Glossary




A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Z




A

aerial perspective
A way of suggesting the far distance in a landscape by using paler colors (sometimes tinged with blue), less pronounced tones, and vaguer forms.
all' antica (It. "from the antique")
(of an art work) based on or influenced by classical Greek or Roman art.
allegory (Gk. allegorein, "say differently")
A work of art which represents some abstract quality or idea, either by means of a single figure (personification) or by grouping objects and figures together. Renaissance allegories make frequent allusions both to both Greek and Roman legends and literature, and also to the wealth of Christian allegorical stories and symbols developed during the Middle Ages.
altarpiece
A picture or sculpture that stands on or is set up behind an altar. Many altarpieces were very simple (a single panel painting), though some were huge.and complex works, a few combining both painting and sculpture within a carved framework. From the 14th to 16th century, the altarpiece was one of the most important commissions in European art; it was through the altarpiece that some of the most decisive developments in painting and sculpture came about.
Anghiari, battle of
A Florentine and papal army defeated a Milanese force under Piccinino outside this town near Arezzo (29 June 1440). Macchiavelli, in his History of Florence, used it shamelessly as an example of the reluctance of mercenaries to risk death in battle: he put the casualties as 'one man killed, and he fell off his horse and was trampled to death', whereas sources available to him put the joint fatalities at some 300. It was a subject of a fresco painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (chosen because it was primarily a cavalry engagement and he could show horses in combat). The fresco rapidly decayed and its composition is best known from the sketch Rubens made of its central part.
Antwerp Mannerists
Group of Antwerp painters of the early 16th century whose work is characterized by Italianate ornamentation and affected attitudes. Unconnected with later Mannerism.
apse (Lat. absis, "arch, vault")
A semicircular projection, roofed with a half-dome, at the east end of a church behind the altar. Smaller subsidiary apses may be found around the choir or transepts. Also known as an exedra. The adjective is apsidal.
arcade (Lat. arcus, "arch")
A series of arches supported by columns, piers or pillars. In a blind arcade the arches are built into a wall.
Arcadia
A mountainous area of Greece. In Greek and Roman literature, a place where a contented life of rural simplicity is lived; an earthly paradise peopled by shepherds.
arch
The pointed arch is widely regarded as the main identifiable feature of Gothic architecture (distinct from the round arch of the Romanesque period). The three most common Gothic arches are the Equilateral, Lancet and Tudor.
architectonic (Gk. arkhitektonikos, "architectural")
Relating to structure, design, or organization.
architrave (It. "chiefbeam")
In classical architecture, the main beam resting on the capitals of the columns (i.e. the lowest part of the entablature); the moulding around a window or door.
attribute (Lat. attributum, "added")
A symbolic object which is conventionally used to identify a particular person, usually a saint. In the case of martyrs, it is usually the nature of their martyrdom.
autobiography
Autobiography as a distinct literary genre was one of the more original products of the Renaissance; there had been relatively little of it in antiquity and even less in the Middle Ages. The Confessions of St Augustine provided the example of an inward autobiography - the story of the author's search for God - but no imitator was able to approach its level of introspection until Petrarch's Letter to posterity and Secretum. Dante's Vita nuova - and the Comedy - are intensely autobiographical but are not autobiographies.

The roots of the secular autobiography are to be found in the books of ricordanze (memoranda) kept by Italian professional and business men from the late 13th century. From bare accounts of land purchases and marriage settlements, these personal notebooks could develop into family histories which might also contain soul-searching and self examinations, like those of the early 15th century Florentine merchants Goro Dati and Giovanni Morelli, or the Zibaldone quaresimale of Giovanni Rucellai (1457-85). Records of business ventures and public offices were the starting point for autobiographies of external action: while the Cronica of Jacopo Salviati is a fairly wooden account of captaincies and embassies 1398-1411, that of Buonaccorso Pitti is a lively narrative of fortunes won and lost through trading and gambling (written 1412-22). The Commentaries of Enea Silvio Piccolomini (Pius II) similarly concentrate on events, leaving the character of the author to be deduced from his actions. The supreme example of the (apparently) unconsciously revealing autobiography is the famous Life of Cellini: of the deliberately revealing one, that of Cardano.

Avignon
The decision to move the Papacy here was made in August 1308 by Pope Clement V, who had been residing in France since 1305. The actual move was made in 1309. Six pontificates later, in 1377, the Papacy was brought back to Rome by Gregory XI. All the popes elected at Avignon were French, as were 113 of the 134 cardinals appointed during this time. Yet though the period has been called one of 'captivity' to France, the Avignonese residence was not one of uninterrupted truckling to French kings. The city was not on French territory: it belonged to the Angevin princes of Naples. 'Captivity', like Petrarch's 'unholy Babylon', which he likened to the harlot of the Apocalypse 'full of abominations and the filth of her fornication', was mainly a term of abuse directed at a Papacy that had acquired security enough to revive its legal and financial pretensions and to build lavishly and live well. Between 1100 and 1309 the popes had only spent 82 years in Rome. Avignon gave them a long breathing space to assemble the machinery and the values which characterized the Renaissance Papacy after its final resettlement in Rome.

B

Bacchus
In Greek and Roman mythology, the god of wine and fertility. Bacchic rites were often orgiastic.
baldachin, or baldacchino (It. "brocade")
Originally a textile canopy supported on poles and carried dignitaries and relics. Later, an architectural canopy of stone or wood set over a high altar or bishop's throne.
balustrade
A rail supported by a row of small posts or open-work panels.
Bambocciati
Group of relatively small, often anecdotal, paintings of everyday life, made in Rome in the mid-17th century. The word derives from the nickname "Il Bamboccio" ("Large Baby"), applied to the physically malformed Dutch painter Pieter van Laer (1592/95-1642). Generally regarded as the originator of the style and its most important exponent, van Laer arrived in Rome from Haarlem about 1625 and was soon well known for paintings in which his Netherlandish interest in the picturesque was combined with the pictorial cohesiveness of Caravaggio's dramatic tenebrist lighting. Because van Laer and his followers depicted scenes of the Roman lower classes in a humorous or even grotesque fashion, their works were condemned by both court critics and the leading painters of the classicist-idealist school as indecorous and ridiculous. The painter Salvator Rosa was particularly savage in his comments about the later followers of the style, whom he criticized for painting "baggy pants, beggars in rags, and abject filthy things." The Bamboccianti (painters of Bambocciati) influenced such Dutch genre painters as Adriaen Brouwer and Adriaen van Ostade.
banderole (It. banderuola, "small flag")
A long flag or scroll (usually forked at the end) bearing an inscription. In Renaissance art they are often held by angels.
Baroque (Port. barocco, "an irregular pearl or stone")
The period in art history from about 1600 to about 1750. In this sense the term covers a wide range of styles and artists. In painting and sculpture there were three main forms of Baroque: (1) sumptuous display, a style associated with the Catholic Counter Reformation and the absolutist courts of Europe (Bernini, Rubens); (2) dramatic realism (Caravaggio); and (3) everyday realism, a development seen in particular in Holland (Rembrandt, Uermeer). In architecture, there was an emphasis on expressiveness and grandeur, achieved through scale, the dramatic use of light and shadow, and increasingly elaborate decoration. In a more limited sense the term Baroque often refers to the first of these categories.

The development of the Baroque reflects the period's religious tensions (Catholic versus Protestant); a new and more expansive world view based on science and exploration; and the growth of absolutist monarchies.

Book of Hours
A prayer book used by laymen for private devotion, containing prayers or meditations appropriate to certain hours of the day, days of the week, months, or seasons. They became so popular in the 15th century that the Book of Hours outnumbers all other categories of illuminated manuscripts; from the late 15th century there were also printed versions illustrated by woodcuts. The most famous Book of Hours and one of the most beautiful of all illuminated manuscripts is the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (Musée Condé, Chantilly), illuminated by the Limburg Brothers for Jean de Berry.
bronze
An alloy of copper (usually about 90 per cent) and tin, often also containing small amounts of other metals such as lead or zinc. Since antiquity it has been the metal most commonly used in cast sculpture because of its strength, durability, and the fact that it is easily workable - both hot and cold - by a variety of processes. It is easier to cast than copper because it has a lower melting-point, and its great tensile strength makes possible the protrusion of unsupported parts - an advantage over marble sculpture. The colour of bronze is affected by the proportion of tin or other metals present, varying from silverish to a rich, coppery red, and its surface beauty can be enhanced when it acquires a patina.
buttress
A mass of stone built up to support a wall, usually necessary to strengthen those of great height. See flying buttress.
Byzantine art
The art ofthe Byzantine Empire, which had its capital in Constantinople (Byzantium), from the 5th century to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. Based largely on Roman and Greek art, Byzantine art also absorbed a wide of influences, notable from Syria and Egypt. Byzantine art was essentially a spiritual and religious art, its forms highly stylized, hieratic and unchanging (central images were thought to derive from original portraits). It also served to glorify the emperor. Among its most distinctive products were icons, mosaics, manuscript illuminations, and work in precious metals. The strong influence of the Byzantine style on medieval Italian painting can be seen in the works of Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto.

