into forty provinces, to which the Greeks later gave the name nomoi.
The sovereign personally appointed a governor in each province, and he later came to be known as a ônomarch.ö
In addition to serving as the judge of the province, the nomarch was in charge of agricultural production and public works.
He decided the size of taxes to be levied and controlled the archives in which the scribes wrote down everything in great detail.
Money did not exist and so the taxes, paid in kind, were stored in the royal granaries and warehouses.
It seems that there was no written law in Egypt, and yet there was a legal practice guaranteed by the pharaoh and the governor of each province.
The pharaoh is often represented in the form of a sphinx, the symbolic animal of Egypt.
The face of this sphinx is a portrait of the Pharaoh Amenemhet II, but the inscriptions carved on its body and the base include the names of three later pharaohs: the statue was therefore reused several times.
It may have stood in the courtyard of a temple: in fact the ceremonial entrances to shrines often took the form of avenues lined with sphinxes.
The portrait has the typical attributes of the pharaoh: the headgear known as a nemes and the false beard.
The face of this sphinx is the only portrait of the pharaoh Amenemhet to have come down to us.
This fantastic animal, with the body of a lion and a human head, is the symbol of Egypt. It was the guardian of the land of the Nile and its people.
The pharaoh was often identified with the sphinx to underline his power.
This colossal sculpture was reutilized by several successive kings. In fact the hieroglyphs carved on its body give the names of four different pharaohs.
In spite of its dimensions, the sphinx is not ungainly or stiff. The artist has imparted a sense of vigor to the lionÆs body, in part through the use of highly stylized features: note the thin stripes on the breast that reproduce the mane and the simple design of the claws.
The sovereignÆs face conveys a feeling of solemnity through the large eyes fixed on the horizon and the slightly scornful way the lips are set.
He is wearing the nemes, the typical headgear of the pharaohs. It was made of blue fabric with gold rays that evoked sunbeams. His chin is adorned a the false beard.
A neckband solves the problem of joining the statues two parts since it covers the point of transition between the human and feline parts.
Amenhotep IV, better known as Akhenaton, brought about a true religious revolution in the Egyptian world, imposing the monotheistic worship of the god Aton, the solar disc, in place of all the other deities. In this new religion, the pharaoh and his family were direct intermediaries between the sun and the earth.
By this means Amenhotep IV hoped to put an end to the growing power of the priests of Amon-Ra at Thebes.
He also abandoned the ancient capital of the kingdom, Thebes, building a new city in the locality now known as Amarna and which he called Akhetaton, the horizon of Aton.
This colossal, fragmentary bust depicts the pharaoh Amenhotep IV, better known as Akhenaton. This name signifies ôfollower of Aton.ö In fact, around 1350 BC, he brought about a religious revolution in which traditional polytheism was replaced by the worship of a single deity, the sun god Aton.
The portrait comes from the great shrine erected in honor of Aton at Karnak. It was part of a statue-pillar located in the temple precincts.
The statueÆs features are quite different from the stereotyped image of earlier rulers: the oval face with its elongated jaw, fine eyes and fleshy mouth reflect a new style. This period in art is called Amarna, after the name of the city that Amenhotep IV chose as his capital, Tel el Amarna.
Paint was used to give the portrait a naturalistic effect. Here traces of red can still be seen on the lips and beard.
The crossed scepter and flail, symbols of authority, are set on the breast. The names of the god Aton are inscribed on the shoulders and arms, in small projecting blocks.
A prominent stomach can be seen under the arms, and this is a characteristic feature of Amenhotep in all of the portraits of him.
The stele, dedicated to Rameses II by an official, represents the boy king, with the attributes of childhood. His head is shaved except for a braid hanging down at the side, which was the typical hairstyle of adolescents.
On his head he has a diadem with the royal uraeus and he is wearing heavy earrings.
The gesture of the finger raised to the mouth is typical of representations of the god Horus as a child: there was evidently a precise intention to identify the young king with the god.
Hatshepsut was one of the very few women ever to sit on the throne of Egypt, initially as regent of her son-in-law Thutmosis III. She reigned as de facto absolute sovereign for about twenty years. She ushered in a period of peace, suspending the military campaigns undertaken by her predecessors.
This carving in almost full relief depicts Hatshepsut along with her consort, Prince Senynefer.
Over her full wig the queen is wearing a diadem decorated with a plait of lotus flowers. The uraeus, the divine cobra that protected Egyptian rulers, is applied to her forehead.
