Italian Renaissance Culture

"Humanism" is the modern term for the intellectual movement that initiated the Italian Renaissance, which later spread to northern Europe. The humanist movement originated in Florence in the mid-1300s and began to affect other countries shortly before 1500. Humanist scholars believed that a body of learning called studia humanitatis (humanistic studies), which was based on the literary masterpieces of ancient Greece and Rome, could bring about a cultural rebirth, or renaissance. Humanistic studies consisted of five academic subjects: grammar (rules for the use of a language), rhetoric (the art of effective speaking and writing), moral philosophy (study of human conduct and values), poetry, and history. The texts included not only classical literature but also the Bible and the works of early Christian thinkers. Many texts had been known throughout the Middle Ages, or medieval period, while others had been recently rediscovered. Humanists believed the study of ancient works would help end the "barbarism," or lack of refinement and culture, of the Middle Ages.

Although humanism began with an emphasis on classical Latin literature, the movement reached its height when scholars mastered Greek language and literature. This part of the ancient heritage had been little known to medieval scholars. Humanists were always eager to discover and share ancient texts, and in the 1450s the new art of printing greatly aided this goal. They also embraced reform of the church through a return to ancient biblical and early Christian works. They were able to adapt their ideas to the different political and cultural situations in the various Italian city-states. The movement spread rapidly from Florence to the elite social classes in Venice, Padua, Verona, Bologna, Milan, and Genoa, then extended south to Rome and Naples. By the turn of the sixteenth century the center of humanism had shifted from Florence to Venice, where the humanist scholar Aldus Manutius (1449–1515) opened a printing press in 1493.

The political autonomy, or self-rule, of Italian city-states ended with the French invasion of Italy in 1494. The French presence escalated into the Italian Wars (1494–1559), a long conflict between France and Spain over control of Italy (see "Italian Wars dominate Renaissance" in Chapter 2). The final blow to Italian independence was dealt when Rome was sacked, or attacked, by the army of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1527. The political and cultural environment that had produced humanism was now past in Italy. Humanism did not end, however, as scholars in northern Europe continued to develop a new method of historical study. By this time the movement had transformed every aspect of intellectual and cultural life—literature, painting, sculpture, music, and theater—not only in Italy but also throughout Europe.

Humanist literature

Many scholars, writers, intellectuals, and patrons contributed to the development of humanism in Italy. Several figures stand out as being the most influential writers. Among them is the scholar Petrarch, who founded humanism. The statesman Coluccio Salutati established Florence, Italy, as the center of humanist activity. Scholar Lorenzo Valla, historian Leonardo Bruni, and philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola expanded the concept of humanism into the culture of their own day. Political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli and social commentator Baldassare both wrote books that spread humanist ideas throughout Europe and eventually became classics of Western literature.

Petrarch studies classics

The Italian poet Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca; pronounced PEE-trark; 1304–1374) is considered the founder of humanism. He has been called the first modern man because he rejected the medieval tradition of focusing on religion and spiritual matters. Instead, he analyzed his own thoughts and emotions. Conscious of the fleeting nature of human existence, he felt it was his mission to save works by classical authors for future generations. He also perfected the sonnet form of poetry and is considered by many to be the first modern poet. Petrarch's personal letters mark a distinct break with medieval traditions and a return to the classical and early Christian practice of private letter writing. He provided the great stimulus to the cultural movement that culminated in the Renaissance.

Writes Canzoniere

Petrarch was born in Arezzo, Italy. When he was eight his family moved to Carpentras, France, near Avignon, which was then the seat of the papacy, the office of the pope. Beginning in 1316, Petrarch pursued legal studies at the University of Montpellier, but already he preferred reading classical poetry to studying law. After his father died in 1326 Petrarch abandoned law and participated in the fashionable social life of Avignon. The following year, in the church of Saint Clare, Petrarch saw and fell in love with a young woman whom he called Laura. She did not return his love. The true identity of Laura is not known, but there is no doubt regarding her existence or the intensity of the poet's passion. He began writing the Canzoniere (Song book), a series of love lyrics inspired by Laura. In these poems he departed from the medieval convention of seeing a woman as a spiritual symbol and depicted Laura as a real person.

In 1330 Petrarch entered the service of Cardinal Giovanni Colonna. Over the next few years Petrarch traveled widely and continued writing poetry. In early 1337 he visited Rome for the first time. The ancient ruins of the city deepened his admiration for the classical age. Later that year he returned to France and went to live at Vaucluse, where he led a solitary life and composed his major Latin works. In 1341 Petrarch was crowned poet laureate in Rome. By this time he was the best-known private citizen in Europe. During the same year Petrarch wrote a letter to Colonna recalling the ancient sites they had seen together in Rome. In this letter Petrarch also made his now-famous assertion that the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine (died a.d. 337; ruled 306–37), rather than the birth of Christ, was the great dividing point in history. Petrarch gave the name "dark age" to the period that followed the end of Constantine's reign in the fourth century and continued until Petrarch's own time. Petrarch is thus an important source for our concept of three major periods in Western (non-Asian) history: ancient, medieval, and modern.

In 1345, while studying at the cathedral library in Verona, Petrarch discovered letters of the ancient Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 b.c.). Petrarch personally transcribed these letters, which inspired him to plan a formal collection of his own correspondence. By 1348 Petrarch was in Parma, where he received news of Laura's death. That year the Black Death (an epidemic, or widespread outbreak, of the plague; see "Black Death" in Chapter 1) deprived Petrarch of several of his close friends, among them Colonna. Petrarch wrote several letters reflecting on the ravages of the plague. In 1350 he began to make the formal collection of his Latin prose letters, titled Familiares. Since 1350 was a Year of Jubilee (special spiritual celebration held every twenty-five years by the Catholic Church), Petrarch also made a pilgrimage, or religious journey, to Rome. On his way he stopped in Florence, where he made new friends, among them humanist author Giovanni Boccaccio. In 1351 he returned to Avignon, but two years later he left France and settled in Milan. He had become increasingly troubled by the presence of the papacy in Avignon. Arguing that the Catholic Church was being held hostage in France much as the ancient Jews were held captive in Babylon, he called the Avignon papacy the "Babylonian captivity" (see "Crisis in the papacy" in Chapter 1).

In 1361 Petrarch went to Padua because the plague, which took the lives of his son and several friends, had broken out in Milan. In Padua he completed the Familiares and initiated a new collection, Seniles. The following year Petrarch settled in Venice, where he had been given a house in exchange for the bequest (gift in a will) of his library to the city. In 1370 he retired to Arquà, near Padua, where he devoted his time to receiving friends, studying, and revising his works. Except for a few brief absences, Petrarch spent his last years at Arquà.

Although Petrarch promoted writing in the Italian language, he regarded Canzoniere and his other Italian poems as less important than his Latin works. He had mastered Latin as a living language, producing the great epic, or long poem, Africa, which described the virtues of the Roman Republic. Among his other important Latin works were Metrical Epistles, On Contempt for the Worldly Life, On Solitude, Ecologues, and Letters. Petrarch's sense of himself as an individual and his desire for personal earthly immortality had an impact on other humanists, who realized they were living at the end of a long dark age. The influence of Petrarch's art and his reflective approach was felt for more than three centuries in all European literatures.

Salutati founds civic humanism

After Petrarch, Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406) was the most important Italian humanist. He originated the concept of civic humanism, which emphasized a humanist education for government officials and supported republican values, meaning a government that represents the people. Salutati began his career in 1339 as a private notary in the area around his hometown of Stignano. For the next sixteen years he held a number of short-term appointments as secretary of communal governments in the region. By 1358 he was the leading political figure in his local commune, a district governed by a group of leaders called a corporation. Early in 1374 Salutati was summoned to Florence to take up the newly created position of secretary of the Tratte, which supervised the republic's elaborate procedures for electing government officials by lot, or random chance. He was probably involved with the group that removed the chancellor (head official), Niccolò Monachi, from office the following year. Salutati then combined the position of chancellor with that of secretary of the Tratte and became the new leader of the Republic of Florence. At that time Florence was at war with the papacy over control of the republic. Salutati became internationally famous through the brilliance of his missive, or public letters, which he wrote to defend Florence's cause. Over the next thirty-one years he may have produced tens of thousands of letters, of which about five thousand remain. Despite the turbulent political life of the republic, Salutati successfully maintained a position of neutrality.

Giovanni Boccaccio

The Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (pronounced bohk-KHAT-choh; 1313–1375) is considered one of the early humanists. He was the illegitimate son of Boccaccio di Chellino, a merchant from the small town of Certaldo. At first the young Boccaccio apprenticed as a merchant, then he abandoned that career for the study of canon law (official regulations and doctrines of the church). Through his father, who was a financial adviser to King Robert of Anjou, he gained contacts to the cultivated society of the court at Naples. There he mingled with scientists, theologians, scholars, and lawyers. He studied astronomy, mythology, classical literature, French adventure romances, and Italian poets. He also became a writer of love poems and allegories.

Boccaccio's most famous work is the Decameron, which he completed by 1353. The Decameron consists of one hundred stories, written in Italian, that are set in Florence during the Black Death. Seven young ladies and three young men meet by chance in the church Santa Maria Novella and agree to flee from the city to their country villas during the epidemic. Against the somber background of death and desolation, which Boccaccio portrayed in vivid detail, the group lives a carefree yet well-ordered life in the pleasant countryside for fifteen days, avoiding all thoughts of death. They meet daily in the cool shade, where each one tells a story on a specific subject, and the day ends with a ballad. Each day a king or queen is named to govern the happy assembly and to prescribe occupations and determine a theme for the stories. The storytelling continues for ten days, hence the title Decameron (deca is the Latin word for ten).

The tales have an abundance of subjects—comic, tragic, adventurous, ancient, and contemporary. Boccaccio portrayed a multitude of characters, from ridiculous fools to noble figures, from all eras and social conditions. He depicted human nature in its weakness and heroic virtue, particularly as revealed in comic or dramatic situations. The Decameron became the model of Italian literary prose. It also served as a model for the Heptameron, the famous novel by the French writer Margaret of Navarre.

Although Salutati showed an interest in ancient literature and history, his approach to the ancients was different from that of Petrarch. Petrarch felt nostalgia for the ancient world, whereas Salutati was comfortable in the fourteenth century and did not accept Petrarch's notion of the "dark ages." For Salutati the centuries between antiquity and the present had witnessed only a gradual decay in learning. Petrarch preferred to study and translate Greek and Roman texts in scholarly seclusion, but Salutati promoted humanist ideals in public life. Another difference between Salutati and Petrarch was that Petrarch had roamed throughout Italy, whereas Salutati remained in Florence. In his letters he revived and perfected the stilus rhetoricus (rhetorical style) developed by the offices of the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor in the first half of the thirteenth century. Salutati argued that a political leader should have a knowledge of history and obtain a humanist education. As chancellor he had a corps of government messengers to carry his personal writings along with public correspondence to the corners of western Europe. He also produced significant studies in classical languages and literature as well as history, theology, and philosophy.

Largely through Salutati's efforts, Florence thus became the capital of the humanist movement in the first half of the fifteenth century. Over the decades Salutati nurtured a group of followers who included future humanist scholars Leonardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini. Particularly important was Salutati's role in reintroducing Greek learning to western Europe. In 1397 he was instrumental in bringing the Greek scholar Manuel Chrysoloras (1350–1415) to Florence. When Chrysoloras went on to Padua three years later, he left behind students who could work in the Greek language on their own. Salutati was therefore an immensely influential figure in the development of Italian humanism and in the establishment of Florence as the capital of the movement. His classical studies, his civic position, his influence on younger humanists, and the scholarly projects that he supported enabled the humanist movement to continue unchallenged throughout the next generation.

Bruni is best-selling author

Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370-1444) was the best-known Italian humanist in the generation after Salutati. In the early 1390s Bruni went to the University of Florence to prepare for a law career. He joined Salutati's humanist circle and later wrote Dialogi ad Petrum Histrum (Dialogues dedicated to Pier Paolo Vergerio; 1405–06), which gave a brilliant picture of the group's literary discussions. Bruni was among the first Italian humanists to acquire a command of the Greek language, and he was recognized as one of the finest fifteenth-century writers in Latin.

In 1405 Bruni abandoned his legal studies and went to Rome, where, on Salutati's recommendation, he was appointed apostolic secretary to Pope Innocent VII (1336–1406; reigned 1404–06). With the exception of a brief period in 1411, when he held the post of chancellor of Florence, Bruni stayed with the papal office in Rome for nearly a decade. He then returned to Florence to take up the life of a private citizen and scholar. In 1416 he was granted Florentine citizenship and a tax privilege in recognition of his work on the Historiarum Florentini populi libri XII (Histories of the Florentine people in twelve books;1415–44). Bruni also undertook numerous translation projects and composed his most important treatises, including De recta interpretatione (On correct translation; c. 1420), De militia (On knighthood; 1421), De studiis et literis (On literary study; 1422–29), and Isagogicon moralis philosophiae (Introduction to moral philosophy; 1424–25).

In 1427 the Florentine Signoria, or senate, appointed Bruni chancellor of Florence for a second time. By this date he had become quite wealthy. To his professional and economic successes, he added numerous civic honors and his fame extended beyond Florence. He was undoubtedly the best-known literary man of his day and the best-selling author of the fifteenth century. More than thirty-two hundred books of manuscripts (unpublished works) and nearly two hundred editions containing his works survive from this period.

Valla is greatest Italian humanist

Many historians regard the philosopher and literary critic Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457) as the greatest humanist of the Italian Renaissance. He was born in Rome to a family of the lesser nobility. His father and his maternal uncles were lawyers employed by the curia, or papal court. Valla received a private education and was given guidance from a number of Greek and Latin scholars in the employ of Pope Martin V (1368–1431; reigned 1417–31). Despite this papal influence, Valla showed independence in his studies and judgment. For instance, in 1427, when he was only twenty years old, he conducted his own analysis of Institutio oratoria (Institutes of oratory) by the Roman orator and teacher Quintilian (pronounced qwin-TIL-yen; a.d. c. 35–c. 100). This work was the major ancient Roman handbook of rhetoric, which the humanist scholar Poggio Bracciolini (pronounced POHD-joh braht-choh-LEE-nee;1380–1459) had discovered and made available for study ten years earlier. In response to Quintilian's work Valla wrote De comparatione Ciceronis et Quintilianus (A comparison of Cicero and Quinitilian). He concluded that Quintilian should be the proper Latin guide to humanistic study. Valla was taking a controversial position because leading humanists in the papal court favored Cicero's ideas on rhetoric. Bracciolini became a lifelong critic of Valla and, in 1430, was instrumental in convincing the pope not to appoint Valla to the Roman Curia. Valla then left Rome and went to his family estate in Piacenza.

In 1431 Valla joined the faculty of the University of Pavia, where he taught rhetoric. At Pavia he made public his provocative work, De volupate (On pleasure), a dialogue on the nature of true goodness. He defended the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 b.c.), who stated that a wise person who attains virtue may avoid a life of pain by prudently pursuing pleasure. Valla also attacked stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy embraced by humanists, which advocated control of the emotions through reason and the pursuit of a simple life. His views shocked humanists, and he was finally forced to leave Padua in 1433 when he criticized the Latin translations of Bartolus of Sassoferrato, a late-medieval legal scholar who was highly esteemed by humanists.

In 1435, after teaching in Milan, Genoa, and Florence, Valla became secretary and historian at the court of Alfonso V of Aragon (1396–1458; ruled 1416–58), king of Naples and Sicily. During the naval battle of Ponza, Valla was captured along with Alfonso and taken to Milan. There he wrote a letter to his friend Pier Candido Decembrio (1392–1477), the Milanese humanist, in which he denounced Leonardo Bruni's history of Florence. Valla claimed that Florence was founded during the regime of the dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138– 78 b.c.) and thus was not a true heir to the Roman Republic. This position caused further controversy because Bruni and other humanists argued that the revival of classical culture in Florence represented a continuation of the achievements of the Roman Republic. In 1437 Valla returned with Alfonso to Naples. He served at the king's court for thirteen years. During this time he wrote many important works, such as De elegantiis linguae lattinae (The elegances of the Latin language), which was the first great Renaissance study of language.

Convicted of heresy

In 1440 Valla issued two works attacking powerful church institutions. The first was De falso credita et ementitia Constantini donatione declamatio (On the falsely believed and fictitious donation of Constantine), which questioned the legitimacy of the pope. According to church legend, when Constantine was on his deathbed he transferred rule of the Roman Empire to Pope Sylvester (died 335; reigned 314–35). Valla demonstrated that the document that supposedly recorded Constantine's gift to Sylvester was in fact a forgery concocted in the eighth century to support the power of the papacy during its struggle with emperors. (In fact, Sylvester died in 335, two years before Constantine's death in 337.) Valla produced his attack at a time when Alfonso was engaged in a similar war with Pope Eugenius IV (c. 1383–1447; reigned 1431–47) over territory. Valla's second challenge to the church was De professione religiosorum (On the profession of the religious). He criticized the vow taken by the regular (ordained) clergy that gave them the special title of religiosi (religious) and designated them as being more entitled to salvation (forgiveness of sin) than lay Christians. (The regular clergy are monks, nuns, friars, and members of other official church groups.) Both of these works aroused indignation among the clergy at the time Valla was seeking permission from Eugenius to return to Rome.