C

caisson (Fr. casson, "a chest, box")
In architecture, a sunken panel in a ceiling or vault.
candelabra, sing. candelabrum (It. candela, "candle")
A large, usually decorated, candlestick, usually with several branches or arms.
cantoria, pl. cantorie (It.)
A gallery for singers or musicians, usually in a church. Two outstanding examples are those by the sculptors Andrea della Robbia and Donatello in Florence cathedral, both of which have richly carved marble panels.
capital (Lat. capitellum, "little head")
The head or crowning feature of a column or pillar. Structurally, capitals broaden the area of a column so that it can more easily bear the weight of the arch or entablature it supports.
Carmelites (Lat. Ordo Fratrum Beatae Mariae Virginis de Monte Carmelo)
"Brothers of Our Blessed Lady of Mount Carmel", a Roman Catholic order of contemplative mendicant friars. Founded in Palestine in the 12th century, the Carmelites were originally hermits. In the 13th century the order was refounded as an order resembling the Dominicans and Franciscans. An order of Carmelite sisters was founded in the 15th century; in the 16th century reforms introduced by St. Teresa of Ávila led to the creation of the Barefoot (Discalced) Carmelites.
cartoon (It. cartone, "pasteboard")
A full-scale preparatory drawing for a painting, tapestry, or fresco. In fresco painting, the design was transferred to the wall by making small holes along the contour lines and then powdering them with charcoal in order to leave an outline on the surface to be painted.
caryatid (Gk. "priestess")
A carved female figure used in architecture as a column to support an entablature.
Cascina, battle of
The Florentines defeated a Pisan force here on 28 July 1364, taking some of them by surprise while they bathed in the Arno. The engagement is best known as the subject of a fresco commissioned for the Palazzo Vecchio from Michelangelo. Worked on at intervals 1504-06, this remained unfinished and is known (partly)only from a somewhat later copy of the cartoon, and from the contemporary fame the cartoon acquired for its treatment of the abruptly alerted bathers.
castello (It.)
"castle", palace.
cathedral (cathedra, seat or throne)
The principal church of a province or diocese, where the throne of the bishop is placed. For reasons lost to time and tradition, a cathedral always faces west - toward the setting sun. The altar is placed at the east end. The main body, or nave, of the cathedral is usually divided into one main and two side aisles. These lead up to the north and south transepts, or arms of the cross, the shape in which a cathedral is usually formed.
Catholic reform
Attempts between the 15th and 16th centuries to eliminate deficiencies within the Roman Catholic Church (such as financial abuses, moral laxity in the clergy and so on).
chiaroscuro (It. "light dark")
In painting, the modelling of form (the creation of a sense of three-dimensionality in objects) through the use of light and shade. The introduction of oil paints in the 15th century, replacing tempera, encouraged the development of chiaroscuro, for oil paint allowed a far greater range and control of tone. The term chiaroscuro is used in particular for the dramatic contrasts of light and dark introduced by Caravaggio. When the contrast of light and dark is strong, chiaroscuro becomes an important element of composition.
ciompi
Ciompi was the name given to the most numerous class of day-labourers (dismissible without notice) in 14th century Florence's chief industry: those employed in the manufacture of woollen cloth as weavers, beaters, combers, etc. They were forbidden to form a trade association, as also were those in the associated, but self-employed, craft of dyeing. Without being members of a guild, none could seek redress save from the Arte della Lana, the manufacturers' corporation which employed them, or achieve political representation.
ciompi, revolt of the
Insurrection of the lower classes of Florence in 1378 that briefly brought to power one of the most democratic governments in Florentine history. The ciompi ("wool carders") were the most radical of the groups that revolted, and they were defeated by the more conservative elements in Florentine society.

A struggle between factions within the major ruling guilds triggered the uprising. Members of the lower classes, called upon to take part in the revolt in late June, continued to agitate on their own during the month of July. They presented a series of petitions to the Signoria (executive council of Florence) demanding a more equitable fiscal policy and the right to establish guilds for those groups not already organized. Then, on July 22, the lower classes forcibly took over the government, placing one of their members, the wool carder Michele di Lando, in the important executive office of gonfaloniere of justice. The new government, controlled by the minor guilds, was novel in that for the first time it represented all the classes of society, including the ciompi, who were raised to the status of a guild.

But the ciompi were soon disillusioned. Their economic condition worsened, and the new government failed to implement all their demands. Conflicting interests of the minor guilds and the ciompi became evident. On August 31 a large group of the ciompi that had gathered in the Piazza della Signoria was easily routed by the combined forces of the major and minor guilds. In reaction to this revolutionary episode, the ciompi guild was abolished, and within four years the dominance of the major guilds was restored.

cithara (Gk.)
An ancient musical instrument, resembling a lyre, on which strings were plucked. They were often used to accompany a singer or someone reciting poetry.
classical
Relating to the culture of ancient Greece and Rome (classical Antiquity). The classical world played a profoundly important role in the Renaissance, with Italian scholars, writers, and artists seeing their own period as the rebirth (the "renaissance") of classical values after the Middle Ages. The classical world was considered the golden age for the arts, literature, philosophy, and politics. Concepts of the classical, however, changed greatly from one period to the next. Roman literature provided the starting point in the 14th century, scholars patiently finding, editing and translating a wide range of texts. In the 15th century Greek literature, philosophy and art - together with the close study of the remains of Roman buildings and sculptures-expanded the concept of the classical and ensured it remained a vital source of ideas and inspiration.
coffering
An ornamental system of deep panels recessed into a vault, arch or ceiling. Coffered ceilings, occasionally made of wood, were frequently used in Renaissance palaces.
cognoscenti, sing. cognoscente (It. "those who know")
Connoisseurs of art, literature or music; those with refined tastes.
Compagnia de San Luca (Guild of St. Luke)
The painters' guild in Florence (named after St. Luke because he was believed to have painted a portrait of the Virgin Mary).
complementary colors
Pairs of colors that have the maximum contrast and so, when set side by side, intensify one another. Green and red, blue and orange, and yellow and violet are complementary colors.
Compline (Lat. [hora] completa, "completed [hour]")
The last prayers of the day; the church service at which these prayers are said.
concetto, pl. concetti (It. "concept")
In Renaissance art theory, the intellectual or narrative program behind a work; a work's underlying theme. Concetti were often taken from the literature and mythology of Ancient Greece and Rome, as well as from the Bible.
condottiere, pl. condottieri (It. "leader")
Leader of a band of mercenaries engaged to fight in numerous wars among the Italian states from the mid-14th to the 16th century. The name was derived from the condotta, or "contract," by which the condottieri put themselves in the service of a city or of a lord.

The first mercenary armies in Italy (often called free companies) were made up of foreigners. The earliest (1303) was composed of Catalans who had fought in the dynastic wars of the south. In the mid-14th century the Grand Company, composed mainly of Germans and Hungarians, terrorized the country, devastating Romagna, Umbria, and Tuscany. It was one of the first to have a formal organization and a strict code of discipline, developed by the Provençal adventurer Montréal d' Albarno. The Englishman Sir John Hawkwood, one of the most famous of the non-Italian condottieri, came to Italy in the 1360s during a lull in the Hundred Years' War and for the next 30 years led the White Company in the confused wars of northern Italy.

By the end of the 14th century, Italians began to raise mercenary armies, and soon condottieri were conquering principalities for themselves. The organization of the companies was perfected in the early 15th century by Muzio Attendolo Sforza, in the service of Naples, and his rival Braccio da Montone, in the service of Perugia. Muzio's son, Francesco Sforza, who won control of Milan in 1450, was one of the most successful of all the condottieri.

Less fortunate was another great condottiere, Carmagnola, who first served one of the viscounts of Milan and then conducted the wars of Venice against his former masters but at last awoke the suspicion of the Venetian oligarchy and was put to death before the palace of St. Mark (1432). Toward the end of the 15th century, when the large cities had gradually swallowed up the small states and Italy itself was drawn into the general current of European politics and became the battlefield of powerful armies--French, Spanish, and German--the condottieri, who proved unequal to the gendarmery of France and the improved Italian troops, disappeared.

The soldiers who fought under the condottieri were almost entirely heavy-armoured cavalry and were noted for their rapacious and disorderly behaviour. With no goal beyond personal gain, the armies of the condottieri often changed sides, and their battles often resulted in little bloodshed.

confraternities
Confraternities, often called compagnie or, in Venice, scuole, were religious associations of lay persons devoted to specific pious practices or works of charity, often under the direction of, or with the spiritual assistance of, clergy. Guilds 'qua' religious associations had the character of confraternities.