This statue inscribed with the name of Nakhthoreb is of a prince or other high-ranking person who lived during the reign of Psamtik II. It belongs to what is known as the Saite period, named after the city of Sais from which the pharaohs of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty came. The Saite period was the last moment of splendor of the Egyptian civilization prior to the Persian conquest. The art of this period reached its peak in the genre of sculpture, with its organic forms and soft and naturalistic modeling.
In this portrait Sesostris III has youthful features that are not a conventional representation. They reproduce the actual appearance of the sovereign.
The pose remains the solemn one suited to the pharaohÆs majesty: the arms held close by the sides, with the hands resting on the thighs, make the statue a single block.
The clothing is typical: a short skirt with a belt at the waist and a long pleat in front, and the royal headgear made of cloth known as the nemes.
This sculpture represents Sesostris III as a young man: in fact the features of his face are still fresh and relaxed.
The sovereign is wearing a typical short skirt, made of pleated cloth that forms a long fold in front and is bound at the waist by a belt decorated with engravings.
He is wearing the royal headgear called nemes, which has two bands hanging at the sides of the face.
Despite the rigidity and conventionality of the pose, this portrait displays a new sensitivity for the individual. The eyes with the outer corner turned downward, the mouth with its wry twist, seem to be the real features of Sesostris.
The modeling of the body shows the limitations imposed by the difficulty of working this stone, diorite. In fact the statue is carved from a single block. Note, for example, the thin layer of stone that connects the arms to the sides. Conversely, some details of the anatomy, such as the musculature of the thorax, are rendered accurately.
Djedkhonsuiufankh, cantor of Amon, is represented in the act of singing a hymn to the presence of the sun god. He is kneeling in front of his instrument before the god seated on a throne.
Here Amon is identified with the oldest Egyptian solar deity, Ra, from whom he has taken his falconÆs head and crown made up of the solar disk and the serpent uraeus.
The cantor is plucking the strings of a harp. The top of the harp is decorated with a head: probably the portrait of a ruler, as he is wearing the blue crown adopted by the pharaohs from the New Kingdom onward.
This head of a pharaoh carved from red sandstone has been hypothetically identified as Amenhotep II.
The king is wearing the characteristic nemes headgear with the uraeus, or cobra, on the forehead. The short beard, almond-shaped eyes and smooth face seem to be signs of youth. It was probably part of a statue that portrayed the sovereign in the form of a sphinx.
In ancient Egypt, care of the physical appearance must have been extremely important, at least among people of high rank.
The wealthiest homes had baths and in general people washed themselves daily: personal hygiene was particularly important for priests, who had to be in a state of complete purity when they approached the gods.
Although statues of figures with beards or moustaches do exist, it was the custom for Egyptian men to shave their faces completely. Sometimes a false beard was worn on the chin, as is often seen in pictures of the pharaohs.
Cosmetics were very popular with women: eye shadow was used to darken the lids and underline the eyes and eyebrows.
Palettes used to mix eye shadow have been found in tombs.
Perfumes were equally important: at banquets, Egyptians put cones of scented wax under their wigs. Vases containing perfumes were also placed in tombs.
Clothing was fairly simple, usually made of linen and unstitched.
Jewelry, on the other hand, was particularly elaborate and did not have a purely ornamental function. In fact pieces of jewelry were also used as amulets.
Clothes were usually made from linen. The color was always the natural white of the fiber.
The most common male garment was the loincloth, reaching down to the knees. It took different forms in different periods: open or closed in front, with a sort of pleated apron, with a projecting point.
Among the prosperous classes, the loincloth was often worn with a loose shirt and a sort of cloak.
The gods were dressed in the same way, as was the pharaoh.
Over time, garments became more complicated, growing longer and fuller and with ever increasing numbers of pleats, puffs and slashes.
Women wore long, close fitting dresses, gathered under the breast.
This was sometimes accompanied by a cloak, which became the principal element during the New Kingdom.
Goddesses were dressed in the same manner: just like women of the well-to-do classes, they wore light and diaphanous garments that revealed their forms.
While they had perfectly good hair of their own, Egyptians were fond of wigs, hairpieces and plaits.
The wigs worn by the upper classes were abundant, made of real hair fixed to a skullcap made of vegetable matter and often divided into many tresses or plaits.
Over the course of the New Kingdom tastes in matters of dress grew more complicated.
This relief shows a married couple taking part in a banquet. Their clothes, though still made out of thin and transparent linen, are embellished with full sleeves and elaborate pleating.
Both are wearing wigs with dense braiding. The womanÆs hairstyle is particularly elaborate: the wig is adorned with a diadem and a lotus flower. On top of her head we can see a small cone, probably made of perfumed resin that gave off an aroma as it melted.