Valla caused even more furor with Dialectical Disputations, known as Dialectica, in which he defended the doctrine of the Orthodox Eastern Church, a separate division of the Catholic Church established in 1054 and based at Constantinople in present-day Turkey (see "Pope's authority challenged" in Chapter 1). According to Orthodox belief, the Holy Spirit comes only from the Father (God), not from the Son (Jesus Christ), as is held by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1444 Valla was brought before the Inquisition in Naples and charged with questioning church authority. (The Inquisition was a church court established to find and punish heretics, those who committed heresy, or violation of the laws of the church). After he was found guilty on eight counts of heresy, he saved himself from execution by writing an apology to Eugenius. Valla finally negotiated a permanent return to Rome. Eugenius died in 1448, and when Valla arrived in Rome later that year he received a warm welcome from the new pope, Nicholas V (1397–1455; reigned 1447–55), who was himself a humanist. Nicholas gave Valla a teaching position at the University of Rome, appointed him to the curia, and named him a canon of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. In 1455 Valla became the apostolic secretary. In all of these roles he received generous financial rewards. During the last years of his life he continued publishing translations and histories.

Pico is Renaissance ideal

The Italian philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (pronounced PEE-koh day-lah mee-RAHN-doh-lah; 1463–1494) expanded the concept of humanism, becoming the Renaissance ideal of a learned man. Described as being physically attractive, Pico combined physique, intellect, and spirituality in a way that captivated both humanists and Christian reformers. His career coincided with the last phase of humanism in Italy.

Pico was the youngest son of a princely family in the Lombardy region of Italy. He received a church benefice (land estate) when he was ten years old and was expected to pursue a career in the church or government. From 1480 to 1482 Pico attended the University of Padua. At that time the city of Padua and the university were under the patronage of Venice, which had become the center of humanism in Italy. Pico studied the works of Aristotle, the Hebrew language, Islam (a religion founded by the prophet Mohammad), philosophy, and science. By 1487 he had traveled to Florence and Paris, France, and had obtained a broad education. Disappointed by weaknesses he had found in the humanists' study of classical culture, he began searching for a common truth that would unite all knowledge.

Pico's first and most famous venture was a challenge to Europe's scholars to hold a public disputation (formal debate) at Rome in 1487. He prepared to defend 900 conclusiones (theses, or statements offered for proof), drawing 402 from other philosophers such as the scholastics (medieval scholars who sought to integrate ancient philosophy with Christian teachings), the Greek philosopher Plato (c. 428–c. 348 b.c.), and Arabic thinkers. The remaining 498 conclusiones were his own. Pico wrote De hominis dignitate (Of human dignity) to introduce the Roman disputation. In this thesis he argued that God had granted the power of free will to Adam (the first man on Earth, according to the Bible). That is, humans have free will (the ability to choose their own actions), an idea that contradicted the traditional church view that all human actions are controlled by God. According to Pico, each person is capable of making a distinction between right and wrong and can separate truth from illusion. The human intellect is therefore free to guide the soul and achieve union with the creator. A papal commission became suspicious of Pico's ideas and condemned thirteen of his theses. The assembly was canceled and Pico fled to Paris, where he was briefly imprisoned before settling in Florence late in 1487. His writings for the disputation were banned until 1493.

In Florence, Pico joined the Platonic Academy at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici (called the Magnificent; 1449–1492). The academy was formulating a doctrine of the soul that would combine Plato's philosophy with Christian beliefs. Pico took this process a step further by seeking to harmonize Plato and Aristotle and to link their philosophies with the teachings of Judaism (the Jewish religion), Christianity, and Islam. His first works on this subject included the Heptaplus (1489), a commentary on Genesis, the first book in the Old Testament of the Bible. Pico stressed the connection between Genesis and sacred Jewish texts. He also wrote De ente et uno (On being and the one; 1492), in which he reflected on the nature of God and creation. One of Pico's later works, Disputationes in astrologiam (Disputations on astrology), was an unfinished attack on astrology (the study of the influence of celestial bodies on human events). He rejected occultism, the belief in or study of the influence of supernatural powers on human actions. Pico gradually renounced the splendor of the Medici court and supported the efforts of church reformer Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498). Pico also purchased manuscripts, eventually accumulating one of Europe's great private scholarly collections. He died of fever in 1494, during the French occupation of Florence.

Machiavelli defines art of politics

The Italian author and statesman Niccolò Machiavelli (pronounced mahk-yah-VEL-lee;1469–1527) is best known for The Prince. In this book he enunciated his political philosophy, which remains controversial even today.

Machiavelli began his political career in 1498 when he was named chancellor and secretary of the Florentine republic. He also went on some twenty-three missions to foreign states. In 1503 he described his most memorable mission in a report titled "Description of the Manner Employed by Duke Valentino [Cesare Borgia] in Slaying Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, Signor Pagolo and the Duke of Gravina, Orsini." In great detail he described a series of political murders the notorious Spanish-born Italian nobleman Cesare Borgia (c. 1475–1507) ordered to eliminate his rivals. Machiavelli intended this work as a lesson in the art of politics for Florence's weak and indecisive leader, Pier Soderini. In 1510 Machiavelli was instrumental in organizing a militia (citizens' army) in Florence. In August 1512 a Spanish army entered Tuscany and raided the commune of Prato. The Florentines removed Soderini, and the Medicis, who had previously ruled Florence, were able to return to power (see "Florence" in Chapter 2). Three months later Machiavelli was dismissed. Soon afterward he was arrested, imprisoned, and subjected to torture as an alleged conspirator against the Medicis. Although innocent, he remained a suspect for years to come. When he was unable to secure an appointment from the reinstated Medicis, he turned to writing political treatises, plays, and verse. In 1513 he wrote The Prince.

The Prince is an influential work

Machiavelli shared with Renaissance humanists a passion for classical antiquity. He had a fierce desire for political and moral renewal according to the ideals of the Roman Republic. Although a republican at heart, he saw the need for a strong prince, a political and military leader who could eliminate the French and Spanish presence in northern Italy by forming a unified state. When he wrote The Prince he envisioned such a possibility while the restored Medicis ruled both Florence and the papacy. In the final chapter of the book he issued a plea to the Medicis to set Italy free from the "barbarians" (the French and Spanish). It concludes with a quotation from Petrarch's patriotic poem "Italia mia": "Virtue will take arms against fury, and the battle will be brief; for the ancient valor in Italian hearts is not yet dead."

Machiavelli's chief innovation in The Prince was to view politics as a separate field. Since ancient times scholars and historians, including the humanists, had treated politics as a branch of moral philosophy. Fundamental to Machiavelli's theory were the concepts of fortuna (fortune) and virtù (virtue). Fortune, or chance, often determines a political leader's opportunity for decisive action. Yet Machiavelli, like others in the Renaissance, believed in virtù, the human capacity to shape destiny. This view contrasted sharply with the medieval concept of an all-powerful God and the ancient Greek belief that humans are powerless against fate. Machiavelli stressed the importance of virtù, which is unlike Christian virtue (goodness) in that it is a combination of force and shrewdness—somewhat like a combination of the lion and the fox—with a touch of greatness. According to Machiavelli, the inborn immorality of human beings requires that the prince instill fear rather than love in his subjects. When necessary the prince must also break his pledge with other princes, who will be no more honest than he. Machiavelli was attempting to describe rather than to invent the rules of political success. For him the needs of the state are greater than the individual interests of its citizens.

Many historians suggest that Machiavelli's reputation as a sinister and ruthless politician is largely undeserved. They point out that he lived by his own philosophy that a servant of government must be loyal and self-sacrificing. Furthermore, he never suggested that the political dealings of princes should be a model for day-today interactions among ordinary citizens. The main source of the misrepresentation of Machiavelli's ideas was the English translation, in 1577, of a work called Contre-Machiavel by the French Huguenot (Protestant) writer Gentillet. Gentillet distorted Machiavelli's teachings, which he blamed for the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the killing of Huguenots in Paris on a Catholic religious holiday, in 1572 (see "France" in Chapter 6). Many of Machiavelli's positive values were adopted in the nineteenth century. Among them were the supremacy of the state over religion, the drafting of soldiers for citizen armies, and the preference for a republican government rather than a monarchy. Machiavelli was also instrumental in reviving the Roman ideals of honesty, hard work, and civic responsibility.

Castiglione promotes humanist ideals

The Italian author, courtier, and diplomat Baldassare Castiglione (pronounced kehs-steel-YOH-nay; 1478–1529) is known primarily for Libro del cortegiano, or Book of the Courtier. This work, which portrays the ideal courtier—a person who makes up part of a royal court—was instrumental in spreading Italian humanism into England and France.

After receiving a classical education in Mantua and in Milan, Castiglione served at the court of Lodovico Sforza (1452–1508), the duke of Milan, from 1496 to 1499. Castiglione then entered the service of Francesco II Gonzaga (1466–1519), the duke of Mantua. In 1503 he joined Gonzaga's forces in the fight against the Spanish in Naples. On his way north he visited Rome and then Urbino. He liked Urbino, and in 1504 he convinced Gonzaga to transfer him to the court of Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro (1472–1508). At Urbino, Castiglione participated in intellectual discussions headed by Guidobaldo's wife, Elizabetta. He decided to depict these discussions in a book, which he began writing in 1507. Titled Book of the Courtier, the work was published in 1528. It consists of four sections, or books, in which Castiglione blended classical learning into the format of polite conversation among courtiers and their ladies. He featured real-life figures as participants in the conversations.

The perfect courtier and lady

In Book One the assembled courtiers and ladies propose games for their entertainment and decide to "portray in words a perfect courtier." All participants "will be permitted to contradict the speaker as in the schools of the [ancient] philosophers." Discussions are led by Ludovico da Canossa (1476–1532), a diplomat from Verona and a relative of Castiglione. The participants decide that the courtier should be noble, witty, and pleasant. He should be an accomplished horseman and a warrior (his principal profession) who is devoted to his prince. He should know Greek, Latin, French, and Spanish, and he should be skilled in literature, music, painting, and dancing. The courtier's behavior should be characterized by grace and ease, and he should carefully avoid any affectation.

Book Two treats the ways and circumstances in which the ideal courtier might demonstrate his qualities. It stresses decorum, or proper behavior, and conversational skills. At first Federico Fregoso (died 1541), cardinal and archbishop of Salerno, presides over the discussion. When the topic turns to humorous language, the famous comic author Bernardo Dovizi (da Bibbiena; 1470–1520) takes over. The participants then engage in humorous stories, pleasantries, and practical jokes. Book Three defines the qualities of a suitable female companion for the perfect courtier. Leading the discussions and defending women against attack is Giuliano de' Medici (1479–1516), son of Lorenzo the Magnificent and brother of Pope Leo X (1475–1521; reigned 1513–21). The participants discuss the virtues of women, giving ancient and contemporary examples and telling entertaining stories. They give the lady of the palace many of the same qualities as the courtier. Physical beauty is more important to her, however, and she must always be more discreet in order to preserve her good reputation. In this book the voices of the assembled ladies are heard more often, but here, as in the other three books, women only ask questions. Although they lead the discussions, they are never active participants.

Book Four begins with a long discussion of the courtier's primary role as an adviser to his prince. The participants conclude that the courtier must earn the favor of the prince through his accomplishments. He must win his master's trust so completely that he can always speak truthfully without fear. He can even correct the prince if necessary. This subject leads to a debate of the merits of republics and monarchies. The topic of conversation finally turns to love, picking up a theme introduced in Book Three. Here the discussion centers on how the courtier, who is no longer young, should love. Pietro Bembo (1470–1547), a noted authority on the subject, instructs the assembled party on a humanist theory of love based on the works of Plato. Bembo explains, step by step, the way to rise from a vision of human beauty to an understanding of ideal beauty, and from there to God. As he speaks he seems to lose touch with his surroundings, and one of the participants tugs at his shirt to awaken him from his reverie.

Book of the Courtier was an immediate success, quickly becoming a book of etiquette (rules for proper manners) for both the bourgeoisie (middle class) and the aristocracy in Europe. Translated into Spanish (1534), French (1537), English (1561), and German (1566), the work went into forty editions in the sixteenth century alone and one hundred more by 1900. Through Book of the Courtier, the values of Italian humanism as they would be embodied in a learned, well-rounded man were spread throughout western Europe. The book also shaped the image of noblewomen who headed salons, literary gatherings that made important contributions to Renaissance culture. Book of the Courtier exalts humanist qualities not for themselves but as tools of self-advancement. Nevertheless, Castiglione gave a lofty concept of human personality, dignity, and capacity for creativity.

Women humanists

Women were active in the earliest stages of the humanist movement, which created an environment for the free expression of their ideas. Among the most prominent were Christine de Pisan, Isotta Nogarola, Cassandra Fedele, and Laura Cereta.

Pisan writes classic poem

The Italian-born French writer Christine de Pisan (also Pizan; 1364–c. 1430) was among the first to view the status of women in the light of humanist ideas. As a young child Pisan moved with her family from Venice, Italy, to Paris, France, where her father had been appointed astrological and medical adviser to the French king, Charles V (1337–1380; ruled 1364–80). In 1380, at the age of fifteen, Christine married Étienne du Castel, a royal secretary at the French court. The couple had three children before Étienne died in an epidemic in 1390. After a period of struggle and mourning, Christine began to create a new life for herself through reading and eventually through writing. Her work attracted attention in 1399, when she became involved in a literary debate about Roman de la rose, or Romance of theRose, a popular medieval poem originally written in 1265 by Guillaume de Lorris (died c. 1240). The issue was a continuation of the poem written by Jean de Meun (Jean Chopinel; c. 1240–before 1305), in which Meun presented negative images of women. In 1402 Pisan became more publicly involved in a discussion of this question with young men at the royal court, who were embracing early humanist ideas coming from Italy.

Salons

The Book of the Courtier was instrumental in shaping the image of noble-women who headed salons, which contributed significantly to Renaissance culture. A salon was an intellectual and literary discussion held in the home of a socially prominent woman, which became popular in the 1600s, especially in France. It was held at a royal or noble court and headed by an aristocratic or high-born woman called a salonnière. The terms "salon" and "salonnière" were introduced in the nineteenth century. During the Renaissance salons were known as ruelles (companies). Many women who headed and attended these gatherings exchanged ideas, then published their views in books and pamphlets.

Early forms of the salon could be found in northern Italy in the 1400s. Examples were literary gatherings in Brescia, where the humanist scholar Laura Cereta presented her essays, and discussions headed by Marchioness Isabella d'Este (1474–1539) at her famous court in Mantua. Similar events were held in convents, where women could more easily express their views without the fear of ruining their reputations. The salon attracted a diverse range of participants and featured a varied program. It was held at the home of the salonnière. She presided over the conversation and set standards of etiquette to prevent disruptions and rivalries during the discussion. For the salonnière, the salon might serve as a means of education or a way to gain influence in society. The image of a salonnière was influenced by The Book of the Courtier. Castiglione portrayed women as delicate, sensitive, beauteous, and selfless, and the salonnière was expected to possess these qualities. Nevertheless, the prominence of women was one of the most criticized aspects of salons because many people objected to women taking an active role in society.

Pisan's participation in the debate about Roman de la rose inspired her to write her most famous poem, Le livre de la cité des dames (The book of the city of ladies; 1405), which has become a classic of women's literature. Her ideas were influenced by De claris mulieribus (On famous women), a work by the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio that had recently been translated into French. In her own poem Pisan offered a new interpretation of the historical role of women. She described a city built especially for women, which was placed under the supervision of three allegorical, or symbolic, assistants: Reason, Rectitude (righteousness), and Justice.

In the 1520s the French political situation began to deteriorate as France and England struggled for control of the French throne (see "France" in Chapter 3). Pisan withdrew to the Abbey of Poissy, where her daughter was a member of the Dominican community. Pisan did not disappear completely from view, however. In 1429 she expressed her joy at the appearance of the teenage mystic Joan of Arc (c. 1412–1431), who led the French in military victories against the English. Pisan composed Le ditié de Jeanne d'Arc (The tale of Joan of Arc). It was the first literary tribute to France's heroine. Pisan is now considered the first independent professional woman writer.

Nogarola defends Eve

The first major female humanist was Isotta Nogarola (1418–1466), who produced a large number of works. Born into a literary family in Verona, Italy, Nogarola received a humanist education along with her older sister Ginevra. While they were teenagers both girls won the attention of northern Italian humanists and courtiers. With these learned men they exchanged books and letters that showed their classical training and lively intelligence. In 1438 Ginevra married and ceased her involvement in the discussions of humanist ideas. Isotta continued to participate until 1441, when she became discouraged by attacks on her character. Historians believe these attacks came from men who did not approve of learned women. Isotta Nogarola withdrew from humanist circles to join her mother in her brother's house. She lived, as she put it, in a "book-lined cell" where, like medieval holy women, she continued her studies in solitude. For thirty-two years she exchanged letters with humanist friends on current political events and the historical tradition of heroic women.

