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Artist: Brunelleschi
Title: Hospital of the Innocents
Church: Piazza della St. Annunziata
Location: Italy
Date: 1419-44
Notes: This is a hospital made for sick children. a notable example of early Italian Renaissance architecture. There are glazed blue terracotta roundels with reliefs of babies suggesting the function of the building. |
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Artist: Brunelleschi
Title: Dome
Church: Florence Cathedral
Location: Italy
Date: 1417-36
Notes: The size of this dome was the biggest at the time. Brunelleschi studied the Pantheon to decide how the dome would be constructed. He ended up building a double layer dome,with brick at first since it was much lighter than stone. The lantern was up for a competition and Brunelleschi one that as well. Construction started a few months before his death, and was then forgotten about for 20 or so years when his friend completed it for him in 1461. |
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Artist: Piero del Francesca
Title: Flagellation of Christ
Location: Italy
Date: 1451
Notes: The panel is much admired for its use of linear perspective and the air of stillness that pervades the work. Also admired for the realistic rendering of the hall in which the flagellation scene is situated in relation to the size of the figures and for the geometrical order of the composition. The portrait of the bearded man at the front is considered unusually intense for Piero's time. |
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Artist: Botticelli
Title: The Birth of Venus
Location: Italy
Date:1484-86
Notes: Depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a full grown woman, arriving at the sea-shore. 15th-century viewers would have looked at the painting and felt their minds lifted to the realm of divine love. Venus' body is anatomically improbable, with elongated neck and torso. Her pose is impossible: although she stands in a classical contrapposto stance, her weight is shifted too far over the left leg for the pose to be held. |
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Artist: Leonardo Da Vinci
Title: Madonna of the Rocks
Location: Italy
Date: 1483
Notes: Most authorities agree that the work is very largely by Leonardo. This painting is a perfect example of Leonardo's "sfumato" technique. The word "Sfumato" comes from the Italian sfumare, which means "to tone down" or "to evaporate like smoke." It refers to da Vinci's fine shading and subtle transitions from light to dark giving his paintings an illusionistic atmosphere. Seem to draw on a legend of the meeting between the baby Jesus and John the Baptist on the flight into Egypt |
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Artist: Leonardo Da Vinci
Title: Madonna and Child with St. Anne
Location: Italy
Date: 1508-13
Notes: St. Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. Christ is shown grappling with a sacrificial lamb symbolising his Passion whilst the Virgin tries to restrain him. The painting was commissioned as the high altarpiece for the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence and its theme had long preoccupied Leonardo. |
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Artist: Leonardo Da Vinci
Title: Mona Lisa
Location: Italy
Date: 1502-14
Notes: its the mona lisa.. The ambiguity of the subject's expression, the monumentality of the composition, and the subtle modeling of forms and atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the continuing fascination and study of the work. ona Lisa is named for Lisa del Giocondo, a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany and the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The painting was commissioned for their new home and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea |
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Artist: Michelangelo
Title: Pieta
location: Italy
Date: 1500
Notes: The pieta is a sculpture made from marble. Housed in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. It is the first of a number of works of the same theme by the artist. The statue was commissioned for the French cardinal Jean de Billheres. It is the only piece Michelangelo ever signed. depicts the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion. The structure is pyramidal, and the vertex coincides with Mary's head. |
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Artist: Michelangelo
Title: Sistine Chapel Ceiling
Location: Italy
Date: 1508-12
Notes: ignudi - the 20 athletic, nude males that Michelangelo painted as supporting figures at the each corner of the five smaller narrative scenes that run along the centre of the ceiling.
Sibyls - prophetic women who were resident at shrines or temples throughout the Classical World. The five depicted here are each said to have prophesied the birth of Christ.