Several major historic waves of foundations can be distinguished. (1) Compagnie dei disciplinati or dei laudesi, i.e. flagellant confraternities, which were conformist offshoots of the partly heterodox flagellant movement of 1260. The Venetian scuole grandi were especially prestigious examples. By the 16th century, although flagellant practices were retained in some cases, these functioned more as mutual aid societies and as administrators of charitable funds. (2) Confraternite del Rosario, which spread in the 15th century, being primarily promoted by the Dominicans. (3) A group of confraternities which spread from the mid-15th century, commonly called either Compagnia di S. Girolamo or Compagnia del Divino Amore ('Company of Divine Love'; perhaps the first example was the Florentine Buonuomini di S. Martino), associated with certain specialized charitable enterprises, in the first place relief of the poveri vergognosi or 'shamefaced poor', i.e. respectable people who had to be aided discreetly. In the 16th century they also promoted hospitals of the incurabili, primarily for syphilitics, convents of convertite, i.e. reformed prostitutes, and refuges for maidens. To this movement belonged the famous Roman Company or Oratory of Divine Love, founded c. 1514 in S. Dorotea in Trastevere. This recruited some leading churchmen and papal officials (as a confraternity it was unusual in its heavy clerical membership), but many ascriptions of leading church reformers to it are without sound foundation and there is no basis for its reputation as a seminal body in the Catholic reform movement. The new congregation of the Clerks Regular called Theatines was, however, an offshoot and these took the lead in propagating Compagnie del Divino Amore in Italy. Other types of confraternity were those of the buona morte, which accompanied condemned prisoners, and those which aided imprisoned debtors, e.g. the Florentine Neri.

Confraternities commonly had chapels in parish churches or in the churches of religious orders, but sometimes had their own premises, e.g. the splendid ones of the Venetian scuole grandi; in Florence, the hall of Orsanmichele housed a devotional and almsgiving confraternity as well as being a grain dispensary. Great confraternities might exercise public functions: certain Florentine ones concerned with welfare became effectively state magistracies, while the Venetian government, in addition to giving them a ceremonial role, relied upon the scuole grandi to distribute funds. Confraternities, notwithstanding their location, tended to be manifestations of lay piety independent of ecclesiastical institutions, or at least outside the framework of the parish and the diocese.

contrapposto (It. "placed opposite")
An asymmetrical pose in which the one part of the body is counterbalanced by another about the body's central axis. Ancient Greek sculptors developed contrapposto by creating figures who stand with their weight on one leg, the movement of the hips to one side being balanced by a counter movement of the torso. Contrapposto was revived during the Renaissance and frequently used by Mannerist artist, who developed a greater range of contrapposto poses.
conventicle (Lat. conventiculurn, "meeting place")
A religious meeting or society.
copperplate engraving
A method of printing using a copper plate into which a design has been cut by a sharp instrument such as a burin; an engraving produced in this way. Invented in south west Germany during the 1430s, the process is the second oldest graphic art after woodcut. In German art it was developed in particular by Schongauer and Dürer, and in Italian art by Pollaiuolo and Mantegna.
corbel
In architecture, a bracket of stone, brick or wood that projects from a wall to support an arch, large cornice or other feature. They are often ornamented.
crumhorn
A wind instrument popular throughout Europe in 16th and 17th centuries. An ancestor of the oboe, the crumhorn was a double-reed instrument that produced a soft, reedy sound.
cupola (Lat. cupula, "small vat")
In architecture, a small dome, usually one set on a much larger dome or on a roof; a semi-circular vault.

D

disegno (It. "drawing, design")
In Renaissance art theory, the design of a painting seen in terms of drawing, which was help to be the basis of all art. The term stresses not the literal drawing, but the concept behind an art work. With the Mannerists the term came to mean an ideal image that a work attempts to embody but can in fact never fully realize. As disegno appeals to the intellect, it was considered far more important that colore (color), which was seen as appealing to the senses and emotions.
distemper (Lat. distemperare, "to mix, dilute")
A technique of painting in which pigments are diluted with water and bound with a glue. It was usually used for painting wall decorations and frescoes, though a few artists, notably Andrea Mantegna (1430/31-1506), also used it on canvas.
Dominicans (Lat. Ordo Praedictatorum, Order of Preachers)
A Roman Catholic order of mendicant friars founded by St. Dominic in 1216 to spread the faith through preaching and teaching. The Dominicans were one of the most influential religious orders in the later Middle Ages, their intellectual authority being established by such figures as Albertus Magnus and St.Thomas Aquinas. The Dominicans played the leading role in the Inquisition.

E

Ecce Homo (Lat. "Behold the Man!")
The words of Pontius Pilate in the Gospel of St. John (19, 5) when he presents Jesus to the crowds. Hence, in art, a depiction of Jesus, bound and flogged, wearing a crown of thorns and a scarlet robe.
ensemble (Fr. "together")
A combining of several media grouped together to form a composite art work. Chapels were among the most notable Renaissance ensembles, sometimes combining panel painting, fresco, sculpture, and architecture.
entablature
In classical architecture, the part of a building between the capitals of the columns and the roof. It consists of the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice.
epitaph
Pictures or tables with reliefs and inscriptions erected in honour of the deceased in churches or sepulchral chapels.
Evangelism
The term is used in an Italian context to designate spiritual currents manifest around 1540 which might be said to have occupied the confessional middle ground between Catholicism and Protestantism; hence it does not relate at all to the term 'Evangelical' as used in German or English contexts. It has been applied particularly to the so-called spirituali of the Viterbo circle, notably Cardinal Pole, Vittoria Colonna, Marcantonio Flaminio, Carnesecchi and Ochino, and also to Giulia Gonzaga, Contarini, Giovanni Morone; Gregorio Cortese and Vermigli. Such persons combined a zeal for personal religious renewal with spiritual anxieties akin to those of Luther, to which they sought an answer in the study of St Paul and St Augustine; convinced of the inefficacy of human works, they stressed the role of faith and the all-efficacy of divine grace in justification. Few of them broke with the Catholic Church.

F

festoni (It. "festoons)
Architectural ornaments consisting of fruit, leaves, and flowers suspended in a loop; a swag.
fluted
of a column or pillar, carved with closely spaced parallel grooves cut vertically.
Franciscans
A Roman Catholic order of mendicant friars founded by St. Francis of Assisi (given papal approval in 1223). Committed to charitable and missionary work, they stressed the veneration of the Holy Virgin, a fact that was highly significant in the development of images of the Madonna in Italian art. In time the absolute poverty of the early Franciscans gave way to a far more relaxed view of property and wealth, and the Franciscans became some of the most important patrons of art in the early Renaissance.
fresco (It. "fresh")
Wall painting technique in which pigments are applied to wet (fresh) plaster (intonaco). The pigments bind with the drying plaster to form a very durable image. Only a small area can be painted in a day, and these areas, drying to a slightly different tint, can in time be seen. Small amounts of retouching and detail work could be carried out on the dry plaster, a technique known as a secco fresco.
frescos in Italy
Save in Venice, where the atmosphere was too damp, fresco painting was the habitual way of decorating wall surfaces in Italy, both in churches and in private and public palaces. During the 16th century a liking for the more brilliant effect of large canvases painted in oils, and to a lesser extent for tapestries, diminished the use of frescoes save for covering upper walls, covings and ceilings. The technique of buon fresco, or true fresco, involved covering the area with a medium-fine plaster, the intonaco, just rough enough to provide a bond (sometimes enhanced by scoring) for the final layer of fine plaster. Either a freehand sketch of the whole composition (sinopia) was drawn on the wall, or a full-scale cartoon was prepared and its outlines transferred to the intonaco by pressing them through with a knife or by pouncing - blowing charcoal dust through prickholes in the paper. Then over the intonaco enough of the final thin layer was applied to contain a day's work. That portion of the design was repeated on it either by the same methods or freehand, and the artist set to work with water-based pigments while the plaster was still damp; this allowed them to sink in before becoming dry and fixed. (Thus 'pulls' or slices of frescoes could be taken by later art thieves without actually destroying the colour or drawing of the work.) It is usually possible to estimate the time taken to produce a fresco by examining the joins between the plastered areas representing a day's work. Final details, or effects impossible to obtain in true fresco pigments, could be added at the end in 'dry' paints, or fresco secco, a technique in which pigment was laid on an unabsorbent plaster; the best known example of an entire composition in fresco secco is Leonardo's Last Supper.

G

genre

In a broad sense, the term is used to mean a particular branch or category of art; landscape and portraiture, for example, are genres of painting, and the essay and the short story are genres of literature.

genre painting
The depiction of scenes from everyday life. Elements of everyday life had long had a role in religious works; pictures in which such elements were the subject of a painting developed in the 16th century with such artists as Pieter Bruegel. Then Carracci and Caravaggio developed genre painting in Italy, but it was in Holland in the 17th century that it became an independent form with its own major achievements, Vermeer being one of its finest exponents.
glory
(1) The supernatural radiance surrounding a holy person.