Of special interest is the letter exchange between Nogarola and the Italian humanist Ludovico Foscarini, a Venetian statesman and governor of Verona. In 1451 Nogarola composed a dialogue titled "On the Equal and Unequal Sin of Eve and Adam," which was addressed to Foscarini. In the dialogue she explored the question of whether Adam or Eve committed the greater sin in the Garden of Eden. According to the story in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament (the first part of the Bible), Adam and Eve were the first two people on Earth, and they lived in the Garden of Eden. They had no awareness of evil because they had been forbidden by God to eat apples from the tree of knowledge. One day an evil serpent appeared in the tree and tempted Adam and Eve to eat an apple. Eve took a bite and then persuaded Adam to do the same. God later expelled them from the garden for committing the first sin. This story was used by Christian leaders to prove that Eve (representing womankind) was responsible for the fact that all humans are born with original sin—that is, sin is a part of human nature at birth—because she had tempted Adam (representing mankind) into an awareness of evil.

On the question of who had committed the greater sin, Foscarini took Adam's side, presenting the traditional argument for Eve's guilt. He pointed out that Eve's moral weakness, not the serpent (representing evil), was the temptation that made Adam surrender to a sinful act. Nogarola defended Eve, saying that Eve was incapable of choosing between good and evil and therefore should not be held accountable. At the time Foscarini was considered to be the winner of the argument because Nogarola had admitted that Eve was inferior to Adam in being unable to choose between right and wrong. "On the Equal and Unequal Sin of Eve and Adam" was the first contribution to feminist rethinking of the Adam and Eve story.

Fedele is child prodigy

Cassandra Fedele (1465–1558) left a quite different legacy. Although she was active in humanist circles and was one of the most acclaimed women of her day, she accepted the traditional view of women. She believed in the "natural" inferiority of the female sex, and she routinely presented herself as being less important than men. Fedele was born in Venice and received a classical education through the efforts of her father, Angelo Fedele. When Cassandra was a young teenager Angelo represented her as a child prodigy (an exceptionally talented young person). She delivered orations, or formal speeches, standing before the assembled faculty at the University of Padua, the Venetian Senate, and the doge (duke of Venice) himself. Fedele's first book was published when she was twenty-two, and before she reached the age of thirty lists of her works were featured in encyclopedias of famous men and women. Her main professional achievement was the letters, perhaps thousands of them, that she exchanged with some of the most celebrated men and women of the day. Although Fedele never held an academic appointment, she corresponded with Niccolò Leonico Tomei, a scholar at the University of Padua, and she met regularly with prominent humanists at Padua. Fedele came close to accepting an academic appointment with Isabella I and Ferdinand II in Spain. For eight years Fedele corresponded with the queen and her representatives, but she canceled her plans in 1495 after the outbreak of the Italian Wars.

Fedele married in 1498 and was widowed in 1520. Childless and almost penniless, she shared cramped quarters with her sister's family until 1547, when Pope Paul III (1468–1549; reigned 1534–49) responded to her plea for assistance. He secured an appointment for her as prioress (supervisor) at the orphanage of San Domenico di Castello. In 1556 Fedele made her last public appearance when she delivered an oration welcoming the queen of Poland to Venice. Only two of her published writings survive. One is the small volume she wrote as a girl and the other is Casandrae Fidelis epistolae et orationes (Letters and orations of Cassandra Fedele; 1636), which contains 123 letters and 3 orations.

Cereta challenges gender roles

The writer Laura Cereta (1469–1499) was one of the foremost female humanists of the Italian Renaissance. She participated in one of the early forerunners of the salon, a literary gathering held in a convent or an urban home. During Cereta's day, in the late fifteenth century, this setting enabled women writers to enter the public arena without injuring their reputations.

Born in Brescia (a province in northern Italy), Cereta was educated at home and at the nearby convent in Chiara. She married at age fifteen, but her husband died of the plague eighteen months later. Widowed and childless, Cereta spent her time alone writing essays in letter form to prominent churchmen, scholars, and citizens. In Brescia and Chiara she frequently attended gatherings with humanist scholars to whom she presented her essays. Although she failed in her attempts to befriend Cassandra Fedele, she did have friendships with a number of learned women. Among them were the nuns Nazaria Olympica, Vernanda (the abbess at the Chiari convent), and Santa Pelegrina.

Cereta was only thirty years old when she died. She left behind a single unpublished volume containing a dialogue and eighty-two Latin letters, many of which were autobiographical. In these letters Cereta portrayed herself as a compliant daughter of demanding parents, a war protester, a frustrated bride, a woman humanist in search of fame in a man's world, and a widow considering a life of religious seclusion. Her most important legacy to the women who followed her was the stating of concerns that affected women as a class. For instance, she challenged the traditional views of gender roles, she portrayed housework as a barrier to women's intellectual aspirations, and she described marriage as slavery. So widespread was her fame as a writer at the time of her death that all of Brescia was said to have mourned her passing.

Poetry

Classical poetry was revived during the Italian Renaissance. All scholars and writers knew the works of ancient Roman and Greek poets, primarily as a result of being educated in Latin grammar schools. Students were required to keep commonplace books, in which they copied passages from classical poetry. They were then required to memorize the passages for recitation in class and for use as models in writing their own poetry (see "Commonplace books" in Chapter 13). This practice eventually spread throughout Europe. Consequently, much early Renaissance poetry was written in Latin and based on classical themes such as love and mythological stories.

The first Italian to compose in his native language was the poet Dante (Dante Alighieri; 1265–1321). Dante lived at the end of the Middle Ages, yet his work influenced Renaissance poets. His best-known poem is the epic Commedia, or the Divine comedy (composed 1308–21), which is considered one of the masterpieces of Western literature. It consists of one hundred cantos, or sections, written in a complex verse form called terza rima, which utilizes three-line stanzas (lines arranged together) and various rhyming patterns. Divided into three parts, the Divine comedy tells the story of the poet's imaginary journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Heaven (Paradiso). Dante influenced later poets not only because he wrote in his own language but also because he addressed philosophical and religious themes with great imagination. Equally important was his creation of the character Beatrice, who guides him through Heaven. She was based on a real-life woman, thought to have been Beatrice Portinari, whom Dante loved and who died in 1290. She was the inspiration for Dante's work, and the Divine comedy was a memorial to her. Through this masterpiece Dante established Tuscan (a dialect spoken in Tuscany) as the literary language of Italy. Beatrice was also used as a model for the unattainable woman that became a popular theme in European poetry.

Petrarch perfects sonnet

After Dante, Petrarch was the next Italian poet to make a major contribution to Western literature. He perfected the verse form called the sonnet in his Canzoniere. During the Renaissance, poets throughout Europe adapted the Petrarchan sonnet to their own traditions.

The sonnet was not original to Petrarch. It was invented in the first half of the thirteenth century by Giacomo da Lentino, a notary (one who records legal documents) at the court of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250; reigned 1212–50). It was probably derived from the eight-line Sicilian peasant song, the canzuna, or the eight-line literary verse called the strambotto. To the eight-line form Giacoma added six lines to create what is now known as the sonnet. He wrote a total of fifteen sonnets. The form was imitated through a poetic debate involving a sonnet by Jacopo Mostacci (died after 1277), a sonnet by Pier della Vigna (c. 1190–1249), and two sonnets by the abbot (head of an abbey) of Tivoli. These nineteen sonnets are considered the beginning of the tradition of writing sonnets.

Inspired by Dante's writing the Divine comedy in Tuscan, Petrarch realized that he might surpass Dante in writing sonnets in Italian. He then began composing Canzoniere. It was a collection of 366 sonnets and other poetic forms that celebrate his unrequited love for Laura, the woman he had seen in a Florence church (see "Petrarch studies classics" section previously in this chapter). Canzionere was first printed in 1470, after Petrarch's death, and by 1600 there were 170 editions. The name of Petrarch became an adjective to denote sonnet literature that depicted love for a reluctant lady. Petrarchan sonnets were immediately imitated by numerous Italian poets, and by the first half of the sixteenth century the sonnet had arrived in England, France, Spain, and Portugal. It was especially popular in England, where writers developed the English sonnet, the form that is best known today (see "Literature" in Chapter 9).

Ariosto writes classic epic

The Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533) wrote Orlando furioso (Mad Roland), one of the masterpieces of Renaissance poetry that is most often associated with the period.

Ariosto was born at Reggio Emilia. When he was fourteen, his family moved to Ferrara, where his father, Niccolò, was in service at the ducal court of the Este family. Five years later his father gave him permission to stop preparing for a law career and study literature. Ariosto was first employed at the Este court in 1498. Two years later his father died, leaving him to provide for nine younger brothers and sisters. During this time he began writing neoclassical comedies (comic plays composed in the form of poetry and based on ancient Roman and Greek models). In 1503 Ariosto entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito I d'Este (1479–1520), who sponsored performances of his comedies, La cassaria (The coffer comedy) in 1508 and I suppositi (The pretenders) in 1509. His most successful later comedy, La Lena, (Lena) was performed under his direction in 1529.

In 1513 Ariosto met the beautiful Alessandra Benucci, whom he married secretly in 1528 to avoid the loss of his church benefices (church offices that provide a source of income). In 1518 he entered the service of the cardinal's brother, Duke Alfonso I d'Este (1486–1534). Except for a three-year period (1522–25) when he governed the bandit-ridden Garfagnana region for the duke, Ariosto was allowed more time for writing than he had been by Cardinal Ippolito. Among his works was Satire, in which he used irony (criticism implied by saying one thing but meaning another) to depict his problems in Ferrara, where the Este brothers failed to recognize his worth. He also described his experiences in Garfagnana and his missions to the papal court.

In 1516, while working for Ippolita, Ariosto completed the first version of Orlando furioso. It was a continuation of the popular epic poem Orlando innamorato, by Matteo Maria Boiardo (c. 1441–1494), about the medieval French hero Roland. Ariosto used Charlemagne's war against the Saracens (nomadic peoples of the deserts between Syria and Arabia) as a backdrop to explore Renaissance themes such as love, madness, and fidelity. In an elaborate subplot he dramatized how these themes affected the fortunes of the house of Este. The poem is recited by a cantastorie (minstrel) before his patron, Ippolito. Among numerous episodes about brave knights and enchanting women, the narrative has three main plots. The first is the Saracens' siege of Paris and their final defeat. Within this action Ariosto portrayed his second plot, the insanity of Orlando, who was driven mad by unrequited love for Angelica, Princess of Cathay. The third story line is the love of the warrior woman Bradamante for a man named Ruggiero. Orlando gradually loses his mind as he drifts from frightening dreams to hallucination to total madness. Ariosto's insight into the intricacies of human nature in so fantastic a world—which includes even a moon journey—is considered a remarkable feat of poetry. Orlando furioso portrays many values of the world of chivalry, such as love and fidelity. (Chivalry was a complex code of honor upheld by knights in the Middle Ages; see "Feudalism" in Chapter 1). It influenced the Spanish novelist Miguel Cervantes, the English poet Edmund Spenser, and the English playwright William Shakespeare (see "Literature" in Chapter 9). Ariosto died in 1533 after completing the last version of Orlando furioso.

"Scourge of Princes"

Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) was one of the most colorful and controversial poets of the late Renaissance. He flattered his patrons, attacked their adversaries, and wrote outspoken letters to popes, kings, and emperors. His works ranged from devotional literature to outright pornography. For his scathing writings directed at important people, the Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto called Aretino the "Scourge [whip] of Princes," a nickname that has stuck with him ever since.

Aretino rose from humble origins in Arezzo. Through friends of his mother he gained employment at the papal court in Rome. He stayed there until 1525, then settled in Venice. Aretino became quite wealthy through his writings, which enabled him to live in a luxurious home on the Grand Canal in Venice. Much of his income came from patrons who paid him to write attacks on their enemies and from others who paid him not to write about themselves. In spite of the questionable nature of his works, Aretino was known for a witty and dramatic style. He composed many successful comedies and an outstanding tragedy (drama that portrays the rise and fall of an honorable man) titled Orazio (Horace; 1546). It was based on a story by the Roman historian Livy (59 b.c. – a.d. 17) about the conflict between love and honor in ancient Rome. Orazio is considered the best tragic drama written in Italian during the sixteenth century. Aretino's reputation was so bad by 1600, however, that his comedies were issued in a slightly rewritten form, under different titles and the names of other authors.

Veronica Franco is "honest courtesan"

Contributions to Italian poetry were also made by women. Among them were courtesans such as the poet Veronica Franco (1546–1591), who had access to the intellectual life of the court. A courtesan was a prostitute, a woman who is paid to engage in sexual intercourse, whose clients were courtiers and other wealthy or upper-class men. Franco was the daughter of a procuress (one who obtains prostitutes for clients), Paola Fracassa, and a merchant, Francesco Franco. Her family had a coat of arms (emblem signifying noble rank) because they were native-born citizens who belonged to a professional class that made up the government bureaucracy and Venetian confraternities (religious charitable organizations). In the early 1560s she was married to a man named Paolo Panizza in what was probably an arranged marriage, but she separated from him soon after. She bore six children from different men but only three survived beyond infancy. In the mid-to late 1560s, Franco became a cortigiana onesta (honest courtesan), meaning that she provided men with intellectual and cultural pleasures as well as physical ones.

Franco and her brothers were educated by private tutors at home, and she frequented literary gatherings in Venice during the 1570s and 1580s. She captured the interest of Domenico Venier (1517–1582), a Venetian poet and head of the most renowned Italian literary academy in Venice. Venier read her poetry and became her protector. Frequently visiting his private literary salon (gathering of nobles for discussion of literature and ideas), Franco composed sonnets and poems to exchange with male poets. By her mid-twenties, she was requesting sonnets for publication from these poets for anthologies that she assembled to commemorate men of the Venetian elite. In 1575 she published Terze rime, a volume of her own poetry. In these poems, which were often erotic and sexually explicit, Franco was forthright about her profession. Her frankness challenged the literary poses adopted by male poets, who praised an unattainable woman who rarely spoke in her own voice. Franco's verse form, terza rima, was often used for poetic debate. She used it to challenge her male opponents, revealing her verbal skills and sexual independence.

In 1580 Franco published a volume of fifty letters, Lettere familiari a diversi (Familiar letters to diverse persons). The first was written to King Henry III (1551–1589; ruled 1574–89) of France and the twenty-first was addressed to Jacopo Tintoretto, the Venetian painter (see "Painting" section later in this chapter). The letters detail Franco engaged in a variety of daily activities such as playing music, sitting for a portrait, organizing a dinner party, and participating in literary activities. The letters were inspired by those of ancient authors, which were translated into Italian by members of the Venier academy. Writing letters allowed Franco to position herself as judge and adviser, writing as a courtesan-secretary to noblemen who had been led astray by their passions.

In 1580 Franco was brought to trial by the Inquisition in Venice. She had to answer the accusation of Ridolfo Vannitelli, her sons' tutor, that she practiced magical incantation (worked magic spells) in her home. Through her own defense, the help of Venier, and probably the opinion of the inquisitor, she was found not guilty of the charges. Franco was impoverished when she died in Venice at age forty-five. The trial had damaged her reputation and she experienced grave financial losses during the plague that struck Venice from 1575 through 1577.

Colonna is ideal woman

Italian noble-woman Vittoria Colonna (1492–1547) emerged as a prominent Renaissance figure. Noted for her intellect, piety, and charm, she became one of the most important women of the sixteenth century.

In 1509, at age seventeen, Colonna married the Spanish soldier Ferrante Francesco de Avalos (1490–1525), marquis of Pescara. While her husband was away at war, Colonna held court for intellectuals and artists at her home in Naples. She befriended notable Italian poets such as Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530), Bemardo Tasso (1493–1569), and Benedetto Gareth Cariteo (c. 1450–1514). After her husband's death in 1525, the childless Colonna turned to intellectual pursuits and religious matters.

Colonna was drawn to Roman Catholic reformers and the intellectuals who flocked to her gatherings in the Roman convent of San Silvestro. She associated with reformers usually called the "Spirituali," who stressed renewed Christian spirituality. Among them were Spanish humanist Juan de Valdés (c. 1490–1541), Italian theologian Bernardino Ochino (1487–1564), English cardinal Reginald Pole (1500–1558), and Venetian cardinal Gasparo Contarini (1483–1542). In the 1530s Colonna and the artist Michelangelo Buonarroti (see "Painting" section later in this chapter) formed a friendship based on shared artistic and spiritual interests. Colonna's association with religious reformers brought her to the attention of the Inquisition in the 1540s. Suspected of heresy, Colonna was demoralized during her final years. She suffered a debilitating illness and died in 1547, with Michelangelo at her side.

Colonna's work, like the poet herself, ideally suited Renaissance taste. Although few of her compositions were issued with her consent, an unauthorized edition of her works appeared in 1538. It was followed by twenty more editions in the sixteenth century alone. Since 1547, her poetry has been divided into two sections: love compositions for her deceased husband and spiritual poems. Other works include epistolary sonnets (poems in the form of letters) and letters. A 1982 edition titled Rime (Rhymes) contains almost four hundred compositions by Colonna.

The Baroque Period

The "baroque period" is generally used to describe the music, art, literature, and philosophy of the seventeenth century. The concept of the baroque emerged in the eighteenth century to describe an exuberant, sensuous, expressive, and dynamic style that was different from the classical style of the Renaissance. For advocates of Renaissance ideals, this era was an age of decline. Its manners, morals, and arts—and architecture above all—were considered absurd, grotesque, corrupt, and contrary to good (that is, classical) principles. The word "baroque" may have come from the Portuguese barroco and the Spanish barrueco, terms for a misshapen pearl. Another origin may have been a nonsensical word created by medieval logicians (scholars who study logic, or the use of reason in thinking) for an excessively complicated argument. Whatever the origin of the word, the eighteenth century carried on its negative connotations to condemn the baroque for not being the Renaissance.