This wooden statuette represents the priestess Tui. She was ôSuperior of the Recluses of Min,ö in other words one of the concubines of the god Min in the temple of Thebes.
She is wearing a thin, close-fitting dress that reaches to her ankles. She has a broad necklace around her neck. As was the fashion for people of high rank, she is wearing a heavy, braided wig, divided by a central parting.
She is holding the sacred necklace called menat, made up of several strings of pearls and a long pendant. This necklace had a symbolic value but was also used as a percussion instrument at religious ceremonies.
The statuette, only 34 centimeters or 13╜ inches high, is carved from wood. The inscription on the base tells us that the female figure it represents is the priestess Tui.
The young woman is wearing a thin, close-fitting dress. A finely pleated scarf is draped over her left shoulder.
She is wearing a broad neckband, partially covered by the heavy wig that conceals her shoulders.
The false hairpiece consists of many little braids, divided by a wide central parting, which frames her face.
She is holding the sacred necklace known as menat: it is made of pearls and has a broad pendant.
Originally an attribute of the goddess Hathor, the menat necklace was considered a powerful amulet that ensured prosperity and vitality to all those who came into contact with it. It was also used as a musical instrument in ceremonial dances.
The plinth on which the statueÆs feet are set is covered with inscriptions containing invocations to the gods on the part of Tui herself.
She describes herself as ôthe Superior of the Recluses of Min,ö in other words the women who made up the harem of the god Min in the temple of Thebes.
The statuette was probably made to be placed in the tomb of the young woman, who met a premature death, as a safe conduct to the other world.
This small sculptural group in painted limestone from the Old Kingdom represents a married couple.
It shows us the type of clothing worn by the well-to-do classes in this period.
The woman is wearing a long dress of white linen with a plunging, V-shaped neckline. The man is wearing the customary short skirt rolled up at the waist, with a drapery of small transverse pleats.
Both are wearing necklaces and wigs, typical emblems of high rank.
Egypt has provided us with numerous statuettes representing family groups, all of them from the Old Kingdom. This small group in painted limestone is part of an extensive series of married couples embracing or holding hands, which includes a wooden statuette that is also in the Louvre.
Here the woman, Merseankh, is clasping her husband Raherka, with her right arm around his shoulders and placing her left hand on his side, an attitude that conveys an impression of trust and intimacy.
The woman is wearing a long dress of white linen, the man the customary short skirt. Both are wearing wigs, a symbol of high social status.
Raherka was probably a high official. The calm and serene expressions on the coupleÆs faces appear to reflect the confidence that comes with prosperity.
Even the flaunting of their ties of affection had a social function: celebrating the stability and continuity of the family.
In spite of a certain fixity and conventionality in the faces, the modeling is excellent, bearing in mind the antiquity of this sculpture, which dates from around 2500 BC.
This funerary statue made of wood plated with gold was carved for the tomb of the Lady Nai. The woman is represented in the prime of life, dressed in her finest clothing.
She is wearing a long and clinging dress, with a vertical embroidered hem where it opens at the front.
She has gold jewelry around her neck and wrists and is wearing a wig with braids on her head, encircled by a gold diadem. A smooth fringe of her natural hair is visible on her forehead. She is holding a scepter in the form of a papyrus stem, a symbol of eternal youth.
Not much over thirty centimeters, or twelve inches high, this small wooden statue plated with gold rivals the refinement of the great works of sculpture.
It depicts the Lady Nai and the inscription on the base tells us it was dedicated to her by her brother, Ptahmai.
The young woman has a hairstyle very similar to that of the lady of Tu: a heavy wig with tresses adorned with a gold diadem that falls onto her shoulders.
A smooth fringe of the womanÆs natural hair sticks out at the forehead.
Her neck and wrists are adorned with jewelry, while a strip of embroidery runs along the vertical hem of the dress.
In her left hand she is holding a scepter in the form of a stylized papyrus, while the hole in her right hand must have been for another attribute that has been lost.
It is a funerary statuette, placed in NaiÆs tomb to represent her as she had been in life, dressed as she was for grand occasions.
This statuette in pink quartzite, from which the head is unfortunately missing, may represent Queen Nefertiti. She was the wife of Akhenaton, the pharaoh who revolutionized Egyptian culture with a new religion based on the worship of the sun god.
Numerous works of art celebrate the beauty of the queen, who was said to have been ôbeautiful of face, lady of joy, great in love.ö She probably also played a significant role in the administration of the kingdom.