Prophets - The seven prophets of Israel chosen for depiction on the ceiling include the four so-called Major Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. |
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Artist: Raphael
Title: The School of Athens
Location: Rome - Italy
Date: 1510-1511
Notes: The "School of Athens" is one of a group of four main frescoes on the walls of the Stanza (those on either side centrally interrupted by windows) that depict distinct branches of knowledge. Among those who can be identified with some certainty: Plato, Aristoteles, Socrates, Pythagoras[8], Euclid[9], Ptolemy, Zoroaster, Raphael, Sodoma and Diogenes. |
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Artist: Raphael
Title: Transfiguration
Location: Rome - Italy
Date: 1517
Notes: Last painting done by Raphael. It was left unfinished by Raphael, and is believed to have been completed by his pupil, Giulio Romano, shortly after Raphael's death in 1520. Expresses a connection between God and his people. |
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Artist: Correggio
Title: Assumption of the Virgin
Location: Italy
Date: 1524
Notes: The composition was influenced by Melozzo da Forlì's perspective and includes the decoration of the dome base, which represents the four protector saints of Parma: St. John the Baptist with the lamb, St. Hilary with a yellow mantle, St. Thomas[1] by with an angel carrying the martyrdom palm leave, and St. Bernard, the sole figure looking upwards. |
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Artist: Dürer
Title: Adam and Eve
Location: Germany
Date: 1504
Note: Shows his subtlety while using the burin in the texturing of flesh surfaces. This is the only existing engraving signed with his full name. |
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Artist: Dürer
Title: Four Apostles
Location: Germany
Date: 1526
Notes: The last of his large works. It depicts the four apostles larger-than-life-size.
* John: sanguine
* St. Peter: phlegmatic
* St. Mark: choleric
* St. Paul: melancholy |
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Artist: Bellini
Title: Madonna and Child Enthroned with 4 Saints
Location: Italy
Date: 1505
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Artist: Titian
Title: Assumption of the Virgin
Location: Italy
Date:1516-18
Notes: It commemorates the rising of Mary in heaven before the decay of her body. It is a sign of her passing into eternal life and thus it a holy day of obligation. This picture shows different events in three layers. In the lowest layer are the Apostles. |
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Artist: Titian
Title: Venus of Urbino
Location: Italy
Date: 1438
Notes: It depicts a nude young woman, identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace. Titian has domesticated Venus by moving her to an indoor setting, engaging her with the viewer, and making her sensuality explicit. Devoid as it is of any classical or allegorical trappings -Venus displays none of the attributes of the goddess she is supposed to represent- the painting is unapologetically erotic. |
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Artist: Veronese
Title: Feast in the House of Levi
Location: Italy
Date: 1573
Notes: one of the largest canvases of the 16th century measuring 555 x 1280 cm (18 x 42 feet) It was painted by Veronese for the Dominican order of SS. Giovanni Paolo to replace an earlier work by Titian destroyed in the fire of 1571. Originally named the painting the Lord's Last Supper, meaning the last meal that Christ had shared with the apostles. This connotation was seen as derogatory towards The Last Supper story of the Bible. Veronese however was not charged but was forced to rename the painting as The Feast in the House of Levi. |
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Artist: Bernini
Title: Pluto and Proserpina
Location: Italy
Date: 1621-22
Notes: Bernini was only 23 years old at its completion. It depicts Proserpina being seized and taken to the underworld by Pluto, depicting "rape" in its archaic definition of "kidnapping." Upon closer examination, one would notice the delicately crafted marble tears that look as though they are dripping down her face. |
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Artist: Bernini
Title: St. Peter's Square
Location: Rome - Italy
Date: 1656-1667
Notes: Designed "so that the greatest number of people could see the Pope give his blessing, either from the middle of the façade of the church or from a window in the Vatican Palace." The site's possibilities were under many constraints from existing structures (illustration, right). The massed accretions of the Vatican Palace crowded the space to the right of the basilica's façade; the structures needed to be masked without obscuring the papal apartments. |
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Artist: Francesco Borromini
Title: S. Ivo
Location: Rome- Italy
Date: Begun 1642
Notes: Borromini was forced to adapt his design to the already existing palace. He choose a plan resembling a star of David, and merged the facade of the church with the courtyard of the palace. The dome, with its corkscrew lantern, is remarkable in its novelty. |
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Artist: Caravaggio
Title: Conversion of St. Paul
Location: Rome
Date 1601
Notes: According to Caravaggio's early biographer Giovanni Baglione, both paintings were rejected by Cerasi, and replaced by the second versions which hang in the chapel today. Records the moment when Saul of Tarsus, on his way to Damascus to annihilate the Christian community there, is struck blind by a brilliant light and hears the voice of Christ saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?...And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid, but they heard not the voice..." |