Renaissance art

The great era of Renaissance art (painting, sculpture, and architecture) lasted for nearly two hundred years. It is divided into three periods: early Renaissance (1420–95), High Renaissance (1495–1520), and mannerism (also called the late Renaissance; 1520s–1600). These periods overlapped, depending on the artists and the places where they worked. The Renaissance art movement began in the early fifteenth century when humanist ideas were put into practice by painters, sculptors, and architects in Florence. Using a human-centered approach, they started a revolution that quickly spread throughout Europe. During the Middle Ages, art had a religious theme and the artist was an anonymous vehicle for glorifying God. In the Renaissance, however, human beings became the central focus of artistic expression in painting, sculpture, and architecture. In the first decade of the sixteenth century, at the height of the High Renaissance, Rome become the artistic capital of Europe. The patronage of Pope Julius II (1443–1513; reigned 1503–13) at tracted all the leading Italian artists to that city. Three artists in particular—Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael—dominated the High Renaissance, and their influence overwhelmed the following generations. During the late Renaissance, artists developed mannerism as a reaction against the balanced and majestic classical forms utilized in the High Renaissance. Their art emphasized bizarre effects, emotionalism, elegant forms, sense of movement, and personal expression. The end of the Renaissance merged into the "baroque" period, the term used to refer to the art, literature, music, and philosophy of the seventeenth century.

Painting

The early Renaissance was a time of experimentation, which started among painters in Florence and then spread to other Italian city-states such as Urbino, Ferrara, Padua, Mantua, Venice, and Milan. During this period each artist had an individual style—major artistic trends did not develop until the High Renaissance—but they all viewed the world in human terms. This trend began in the fourteenth century with the Florentine painter, architect, and sculptor Giotto di Bondone (c. 1266–1337), who "imitated nature" in fresco murals with the use of tempera in vivid colors. (A fresco is a wall painting made by first spreading moist lime plaster on the wall and then applying paint. Tempera is a water-based paint made with egg yolks and color pigments, that is, substances containing color derived from plant or animal matter.) Giotto's powerful figures, his use of light, and his ability to give a spatial depth to his compositions made his paintings seem lifelike. The realistic approach was fully utilized about a century later in the works of the Florentine painter Masaccio (pronounced mah-ZAHT-choh; 1401–1428).

Masaccio considered father of Renaissance painting

Masaccio is considered by many to be the father of Renaissance painting. There is no evidence that he was influenced by Giotto but, like the earlier artist, he depicted figures that seemed to come to life. One major difference between Masaccio and Giotto was that Masaccio used linear perspective (also known as one-point perspective). Invented by the Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi (see "Architecture" section later in this chapter), linear perspective is a system derived from mathematics in which all elements of a composition are measured and arranged from a single point of view, or perspective. Masaccio was a friend of Brunelleschi and may have learned linear perspective from him. Masaccio used the technique to achieve the effect of light coming from one direction and illuminating figures. Through the interplay of light and shadow, these figures seem to have three dimensions and exist in actual space. An equally important feature of this technique is that it gives the viewer a sense of looking at a scene along with the painter. Masaccio's most celebrated work, dated 1425–27, is a series of frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Camine in Florence. One scene, the Expulsion from Paradise, depicts Adam and Eve as they are cast out of the Garden of Eden. The painting vividly portrays their profound remorse and anguish through their body language and facial expressions. Masaccio achieved this sense of human drama in all of his works. Although he died at age twenty-seven, he had a profound impact on the art world. Generations of important artists throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Florence studied Masaccio's murals.

As the Renaissance gained momentum, artists achieved new status as creators. Prior to this time the only creator was God, but now religious paintings were dominated by human concerns and emotions. Portraits of prominent people and their families also became increasingly popular, reflecting a dramatic shift from the idea that heavenly figures or saints were the only worthy subjects of art. In addition, landscape painting was emerging as a new genre, or form of art. This was another important change because, in medieval art, nature was simply the environment of human beings and therefore had little significance.

Alberti develops theory of painting

In the early fifteenth century the theory of painting became a field of study. The first book on the theory of painting was De pictura, by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), which appeared in Florence in 1436. De pictura represented yet another significant innovation in thinking about art. Throughout the Middle Ages artists were artisans, or technicians, who belonged to craft guilds (organizations that trained apprentices and supervised the quality of products) along with other workers in such industries as shoemaking, textiles (making of fabrics), and building (construction). The main function of artists was to produce decorative items for the trade in luxury goods.

In stark contrast to this tradition, Alberti stressed the creative role of the painter, pointing out that the artist is not merely a technician who prepares paint and applies colors to an object. Instead, Alberti argued, the painter uses his or her intellect to measure, arrange, and harmonize a distinctive creation—a work of art. Alberti believed that painting should be considered equal to the liberal arts (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy), subjects identified by classical authors and considered necessary to a civilized life by humanists. Alberti's book prompted a reevaluation of the artist, and soon the rulers of Europe were bringing painters to their courts and starting collections of works by well-known artists. This flurry of activity led to the productive period that is known as the High Renaissance. Literally hundreds of artists were commissioned to do paintings and portraits that decorated grand palaces and public buildings. In fact, the artists are too numerous to name individually, but a few figures—Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian—stand out as the great masters, not only in the Renaissance but also in the history of Western art.

Leonardo depicts human drama

One of the greatest figures of High Renaissance art was Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. He had an enormous influence on the painting of future artists. At the age of fifteen Leonardo was apprenticed to Andrea del Verrocchio (pronounced vayr-RAHK-yoh; 1435–1488), the leading artist in Florence. Verrocchio was a sculptor, painter, and goldsmith noted for his remarkable craftsmanship. Leonardo stayed on as an assistant in Verrocchio's shop after completing his apprenticeship. His earliest known painting is a product of his collaboration with the master. Collaboration on a major project by a master artist and his assistant was standard procedure in the Italian Renaissance.

Around 1478 Leonardo set up his own studio. Three years later he received a church commission for an altarpiece (a work of art that decorates the space above an altar, a table used as the center of a worship service), the Adoration of the Magi. This unfinished painting depicts the story of the three Magi (kings), also known as the Wise Men of the East, told in the book of Matthew in the Bible. The Magi traveled to Bethlehem from the East (ancient Persia; present-day Iran) to pay respect to the newborn Jesus Christ. The adoration of the Magi was a popular subject in medieval and Renaissance art. In his painting Leonardo showed a new approach with the depiction of human drama through a sense of continuing movement. A crowd of spectators, with odd and varied faces, flutters around and peers at the Virgin Mary (mother of Jesus) who is holding the baby Jesus. In the background the three Magi are mounted on horses that prance among intricate architectural ruins. The painting also illustrates a strong sense of order. Traditionally, in paintings of this story, Mary and Jesus had appeared at one side of the picture and the Magi approached from the other side. Leonardo departed from tradition by placing Mary and Jesus in the center of the composition. He also used linear perspective to depict the ruins in the background.

Produces his greatest works

Leonardo left Florence in 1482 to accept the post of court artist to Ludovico Sforza (1452–1508), duke of Milan. His first Milanese painting was the altarpiece Virgin of the Rocks. Although the Virgin of the Rocks was highly original, Leonardo adhered to tradition by showing Mary and Jesus in a cave. This composition gave him the opportunity to experiment with dimmed light, which is coming from two sources, one behind the cave and the other in front of it. (Leonardo once commented that an artist should practice drawing at dusk and in courtyards with walls painted black.) The technique highlights the four figures—Mary and Jesus and another woman and infant—in a soft, shadowy atmosphere. The distinctive feature of the painting is the pyramidal grouping of the figures, which unifies the composition and focuses the eye of the viewer on the central scene.

The other surviving painting of Leonardo's years in Milan is the Last Supper (1495–97). It was commissioned by the duke for a wall in the refectory (dining hall) of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. For this painting Leonardo decided not to use fresco, which makes areas of color appear distinct and does not allow for shading. Instead, he experimented with oil-based paint, which is more easily blended. While his efforts resulted in a magnificent work, his experiment with oil-based paint proved less than successful. The paint did not adhere well to the wall, and within fifty years the scene had deteriorated significantly. Attempts to restore the painting in the centuries since have been only partially successful. When the government of Milan was over-thrown by the French invasion in 1499, Leonardo left Milan and returned to Florence.

Leonardo was received as a great man in Florence. During his years in the city (1500–06), he completed more projects than in any other period of his life. In 1503 he was invited to paint a large-scale fresco that celebrated the Battle of Anghiara, in which Florence defeated Milan in 1440. The fresco was to be painted on the walls of the newly built Council Chamber of the Republic in the Palazzo della Signoria. For the Battle of Anghiara Leonardo experimented with an oil-based paint on a primed (prepared with a sealing substance) wall surface. This process proved to be ineffective because the paint did not dry. The central section of the composition, which was destroyed during a restoration project in 1565, is now known through numerous copies made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As indicated in a copy made by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (see "Painting" in Chapter 9) in 1615, Leonardo presented the extreme physical exertion of men and horses engaged in furious battle. The group of central figures displays faces distorted by rage or pain. Even the heads of the horses, with flaring nostrils and gnashing teeth, were treated in this expressive manner. Shortly after Leonardo began the Battle of Anghiara his younger rival, Michelangelo, was commissioned to paint Battle of Cascina, another celebrated Florentine victory, for the same room in the Palazzo della Signoria.

In 1503, while working on the Battle of Anghiara, Leonardo started painting the Mona Lisa. Also called La Gioconda, it is a portrait of Lisa di Anton Giocondo, the young wife of the prominent Florentine citizen Francesco del Giocondo. The Mona Lisa became one of the most famous portraits in the Western world because of Lisa's mysterious smile, which is in the process of either appearing or disappearing. Leonardo had abandoned the Battle of Anghiara project by 1508, when he was called back to Milan by Charles Amboise, the French governor. Leonardo worked on an equestrian (rider mounted on a horse) statue, but he produced no new paintings. Instead he turned more and more to scientific observation. In 1513 the French were temporarily driven out of Milan and Leonardo moved to Rome. He received no other commissions, however, and at the end of 1516 he left Italy forever. He spent the last three years of his life at Amboise, France, in the small residence of Cloux (later called Clos-Lucé), near the summer palace of King Francis I (1494–1547; ruled 1515–47). Given the title of Premier peintre, architecte et méchanicien du Roi (first painter, architect, and mechanic of the King), Leonardo lived as an honored guest of Francis I. Leonardo produced no other major works, and he spent his time on his notebooks until his death in 1519.

Leonardo had considerable influence on artists of his own day and later times. Some of his views on art, which had been circulating since the sixteenth century, were published in 1651 in Trattato della pittura (Treatise on painting), a collection of his writings taken from numerous manuscripts. The small number of Leonardo's surviving paintings show his achievements as an artist. He made contributions to every artistic form, from portraits to religious narratives. He gave new insights into figure grouping, space, individual characterization, and light and shade. Many of his works inspired copies, especially by Milanese artists such as Andrea Solari (after 1495–1514) and Bernardo Luini (died 1532). In Florence his compositions were carefully studied by Raphael. Even in the nineteenth century, long after Battle of Anghiari had disappeared, aspects of its design continued to intrigue artists throughout Europe.

Michelangelo: from sculptor to painter

Along with Leonardo and Raphael, Michelangelo Buonarroti (known as Michelangelo; 1475–1564) dominated the High Renaissance. First gaining fame as a sculptor (see "Sculpture" section later in this chapter), he also made many contributions to Renaissance painting and architecture (see "Architecture" section later in this chapter).

Leonardo Studies Science

For Leonardo da Vinci art theory was closely related to scientific investigation. Throughout most of his life he was immersed in the study of science. He was especially interested in studying anatomy in order to understand the human form. In fact, he dissected cadavers (human corpses) so he could examine the function of muscles or determine how the vocal cords produce sound. From the 1490s until 1515 Leonardo made extensive notes on his observations, including analytical drawings for illustrations in a treatise on anatomy, which he never completed.

Leonardo also worked on several inventions. He designed many mechanical devices, such as a screw jack, a two-wheeled hoist (both designed for lifting objects), an "armored car," a gun with three racks of barrels, and even a submarine. He refused to share his ideas for a submarine, however, because he feared it would be used for destructive purposes. Leonardo's best-known invention was a flying machine, which he designed by observing bird flight and the motions of air. He also mastered mathematics. For instance, he applied geometry and proportion to create a new sense of order in his drawings and paintings. He translated his study of optics and many of his theories of vision into mathematical terms. Leonardo used his knowledge of physical geography to investigate the origin of fossils and the utilization of water power.

Michelangelo was apprenticed at the age of thirteen to Domenico Ghirlandaio (also known as Domenico di Tommaso Bigordi; 1449–1494), the most fashionable painter in Florence. After a year the apprenticeship was broken off, and Michelangelo was given access to the collection of ancient Roman sculpture owned by the duke of Florence. In 1492, at age seventeen, Michelangelo began working as a sculptor. During the next sixteen years he produced many of the best-known sculptures of the Italian Renaissance. Then, in 1504, he received a commission to paint a fresco in the new Council Chamber of the Republic in the Palazzo della Signoria. The building was to have vast patriotic murals that would also show the special skills of Florence's leading artists: Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

The subject of Michelangelo's fresco was the Battle of Cascina, a celebrated Florentine military victory. Although the Battle of Cascina was never completed, several sketches and a copy of the cartoon exist. (At that time a cartoon had not yet come to mean a satirical or humorous drawing. Instead, it was a preparatory design or drawing for a fresco.) The central scene shows a group of muscular nude soldiers climbing from a river where they had been swimming to answer a military alarm. Michelangelo clearly felt the influence of Leonardo and his depiction of a continuous flowing motion through living forms. This combination of throbbing life with colossal grandeur became the special quality of Michelangelo's art.

Michelangelo's career took another direction in 1508, when Pope Julius II offered him a commission to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican in Rome. At first he protested that he was a sculptor, not a painter. Finally he accepted the job and devoted all of his creative energies to the project. The theme of the ceiling painting is the nine stories from the book of Genesis in the Bible. Interspersed with figures of the male biblical prophets are the female sibyls (prophetesses) of antiquity, a series of nude youths, lunettes (crescent-shaped decorative objects) with representations of the ancestors of Jesus Christ, and a host of other figures and decoration.

Sistine ceiling sets standard

Four years later, when the Sistine Chapel project was completed, Michelangelo had made a major innovation in ceiling painting. Traditionally, artists had depicted only single figures, but Michelangelo introduced the portrayal of dramatic scenes. The concept was so successful that it set the standard for future painters. The painting is also considered one of the most awe-inspiring works of Western art. The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) reportedly remarked that one cannot fully appreciate human achievement without first seeing the Sistine Chapel. Nevertheless, the process had been a physically grueling one for Michelangelo, who was required to lie on a scaffold with arms outstretched for hours at a time. An accomplished and prolific poet, he composed a sonnet in which he described the ways he had to contort his body in order to paint the ceiling.

"My Beard Toward Heaven"

Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican is considered one of the most awe-inspiring works of Western art. It was the first major painting completed by Michelangelo, who was a renowned sculptor when he reluctantly accepted the Sistine commission in 1508. The four-year project was a physically demanding one for the artist, who painted much of the work while lying on his back on a scaffold. An accomplished and prolific poet, Michelangelo composed the following sonnet while working on the Sistine ceiling. He described the ways he had to contort his body in order to do the work, concluding "I'm not in a good place, and I'm no painter.

"Sonnet to John of Pistoia on the Sistine Ceiling"

I've got myself a goiter [swelling on the front of the neck] from this strain,

As water gives the cats in Lombardy

Or maybe it is in some other country;

My belly's pushed by force beneath my chin

My beard toward Heaven, I feel the back of my brain

Upon my neck, I grow the breast of a Harpy [Greek mythological creature that is part woman and part man];

My brush, above my face continually,

Makes it a splendid floor by dripping down.

My loins have penetrated to my paunch [stomach],

My rump's a crupper [part of a horse's saddle], as a counterweight,

And pointless the unseeing steps I go.

In front of me my skin is being stretched

While it folds up behind and forms a knot,

And I am bending like a Syrian bow.

And judgment, hence, must grow,

Borne in the mind, peculiar and untrue;

You cannot shoot well when the gun's askew [not aimed correctly].

John, come to the rescue

Of my dead painting now, and of my honor;

I'm not in a good place, and I'm no painter.

The Complete Poems of Michelangelo. John Frederick Nims, translator. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1998, pp. 5–6.

In 1534 Michelangelo settled in Rome. For the next ten years he produced paintings for Pope Paul III (1468–1549; reigned 1534–49). Paul III convened the Council of Trent, which initiated the Catholic Reformation, a wide-ranging effort to revitalize the Roman Catholic Church. The first project Michelangelo executed for the pope was the Last Judgment (1536–41), a vast painting on the end wall of the Sistine Chapel. The design functions like a pair of scales, with some angels pushing the damned down to hell on one side and some pulling up the saved on the other side. Angels on both sides are directed by Jesus Christ, who "conducts" with both arms. In the two top corners are the cross and other symbols of the Passion (the crucifixion of Christ), which serve as Christ's credentials to be judge.