(2) To have the distinction of one's deeds recognized in life and to be revered for them posthumously: this was glory. The nature of true gloria was much discussed, whether it must be connected with the public good, whether the actions that led to it must conform with Christian ethics, how it differed from notoriety. The concept did not exclude religious figures (the title of the church of the Frari in Venice was S. Maria Gloriosa), but it was overwhelmingly seen in terms of secular success and subsequent recognition, as determining the lifestyles of the potent and the form of their commemoration in literature, in portraits and on tombs. As such, it has been taken as a denial of medieval religiosity ('sic transit gloria mundi'), and thus a hallmark of Renaissance individual ism; as a formidable influence on cultural patronage; and as spurring on men of action, as well as writers and artists, to surpass their rivals - including their counterparts in antiquity.

golden section (Lat. sectio aurea)
In painting and architecture, a formula meant to provide the aesthetically most satisfying proportions for a picture or a feature of a building. The golden section is arrived at by dividing a line unevenly so that the shorter length is to the larger as the larger is to the whole. This ratio is approximately 8:13. The golden section (sometimes known as the golden mean), which was thought to express a perfect harmony of proportions, played an important role in Renaissance theories of art.
Gothic
Gothic, which may well have originated with Alberti as a derogatory term and which certainly corresponds to Vasari's 'maniera tedesca' ('German style'), is properly the descriptive term for an artistic style which achieved its first full flowering in the Ile de France and the surrounding areas in the period between c. 1200 and c. 1270, and which then spread throughout northern Europe. It is characterized by the hitherto unprecedented integration of the arts of sculpture, painting, stained glass and architecture which is epitomized in the great cathedrals of Chartres, Amiens, and Reims or in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. In all the arts the predominantly planar forms of the Romanesque are replaced by an emphasis on line. There is a transcendental quality, whether in the soaring forms of the pointed arches or in the new stress on the humanity of Christ, which similarly distinguishes it from the preceding Romanesque style.

In thinking of Nicola (d. c. 1284) or Giovanni Pisano (d. after 1314) there is same danger of forgetting what had happened in French sculpture half a century or more earlier, and likewise it is hard to remember that the spectacular achievements of early Renaissance art are a singularly localized eddy in the continuing stream of late gothic European art. By northern European standards few Italian works of art can be called gothic without qualification, and the story of 13th and 14th century Italian architecture is as much one of resistance to the new style as of its reception, whether directly from France or through German or central European intermediaries. In sculpture and in painting, the Italian reluctance to distort the human figure, conditioned by a never wholly submerged awareness of the omnipresent antique heritage, gives a special quality to the work of even those artists such as Giovanni Pisano or Simone Martini who most closely approached a pure gothic style.

Nevertheless, the vitalizing role of Northern gothic art throughout the early Renaissance and the period leading up to it should never be underestimated. The artistic, like the cultural and commercial, interaction was continuous and much of the Italian achievement is incomprehensible if seen in isolation. It is not merely at the level of direct exchanges between one artist and another, or the influence of one building; painting, manuscript or piece of sculpture upon another, that the effects are to be felt. The streaming quality of line which is so characteristic of Brunelleschi's early Renaissance architecture surely reflects a sensitivity to the gothic contribution which is entirely independent of, and lies much deeper than, the superficial particularities of form.

The counterflow of influence and inspiration from South to North must likewise not be underrated. In particular, the contribution of Italian painters from Duccio and Simone Martini onwards is central to the evolution of the so-called International Gothic style developing in Burgundy, Bohemia and north Italy in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.

Greek cross
A cross with four arms of equal length.
grisaille (Fr. gris, "gray")
A painting done entirely in one color, usually gray. Grisaille paintings were often intended to imitate sculpture.
Guelfs and Ghibellines
Italian political terms derived from the German Welf, a personal and thence family name of the dukes of Bavaria, and Waiblingen, the name of a castle of the Hohenstaufen dukes of Swabia apparently used as a battle cry. Presumably introduced into Italy 1198-1218, when partisans of the Emperor Otto IV (Welf) contested central Italy with supporters of Philip of Swabia and his' nephew Frederick II, the terms do not appear in the chronicles until the Emperor Frederick's conflict with the Papacy 1235-50, when Guelf meant a supporter of the Pope and Ghibelline a supporter of the Empire. From 1266 to 1268, when Naples was conquered by Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX, the French connection became the touchstone of Guelfism, and the chain of Guelf alliances stretching from Naples, through central Italy, to Provence and Paris, underwritten by the financial interests of the Tuscan bankers, became an abiding feature of European politics. The Italian expeditions of Henry of Luxemburg (1310-13) and Lewis of Bavaria (1327-29) spread the terms to northern Italy, with the Visconti of Milan and the della Scala of Verona emerging as the leading Ghibelline powers. Attempts by Guelf propagandists to claim their party as the upholder of liberty and their opponents as the protagonists of tyranny rarely coincide with the truth: power politics, then as now, generally overrode ideology in inter-state affairs.

Factional struggles had existed within the Italian states from time immemorial, the parties taking a multitude of local names. In Florence, however, Guelf and Ghibelline were applied to the local factions which supposedly originated in a feud between the Buondelmonte and Amidei clans, c. 1216. In 1266-67 the Guelf party, which had recruited most of the merchant class, finally prevailed over the predominantly noble Ghibellines; after this, internal factions in Florence went under other names, like the Blacks and the Whites who contested for control of the commune between 1295 and 1302. Meanwhile the Parte Guelfa had become a corporate body whose wealth and moral authority as the guardian of political orthodoxy enabled it to play the part of a powerful pressure group through most of the 14th century. After the War of the Eight Saints, the influence of the Parte declined rapidly. Although its palace was rebuilt c. 1418-58 to the designs of Brunelleschi, it had no part in the conflicts surrounding the rise of the Medici régime.

guilds (in Italy)
Guilds were essentially associations of masters in particular crafts, trades, or professions. In Italy they go back a long way; there is documentary evidence of guilds in 6th century Naples. In origin they were clubs which observed religious festivals together and attended the funerals of their members, but in time they acquired other functions. Their economic function was to control standards and to enforce the guild's monopoly of particular activities in a particular territory. Their political function was to participate in the government of the city-state. In some cities, notably Florence in the 14th century, only guildsmen were eligible for civic office, thus excluding both noblemen (unless they swallowed their pride and joined, as some did), and unskilled workers like the woolcombers and dyers. In Florence in 1378 these groups demanded the right to form their own guilds, and there were similar movements of protest in Siena and Bologna. Guilds were also patrons of art, commissioning paintings for guildhalls, contributing to the fabric fund of cathedrals and collaborating on collective projects like the statues for Orsanmichele at Florence. The guilds were not equal. In Florence, the 7 'Greater Guilds', including such prestigious occupations as judges and bankers, outranked the 14 'Lesser Guilds', and in general the guild hierarchy was reflected in the order of precedence in processions. The great age of the guilds was the 13th and 14th centuries. The economic recession after 1348 meant fewer opportunities for journeymen to become masters, and greater hostility between master and man. The shift from trade to land in the 15th and 16th centuries meant a decline in the social standing of the crafts. In some towns, such as Brescia and Vicenza, guild membership actually became a disqualification instead of a qualification for municipal office. The guilds lost their independence and became instruments of state control. In 16th century Venice, for example, they were made responsible for supplying oarsmen for the galleys of the state.

H

hatching
In a drawing, print or painting, a series of close parallel lines that create the effect of shadow, and therefore contour and three-dimensionality In crosshatching the lines overlap.
heresy (pre-Reformation)
The heretical movements affecting Italy between the mid-12th and the mid-14th century had their main impact in an area covering the north-west of the peninsula and southern France: it is not possible to speak of distinct Italian and meridional French movements. The authentically Christian movements which were expelled from the Catholic Church must in the first instance be distinguished from Catharism, which represented an infiltration by the originally non-Christian dualist system of Manichaeanism; from the start, the Cathars were an anti-church. By contrast, the Waldensian, Spiritual and Joachimite movements appeared initially as vital manifestations of Catholicism; only after their condemnation by the ecclesiastical authorities do they seem to have developed notably eccentric doctrines and to have described themselves as the true Church in opposition to the institutional Church; they had a recognizable kinship with movements that remained within the pale of orthodoxy.

These Christian heresies had in common an attachment to the ideal of apostolic poverty, which came to be seen by the ecclesiastical authorities as a challenge to the institutionalized Church. The Waldensians or Valdesi (not to be confused with Valdesiani, the followers of Juan de Valdes, d. 1541) took their origin from the Poor Men of Lyons, founded by Peter Valdes or Waldo in the 1170s. They were distinguished by a strong attachment to the Bible and a desire to imitate Christ's poverty. At first approved by the Papacy as an order of laymen, they were condemned in 1184. Likewise condemned was the rather similar Lombard movement of the Humiliati. One stream of these remained as an approved order within the Catholic Church, while others merged with the Waldensians. The Waldensians came to teach that the sacraments could be administered validly only by the pure, i.e: only by Waldensian superiors or perfecti practising evangelical poverty. Alone among the heretical sects existing in Italy they were organized as a church, and regarded themselves as forming, together with brethren north of the Alps, one great missionary community. They spread all over western and central Europe but in the long term they came to be largely confined to the Rhaetian and Cottian Alps (the Grisons and Savoy). The Italian Waldensians in the 16th century resisted absorption by Reformed Protestantism.