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Artist: Caravaggio
Title: Death of the Virgin
Location: Italy Rome
Date: 1605-1606
Notes: The painting recalls the Entombment in the Vatican in scope, sobriety, and the photographic naturalism. The figures are nearly life-sized. Surrounding the Virgin are overcome Mary Magdalen and apostles. Others shuffle in behind them. He expresses the greater grief of the former not by a more emotive face, but by hiding their faces. |
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Artist: Brunelleschi
Title: Church of San Lorenzo
Location: Italy
Date: 1419-60's
Notes: was not completed until after his death. The history is a bit wishy washy due to the fact it wasnt primarily designed by Brunelleschi, especially after his death it seemed to take a different route than it's initial plans. |
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Artist: Alberti
Title: Church of Sant'Andrea
Location: Italy
Date: 1470
Notes: It is largely a brick structure with hardened stucco used for the surface. It is defined by a large central arch, flanked by Corinthian pilasters. There are smaller openings to the right and left of the arch. |
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Artist: Botticelli
Title: Primavera
Location: Italy
Date: 1482
Notes: depicting a group of mythological figures in a garden, is allegorical for the lush growth of Spring, other meanings have also been explored. Among them, the work is sometimes cited as illustrating the ideal of Neoplatonic love. The painting features six female figures and two male, along with a blindfolded putto, in an orange grove. |
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Artist: Andra del Verrocchio
Title: Equestrian Monument of Colleoni
Location: Italy
Date: 1481-96
Notes: It was the first attempt to produce such a group with one of the horse's legs not touching the base. The statue is also notable for the carefully observed expression of stern command upon Colleoni's face. Verrocchio sent to his commissioners a wax model in 1480, and in 1488 he finally moved to Venice to assist at the casting of the group. However, he died in the same year, before the work was finished. |
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Artist: Da Vinci
Title: The Last Supper
Location: Italy (Refectory)
Date: 1495-98
Notes: created by Leonardo da Vinci for his patron Duke Ludovico Sforza. Represents the scene of The Last Supper from the final days of Jesus as narrated in the Gospel of John 13:21, when Jesus announces that one of his Twelve Apostles would betray him. The Last Supper specifically portrays the reaction given by each apostle when Jesus said one of them would betray him. All twelve apostles have different reactions to the news, with various degrees of anger and shock. Judas did it. |
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Artist: Ruebens coppied it after Leonardo
Title: The Battle of Anghiari
Location: Italy
Date: 1503-06
Notes: He drew a scene of a violent clash of horses and a furious battle of men fighting for the flag in the Battle of Anghiari. "It would be impossible to express the inventiveness of Leonardo's design for the soldiers' uniforms, which he sketched in all their variety, or the crests of the helmets and other ornaments, not to mention the incredible skill he demonstrated in the shape and features of the horses, which Leonardo, better than any other master, created with their boldness, muscles and graceful beauty." |
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Artist: Michelangelo
Title: Bacchus
Location: Italy
Date: 1496-98
Notes: the Roman god of wine, in a revolutionary inebriated state. Depicted with rolling eyes, his staggering body almost teetering off the rocky outcrop on which he stands. Sitting behind him is a faun, who eats the bunch of grapes slipping out of Bacchus's left hand. |
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Artist: Michelangelo
Title: David
Location: Italy
Date: 1501-04
Notes: The statue represents the Biblical hero David, a favoured subject in the art of Florence. Because of the nature of the hero that it represented, it soon came to symbolise the defence of civil liberties embodied in the Florentine Republic. Differs from previous representations of the subject in that the Biblical hero is not depicted with the head of the slain Goliath |
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Artist: Michelangelo
Title: The Last Judgment
location: Sistine Chapel
Date: 1536-41
Notes: A depiction of the second coming of Christ and the apocalypse. The souls of humans rise and descend to their fates, as judged by Christ surrounded by his saints. the artist was accused of immorality and intolerable obscenity, having depicted naked figures, with genitals in evidence, inside the most important church of Christianity, so a censorship campaign (known as the "Fig-Leaf Campaign") was organized by Carafa and Monsignor Sernini (Mantua's ambassador) to remove the frescoes. |
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Artist: Raphael
Title: Disputation
Location: Italy
Date: 1508-11
Notes: Created a scene spanning both heaven and earth. Above, Christ is surrounded by the Blessed Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and various biblical figures such as Adam, Moses and Jacob. God the Father sits above Jesus, depicted reigning over the golden light of heaven. Below, on the altar sits the monstrance. |
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Artist: Mantegna
Title: Camera Degli Sposi
Location: Italy
Date: 1465-74
Notes: The meeting Scene, The Court Scene, and the Ceiling |