In the Last Judgment Michelangelo used simple colors, blue and brown. The somber tone seems to parallel the ideas of the Catholic Reformation, which called for a renewed emphasis on spirituality. Michelangelo had contact with reform leaders through the poet Vittoria Colonna (see "Poetry" section previously in this chapter), a close friend and supporter to whom he addressed many of his poems. From 1541 until 1545 Michelangelo painted two large frescoes—the Conversion of Saul and the Crucifixion of Peter—for the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican. They are similar to the Last Judgment, but in these works he expressed movement through perspective and used subtle colors in a more expressive way. He may have turned to these techniques because the Pauline Chapel frescoes were the first ones he executed on a normal scale and at eye level. After 1545 Michelangelo devoted himself almost entirely to architecture and poetry. Dying in 1564 at the age of eighty-nine, he lived nearly twice the average Renaissance life span.

Raphael represents High Renaissance

The Italian painter and architect Raffaello Sanzio, called Raphael (1483–1520), is considered the supreme representative of the High Renaissance. He was born in Urbino, the son of Giovanni Santi, a painter. He was trained by his father, who died in 1494. Sometime thereafter he joined the workshop of Perugino (also known as Pietro Vannucci; c. 1450–1523), the most renowned painter in central Italy at the time. Raphael adopted Perugino's style and received several commissions before moving to Florence in 1504. When he arrived he discovered that his style was unsophisticated compared with the recent innovations of Michelangelo and Leonardo. Raphael was especially attracted to Leonardo's work. During the next four years he painted a series of Madonnas that incorporated Leonardo's techniques. One technique was sfumato, which involves defining a form by blending one color into another rather than using distinct outlines. He was also commissioned to do several portraits.

In 1508 Raphael went to Rome to decorate Pope Julius's apartment, the Stanza della Segnatura, at the Vatican. This work, which Raphael completed in 1511, consists of panels that represent the four areas of divinely inspired human intellect: theology, poetry, philosophy, and law. The panel on philosophy, titled The School of Athens, is considered one of Raphael's greatest achievements. The two central figures are the idealist Plato, who points heavenward, and the realist Aristotle, who gestures toward the ground. Around them are grouped many other classical philosophers and scientists, each indicating clearly by expression and gesture the character of his intellect. Raphael's painting technique is so precise that every detail in the School of Athens contributes to a balanced effect and conveys a sense of quiet grandeur.

After Raphael completed the Stanza della Segnatura, Julius commissioned him to decorate the adjacent room, the Stanza d'Elidoro (the audience chamber). Julius died before it was finished, but his successor, Pope Leo X, told Raphael to continue and eventually assigned him two more rooms, the Stanza dell'Incendio (the meeting room of the Catholic Church's supreme court) and the Sala di Constantino. Very quickly, Raphael became popular with Roman patrons. Commissions of all sorts poured into his workshop during the last six years of his life. By this time he was relying on assistants. For instance, frescoes in the Stanza dell'Incendio (1514–17) were based on his design but executed almost entirely by assistants, as was the fresco decoration of the Vatican loggias (1517–19). Many of his assistants were more collaborators than apprentices, and some were older than he. In 1515 he had what was probably the largest painting workshop that had ever been assembled.

Raphael also was much in demand by aristocrats who wanted him to paint their portraits. He was influenced by Leonardo's Mona Lisa. In 1517 Raphael adapted Leonardo's majestic design in the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, author of Book of the Courtier. Like most of Raphael's finest portraits, it is the depiction of a close friend. Castiglione is portrayed with great psychological insight, his gentle, scholarly face perfectly suited to the man who, in Book of the Courtier, defined the qualities of the ideal gentleman. Descriptions of Raphael's own pleasant disposition and courteous manner indicate that he himself possessed the qualities Castiglione wished to find in the perfect courtier.

Invents new techniques

Raphael had by now developed his own style, which consisted of a distinctive use of color and an emphasis on gesture and movement. This style is evident in such works as cartoons that depict the lives of Saints Peter and Paul. Other typical works were the decoration (begun in 1519) of the Villa Farnesina in Rome and Raphael's largest canvas painting, the Transfiguration, which was commissioned in 1517 but remained incomplete at his death. The Peter and Paul cartoons were sent to Flanders to be worked into tapestries (large embroidered wall hangings) for the Sistine Chapel and were partly responsible for the adoption of Raphael's style throughout Europe. His work was also spread through engravings. The market for art prints was just then getting established and Raphael was one of the first to take advantage of it. Raphael supplied unused drawings and designs to engravers, who were required to follow his instructions regarding the production of images. He collaborated with the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi (c.1480–c. 1534) and then allied himself with a businessman known as Il Bavieri, who was responsible for selling the engravings. Raphael appears to have set certain conditions with engravers to control quality and his copyright (exclusive legal right to the sale and reproduction of a work), and he received most of the profits.

When Raphael died in Rome at age thirty-seven his art was developing in new directions. The High Renaissance, which had reached its peak around 1510, had passed. Raphael's pupils began incorporating characteristics of the mannerist style in the last works of their great master. Raphael had made major contributions to painting. He invented new modes of composing a picture and new techniques for using color, which were much imitated. Although he often developed the methods of other painters such as Leonardo, his own style had the most influence. Raphael was a master of linear perspective, which was evolving throughout the High Renaissance. He also invented the concept of modes of coloring, in that he was the first to select a color style to match a project. This was an innovation because, in the traditional workshop of the fifteenth century, a master typically had only one color style, which he taught to his apprentices. As a result of Raphael's experimentations with color, the next generation of painters felt liberated to vary their choice of colors with each commission and to develop new modes.

Raphael's reputation suffered in the twentieth century because his style was adopted as the model for academic art, beginning in the French Academy of the sixteenth century. Elements of his methods were taught to young painters as strict rules. This practice contradicted the freedom that Raphael allowed his own students and collaborators. It was also inconsistent with his experimental approach, in which he never repeated himself. Nevertheless, Raphael has been recognized as one of the greatest European painters, not only of the Renaissance but of all time.

Titian emphasizes drama

Titian (also known as Tiziano Vecellio; c. 1488–1576) was a great master of religious art, a portraitist in demand all over Europe, and the creator of mythological compositions.

At the age of nine Titian set out with his brother Francesco for Venice to enter the workshop of Sebastiano Zuccati, a mosaic artist. Not long thereafter Titian began to study painting with Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430–1516). Soon Titian met Bellini's other pupil, Giorgione da Castelfranco; c. 1477–1511), with whom he started collaborating in 1507. The two painters worked so closely at this time that their styles are virtually indistinguishable. Around 1510 Titian began producing his own work. He achieved fame as an interpreter of classical mythology with three paintings—Andrians, the Worship of Venus, and Bacchus and Ariadne—which he composed for the castle of Alfonso d'Este in Ferrara between 1518 and 1523. One of his best-known early works is the Assumption of the Virgin (1516–18), which marked the triumph of the High Renaissance in Venice. It shows the Virgin Mary soaring with arms outstretched to heaven.

During the 1520s Titian produced masterpieces such as the Madonna and Child with Saints Francis and Aloysius (1520), the Resurrection (1522), and the Pesaro Madonna (1519–26). In the Pesaro Madonna he used color, light, and atmosphere to establish a new formula for Venetian altars that continued into the following century. The Martyrdom of St. Peter Martyr (c. 1526–30; destroyed 1867), once regarded as Titian's greatest masterpiece, depicted a new feeling for heroic and dramatic action. It was influenced by the art of Michelangelo and central Italian painters.

Paints innovative portraits

An important event in Titian's career was his trip to Bologna in 1530 to attend the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500–1558; ruled 1519–56). At this time the artist painted his first portrait of the emperor in armor. In 1545 Titian traveled to Rome at the invitation of Pope Paul III. For the first time the artist saw the glories of ancient Rome as well as the masterpieces of Raphael and Michelangelo. Among the numerous works he produced during his brief stay in the city was Paul III and His Grandsons, which depicts a dramatic encounter between the aged pope and his scheming grandsons. It is considered one of the most psychologically revealing works in the history of portraiture.

In 1548 Charles V called Titian to Augsburg, Germany. The artist painted the celebrated equestrian portrait, Charles V at Mühlberg, which commemorated the emperor's victory over the German Protestants in the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547 (see "The Augsburg Confession" in Chapter 5). In this work Titian established a type of equestrian portrait that presents the ruler as a symbol of power. Titian also produced portraits of members of the emperor's court. The most important is that of Charles's son, Prince Philip (later King Philip II of Spain) in armor, which set a standard for state portraits. In the 1550s Philip II commissioned Titian to paint religious pictures for the monastery of the Escorial, the king's palace in Spain, which was designed by the Spanish architect Juan de Herrera (see "Architecture" in Chapter 9). Among them was the Last Supper (1557–64). During the same period Titian also executed mythological works for the Escorial, such as the Rape of Europa. Titian continued to explore the depths of human character in his portraits until the end of his life. His late religious pictures convey a mood of universal tragedy, as in the Annunciation (c. 1565) and Christ Crowned with Thorns. The Pietà which was unfinished at his death, was intended for his own tomb chapel. When Titian died at his spacious palace in Venice, he was universally recognized as one of the great masters.

Tintoretto follows great masters

The Venetian painter Tintoretto (1518–1594) excelled in grand history paintings and dignified portraits of members of the Venetian aristocracy. His work represented the style of the mannerists, who rejected the classical ideals of proportion, balance, and refined images.

The real name of Tintoretto was Jacopo Robusti, but he is better known by his nickname, which means the "little dyer," so given because his father was a silk dyer. The artist was born in Venice, where he spent his entire life. Even though his painting is distinguished by great daring, he seems to have lived quietly and was concerned only with his work and the well-being of his family. His daughter Marietta and his sons Domenico and Marco also became painters. Domenico eventually took over the direction of Tintoretto's large workshop, turning out uninspired pictures in the manner of his father. Some of them are, on occasion, mistaken for works of the elder Tintoretto.

Tintoretto admired the paintings of Titian. Tintoretto combined the master's techniques with his own fiery and quick imagination, creating an effect of restlessness in his work. Tintoretto was primarily a figure painter and delighted in showing his figures in daring poses. His master in this aspect of his art was Michelangelo. Tintoretto is supposed to have inscribed on the wall of his studio the motto: "The drawing of Michelangelo and the color of Titian."

Tintoretto's earliest documented work, Apollo and Marsyas (1545), was painted for the poet Pietro Aretino (see "Poetry" section previously in this chapter). In a letter written for publication, Aretino noted the quickness of its execution and recommended the artist to the world as a genius of note. At about the same time Tintoretto painted Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles. The picture is so arranged that the viewer sees Jesus Christ and Saint Peter last, even though they matter most in the story the picture brings to life. The action that binds these key figures together is dramatized chiefly by an exchange of glances between Christ and Peter.

Work becomes more elaborate

Tintoretto's later works were even more elaborate than his early ones. As before, the actions of his figures are quite daring and majestic, yet they serve their function in dramatizing the story. The triumph of Tintoretto's art is his paintings for the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice, which he executed between 1564 and 1587. The walls and the ceilings are almost completely covered with depictions of great events of the Old and New Testaments and the lives of the saints. The focus of the work is the vast Crucifixion (1565), which captures the moment when a sponge is being dipped in vinegar to be lifted up on a stick to Jesus Christ. The cross is surrounded by a crowd of people—soldiers, followers of Christ, mockers, pagans, and contemporaries of Tintoretto—who behold the sacred scene as if it were taking place before the eyes of the viewer.

The majority of Tintoretto's large canvases were history paintings with religious subjects. Among his late works is the representation of Paradise in the Sala del Gran Consiglio of the Doges' Palace (1588). In this painting the Virgin Mary and saints, led by Saint Mark, recommend the Great Council of Venice and its decisions to the grace of Jesus Christ. The countless figures are bathed in a strange, phosphorescent light. Another late work is the Last Supper (1592–94), in which Tintoretto fills the air of a great hall with a rush of adoring angels. Their presence is made visible by subtle highlights accentuating the darkness of the room. Tintoretto also produced allegorical works and scenes from ancient and modern history, and he was much sought after as a portraitist. His figures are almost always elegant and proper. The women are gentle and the men are impressive, but they appear lonely. In 1588 Tintoretto painted his own self-portrait as an old man in a simple pose, looking resigned and wise.

Caravaggio revolts against trends

Caravaggio (1573–1610) was among the most innovative mannerist painters. Born Michelangelo Merisi, he was called Caravaggio after the tiny town in Lombardy where he was born. After serving an apprenticeship and studying painting in Milan, he appeared in Rome around 1590. In his works he depicted insolent boys and rough peasants in the guise of Roman gods and Christian saints. Using a technique known as chiaroscuro (contrasts of light and dark), he often portrayed these figures as if they were emerging out of darkness, with part of their faces and bodies illuminated by a bright light.

The early works of Caravaggio show him in full revolt against both mannerism and classicism. He rejected the elongated figures and curvilinear shapes of the mannerists. He also ridiculed the concept of the classicists that the subject of a painting should be idealized and carry a moral message. In Bacchus with a Wine Glass (c. 1595), Caravaggio showed not a Roman god but instead a pudgy, half-naked boy draped in a bedsheet; he is identified as Bacchus only by the vine leaves in his hair. Sometimes the subject is a scene from everyday life. The Fortune Teller (c. 1595) shows an elegant young dandy with a sword at his side having his palm read by a Gypsy girl. He looks away with almost haughty boredom as she slips a ring off his finger. Many of the paintings of this period have a momentary quality, as if Caravaggio had isolated a single instant in time. An example is Boy Bitten by a Lizard (c. 1593), which portrays an affected young man with a small girlish mouth and a rose behind one ear. He squeals with fright as a lizard comes out from behind a flower and bites him on the finger.

Caravaggio's Turbulent Life

Caravaggio was an innovative, productive painter, yet he had a brief and turbulent life. It is easy to follow Caravaggio's career after1600, since his name regularly appeared in police records. After several brushes with the law over relatively minor offenses, Caravaggio was involved in a murder. In 1606 he was playing tennis with one Ranuccio Tomassoni. There seems to have been an argument over the score, which turned into a brawl and then into a sword fight. Tomassoni was killed, and Caravaggio was badly wounded. Aided by friends, Caravaggio fled Rome, then hid in the nearby Sabine Mountains. From there he set out for Naples, and by 1607 his friends were at work in Rome trying to obtain a pardon so he could return. Early in 1608 Caravaggio was on the small Mediterranean island of Malta, then ruled by the Knights of Malta, an aristocratic military order. Because he painted a portrait of Alof de Wignacourt, the head of the order, Caravaggio was made a knight of Malta. This honor was most unusual for a person of his modest background. A few months later he was again involved in a sword fight, this time with his superior officer, and was jailed. In some way that is still not explained, Caravaggio escaped from prison.

By October 1608 Caravaggio had reached Syracuse in Sicily. From this point on he was pursued by agents of the Knights of Malta, who sought to avenge what they considered an insult to their order. Caravaggio fled to Messina and then to Palermo. Somehow through it all he continued to paint. By fall 1609 he was back in Naples, where the Maltese agents trapped him and beat him so badly that he was disfigured almost beyond recognition.

By summer 1610 a papal pardon appeared imminent. For this reason Caravaggio took a boat to Port' Ercole, a small Spanish outpost north of Rome, where he was arrested in a case of mistaken identity. The Spaniards released him from jail after a few days, but the boat had sailed and took with it, so Caravaggio mistakenly thought, all of his possessions and one of his paintings. Raging along the shore under the hot sun, Caravaggio came down with a fever and died on July 18, 1610, at age thirty-six. Three days later a pardon came from the pope.

When Caravaggio did paint religious subjects in the first decade of the 1600s, he employed a sense of immediacy and directness. For instance, in the Calling of St. Matthew, the saint, who was a tax collector in the ancient Roman Empire, is shown in contemporary Italian dress sitting at a table counting money. Around him at the table, as if in a gambling den, are a group of young swordsmen. Caravaggio's religious works are filled with deep shadows that absorb and conceal parts of the figures. At the same time the figures remain solid and powerfully three-dimensional where the light strikes them. Caravaggio was able to make a scene look as if it is taking place before the viewer's eyes. In his Crucifixion of St. Peter, for example, the saint is depicted at the moment when the executioners are beginning to raise up the cross to which he has been nailed upside down. His bare feet are thrust toward the viewer and the aged but powerful apostle lifts his head up from the cross in defiance. Scenes such as these reflect the efforts of the Catholic Reformation to appeal directly to the masses through their emotions.

Caravaggio painted his last works when he was fleeing from one southern Italian town to another. During this time his style changed. The modeling is softer, the paint is thinner and applied more rapidly, and the shadows are less profound. The expressive content is deeper. All this can be seen in the Resurrection of Lazarus, painted in 1609 at the end of the artist's life. In it a small crowd huddles around the dim figure of Jesus Christ, which is almost phosphorescent where the light strikes it. The whole upper half of the picture is left dark and empty, capturing the shadowy moments between death and rebirth. Although Caravaggio was never truly famous in his own lifetime, many who knew his work realized they were seeing something amazingly new. His style spread rapidly throughout Europe. Without Caravaggio it is not possible to understand the works of the countless artists who followed in the seventeenth century.

Women painters achieve fame

A number of women artists emerged during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Italy. Among them were the painters Sofonisba Anguissola and Artemisia Gentileschi, both of whom broke out of the tradition that discouraged achievement by women and gained equal stature with male artists.