The early Franciscans might be regarded as a movement, similar in character to the Poor Men of Lyons, which was won for the cause of Catholic orthodoxy. However, divisions within the order over the issue of poverty led to religious dissidence. The Spirituals held up the ideal of strict poverty as obligatory for Franciscans and, indeed, normative for churchmen; following the Papacy's recognition of the Franciscan order as a property-owning body in 1322-23, their position became one of criticism of the institutional Church as such. Their heresies came to incorporate the millenarian doctrines of the 12th century abbot Joachim of Fiore. He had prophesied a coming age of the Holy Spirit ushered in by Spiritual monks; his heretical followers prophesied a new Spiritual gospel that would supersede the Bible. Joachimite Spiritualists came to see the pope, head of the 'carnal Church', as Antichrist. The main impact of the movement upon the laity was in southern France; in Italy it was an affair of various groups of fraticelli de paupere vita (little friars of the poor life), mainly in the south.

history painting
Painting concerned with the representation of scenes from the Bible, history (usually classical history), and classical literature. From the Renaissance to the 19th century it was considered the highest form of painting, its subjects considered morally elevating.
humanism
An intellectual movement that began in Italy in the 14th century. Based on the rediscovery of the classical world, it replaced the medieval view of humanity as fundamentally sinful and weak with a new and confident emphasis on humanity's innate moral dignity and intellectual and creative potential.

Humanism is a 19th century coinage, invented to describe the programme of studies, and its conditioning of thought and expression, that was known from the late 15th century as the province of the umanista, the teacher of the studia humanitatis or arts syllabus in schools and universities. This had by then come to include the study of Latin (and to a much lesser extent, Greek) texts dealing with grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy. Such a programme was secular, concerned with man, his nature and his gifts, but Renaissance humanism must be kept free from any hint of either 'humanitarianism' or 'humanism' in its modern sense of a rational, non-religious approach to life.

Much of the material for humanism had been latent in the Middle Ages in the form of well-known classical literary texts, those of Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Sallust, Seneca among them. What was needed to so redirect interest as to amount to a revival of imaginative understanding of these authors was, first, a new appreciation of their purely literary quality and an awareness of how they achieved their effects, then a clearer vision of the writers themselves and of the times in which they had lived. Interest of this sort is observable in Padua, Verona and Naples in the first third of the 14th century With Petrarch humanism is in being: sensitiveness to quality and purpose, an apprehension of personality and historical distance, an itch to restore the original quality of classical works by editing them, and to discover others that had lain neglected or forgotten in monastic libraries; finally an urge to emulate classical literary achievements that, by producing a form of ambition at odds with Christian otherworldliness, caused a perturbed mental stocktaking that was to make the relationship between the present and the ancient past an increasingly selfconscious one.

As text by text - Catullus, more Cicero, more Livy, Vitruvius, Quintilian - the imaginative reconstruction of the ancient world proceeded, its relevance became clearer. Their sense no longer obscure, their personalities restored, replaced in the context of their own society, the authors of antiquity presented a view of a civilization, vast in extent and time, which had not only the clarity of a clearly perceived remoteness but the wholeness of a completed cycle, from obscurity through Empire - first Greek, then Roman - to barbarian chaos. Though distant in time; this civilization was attractively near in space to a people whose ploughs turned up Roman coins and statues and whose southern lands contained Greek-speaking communities. And the combination enabled them to see the ancient world as a source of models from whom to learn about statecraft, the waging of war, the creation of works of art - and the more important art of bearing up under adversity. The challenge of these models was all the easier to accept because of the feeling of pride in contemporary cultural achievement such as was expressed in 1492 by Ficino: 'it is undoubtedly a golden age which has restored to light the liberal arts that had almost been destroyed: grammar, eloquence, poetry, sculpture, music.'

Recent formulations stress the theme of relevance: 'civic humanism' the role of authors like Cicero in encouraging the individual to participate in government; 'humanist educational theory' the preparation for a life of action; 'artistic humanism' the adaptation of classical forms; 'scientific humanism' the rehabilitation of ancient, especially Greek, texts as guides; 'utilitarian humanism' as an invitation to copy, as in military or agricultural affairs, methods that could help the present. But in the 16th century, as in the 13th century, the core of humanism was the private preoccupation of the umanista with getting his text right: unless the word 'humanism' retains the smell of the scholar's' lamp it will mislead - as it will if it is seen as in opposition to a Christianity its students in the main wished to supplement, not contradict; through their patient excavation of the sources of ancient God-inspired wisdom.

I

iconography (Gk. "description of images")
The systematic study and identification of the subject-matter and symbolism of art works, as opposed to their style; the set of symbolic forms on which a given work is based. Originally, the study and identification of classical portraits. Renaissance art drew heavily on two iconographical traditions: Christianity, and ancient Greek and Roman art, thought and literature.
ignudi, sing. ignudo (It.)
Male nudes. The best-known are the male nudes on Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling.
imago pietatis (Lat. "image of pity")
A religious image that is meant to inspire strong feelings of pity, tenderness, or love; specifically, an image of Christ on His tomb, the marks of the Passion clearly visible.
imitato (It. "imitation")
In Renaissance art theory, the ability to imitate, to depict objects and people accurately and convincingly. Derived from classical literary theory, imitato was one of the key concepts of Renaissance art theory.
impost
In architecture, the horizontal moulding or course of stone or brickwork at the top of a pillar or pier.
international Gothic
European art was characteristic of a rare uniformity for 60-70 years around 1400. Art historians have still not been able to come to an agreement on an appropriate name for it. The term "art around 1400" suits the style best which, because of its prevalence is referred to as international Gothic. The terms court style, soft style, beautiful style, trecento rococo and lyrical style, etc. are also used in art literature.

Elements of style which were generally wide-spread, did not belong to any particular country and were characteristic of art in courts. In the second half of the 14th century, models appeared in court art in the circle of French-Flemish artists serving at French courts and Bohemian regions of the Emperor's Court which determined works of art all over Europe at the end of the century. Human figures, landscapes and spaces in a realistic approach were accompanied by a peculiar quality of dreams, decorative dynamism and deep emotional charge. It is called as a soft style on the basis of lyrical expressions and drapes: it is more than a simple system of formal motifs, it denominates a kind of behaviour. Artists of the period were engaged in learning the human soul until their attention was attracted to the world (e.g. Donatallo, Masaccio and Jan van Eyck).

inventio (It. "invention")
In Renaissance art theory, the ability to create; invention, originality. Derived from classical rhetoric, inventio was one of the key concepts of Renaissance art theory; because it was seen as being based on the use of reason, it gave art a far higher status than a craft and helped to establish the intellectual respectability of painting and sculpture.
Italianate painters
group of 17th-century northern European painters, principally Dutch, who traveled in Italy and, consciously adopting the style of landscape painting that they found there, incorporated Italian models and motifs into their own works. Chief among the Italianates were Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Andries and Jan Both, Nicolaes Berchem, and Jan Asselijn. The Both brothers, of Utrecht, were to some degree rivals of the Haarlem-born Berchem. Andries painted the figures that populated Jan's landscapes. Berchem's own compositions were largely derived from the Arcadian landscapes of the French painter Claude Lorrain; a typical scene would contain shepherds grazing their flocks among classical ruins, bathed in a golden haze. Upon his return to Holland, Berchem occasionally worked in cooperation with the local painters and is said to have supplied figures in works of both Jacob van Ruisdael and Meindert Hobbema.
Italianizers
Northern artists, generally Dutch or Flemish, who adopt as far as possible a style based on Italian models or who import Italian motives into their repertory. The word is often used of 17th-century Dutch landscape painters like Asselyn, Both and Berchem, but is also used of 16th-century Flemings like Mabuse or van Orley, although they are usually called Romanists.

J

Jesuits
The Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic teaching order founded by St. Ignatius Loyola in 1534. The express purpose of the Jesuits was to fight heresy within the Church (they played a leading role in the Counter Reformation), and to spread the faith through missionary work in the many parts of the world recently discovered by Western explorers and colonists.

K

Knights of Malta
A military religious order established in 1113 - as the Friars of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem - to aid and protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. As their military role grew, encouraged by the Crusades, they became a powerful military and political force in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. In 1530 Emperor Charles V gave them the island of Malta as a base (hence their name from that date). They remained in power there until the end of the 18th century.