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Artist: Giulio Romano
Title: Battle Between the Gods and the Giants
Location: Italy
Date: 1530-32 |
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Artist: Dürer
Title: Melancholia I
Location: Germany
Date: 1514
Notes: The only one of Dürer's engravings to have a title in the plate. It has sometimes been regarded as forming one of a conscious group of Meisterstiche with his Knight, Death and the Devil (1513) and Saint Jerome in his Study (1514). |
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Artist: Hans Holbein
Title: The Artist's Family
Location: Germany
Date:1529
Notes: His wife, Elsbeth, with the couple's two eldest children, Philipp and Katherina, evoking images of the Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist. The son is looking up towards his mother in a sign of passion and dependence. |
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Artist: Giorgione
Title: The Tempest
Location: Italy
Date: 1508
Notes: On the right a woman sits, suckling a baby. She could be a gypsy, or to some people's eyes a prostitute. Her pose is unusual - normally the baby would be held on the mother's lap; but in this case the baby is positioned at the side of the mother, so as to expose her pubic area. A man, possibly a soldier, holding a long staff or pike, stands in contrapposto on the left. He smiles and glances to the right, but does not appear to be looking at the woman. |
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Artist: Titian
Title: Pesaro Madonna
Location: Italy
Date: 1519-1528
Notes: shows his patron in a devotional pose, kneeling before the Virgin and presented to her by Saint Peter. Prominently displayed on the step is Saint Peter's key; its diagonal plane, leading toward the Virgin, parallels that of Jacopo. The Virgin's position at the top of the steps alludes to her celestial role as Madonna of the Stairs and as the Stairway to Heaven. Titian used his wife as a model for the Virgin. |
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Artist: Tintoretto
Title: Last Super
Location: Italy
Date: 1592-94
Notes: Different from usual depictions of the Last Supper, the work does not portray the apostles in the centre of the scene which is instead occupied by secondary characters, such as a woman carrying a dish or the servants taking the dishes from the table.
The setting is also similar to a Venetian inn. Also personal is the use of light, which appears to come into obscurity from both the light on the ceiling and from Jesus' aureola. |
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Artist: Bernini
Title: David
Location: Italy
Date: 1623
Notes: The subject of the work is the biblical David, about to throw the stone that will bring down Goliath, which will allow David to behead him. Relating to earlier works on the same theme, it is also revolutionary in its implied movement and its psychological depth. Only 24 Years old. Before this statue, most were strictly frontal, dictating the spectator to view it from one side, and one side only. Bernini's David is a three-dimensional work that needs space around it and challenges the viewer to walk around it |
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Artist: Bernini
Title: Ecstasy of Saint Theresa
Location: Italy
Date:1645-62
Notes: The group is illuminated by natural light which filters through a hidden window in the dome of the surrounding aedicule, and underscored by gilded stucco rays. Teresa is shown lying on a cloud indicating that this is intended to be a divine apparition we are witnessing. |
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Artist: Borromini
Title: San Carlo Alle Quattro Fontane
Location: Italy
Date: 1638
Notes: It is an iconic masterpiece of Baroque architecture, built as part of a complex of monastic buildings on the Quirinal Hill for the Spanish Trinitarians, an order dedicated to the freeing of Christian slaves. Although the idea for the serpentine facade must have been conceived fairly early on, probably in the mid 1630's, it was only constructed towards the end of Borromini's life and the upper part was not completed until after the architect's death. |
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Artist: Caravaggio
Title: Calling of St. Matthew
Location: Italy
Date: 1600
Notes: his first major church commission and first painting with more than a handful of figures. depicts the story from the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 9:9): Jesus saw a man named Matthew at his seat in the custom house, and said to him, "Follow me", and Matthew rose and followed him. Christ brings the true light to the dark space of the sitting tax-collectors. This painting records the collision of two worlds — the ineluctable power of the immortal faith, and the mundane, foppish, world of Levi. |
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Artist: Caravaggio
Title: Entombment of Christ
Location: Italy
Date: 1603
Notes: With a diagonal cascade of mourners and cadaver-bearers descending to the limp, dead Christ and the bare stone – is not a moment of transfiguration, but of mourning. As the viewer's eye descends from the gloom there is, too, a descent from the hysteria of Mary of Cleophas through subdued emotion to death as the final emotional silencing. |
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Artist: Gentileschi
Title: Judith Beheading Holofernes
Location: Italy
Date: 1619-20
Notes: one of the most iconic female painters, depicts Judith from the book of judith who beheads holofernes, the man who is appointed to destroy rebels of the king of Nineveh. Judith kills him with her charm. |
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