Anguissola's innovative portraits

Italian painter Sofonisba Anguissola (pronounced ahn-GWEE-so-lah; 1532–1625) was the first woman to establish an artistic identity and produce a substantial body of work. Her narrative portraits, each of them telling a story, proved to be ahead of their time at the end of the sixteenth century, when nature scenes and genre scenes (such as crucifixion, Resurrection, still life) were the main interests of Italian art.

Born in Cremona, Italy, Anguissola was the eldest child in a family of six daughters and a son. She and her sisters all received a humanist education. Four became artists (Sofonisba, Lucia, Europa, Anna Maria); another (Minerva) was noted for literary studies. Sofonisba's artistic emergence in the humanistic atmosphere was unusual in a period when women artists were typically trained by their fathers. She studied painting with a local artist and she taught her younger sisters. Sofonisba's specialization in portraits and self-portraits were shaped by the restraints placed on women at the time. Women artists were not allowed to study anatomy or male models, thereby preventing them from gaining access to large-scale history paintings. Her depiction of animated faces, firmly drawn within a delicate surrounding, is her trademark style. Her earliest known works are the Portrait of a Nun (1515) and the Self-Portrait of 1554. Other early portraits include those of the artist Guilio Clovio and the young Massimiliano Stampa.

Encouraged by Michelangelo

Anguissola's paintings were admired by contemporaries such as the Roman nobleman Tommaso Cavalieri, who disregarded the popular belief that painting was a masculine art. She was encouraged by Michelangelo, who said of her drawing of a smiling girl teaching her nurse to read that a weeping boy would have been more difficult to draw. This comment caused her to draw a boy (her brother Asdrubale) being bitten by a crayfish. This drawing was probably the model for Caravaggio's painting Boy Bitten by Lizard, which shows her influence on the important artists of her time.

Portrait painting did not receive much respect at the time, but Anguissola used it as a metaphor for artistic achievement. In The Chess Game (1555), she depicted her sisters Lucia, Europa, and Minerva at the chess board. This painting was meant to demonstrate female excellence at an intellectual game. It also hinted at the sisters' shared history as aspiring artists who competed with and learned from one another. In Anguissola's works of the late 1550s, such as Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola and The Family Group, the expression of pride in female achievement is reversed to become a commentary on the male-dominated society, values, and norms.

Anguissola spent the years 1559 through 1573 in Madrid, Spain, as court painter and lady-in-waiting to Queen Isabella of Valois, whom she taught to paint. Anguissola's Spanish paintings are not well documented and have been confused with the works of other painters. Among the few certain portraits are Philip II andIsabella of Valois. Anguissola's marriage in 1573 to a Sicilian nobleman, Don Fabrizio de Moncada, ended with her husband's death in 1579. Her marriage in 1580 to the Genoese nobleman Orazio Lomellini took her to Genoa, Italy. For the next four decades she developed a new baroque (elaborate) style. She spent her final years in Palermo, Italy. Her eyesight began to fail in her twilight years, which prevented her from painting. In 1624, one year before her death, Flemish artist Anthony Van Dyck visited her and sketched her portrait in his notebooks. He noted that she had a clear memory, told good stories, and gave him advice on his own paintings. Anguissola was an important figure, especially for women, in the tradition of Renaissance art.

Gentileschi portrays emotions

The modern perception of Artemisia Gentileschi (pronounced jahn-tee-LES-kee; 1592–1653) has been colored by the legend surrounding her. She was born in Rome and trained as a painter by her father, Orazio Gentileschi. When she was seventeen she was allegedly raped (forced to have sexual intercourse) by Orazio's colleague, the painter Agostino Tassi. In 1611 Orazio brought legal action against Tassi. After a seven-month trial Tassi was convicted and given light punishment. Gentileschi's family quickly arranged her marriage to a Florentine artist in 1612 and she moved to Florence. She had a daughter with her husband, but eventually she separated from him and led an unusually independent life for a woman of her time. As a result of these events, she was portrayed as a sexual libertine (one who freely engages in sexual relations) in the eighteenth century, though there is no firm evidence to support this view.

During her eight-year stay in Florence, Gentileschi received many commissions from Michelangelo and Duke Cosimo II de' Medici (1590–1621). By the time of her marriage she had already become an accomplished artist. Nearly all of her pictures portray women in the central role. The characterizations are emotional without being sentimental, concentrating on psychology and action. Her earliest surviving work may be Madonna and Child (1609). A clearer idea of her early style can be seen in two other pictures, both dated 1610: Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes and Susanna and the Elders. These works feature attractive figures and sparkling costumes painted in a crisp style. Scholars note that Orazio may have contributed to the paintings, which also reflect the influence of the Caravaggio school in the use of sharp contrasts between light and shadow. Nevertheless, the pictures show some distinctive traits of Gentileschi's own style, such as the depiction of authentic emotions as evidenced by the alert stare of Judith and the startled gaze of Susanna.

Paints her masterpieces

Gentileschi returned to Rome around 1620. Among her masterpieces from this period are The Penitent Magdalen (c. 1617–20), Lucretia (c. 1621), and a second version of Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes (1625). Around 1628 Gentileschi moved to Naples, where she gained commissions for religious pictures. She began hiring assistants to paint architectural and landscape backgrounds in her works. From 1638 until 1641 she worked in England with her aging father at the court of King Charles I (1600–1649; ruled 1625–49) and Queen Henrietta (1600–1669). The Gentileschis decorated the ceiling of the Great Hall of the Queen's House at Greenwich. Artemisia spent her final years in Naples. In the 1640s she painted Bathsheba, a second Susanna, and Lot and His Daughters.

Gentileschi's letters reveal her determination to excel in the male-dominated art world. Her success is seen in her influence on other European artists working during the transition between the late Renaissance and the era that later became known as the Baroque period. Among them were Simon Vouet (1590–1649) in France, Giovanni Barbieri (called Il Guercino; 1591–1666) in Italy, Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmensz; 1606–1669) in Holland, and possibly Diego Velázquez (1599–1660) in Spain. Many of Gentileschi's works were attributed to her father until the twentieth century, when art historians began identifying her paintings.

Sculpture

The development of Italian Renaissance sculpture can be divided into three periods. The first covers the transition from the later Middle Ages, ending around 1400. At this time sculptors were incorporating numerous trends that began emerging in the late medieval period, such as more realistic figures, dramatic expression, and intense movement. As the humanist movement gained momentum in Florence, sculptors were also becoming more aware of ancient Roman art. Most historians agree that Renaissance sculpture really began during the second phase, which took place in the 1400s and was dominated by the activity of artists in Florence. Many outstanding sculptors were at work in Florence during the first half of the fifteenth century. The single event that many consider the beginning of the Renaissance sculpture is the competition for a second set of bronze doors for the Baptistery of Florence in 1402 (a baptistery is a building used for baptism). The winner was the prominent sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, but his student, Donatello, is regarded as the first true Renaissance sculptor.

Intense artistic activity took place during the career of Donatello, marking the peak of the High Renaissance in sculpture. This period reflects the civic pride of Florence, which was linked to the democratic values of the Roman Republic. Sculpture was used as a display of wealth by autocratic leaders who were strengthening their rule. Soon cities throughout Italy were being decorated with sculptures. The third phase covers the sixteenth century, beginning with the High Renaissance and Michelangelo. The depiction of grandeur and power increasingly assumed a major role, influencing sculptors' interpretations of human bodies and actions. This approach is known as the mannerist style, which often featured free-standing statues with elongated bodies depicting dramatic movement.

Donatello

The Italian sculptor Donatello (also known as Donato di Niccolò Bardi; c. 1386–1466) was the most influential Florentine sculptor before Michelangelo. Nearly every later sculptor, as well as numerous Florentine and Paduan painters, was indebted to him.

Little biographical information about Donatello is available. It is known that he was apprenticed to Lorenzo Ghiberti (pronounced ghee-BEHR-tee; c. 1378–1455), the most prominent sculptor in Florence at that time. In 1403, at the age of seventeen, Donatello was working for Ghiberti on the bronze reliefs of the doors of the Baptistery of Florence. By 1407 he had left Ghiberti and the workshops of the cathedral in Florence. One of Donatello's earliest known works is the life-sized marble statue David (1408), which was set up in the Palazzo Vecchio, the city hall, in 1414 as a symbol of the Florentine republic.

Rapidly maturing as a sculptor, Donatello produced two works that established his reputation. The first is the large marble figure St. Mark, located in a niche on the exterior of Or San Michele (a Florentine cathedral), which Donatello completed between 1411 and 1413. The other is the seated St. John the Evangelist, which he created for the facade (outside of the front wall) of the cathedral and completed in 1415. The St. Mark broke with tradition in such details as its classical stance and realistically modeled drapery. Donatello's new style was evident in the famous St. George, which he carved in marble in 1416 and 1417 for the exterior of Or San Michele. The Christian saint has the face not of an ideal hero but of a real one. Even more significant is the small marble relief St. George and the Dragon that decorates the base of the niche. The marble was ordered in 1417, and the relief was completed shortly afterward. This is an important date, for the relief is the earliest example in art of the new science of perspective used to create a measurable space for sculpted figures. Up to this time artists had placed figures on a flat background. In Donatello's work the forms seemed to emerge from atmosphere and light. Donatello was probably influenced by the one-point perspective studies of the architect Filippo Brunelleschi (see Architecture" section later in this chapter).

Perfects his style

Between 1415 and 1435 Donatello and his pupils completed eight life-sized marble representations of the Hebrew prophets (wise men in the Old Testament) for the cathedral in Florence. The most impressive of the group are the so-called Zuccone ("big squash" or "baldy"), perhaps representing Habakkuk (c. seventh century b.c.), and the figure of Jeremiah (c. 650–c. 570 b.c.). In both of these figures Donatello portrayed psychological tension and deliberately emphasized physical ugliness. About 1425 Donatello entered into partnership with the sculptor and architect Michelozzo di Bartolomeo (1396– 1472), with whom he made a trip to Rome after 1429. They produced a series of works, including the tomb of antipope John XXIII (died 1419; reigned 1410–15) in the Baptistery in Florence and the tomb of Cardinal Brancacci in Santa Angelo a Nilo in Naples. These tombs served as models for later Florentine sculptors. Possibly just after the trip to Rome, Donatello created the well-known gilded limestone Annunciation, depicting Gabriel (one of four archangels named in Hebrew tradition) and the Virgin Mary, in Sta Croce, Florence.

Much of Donatello's later work revealed his understanding of classical art. An example is the bronze statue David in the Bargello, featuring a young boy clothed only in boots and a pointed hat. This enigmatic figure is in all probability the earliest existing free-standing nude since antiquity. From 1443 to 1453 Donatello was in Padua, where he created the colossal bronze equestrian monument to the Venetian condottiere (leader of a band of mercenaries, or hired soldiers) called Gattamelata, in the Piazza del Santo. Donatello portrayed Gattamelata as the ideal man of the Renaissance. Another major commission in Padua was the high altar of Saint Antonio. It was decorated with four large reliefs representing the life of Saint Anthony. Surrounding the central figures are smaller reliefs and seven life-sized statues in bronze, including a seated Madonna and Child and a bronze Crucifixion. These reliefs presented an explosive conception of space with sketchy figures worked into a unified surface design. They had a lasting influence on painters in northern Italy.

After returning to Florence, the aged Donatello carved the statue Mary Magdalen. Mary Magdalen (a.d. first century) was a Galilean woman who was cleansed of evil spirits by Jesus Christ. She was also the first person to see Christ after his resurrection (rising after death). Donatello made the figure from poplar wood for the Baptistery (1454–55). Depicted in extreme ugliness, the emaciated figure of the penitent Mary Magdalen in the wilderness originally had sun-tanned skin and gilding (gold tints) on her long, straggly hair. When Donatello died in 1466 he left two unfinished bronze pulpits in Saint Lorenzo, Florence. On one are relief panels, showing the torture and murder of Christ by means of distorted forms and wildly emotional actions. Finished by his pupil Bertoldo di Giovanni (c. 1420–1491), the pulpit scenes reveal the great master's insight into human suffering and his pioneering exploration of the dark realms of human experience.

Michelangelo introduces new style

Michelangelo began his career as a sculptor, but he also became a renowned artist and architect. Michelangelo's earliest sculpture was a stone relief he made when he was about seventeen. Resembling the Roman sarcophagi (coffins) in the Medici collection, it had simple, solid forms and squarish figures. Soon after Lorenzo de' Medici died in 1492, the Medicis fell from power and Michelangelo fled from Florence to Bologna. In 1494 he obtained a commission to carve three saints needed to complete the tomb of Saint Dominic in the church of San Domenico. The tomb had been started by the sculptor Nicola Pisano (c. 1220–c. 1278) around 1265. Michelangelo's figures are again squarish, in contrast with the linear forms that were then dominant in sculpture.

After settling in Rome in 1496, Michelangelo executed a statue of Bacchus for the garden of ancient sculpture owned by a banker. His earliest surviving large-scale work, the Bacchus, shows the god in a teetering stance, either because he is drunk or dancing. His other works were generally set in front of walls and to some extent resemble reliefs. In 1498, through the same banker, Michelangelo obtained his first important commission, the larger-than-life Pietà, which is now in Saint Peter's Basilica. The term pietà refers to a popular image in which Mary supports the dead Jesus Christ across her knees. Michelangelo's version of this scene is the most famous one. In both the Pietà and the Bacchus he made hard polished marble resemble soft flesh.

When Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1501 he was recognized as the most talented sculptor in central Italy. That year he was commissioned to do the marble sculpture David, one of his best-known works, for cathedral in Florence. After he completed the project in 1504, the magnificent sculpture was placed in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. Immediately thereafter Michelangelo accepted the job of painting the Battle of Cascina, a huge fresco for the Council Chamber of the Republic in the Palazzo della Signoria (see "Painting" section previously in this chapter). He never completed the fresco, and from then on his work consisted mainly of very large projects that he never finished. Because he preferred to work on a grand scale, he could not turn down commissions from great clients. For instance, he contracted to make statues of the Twelve Apostles (Jesus's disciples) for cathedral in Florence, yet he started only the St. Matthew.

Michelangelo stopped working on the Apostle statues when Pope Julius II called him to Rome in 1505. He accepted a commission to design the pope's tomb, which was to include about forty life-size statues. This project occupied Michelangelo off and on for the next forty years. In 1506 a dispute over funds for the tomb led Michelangelo, who had spent almost a year at the quarries in Carrara, to flee to Florence. A reconciliation between Julius II and Michelangelo took place in Bologna, which Julius had just conquered. In 1508 Michelangelo began working on the Julius's tomb, but he set that project aside when the pope asked him to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome (see Painting" section previously in this chapter).

Medici Chapel is Renaissance model

In 1520 Michelangelo was commissioned to execute a tomb chapel for two young Medici dukes. The Medici Chapel (1520–34), an annex to Saint Lorenzo, is the most nearly complete large sculptural project of Michelangelo's career. The two tombs, each with an image of the deceased and two allegorical figures, are placed against elaborately decorated walls. These six statues and a seventh, the Madonna, on a third wall are by Michelangelo's own hand. The two saints flanking the Madonna were made by assistants from his clay sketches. On the tomb titled Day and Night the figures of day and night recline on a curved lid, as do the figures of morning and evening on the tomb titled Morning and Evening. Political leaders were becoming more powerful at the time, and Michelangelo's statues were often used as models for portraits that depicted emperors, popes, kings, and dukes.

In 1534 Michelangelo left Florence for the last time and settled in Rome. For the next ten years he produced paintings for Pope Paul III. After 1545 he devoted himself almost entirely to architecture and poetry. Michelangelo's sculpture during this period was limited to two pietàs that he executed for himself. The first one (1550–55, unfinished), which is in the cathedral in Florence, was meant for his own tomb. His last sculpture was the Rondanini Pietà in Milan, which he started in 1555. He was working on it just six days prior to his death on February 18, 1564.

Other sculptors gain prominence

Of the outstanding sculptors active in the middle of the sixteenth century, more is known about Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571) than about many others because he left behind an autobiography. Trained as a goldsmith, he also made monumental sculptures such as the gigantic bronze Perseus (completed 1554), which stands in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. In the latter part of the century the French-born sculptor Giovanni da Bologna (Giambologna; 1529–1608), who worked in Italy, created monumental figure groups. The most famous are Rape of the Sabines (completed 1583) and Hercules Fighting a Centaur (completed 1599), both of which are in the Loggia dei Lanzi.

As the sixteenth century progressed, autocratic leaders made effective use of sculpture to promote themselves and their luxurious way of life. Bologna's equestrian bronze portrait of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici (1519–1574) was completed in 1595 and placed in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Allegorical stories from classical literature were quite popular. Among them were grand fountain sculptures of the mythological figures Orion (Greek giant hunter) and Neptune (Roman god of the sea) by Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli (c. 1507–1563), which were completed in the 1550s and installed in Messina. Bartolomeo Ammanati (1511–1592) created the Fountain of Neptune (completed 1575), which features many bronze figures of sea divinities, for the Piazza della Signoria.

Sculptural decorations of buildings also became prominent. Jacopo Sansovino, the architect for the city of Venice (see "Architecture" section later in this chapter), made his architecture appear more luxurious by freely integrating sculpture into the design. This style can be seen in Venice in the library of Saint Mark, which was begun in 1537. The relief decoration along the attic of the library features putti (figures of infant boys) carrying festoons (decorative chains), and the balustrade, or railing, rising from the roof is decorated with sculptures. Sansovino also richly adorned the facade beneath the bell tower in the Piazza San Marco (completed 1540) with reliefs and niche statues of virtues (statues of women representing various virtues) and ancient gods. Sixteenth-century Italian sculpture influenced the baroque style of the seventeenth century and had an impact on the rest of Europe.