L

lectern
A reading stand or desk, especially one at which the Bible is read.
Legenda Aurea (Lat. "golden legend")
A collection of saints' legends, published in Latin in the 13th century by the Dominican Jacobus da Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa. These were particularly important as a source for Christian art from the Middle Ages onwards.
liberal arts
These represented the subject matter of the secular 'arts' syllabus of the Middle Ages; first the preparatory trivium - grammar, rhetoric and dialectic, then the basis of a philosophical training, the quadrivium, comprising arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. By the 13th century each had been given a pictorial identity, together with identifying attributes (e.g. a measuring rod for geometry) and exemplars (e.g. Pythagoras for arithmetic, Tubal for music).While treated with a stylistic variety that reflected current pictorial concerns, whether with iconographic completeness (Andrea da Firenze in the Spanish Chapel at S. Maria Novella in Florence), or with narrative (Pinturicchio in the Vatican) or with the nude (Pollaiuolo's tomb of Sixtus IV in St Peter's), the theme was left remarkably intact by artists whose own activity (save through the mathematics of perspective) was excluded from it as manual rather than liberal.
loggia (It.)
A gallery or room open on one or more sides, its roof supported by columns. Loggias in Italian Renaissance buildings were generally on the upper levels. Renaissance loggias were also separate structure, often standing in markets and town squares, that could be used for public ceremonies.
lunette (Fr. "little moon")
In architecture, a semicircular space, such as that over a door or window or in a vaulted roof, that may contain a window, painting or sculptural decoration.

M

Madonna of Mercy
A depiction of the Virgin Mary in which she holds her cloak open over those who seek her protection.
madrigal
A part song, originally sung without accompaniment, originating in Italy in the 14th century. It reached the heights of its popularity in the 16th century, with secular texts replacing sacred ones, and accompaniments, usually for the lute, being written. One of the leading composers of madrigals was Claudio Monteverdi.
magna mater (Lat. "great mother")
A mother goddess, especially when seen as the guardian deity of a city or state. Specifically, the goddess Cybele, who was adopted by the Romans in 204 BC.
mandorla (It. "almond")
An almond-shaped radiance surrounding a holy person, often seen in images of the Resurrection of Christ or the Assumption of the Virgin.
Mannerism (It. maniera, "manner, style")
A movement in Italian art from about 1520 to 1600. Developing out of the Renaissance, Mannerism rejected Renaissance balance and harmony in favor of emotional intensity and ambiguity. In Mannerist painting, this was expressed mainly through severe distortions of perspective and scale; complex and crowded compositions; strong, sometimes harsh or discordant colors; and elongated figures in exaggerated poses. In architecture, there was a playful exaggeration of Renaissance forms (largely in scale and proportion) and the greater use of bizarre decoration. Mannerism gave way to the Baroque. Leading Mannerists include Pontormo, Bronzino, Parmigianino, El Greco and Tintoretto.
Man of Sorrows
A depiction of Christ during his Passion, bound, marked by flagellation, and crowned with thorns.
marble
loosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles.
marmi finti (It. "pretend marble")
A painted imitation of marble. Usually a decorative feature (on simulated architectural features) it was sometimes used in paintings, particularly by the artist Andrea Mantegna (1430/31-1506).
masterpiece
A term now loosely applied to the finest work by a particular artist or to any work of art of acknowledged greatness or of preeminence in its field. Originally it meant the piece of work by which a craftsman, having finished his training, gained the rank of'master' in his guild.
Mater Dolorosa
See Our Lady of Sorrows
medallion
In architecture, a large ornamental plaquc or disc.
medals
The medal came to artistic maturity within a remarkably short time of its introduction in 15th century Italy. This was partly because ancient Roman coins, which were beginning to be reverently collected, suggested (on a smaller scale) its form: profile portrait bust on the obverse, a different design on the reverse, an inscription running round the rim. Like the finest Imperial coins, the medal's purpose was commemorative. Without monetary value, and of non-precious metal (bronze or lead), it was a way of circulating a likeness to a chosen few; it anticipated the use of miniatures and was indeed frequently worn round the neck. And while the reverse could record a historical event or make a propaganda point related to its subject's career, more commonly it bore a design that purported to convey the 'essence', as it were, of the person portrayed on the other side.

Given the admiration for the men and artefacts of ancient Rome, the stress on individual character, the desire for fame and the penchant for summing up temperament in symbols and images, it is easy to understand how quickly the fashion for commissioning medals spread. Its pioneer executant was Pisanello. The precedents before he began to cast medals in 1438-39 had been few and excessively coin-like. Within 10 years he had established the form the medal was to retain until the influence was registered of the reverseless, hollow-cast and wafer-thin medals of the 1560s and 70s made by Bombarda (Andrea Cambi). Pisanello's approach was first echoed by the Veronese Matteo de' Pasti (d. 1467-688). It was, perhaps oddly, not until the works from 1485 of Niccolò Fiorentino (Niccolò di Forzore Spinelli, 1430-1514) that Florence produced a medallist of the highest calibre. Other specialists in the medium included Sperandio (Sperandio Savelli, c. 1425-1504), L'Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, c. 1460-1528), Caradosso (Cristoforo Caradosso Foppa, 1452-1526/27). The work of these men, and of the many, often anonymous, who reflected them, is still coveted because it avoided the two medallistic errors: making a medal look like either an enlarged piece of money or a small sculptured plaque.

Minorites (also called Friars Minor and Observants)
In the Roman Catholic Church, a branch of the Franciscan order. The order came into existence in the 14th century as a reform movement wanting to return to the poverty and simple piety of St. Francis himself.
mirrors
Mirrors of glass 'silvered' on the back began to supplement those of polished metal in the 14th century, though it was only in the 16th century that high-quality glass ones were made (at Murano) on a scale that made them one of Venice's chief luxury exports. The connection between the increasing use of mirrors and the art of make-up (the mirror was a familiar symbol of vanity) and personal cleanliness is unexplored, but they had an influence on the development of the self-portrait in painting: Vasari assumed that Simone Martini (d. 1344) 'painted himself with two mirrors in order to get his head in profile'. Parmigianino (d. 1540) took self-scrutiny to a thoroughly introspective level in his Self-portrait in a (convex) Mirror.
monochrome (Gk. monokhromatos, "one color")
Painted in a single color; a painting executed in a single color.

N

Neoclassicism
A style in European art and architecture from the mid 18th century until the end of the 19th century. Based as it was on the use of ancient Greek and Roman models and motifs, its development was greatly influenced by the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and by the theories of the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768). Intellectually and politically it was closely linked to the Enlightenment's rejection of the aristocratic frivoliry of Rococo, the style of the Ancien Régime. Among Neoclassicism's leading figures were the French painter Jacques-Louis David (1744-1825), the German painter Anton Raffael Mengs ( 1728-1729), and the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822).
nepotism
The accusation levelled against the popes of the Renaissance from Sixtus IV to Paul III (with Alexander VI as an especially opprobrious case), that they appointed nephews (nipoti) and other relations to clerical and administrative positions of importance, is as true as it is notorious. This sort of favouritism was an abuse of power. It subordinated spiritual fervour or trained bureaucratic competence to the accidents of relationship. But popes were temporal rulers of a large part of Italy as well as spiritual leaders: other rulers did not hesitate to use members of their own family as military commanders or policy advisers. Popes, moreover, were usually old when elected, surrounded by the supporters of their ex-rivals, confronted by a plethora of Vatican staff members either self-interested or in foreign pay. To conduct a vigorous personal policy it was not unnatural that popes should promote men of less questionable loyalty.
niello (Lat. nigellus, "black")
The art of decorating metals with fine lines engraved in black. The design is first cut into the metal and then filled with a black alloy that at high temperatures melts and fuses into the fine lines.

O

obsequies (Lat. obsequia, "services, observances")
Rites performed for the dead.
Oratorians (or the Congregation of the Oratory)
In the Catholic Church, an order of secular priests who live in independent communities, prayer and preaching being central to their mission. The Oratorians was founded by St Philip Neri (1515-1595).
oratory (or oratorium)
A place where Oratorians pray or preach; a small private chapel.
orders of architecture
In classical architecture, the three basic styles of design. They are seen in the form of the columns, capital, and entablatures. The earliest, the Doric order, was the simplest, with a sturdy, fluted column and a plain capital. The Ionic order had a slenderer column, a more elaborate base, and a capital formed by a pair of spiral scrolls. The Corinthian order was the most ornate, having a very slender column and a capital formed of ornately carved leaves (acanthus).
Our Lady of Sorrows (or Mater Dolorosa)
A depiction of the Virgin Mary lamenting Christ's torment and crucifixion. There are several forms: she can be shown witnessing his ascent of Calvary; standing at the foot of the Cross; watching as the body of Christ is brought down from the Cross (Deposition); or sitting with His body across her lap (Pietà).

P

palazzo (It. "palace")
Palaces: large urban dwellings, 'palazzo' in Italian carries no regal connotations.

Alberti described the palace as a city in little, and, like cities, Italian Renaissance palaces vary in type according to differences of climate, tradition and social structure. On to these regional stocks were grafted new architectural strains, reflecting theoretical reinterpretations of antiquity and individually influential examples.