The royal couple appear together in a small sculptural group in painted limestone, also in the Louvre.
In the statuette the queenÆs florid figure is emphasized by the transparent tunic, which clings to the body and the left arm with subtle folds, leaving the right shoulder enticingly bare.
The bodyÆs forms are rendered naturalistically. The artist has shown great skill in giving the softness of flesh to the stone.
Although the back of the statuette is still attached to a pillar, it displays a freer conception of the figure in space than is to be found in older works.
This small head made of glass paste represents an adolescent prince of the eighteenth dynasty, perhaps Tutankhamen himself.
He is wearing a short wig, ringed with a diadem on the forehead: note the groove that may once have been filled with gold.
It has a hole in the middle, which would have been used to attach the uraeus, or erect cobra, a symbol of royal authority that always adorned the pharaohÆs crown.
This small head, not much more than eight centimeters or three and a quarter inches high, is made of glass paste in two different shades of blue. It was probably originally attached to a body, perhaps made of another material.
The light blue face and the wig, a darker blue, were made separately by grinding and then attached.
The eyes and eyebrows are hollowed out and must originally have been filled with glass paste or semiprecious stones, which reproduced the color of the iris and the brow ridge in a naturalistic manner. Thus the chromatic effect must have been even more impressive.
The smooth groove that runs across the hair above the forehead must have contained a headband, perhaps made of precious metal.
It has a hole in the middle, which would have been used to attach the uraeus, the cobra that was a symbol of royal authority and an ornament of the pharaohÆs crown.
The personage portrayed, who has the features of an adolescent, may be Tutankhamen. The slanting eyes and elongated and stylized oval face are elements that stylistically follow the art of the Amarna period, the time at which this ruler lived his short life.
The very few tombs that have been discovered intact have contained extremely refined jewelry.
Ever since the time of the first archeological discoveries, they have had a great influence on Western taste.
Gold, ivory, turquoise, amethyst, coral and cornelian were used for chains, bracelets, necklaces, diadems and other ornaments.
The finest jewelry dates from the Middle Kingdom.
The necklaces, rings, pectorals and pendants found in tombs from this period were immediately imitated all over the East.
During the New Kingdom, jewelry became less refined but richer and gaudier.
Treasures of unimaginable wealth have been found, such as that of Tutankhamen.
The tombs of the New Kingdom are the ones that have been most thoroughly ransacked, precisely because of this jewelry, which had become celebrated and sought after throughout medieval Egypt.
The most elaborate jewelry of ancient Egypt was decorated with appliquΘs in relief, often in the form of animals.
This ring has an embossed setting that used to hold pieces of cornelian. Two small figures of horses in full relief are fixed to the setting.
They are an expression of the values of a warrior society, in which the war chariot drawn by a pair of horses was an important element of aristocratic ideology.
This ornament, made out of gold, cornelian, turquoise and lapis lazuli, was found in the tomb of the sacred bulls at Saqqarah. It is a piece of funerary jewelry placed on the mummy of one of these animals, identified with the bull-god Apis.
It reproduces the faτade of a temple and is decorated with openwork figures of symbolic animals: the winged serpent, the vulture and the vulture with a ramÆs head.
Above, between the wings, is set a scroll with the name of Rameses II.
This piece of ceremonial jewelry is made of gold and inlaid with cornelian, turquoise and lapis lazuli, which give it a vivid polychromy. The outer molding reproduces the faτade of a temple, with supporting pillars and architrave.
At the two upper corners can be seen the loops to which the bindings were attached.
The openwork decoration represents a series of symbolic animals: at the bottom we see the winged serpent, protective deity of Middle Egypt; the vulture, protector of the North, is next to it. The vulture with a ramÆs head, symbolic animal of the sun, is set in the upper part.
A scroll with the name of Rameses II in hieroglyphic characters is set above this group that embraces the whole world. Thus the cosmic forces symbolized by the mythological animals extend their protection to the sovereign and, through him, the whole of Egypt.
The specimen was found at Saqqarah, in the necropolis where the sacred oxen that the Egyptians identified with the god Apis were buried. The pectoral was attached to the mummy of one of these animals.
This pectoral is one of the masterpieces of Egyptian gold work. It represents a falcon with a ramÆs head: the feathers of the wings are formed out of grooves filled with semiprecious stones and enamel, while gems were set in the holes on the legs, probably rubies.
The two rings on the wings show that it originally hung from a chain.
It dates from the reign of Rameses II and was used to adorn the mummy of a sacred bull in the necropolis at Saqqarah.