Architecture

Many architects were active in Italy during the Renaissance as part of the humanist-influenced effort to revive classical culture. They were involved in refurbishing old buildings and constructing new ones according to the style found in Roman ruins. Features of this style included simple but impressive building shapes, columns from the three basic classical orders (Corinthian, Doric, and Ionic), porticos (entrance porches), and loggias (roofed open galleries overlooking courtyards). In addition to reviving the glories of the ancient Roman Republic, architects designed structures to symbolize the growing power of their wealthy patrons, primarily political leaders and popes from prominent families. Cities throughout Italy were crowded with buildings dedicated to rich and influential people. The re-birth of classical architecture took place during the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century there was an increasing trend toward mannerism in the late Renaissance. Mannerist architects rejected the classical style and emphasized unusual treatment of space, wall surfaces, and decorative details. Among the most prominent Renaissance architects were Filippo Brunelleschi in the early Renaissance, Bramante in the High Renaissance, and Michelangelo in the mannerist period. One of the best-known Renaissance architects was Andrea Palladio, who worked during the mannerist period but sought to restore the style of the High Renaissance.

Brunelleschi introduces perspective

Filippo Brunelleschi (pronounced broonail-LAYS-kee; 1377–1446) was an architect, goldsmith, and sculptor. Considered the first Renaissance architect, he formulated the concept of linear perspective, which influenced the depiction of space in painting and sculpture until the late nineteenth century. His refined classical style was inspired by twelfth-century Tuscan architecture and by the buildings of ancient Rome. He used the Corinthian style, the most ornate of the three ancient Greek architectural orders, almost exclusively. It is characterized by large capitals (caps on the tops of columns) decorated with acanthus (a prickly herb) leaves.

Brunelleschi was born in Florence and began his career as a goldsmith. In 1401 he entered the competition for a new set of doors for the Baptistery of the cathedral in Florence, but the commission was awarded to Lorenzo Ghiberti (see "Sculpture" section previously in this chapter). Details of Brunelleschi's life during the next several years are vague, though he probably made trips to Rome to survey its ancient monuments. In 1417 he and other master goldsmiths presented opinions on the design and construction of the great dome that was to be built atop the cathedral in Florence. It was perhaps at this time that Brunelleschi devised the method of constructing linear perspective, which he illustrated in two panels (now lost): one depicted the Baptistery as viewed from the cathedral entrance, and the other illustrated the Palazzo Vecchio.

Beginning in 1418 Brunelleschi concentrated on architecture. That same year he began the church of San Lorenzo. It is a Latin-cross basilica, an early Christian church building consisting of a nave (main part) with three arcaded aisles (passageways lined on each side with pillars supporting high arches), side chapels, and a dome over the crossing (the center point of the cross). In 1419 he designed the loggia of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, a hospital for orphans. This hospital is usually considered the first Renaissance building. In 1420 Brunelleschi began to erect the magnificent dome of the cathedral in Florence dome in collaboration with Ghiberti, who eventually withdrew from the project. In the meantime Brunelleschi was consulted on projects in Pisa, Mantua, and Ferrara, and in 1433 he was again in Rome to study the antiquities.

After returning to Florence in 1434 Brunelleschi worked on central-plan churches. Considered the ideal design during the Renaissance, this type of church is in the shape of a Greek cross, with four equal wings extending from a central circle. Brunelleschi designed Santa Maria degli Angeli, which would have been the first central plan of the Renaissance, but it was never completed. In 1436 Brunelleschi designed another basilican church in Florence, Santo Spirito (constructed 1444–82), which shows a much greater concern for a unified composition than San Lorenzo does. The interior is carefully organized to create a very harmonious space that is the ideal of Renaissance architecture. In 1440 Brunelleschi returned to Pisa for further work on the Citadel, which he had started in 1426. He died at Florence in 1446 and received the unusual honor of being buried in the cathedral in Florence. Brunelleschi's architecture remained influential in Florence through the sixteenth century.

Bramante introduces monumental style

Bramante (also known as Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio; 1444–1514) was the first High Renaissance architect. He transformed the classical architecture initiated by Brunelleschi into a grave and monumental style that represented the ideal for later architects.

Bramante was born at Monte Asdruvaldo near Urbino. Nothing is known of the first thirty years of his life. The first notice of Bramante dates from 1477, when he decorated the facade of the Palazzo del Podestà at Bergamo with a fresco depicting philosophers. Around 1481 he became the court architect for the Sforza family, the rulers of Lombardy (the region that includes Milan). His first important commission began in 1482 with the reconstruction of the church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan. He encountered a challenge with this project because it was a basilica church with transept (part that crosses the nave) and dome over the crossing. It therefore did not allow enough space for a deep choir (the part of the church where the service is performed). Through the ingenious use of perspective in sculptural and painted relief, Bramante gave the illusion of a deep choir space when in fact the area was quite shallow. In 1492 Bramante began the design for the Canons' Cloister (monastery) of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan, but only the southern wing was built at that time. In 1497 he planned four more cloisters (walkways with an arched open side supported by columns) for the monastery, but only two were completed in the sixteenth century.

When the French captured Milan in 1499, Bramante fled to Rome. In preparation for the Jubilee Year of 1500 he painted a fresco featuring the arms of Pope Alexander VI (1431–1503; reigned 1492–1503) at Saint John Lateran Basilica. He also explored ancient Roman monuments. The impact of Roman architecture is evident in his cloister of Santa Maria della Pace in Rome (1500–04). The simple but monumental style of the small square court reflects the classical style adopted during the High Renaissance in Rome. Bramante's Roman style is also represented in the tiny circular Tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio, in Rome (1502).

Appointed papal architect

After the election of Pope Julius II in 1503 Bramante became the official papal architect. He did extensive work in the Vatican Palace. The tremendous Belvedere Court of the Palace (begun in 1503) was terraced up a hillside on three levels joined by monumental stairs. The lower terrace was to serve as a theater. Completed with many revisions in the late sixteenth century, it is now altered almost beyond recognition. Nearby is a spiral, ramped staircase (begun before 1512) that provides access to the statue court beyond the Belvedere Court. As a new facade for the Vatican Palace, Bramante designed a series of superimposed (added to an existing structure) loggias (1509–18), later converted into the Court of San Damaso. Completed by the painter and architect Raphael (see "Painting" section previously in this chapter), the building features two superimposed arcades with Tuscan and Ionic pilasters (column-like structures that extend from a wall). Above them is a colonnade of the Composite order. (The Ionic orderis a style of ancient Greek architecture that features fluted, or grooved, columns set on bases and topped with capitals decorated with scroll designs. The Composite order is a combination of the Ionic order and the Corinthian order, featuring grooved columns topped by capitals with leaf designs.)

In 1505 Pope Julius II decided that Saint Peter's Basilica should be completely rebuilt, and he commissioned Bramante to prepare a plan for the new church. Bramante based his plan on a central Greek cross design. It called for a large dome sitting atop a drum (open circular base) supported by colonnades at the crossing. It also featured four smaller domes and corner towers. When the Greek-cross design was not accepted, he planned to lengthen one arm of the cross to form a nave. He then added ambulatories (walkways) in the wings that projected outward from the crossing. The foundation stone was laid in 1506, but at the time of his death Bramante had erected only the four main piers (bases) and the arches that were to support the dome.

In 1513 the pope bestowed the office of Piombatore, or sealer of the papal briefs, on Bramante. The architect's last work was probably the Palazzo Caprini, which he started after 1510. It had a rusticated ground floor with shops and an upper story with coupled Doric half columns. Owned later by Raphael, the Palazzo Caprini became the model for numerous palaces, especially in northern Italy. Bramante died in 1514 and was buried in Old Saint Peter's Basilica.

Michelangelo the architect

The great Renaissance painter and sculptor Michelangelo was an equally accomplished architect. In 1547 Pope Paul III appointed him to direct construc tion of Saint Peter's Basilica, the largest church in the Christian world and the symbol of papal authority. It is now considered the crowning achievement of Renaissance architecture, yet the project was beset by problems from the very beginning. In 1506 Pope Julius II decided that Saint Peter's should be entirely rebuilt, and he appointed Bramante to draft the design of the new church. Records show that Bramante originally planned the building in the shape of a Greek cross topped by a great dome at the center. This design caused considerable controversy throughout the sixteenth century, since many people wanted the church to be built in the shape of a Latin cross (a long shaft crossed with a shorter shaft above the middle).

By the time Michelangelo took over the project, two other architects—Raphael and Antonio da Sangallo (1583–1446)—had changed the design, and construction was delayed. When Michelangelo died in 1564 the building was completed in its present form up to the dome. Giacomo della Porta (c. 1537–1602) then altered the design again (he may have used a model made by Michelangelo) and completed the dome in 1590. Finally, supporters of the Latin cross design won, and Carlo Maderna (1556–1629) added a nave and facade, which were completed in 1614.

In 1538 Pope Paul III also commissioned Michelangelo to redesign and refurbish Capitoline Hill, the geographical and ceremonial center of ancient Rome. As with many of Michelangelo's other commissions, the project was completed after his death. At the direction of Paul III, Michelangelo also directed construction of the Farnese Palace in 1546. During the reign of Pope Pius IV (1499–1565; reigned 1559–65) Michelangelo designed the Porta Pia, converted the Roman Baths of Diocletion into the Christian church of Santa Maria segli Angeli, and designed the Sforza Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore. Thus, Michelangelo became an urban planner as well as an architect, helping to transform the appearance of Rome.

Palladio influenced by Roman ruins

Andrea Palladio (also known as Andrea di Pietro della Gondola; 1508–1580) is one of the architects most closely associated with the Renaissance. A native of Padua, he apprenticed as a stonemason in Vicenza. By 1537 he had joined the circle of Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478–1550), a humanist and aristocrat. Trissino gathered in his villa an academy of intellectually promising young men from Vicenza. Trissino's impact on Palladio was great: through Trissino he was first exposed to humanist education, learned Latin, and was introduced to the treatise on architecture by Marcellus Vitruvius Pollio (called Vitruvius; first century b.c.), the ancient Roman architect and engineer. Through Trissino, Palladio also became acquainted with many important intellectuals. The name Palladio, which he adopted in about 1545, came from Trissino's circle. In the 1540s Palladio visited Rome at least five times, often in the company of Trissino. During a trip in 1546–47 he met Michelangelo. Preserved drawings show that Palladio spent much of his time in Rome studying and surveying the Roman ruins.

Palladio's study of Roman ruins led him to pursue a career as an architect in the late 1530s. The breakthrough in his career came in the late 1540s, when the city council of Vicenza commissioned him to complete the facade of the Basilica, the city's public palace. The Basilica is actually a complex of medieval buildings that were reorganized into a single structure during the fifteenth century. The entire structure had been surrounded by arcades in a medieval style called Gothic. The arcades collapsed soon after they were completed in 1496. Over the next fifty years city leaders looked for an architect to design a new facade in the Renaissance style. Palladio resolved the structural problems by adapting Bramante's fifteenth-century classical designs rather than the mannerist style that was then in fashion.

Popularizes classical villa

Palladio's contribution to Renaissance architecture was the villa, or large country house, which became popular throughout Europe. A series of villas built during the 1550s and 1560s represent the model that is associated with Palladio. All these villas have a vaulted sala, or central hall, that can be square or rectangular, or in the shape of a cross or the letter "T." A row of rooms lines each side of the sala, and the facade has a Greco-Roman temple portico (a Roman style influenced by the Greeks). A few villas have an upper story, in which the same design is repeated. The popularity of the villa resulted from changes in the Venetian economy and an increasing trend toward agriculture. Villas functioned as homes for noble-men on agricultural estates. Palladio's most famous structure was the Villa Rotonda, known also as Villa Capra, which was built in the late 1560s for the retired papal secretary Paolo Almerico. Located on a hill near Vicenza, the villa had a central hall covered by a dome with four big rooms in the corners and four smaller rooms next to them. Four identical porticoes open on all four facades. Over the centuries, the Rotonda became the prime example of Palladio's architecture and has been copied many times in various parts of the world.

Throughout his career Palladio maintained contacts with humanists. Among them was Daniele Barbaro (1513–1570), a scholar and member of the Venetian high nobility. The patron of several artists, Barbaro helped Palladio establish his reputation and introduced him to prospective Venetian clients. Palladio also designed a villa for Barbaro and Barbaro's brother Marcantonio. By the mid-1550s Palladio was working on Four Books on Architecture, which he published in 1570. Book one of this work discusses elements of architecture and the theory of the classical orders. Book two presents plans for residential buildings Palladio designed. Book three describes a number of bridges Palladio designed and gives an account of his work on the Basilica in Vicenza. Book four contains Palladio's surveys of Roman temples. During the latter part of his career he began working on churches. His greatest ecclesiastical building was the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, which was started in 1566. In 1570 Palladio succeeded Jacopo Sansovino (1486–1570) as the main architectural adviser for the Venetian republic. The ten years from this appointment until his death in 1580 were marked by one grand project, the votive church of Redentore.

Many scholars consider Palladio to be the foremost Renaissance architect. The influence of his Four Books on Architecture is second only to that of Regola delli cinque ordini d'archittura (Canon of the five orders of architecture; 1563) by the architectural theorist Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (1507–1573). Vignola's work was a detailed description of classical architecture and served as a manual for the education of Renaissance architects. Palladio's book shifted the focus from theory to practice by showing how classical ideas were used in Renaissance buildings. His designs were often copied, and his innovative use of classical architecture became common practice. Palladio had an immense influence on architects in Italy. By the seventeenth century his ideas had also arrived in England through the efforts of the English designer Inigo Jones (see "Architecture" in Chapter 9). Soon Palladio's style was spreading across Europe. Interest in his work did not wane even in the twentieth century, when architects were again focusing on Palladio's use of details from the classical orders.

Performing arts

Not only was the Renaissance known for advances in poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture, it was also an important era in the development of the performing arts. Both music and theater underwent substantial changes during the Renaissance period.

Music

A major turning point occurred in European music at the beginning of the Renaissance, in the first half of the fifteenth century. Increasing commercial activity and economic prosperity contributed to a thriving cultural life at princely courts. Musicians were in great demand, both as composers and performers, by wealthy patrons. Most musicians came from the Low Countries (called the Netherlands school) and from France and Flanders (called the Franco-Flemish school). They traveled throughout Europe and lived at the courts of noble-men, civic leaders, popes, and cardinals. In northern Italy the most prominent courts were those of the Medici family in Florence and the Sforzas in Milan. Popes and cardinals in Rome were also important patrons of composers, choirmasters, and singers. A typical musician was Josquin des Prez (c. 1440–1521), the most influential composer of his day. A native of Flanders (a region in what is now Belgium), he served the Sforza family in Milan, the papal choir in Rome, and Duke Hercules I of Ferrara. He also served at the court of King Louis XII of France before returning to Flanders in 1516. Josquin des Prez and other composers developed musical techniques that became the basis of later innovations. The invention of the printing press, which was perfected in the 1450s by the German inventor Johannes Gutenberg, facilitated the spread of knowledge about the latest musical trends. Now music could be mass produced and distributed beyond the region where it was composed.

Vocal music

Extensive creative and experimental activity took place in vocal music during the late fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. In the early 1400s, at the end of the Middle Ages, polyphonic music consisted of three singing parts. (Polyphonic music is sung by voices in two or more separate parts, or melodic lines, to produce harmony.) In the late fifteenth century a fourth part was added to produce a fuller sound. This development led to the duet style, a feature of Josquin's music, in which the two upper parts might sing a passage and then be echoed by the two lower parts. Soon another technique called imitation (one voice repeating a figure sung by another voice) gave more equality to the parts. Along with imitation came the "familiar style," in which all parts are sung together in chords. In northern Italy the familiar style gave rise to the frottola, a three-or four-part song based on a poem. The emergence of the frottola led to the development of the Renaissance madrigal.

The origin of the term "madrigal" is uncertain, but it probably comes from the Latin matricale (in the mother tongue; in this case Italian). The madrigal was based on a poem and consisted of two or three stanzas of three lines each, with seven or eleven syllables per line. It was sung by four voices in two parts that reflected the structure of the poem. Until the late fifteenth century, music masters from northern France and the Netherlands used poems from their own regions. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Renaissance madrigal was emerging in Florence and Mantua. It was based on traditional Italian music, such as the Florentine carnival song as well as the Mantuan frottola. The sixteenth-century madrigal also utilized various types of poems. It comprised a five-to fourteen-line stanza of seven or eleven syllables per line. The last two lines formed a rhyming couplet. Sung by four or five voices, the Renaissance madrigal had a more complex musical structure involving interwoven melodies that expressed certain emotions. Dramatic effect therefore became as important as the music and the text. As in the Middle Ages, the mass and the motet (choral composition based on a sacred text) were the main forms of sacred, or religious, vocal music during the Renaissance. Although sacred music style remained conservative, some of the newer techniques of secular, or nonreligious, music were introduced during the Catholic Reformation.