The atrium and peristyle house described by Vitruvius and now known from Pompeii did not survive antiquity, and much of the interest of Renaissance designs lies in creative misunderstandings of Vitruvius's text. Medieval palace architecture probably inherited the insula type of ancient apartment house, related to the modest strip dwellings which never disappeared from Italian cities. In Florence a merchant palace developed from fortified beginnings, with vaulted shop openings on the ground floor, and the main apartments above, reached by internal stone staircases opening from an inner court. Renaissance developments regularized without changing the essential type, although large cloister-like courtyards were introduced, while shops came to be thought undignified. At Michelozzo's Medici Palace (1444) a square arcaded courtyard with axial entrance lies behind a façade of graduated rustication, with biforate windows, a classical cornice replacing the traditional wooden overhang. The apartments on the 'piano nobile' formed interconnecting suites of rooms of diminishing size and increasing privacy. The classical orders which Alberti introduced to the façade of the Palazzo Rucellai (c.1453) were not taken up by the conservative Florentines, who continued to build variations on the Medici Palace (Palazzo Pitti; Palazzo Strozzi). In the 16th century rustication was reduced to quoins and voussoirs, and large windows appeared on the ground floor, 'kneeling' on elongated volutes.

At Urbino the Ducal Palace (1465) reflected Alberti's recommendations for the princely palace, and was in turn influential on late 15th century palaces in Rome (e.g. the Cancelleria). A harmonious Florentine courtyard and ample staircase replace the embattled spaces of medieval seigneurial castles, of which vestiges remain only in the towers flanking the balconies of the duke's private apartments, designed as a scholarly retreat. In the absence of a merchant class or a cultured nobility in 15th century Rome, the architectural pace was set by the papal court. Papal incentives to build, and large households, meant less compact plans for cardinals' palaces, often built next to their titular churches. Renaissance forms appear in the unfinished courtyard of the Palazzo Venezia (1460s), with its arcade system derived from the nearby Theatre of Marcellus, and in the delicately ordered stonework of the Cancelleria (1485). In the 16th century vestigial corner towers and shops disappear from cardinals' palaces, and Antonio da Sangallo's Palazzo Farnese (1516) introduces symmetrical planning and Vitrivuan elements, like the colonnaded vestibule, behind a sober Florentine façade, enlivened by Michelangelo's cornice. A smaller palace type supplied the needs of an enlarged papal bureaucracy, more ambitious for display than for domestic accommodation. Bramante's 'House of Raphael' sets the façade style not only for this new type, but also for Renaissance houses all over Europe. Raphael and Peruzzi made ingenious use of difficult sites (Palazzo da Brescia; Palazzo Massimi), and their sophisticated façades flattered the architectural pretensions of patron and pope (e.g. Palazzo Branconio dell'Aquila).

Movement of patrons and architects, especially after the Sack of Rome, meant a diffusion of Roman forms to central and northern Italy, where Sanmicheli's palaces in Verona, and Palladio's in Vicenza, adapted Roman types to suit local conditions. Palladio's 4-columned atrium is a Vitruvian solution to the traditionally wide Veneto entrance hall, and his plan for the Palazzo da Porto-Festa contains explicit references to Vitruvius's House of the Greeks. In Venice, defended by its lagoon and a stable political system, the hereditary aristocracy built palaces open to trade and festivity on the Grand Canal. The traditional Venetian palace has a tripartite structure: long central halls above entrance vestibules used for unloading merchandise are lit on the canal façade by clusters of glazed windows (rare elsewhere), and at the back from small courts with external staircases (as in the Ca' d'Oro). Codussi's palaces introduced biforate windows and a grid of classical orders into the system, while Sansovino's Palazzo Cornaro retains vestiges of the Venetian type (small courtyard; tripartite façade) despite its Bramantesque coupled orders and licentious window surrounds. Other cities, like Genoa, evolved influential types. Through engravings and the illustrated treatises, Italian Renaissance ideas of palace planning, originally evolved in response to specific conditions, came to be applied all over Europe.

palmette, palmette style
The word comes from Italian "palm". It is a symmetrical ornamental motif imitating palm trees or palm leaves. Following Oriental patterns, it is an element of ancient architectural decoration frequently used either on its own or as friezes. It became the most popular basic motif of medieval ornaments. The so-called palmette style was a style following Byzantine examples whose contacts are not yet identified. Rich, lace-like decorations were applied on major parts of buildings, e.g. column-caps, cornices and abutments.
panel painting
Painting on wooden panels. Until the introduction of canvas in the 15th century, wooden panels were the standard support in painting.
Pantheon
Temple built in Rome aloout 25 BC by Emperor Agrippa. Having a circular plan, and spanned by a single dome, it was one of the most distinctive and original buildings of ancient Rome.
papacy (in the Renaissance period)
Papal rule had three aspects. As successors to St Peter, the disciple charged with the fulfilment of Christ's mission on earth, and as men uniquely privileged to interpret and develop Christian doctrine, the popes were both the leaders and the continuators of a faith. Then, thanks to their possession of the Papal State, the.popes were the rulers of a large part of Italy. To maintain their authority, enforce law and order; extract taxes and check incursions from rival territories they had to act like other, secular rulers, becoming fully enmeshed in diplomacy and war. The third aspect was administrative. The popes were the heads of the largest bureaucracy in Europe, maintaining contact with local churches through the making or licensing of appointments, the management of clerical dues and taxation, the receipt of appeals in lawsuits conducted in terms of the Church's own canon law.

A number of matters, notably the making of appointments to especially wealthy sees and abbacies, or the incidence of taxation, could lead to conflict with secular authorities. This in turn led to the practice whereby monarchs retained the services of cardinals sympathetic to their national policies, so that they might have a voice at court, as it were, to influence popes in their favour. The choice of popes became increasingly affected by the known political sympathies of cardinals, and the pressure and temptations that could be applied to them. So onerous, various and inevitably politicized an office was not for a saint. The pious hermit Celestine V had in 1294 crumpled under its burden after only a few months.

The identification of the Papacy with Rome, which seems so inevitable, was long in doubt. The insecurity of the shabby and unpopulous medieval city, prey to the feuds of baronial families like the Orsini, Colonna and Caetani, had already forced the popes from time to time to set up their headquarters elsewhere in Italy. For the greater part of the 14th century (1309-77) the Papacy funetioned out of Italy altogether, at Avignon, building there (especially the huge Palace of the Popes) on a scale that suggested permanence. Though they were by no means in the pockets of their neighbours the kings of France, criticism of undue influence steadily mounted. Provence ceased to be a comfortingly secure region as the Hundred Years War between England and France proceeded. Finally the breakdown of central authority in the Papal State, despite the efforts there of such strenuous papal lieutenants as Cardinal Albornoz (in 1353-67), prompted Gregory XI to return to Rome in 1377.

The period of authority and cultivated magnificence associated with the Renaissance Papacy was, however, to be long delayed. The return to Rome was challenged by a group of cardinals faithful to France. On Gregory's death in 1378 their election of a rival or antipope opened a period of divided authority, further complicated in 1409 by the election of yet a third pope. This situation deepened the politicization of the papal office (for support to the rivals was given purely on the basis of the dynastic conflicts in Europe) and confused the minds, if it did no serious damage to the faith, of individuals. But the remedy was another blow to the recovery of papal confidence and power. To resolve the problem of divided authority, protect the faith from the extension of heresy (especially in the case of the Bohemian followers of John Huss), and bring about an improvement in the standards of education and deportment among the Church's personnel, it was at last resolved to call together a General Council of the Church. It was argued that such a council, which met at Constance 1414-18, would, by being representative of the Christian faithful as a whole; possess an authority which, in the eyes of God, could supersede that of a pope. In this spirit Huss was tried and executed, a number of reforms relating to the clergy were passed and, above all (for this was the only measure with permanent consequences), two of the rival popes were deposed and the other forced to abdicate; Martin V being elected by a fairly united body of cardinals.

There remained; however, the challenge to his authority represented by the conciliar theory itself: that final authority could be vested as well in a group (if properly constituted) as in an individual. This view was expressed again by the Council of Basle, which lasted from 1431 until as late as 1449. Not until 1460 did a pope feel strong enough to make rejection of the theory an article of faith, as Pius II did in his bull 'Execrabilis'. By then, however, in spite of further absences from Rome, notably that of Eugenius IV (1431-40), who governed the Church chiefly from Florence, the acceptance of the city as the most practical - as well, from the point of view of its religious associations, the most appropriate - base for the Papacy had been made clear in the plans of Nicholas V for improving it. Thenceforward the creation of a capital commensurate with the authority of the institution it housed continued steadily. As at Avignon, fine buildings and a luxurious style of life were, as such, considered perfectly suitable for the role played by the head of the Church: a view exemplified in episcopal and archiepiscopal palaces all over Europe. However, the creation of a cultural capital, through lavish patronage of artists, scholars and men of letters, as well as a governmental one, not only contributed to an atmosphere of worldliness that aroused criticism, but may also have diverted the popes from registering the true import of the spiritual movements that were to cause the Reformation conflict of faiths. The fortunes of the Papacy from its return to Rome can be followed in the biographies of its outstanding representatives.