Instrumental music

New ways of using musical instruments were emerging along with the development of vocal music. Instruments had been commonly used throughout the Middle Ages, but they were usually played along with or substituted for voices in polyphonic pieces. Instruments also provided music for dancing. As the Renaissance progressed, instrumentalists began experimenting with rhythms, tones, phrasing, and ornamentation of melodies. The invention of music printing helped spread information about new techniques.

The major instruments were the lute, the organ, and stringed keyboard instruments. The most popular and versatile was the lute. The two main classes of keyboard instruments, which resemble the modern-day piano, were the clavichord and the harpsichord. There were many types of harpsichord, such the virginal, spinet, clavecin, and clavicembalo. Instrumental ensembles, or groups, were called consorts, and many consorts consisted of only one type of instrument, such as viols, woodwinds, recorders, and shawms (loud oboes). Consorts of brass instruments such as the cornet (a type of trumpet) and sackbut (an early trombone) were also common. Mixed consorts of various types of instruments were more popular, though the combinations depended on the players available. Organs were used as accompaniment for sacred music.

Two styles of music

By the seventeenth century, two distinct musical styles had been established. The first, called prima prattica, was the style of the sixteenth century, which had evolved from the Franco-Flemish music of the late Middle Ages. The other, called seconda prattica, was a more theatrical, dramatic style that was practiced primarily in Italy. It is usually associated with the baroque period, which came after the Renaissance but is nevertheless considered a continuation of the music of that era. The seconda prattica led to a distinction between sacred and secular music and between vocal and instrumental music. There were also distinctions between music of different countries. The medieval forms of melody and harmony were gradually replaced by a system known as tonality. This system was based on contrasting keys, or sets of interrelated notes and chords derived from a major or minor scale. It gave rise to the concertato, which involved the contrast, combination, and alternation of voices and instruments. The concertato was based on the basso continuo, an accompaniment consisting of a low-pitched instrument, such as a violoncello or a bassoon, combined with a keyboard instrument or lute. Tonality remained a standard part of Western music until the twentieth century.

A prominent Italian composer is associated with each of these styles. Giovanni Palestrina represented the achievement of Renaissance music, or prima prattica, of the sixteenth century. Claudio Monteverdi is considered the greatest innovator of seconda prattica in the baroque era of the seventeenth century.

Palestrina known for sacred works

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525–1594) was the foremost composer of the sixteenth century. His sacred works represent one of the great achievements of Renaissance music.

Born Giovanni Pierluigi, the composer adopted the name of his native town, Palestrina, which is located near Rome. Little is known about his early life, though it is assumed that at the age of seven he was a choir singer at the church of Saint Agapit in Palestrina. Records show that he was a member of the choir at the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome in 1537. Palestrina served at the basilica until his nineteenth birthday. During this time he probably received musical training from Jacques Arcadelt (c. 1505–1568). In 1544 Palestrina returned to his native town as organist and singing master at the local church. Over the next six years he married, fathered the first of his three sons, and began composing. Most important for his future career was the attention given his music by the new bishop of Palestrina, Cardinal del Monte. Del Monte became Pope Julius III in 1550, and the following year he appointed Palestrina choirmaster of the Julian Chapel at Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.

All singers in this choir traditionally were unmarried, and they were admitted only after rigorous examination. Since the pope had ignored these requirements, Palestrina's appointment was viewed with little enthusiasm. In 1554 Palestrina published his first book of masses and dedicated it to Julius. The following year he was promoted to singer in the pontifical choir. When Julius died the following year, Pope Paul IV (1476–1559; reigned 1555–59) enforced the celibacy rule as part of the Catholic Reformation and dismissed Palestrina from Julian Chapel. The pope then appointed Palestrina choirmaster at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, where he remained until 1560. For the next eleven years he held posts at various other churches. In 1571 he was reappointed choirmaster at the Julian Chapel. Seven years later he was given the title of master of music at Saint Peter's, a position he held for the rest of his life.

The "Prince of Music"

Palestrina's works included the major types of late Renaissance music: masses, motets, and madrigals. He wrote 105 masses and 250 motets, but madrigals played a small role in his compositions because he was primarily interested in sacred music. Using original techniques, he frequently adapted polyphony to such traditional forms as plainsong (early Christian chants), hymns, and biblical texts. He often created as many as eight interwoven parts in counterpoint (separate melodies sung above or below a main melody). Yet Palestrina had a carefully controlled, sensitive style that adhered closely to his chosen text and lacked the drama of music by other composers at the time. His religious compositions, especially the masses, were of such high quality that he was called the "Prince of Music." Palestrina's most famous mass was Missa Papae Marcelli, which he dedicated to Pope Marcellus II (1501–1555; reigned 1555).

Palestrina wrote his works during a period of change in the Roman Catholic Church. For twenty years, from 1545 to 1565, the church held a series of meetings called the Council of Trent (see "Council of Trent" in Chapter 7). The purpose of the council was to initiate reforms at every level of religious life. A frequent topic of discussion was simplifying the music used in the liturgy, or church service. Some officials even suggested totally eliminating polyphonic music because it was too elaborate and secular and distracted from the solemnity of the worship service. In 1562 the council issued a canon, or church law, stating that all secular matter must be removed from liturgical music. While music should be pleasing to the ear, it must also be simple and direct, having no embellishments that would interfere with an understanding of the text. Historians have speculated that Palestrina composed his masses to fit the requirements of the Council of Trent. An example is the Missa Papae Marcelli. According to one story, Palestrina saved the art of music with this work by dedicating it to Marcellus, who advocated reform. There seems to be no evidence that Palestrina deliberately modified his compositions, for scholars point out that he never showed any real interest in highly dramatic or experimental sacred music. It is known, however, that Palestrina's works were performed for, and approved by, Cardinal Carlo Borromeo. Borromeo was charged with making certain that liturgical music was free of secular tunes and unintelligible texts.

Palestrina Creates Oratorio

Giovanni Palestrina is credited with creating the oratorio, a lengthy religious choral work that features recitatives (singing that resembles speaking), arias, and choruses without action or scenery. He composed oratorios for a Catholic group called the Oratorian congregation in Rome. The organization was founded by the Italian priest and reformer Philip Neri (1515–1595). Philip made friends easily, and in the late 1550s he began meeting regularly with some of them in his room, the "Oratory," at the church of San Girolamo della Carità. Philip disliked formality and loved spontaneity. He gave his little groups a definite character with Scripture readings, short commentaries, brief prayers, and hymns. Palestrina set many of the scriptural texts to music, creating the "oratorio"—named for Philip's room—a form of musical presentation that is still popular today.

Palestrina also was consulted on musical matters by church officials. In a papal order of 1577 Palestrina and a colleague, Annibale Zoilo, were directed to revise the Graduale Romanum, the list of liturgical music used by the church. Their job was to purge all of the secular tunes that had accumulated during the centuries. Palestrina never did complete this laborious task. A new list, the Medicean Gradual, was released in the early seventeenth century. Although it is sometimes thought to be Palestrina's work, it was actually compiled by others. Since the Renaissance, Palestrina has been regarded as one of the foremost composers of sacred music. Yet his reputation suffered somewhat at the end of the nineteenth century, when his works were reduced to a set of composition "rules" by music teachers at academies and universities. Subsequent generations of young composers thus produced "Palestrinian" music that failed to meet the standards of free expression that the master achieved in his own compositions.

Monteverdi known for innovation

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (1567–1643) was the foremost Italian composer of the seventeenth century. During his long career he mastered the main forms of Renaissance music, such as motets and madrigals, but he is best known for his operas. Monteverdi now ranks as one of the major European composers of all time.

A native of Cremona, Monteverdi studied composition with Marc' Antonio Ingegneri (c. 1547–1592), the music director at the cathedral in Cremona. Around 1590 Monteverdi became a string player at the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga (1562–1612) in Mantua. By this time he had already published three books of madrigals and two books of songs. In 1602 he was promoted to maestro della cappella (chorus master). Within the next five years he published two more madrigal books and the first set of compositions called Scherzi musicali, a form of vocal chamber music. (Chamber music is composed for performance in a private room or small auditorium, usually with one performer for each part.) Until 1605 his musical compositions consisted mainly of madrigals for five voices. Thereafter he experimented with seconda practtica, new combinations of voices and instruments.

In 1607 Monteverdi's first opera, La favola d'Orfeo, was performed in Mantua. Orfeo tells the story of the Greek god Orpheus who makes a journey to Hades (the underworld) to rescue his wife Euridyce by charming Pluto (Greek god of the underworld) and Persephone (daughter of Zeus and Demeter, abducted by Pluto) with his lyre, or harp. The opera represented a cross section of musical forms of the early seventeenth century—including choruses in complex harmony, solo ensembles, arias (elaborate melodies sung by one voice), dances, and independent instrumental pieces. The orchestra consisted of more than forty instruments, including harpsichords, organs, strings, woodwind, and brass. The music director mainly decided which instruments were played when, though in certain instances Monteverdi specified the instrumentation. For example, the spirits of Hades are accompanied by two organs, five trom-bones, two bass gambas, and a violone. The combination of these instruments produces a strikingly dark sound. In fact, as a result of this opera, trombones have traditionally been associated with anything "infernal" (related to hell or the underworld).

Composes great operas

Vincenzo died in 1612, and Monteverdi was dismissed from his position by Vincenzo's successor, Ferdinand. For more than a year Monteverdi tried to find employment that would match his fame as a composer. Finally, in 1613, he was appointed to one of the most prestigious musical positions in Italy, that of maestro di cappella at the famous basilica of Saint Mark's in Venice. Monteverdi spent the rest of his life in Venice, dying there in 1643. He had a highly productive career during his thirty years at Saint Mark's. In addition to completely reorganizing the whole musical setup and raising the standards of the singers and instrumentalists, he composed a quantity of music, both sacred and secular. Most of Monteverdi's sacred music consisted of masses, though he also composed songs, litanies (repetitive chants), and magnificats (songs of praise). His secular music can be divided into two types: chamber and dramatic. The chamber category includes madrigals and the second set of Scherzi musicali (1632). The dramatic category includes nine operas, three ballets, and the dramatic cantata Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624). This work is still performed today, as are the ballets Tirisi e Clori (1616) and Volgendo il ciel (1637). Monteverdi's last two operas, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (1641) and L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642), have also survived. Poppea is now considered one of the masterpieces of Western music.

Poppea was the first opera on a historical subject (as opposed to mythological, biblical, or poetical subjects). It is based on the true story of the Roman emperor Nero (a.d. 37–68) and his infatuation with the beautiful courtier, Poppaea Sabina (died a.d. 65). Nero's obsession led him to repudiate the rightful empress of Rome, his wife Ottavia, and to crown his lover, Poppaea, as the true empress. This ill-fated union ended in Poppaea's murder at the hands of Nero. (According to one account, Nero kicked or stomped Poppaea to death.) Monteverdi's opera, however, deals only with Nero's early obsession, his repudiation of Ottavia, and the coronation of Poppaea. In composing Poppea Monteverdi largely rejected spectacular effects and relied more on characterization of the leading figures. He balanced music and drama, making the music seem to spring directly from the actions of the characters.

Monteverdi's influence, both before and after his death, was not equal to his achievement. He was not part of a "school" (a group of musicians following similar styles and practices) and therefore had no followers. One reason was that musical taste and fashion were changing rapidly during the last phase of the Renaissance and the beginning of the baroque period. Nevertheless, today Monteverdi is regarded as one of the outstanding composers of all time. He used music as a vehicle for drama, portraying a wide range of human emotions and personalities.

Theater

In the mid-1500s a distinctive form of theater appeared in northern Italy. It differed from all other kinds of entertainment available in the Italian peninsula from antiquity through the Middle Ages. Later called commedia dell'arte (pronounced kuh-MAY-deeuh dell ahr-tee), this type of theater was performed by companies of professional actors who played specific characters. They improvised plots and the characters took on various identities, depending on the materials at hand as well as the talents and knowledge of the actors. Commedia dell'arte troupes (companies) became immensely popular with their colorful, antic plays, which incorporated many aspects of the culture and society of the day. Several troupes toured throughout Italy and eventually into most parts of Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

Commedia dell'arte

Scholars have attempted to determine the origins of commedia dell'arte. Many speculate that it can be traced to mime and farce, forms of theater that were passed down through the ages from ancient times. (Mime is an ancient dramatic entertainment that depicts scenes from life, usually in a ridiculous manner. Farce is an entertaining dramatic composition that uses satire, or criticism through humor, and an improbable plot.) Scholars do know that farces were performed in local dialects (versions of a language spoken in particular places) throughout Italy during the Middle Ages. The name "commedia dell'arte" itself remains ambiguous. "Arte" refers to a professional guild, though the companies never organized as one; it also refers to skill in theatrical craft. "Commedia" usually indicates commercial acting and the improvisation on a three-act scenario (called soggetto), for which the troupes were famous.

According to historical records, the first commedia dell'arte company appeared in Padua in 1545. Eight men signed a contract agreeing to perform comedies as a traveling troupe. The roaming players set up trestle tables in piazzas (public squares) and earned money by passing a hat to collect donations. In the 1560s the informal bands of players gave way to prosperous companies like the Gelosi, the Accesi, the Dsiosi, the Confidenti, and the Fideli. These companies boasted popular leading ladies and performed scripted comedies, tragedies, and pastorals before private audiences. Typically, commedia dell'arte was improvised using skeletal scripts of accomplished literary plots such as urban domestic conflicts between generations and love affairs encouraged by shrewd, bawdy servants. These plots involved tricks and high jinks, deceits and errors, disguises, cross-dressing (one gender wearing the clothes of the opposite gender), and disappearance—all ending happily in marriages and family reunions.

The companies recruited strolling players, acrobats, street entertainers, and actors. Adapting to the tastes of their audiences, they experimented with dialects, comic action, exaggeration, and parody. With little scenery and minimal costumes, the actors used their wit and inventiveness to create atmosphere and depict characters. The scenarios changed frequently, and companies used ten to twelve actors who specialized in stock characters (fixed types), who performed with or without masks.

Stock characters

Commedia dell'arte ensembles included several stock characters. Every company found it necessary to feature fashionable young lovers who spoke in an elegant Tuscan dialect. The lovers performed without masks, as did maidservants, another set of stock characters. A standard maidservant role, the middle-aged Franceschina, was often played by a man. Fathers of the two young lovers were Pantalone (Pantaloon) and Dottore Gratiano, who were masked or had facial disguises. Pantalone was a serious-minded Venetian merchant, rarely played as a comic figure, who gave good advice and launched into long tirades. Dottore (doctor) Gratiano was a gullible and lecherous Bolognese lawyer who affected great learning by speaking in a mixture of Italian and Latin. Commedia dell'arte also relied heavily on clowns, or zanni, often played by acrobats. Zanni were clever or buffoonish servants who varied their identities and dialects depending on the company or the actors' individual talents.

The zanni had various names, such as Panzanino, Buratino, Scapino, Fritellino, Trappolino, Arlecchino, Pedrolino, Pulcinella, and Brighella. The most famous were Arlecchino (now known as Harlequin), Pedrolino, and Pulcinella. Harlequin was a childlike, amorous (prone to falling in love) acrobat and a wit. He wore a catlike mask and multicolored clothes and carried a bat or wooden sword (the origin of the modern comedy form slapstick). Harlequin's sidekick was Brighella, a more sophisticated and scheming character who would do anything for money. Pedrolino was a white-faced dreamer, who became Pierrot in French theater. The character Pulcinella was adapted as Punchinello, or Punch, in the popular English Punch and Judy puppet shows. He was a dwarfish character with a large crooked nose. A cruel bachelor, he liked to chase pretty girls.

Other important figures were the Capitano and Columbina. The Capitano was a swaggering mustached captain who often had a terrifying name like Matamoros, Cardone, Spavento da Vall' Inferna, Cocodrille, and Sbranaleoni. Columbina was a maidservant who was often paired in love matches with Arlecchino, Pedrolino, or the Capitano. With Harlequin she became a main character in the English pantomime, the harlequinade. The many lesser characters called for in commedia dell'arte scenarios—Gypsies, drunken innkeepers, and peasants—could be played by actors doubling in roles. When pastorals or tragedies were improvised, the troupe would add nymphs, shepherds, satyrs, magicians, kings, queens, warriors, spirits, and wild animals to the evening's performance.

Commedia dell'arte was despised by cultivated writers, who considered it plagiarized (copied from other works), obscene, and shapeless. The comic players did indeed steal material from established dramatic forms. Nevertheless, the literary playwrights also learned from the comici (commedia dell'arte actors) how to enliven their scripts with variety, physical action, and more complete female roles. Acting was not yet a respectable profession, but successful troupes benefited from patrons like the Gonzagas in Mantua and the Medicis in Florence and their royal relatives in France. In the late 1500s commedia dell'arte troupes began foreign tours, traveling to France and Spain, crossing the English Channel, and going as far east as Poland. The Italian troupes had a special rapport with French audiences, and commedia dell'arte humor had a direct influence on the works of the French actor and playwright Molière (1622–1673).

Commedia dell'arte began to decline when foreign audiences could not understand the humor of Italian dialects. The comic antics of the characters also became too predictable as actors stopped improvising their roles. By the late 1600s commedia dell'arte no longer reflected the conditions of real life, and an important function of the comedy was lost. Nevertheless, the traveling troupes had already made a strong impact on all European theater. Commedia dell'arte received scholarly attention in the 1800s, and in the twentieth century it was once again being performed.