paragone ('comparison')
In an art historical context paragone refers to debates concerning the respective worthiness of painting and sculpture. The first protracted discussion was compiled from passages scattered through the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. It is one of the topics dealt with in Castiglione's The courtier, and in 1546 Benedetto Varchi even sent a questionnaire on the subject to sculptors (including Michelangelo and Cellini) and painters (including Pontormo and Vasari). Apart from demonstrating an aspect of the interest taken in the arts, it acted as a stimulus to the development of the language and concepts through which art could be appraised and understood, as did the parallel discussion of the respective merits of painting and poetry.
pastoral (Lat. pastor, "shepherd")
Relating to a romantic or idealized image of rural life; in classical literature, to a world peopled by shepherds, nymphs, and satyrs.
pavilion (Lat. papilio, "butterfly, hence tent")
A lightly constructed, ornamental building, such as a garden summerhouse; a small, ornamental structure built onto a palace or cháteau; a prominent section of a monumental façade, projecting either centrally or at both ends.
pendant (Fr. "hanging, dependent")
One of a pair of related art works, or related elements within an art work.
pergola (It.)
A passageway covered by a trellis on which climbing plants are grown.
perspective (Lat. perspicere, "to see through, see clearly")
The method of representing three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. Perspective gives a picture a sense of depth. The most important form of perspective in the Renaissance was linear perspective (first formulated by the architect Brunelleschi in the early 15th century), in which the real or suggested lines of objects converge on a vanishing point on the horizon, often in the middle of the composition (centralized perspective). The first artist to make a systematic use of linear perspective was Masaccio, and its principles were set out by the architect Alberti in a book published in 1436. The use of linear perspective had a profound effect on the development of Western art and remained unchallenged until the 20th century.
pier
In architecture, a square pillar supporting an arch or horizontal member.
Pietà (Lat. [Maria Santissima della] Pietà, Most Holy Mary of Pity)
A depiction of the Virgin Mary with the crucified body of Jesus across her lap. Developing in Germany in the 14th century, the Pietà became a familiar part of Renaissance religious imagery. One of the best-known examples is Michelangelo's "Pietà" (1497-1500) in St. Peter's, Rome.
pilaster (Lat. pilastrum, "pillar")
A rectangular column set into a wall, usually as a decorative feature.
plague
Plague, which had been extinct in Italy from the 8th century, returned along eastern trade routes to strike the peninsula, and thereafter all Europe, in October 1347. During 1348 the Black Death, comprising the bubonic and still more deadly septicaemic and pneumonic forms of the disease, swept town and countryside in a series of attacks whose horror was strikingly portrayed by Boccaccio in his preface to the Decameron. Thenceforward, though in less widespread, more sporadic outbreaks, plague recurred periodically until the 18th century. Thirty per cent of the population of Venice died in the outbreak of 1575-7, for instance, which was commemorated by Palladio's church of the Redentore. Preventive measures included the boarding up of infected families, the isolation of sufferers in plague hospitals, the burning of 'infected' clothing, but none worked or mitigated the feeling of hopelessness. The plague's social effects are an object of controversy. It seems probable, however, that during the second half of the 14th century plague reduced the population of Italy by a half and at certain centres, such as Florence and Genoa, sharply accentuated an economic depression which had already set in during the 1340s. In the 15th century, despite regional variations, it is unlikely that population began to rise significantly before the 1470s.

Large claims have been made in the field of the arts and of human sensibility for the influence of plague. In Florence and Siena from 1348 to 1380, religious feeling and the art which mirrors it seem to assume more sombre forms and to reflect less the human and more the divine, transcendent and threatening aspects of faith. Yet the black rat and its plague-bearing flea could find a more hospitable environment in the hovels of the poor than in the stone-built houses of wealthy patrons of the arts (who, moreover, were often able to remove themselves from areas where plague had broken out). For this reason, perhaps, it is difficult to find, outside Tuscany, evidence of cultural change which could be attributed to plague, and in the Italy of the 15th and 16th centuries the main effect of the disease in art is to be found only in the frequent portrayal of the plague saints, Rocco and Sebastian. It is none the less interesting to recall that it was against a stark background of continual menace from plague that the human achievements of the Renaissance came into being.

Plato and neo-Platonism
The Renaissance revival of Platonism and neo-Platonism was one of the characteristic intellectual features of the Renaissance. In fields ranging from literature (Castiglione and Ronsard) to science (Bruno and Galileo) it exerted a great influence in all parts of Europe from Portugal and Scotland to Hungary and Poland. The founder of one of the two most influential ancient schools of philosophy, Plato (428-348 BC) was born at Athens. A student of Socrates, he continued to develop his philosophy after the master's death in 399, and was in turn the teacher of Aristotle. Writing in a forceful and compelling style mostly cast in dialogue form, Plato was the author of some 30 works of lasting fame including the Republic, the Symposium, Phaedrus, Phaedo, Philebus, Timaeus, Theatetus and the Laws.

Plato's philosophy has a distinctly other-worldly character, emphasizing the spiritual and non-material aspects of reality. In contrast with Aristotle, he gives knowledge and philosophy an intuitive and intellectual basis, not so much dependent upon sense experience as on inspiration and direct mental contact with the supra-sensible sources of knowledge. Thus empirical science does not have a central role in Plato's thought, though mathematics is consistently stressed as being an important gateway to the natural world. Such themes as poetic inspiration and harmony, as well as the rigorous analyses of central moral doctrines such as justice and happiness, have ensured that his works were widely read for many centuries. Rather unsystematic, with many internal contradictions and points left unresolved, his works were already subjected to critical analysis and amplification by his earliest followers. Plotinus, the greatest of his ancient disciples, systematized and added to what Plato had done, turning the tradition in an even more mystical and spiritual direction, while at the same time giving the philosophy a more coherent form. 'Neo-Platonism' resulted from these modifications and those of other ancient Platonists.

Only a small proportion of Plato's works was known during the Middle Ages in western Europe, though indirect knowledge of Platonic doctrine through many late ancient sources secured a significant fortuna down to the 15th century. Petrarch favoured Plato over Aristotle as an authority and set the tone for the great Renaissance revival of interest in Platonism. The real re-emergence of Plato began around 1400, when Greek manuscripts of most of his works came into Italy from Constantinople. Latin translations of several works were made in the early 15th century, but only with Ficino were the entire writings first made available in Latin (published 1484). Ficino was also the founder of the informal Platonic Academy which met at the Medici villa at Careggi, near Florence. Ficino's interpretation went far beyond what could be found in the text of Plato, and he utilized many other writings, including those of Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus and a range of pseudonymous texts, among them those attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and Orpheus, and the Chaldaic Oracles, all of which he also translated into Latin. He emphasized the close kinship between the Platonic philosophy and the Christian religion, seeing them as parallel paths to the truth connected at source, and holding that Plato had had access to the Pentateuch and absorbed some ideas from it: he agreed with Numenius (2c. AD) that Plato was a 'Greek-speaking Moses'.

Ficino's translations of Plato and the neo-Platonists were reprinted frequently and were the standard sources for knowledge of Platonism for several centuries. Among his Italian followers Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Francesco da Diacceto (1466-1522) were perhaps the most important, and Agostino Steuco (c. 1497-1548) developed Christian Platonism into a 'perennial philosophy'. The impact of Ficino's work gradually made itself felt be yond the confines of Italy, for example with Symphorian Champier (c. 1472-c. 1539) and Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (c. 1460-1536) in France and John Colet (c. 1467-1519) and Thomas More (1478-1535) in England.

The first Greek edition of Plato's works was published by Aldus at Venice in 1513 , but the later edition published at Paris in 1578 by Henri Estienne achieved perhaps even greater fame. A new Latin translation, prepared by Jean de Serres (1540-98) to accompany Estienne's edition, partially, but not completely, replaced Ficino's. There was no complete translation into a vernacular language during the Renaissance, though various dialogues were rendered into Italian and French, the translations of Louis Le Roy (d.1577) becoming particularly popular. Unlike the case of Aristotle, the interest in Plato and neo-Platonism was largely outside the universities. It was especially in a number of academies in France and Italy that there was a focused reading of Platonic texts. The numerous editions and translations show that there was a wide general demand for his writings. Plato was read in the universities, if on a very limited scale: for example various dialogues were read from time to time as part of Greek courses. In the 1570s special chairs of Platonic philosophy were established at the universities of Pisa and Ferrara. The latter was held for 14 years by Francesco Patrizi of Cherso, one of the most forceful and original Platonic philosophers of the Renaissance.

pointed arch
In architecture, an arch rising to a point (instead of being round, as in classical architecture). The pointed arch is characteristic of Gothic architecture.
polyptych (Gk. poluptukhos, "folded many times")
A painting (usually an altarpiece) made up of a number of panels fastened together. Some polyptychs were very elaborate, the panels being housed in richly carved and decorated wooden frameworks. Duccio's "Maestà" (1308-1311) is a well-known example.
portrait (in the Italian Renaissance)
The Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture.

The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello.

The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90).

preachers
The field of preaching was dominated by the religious orders, primarily the mendicants. Quite apart from the notorious incompetence of the secular clergy, members of regular orders were the acknowledged masters of pulpit oratory, of the sermon as an art form. This pre-eminence was not challenged even in the 16th century, when reformers called for the secular clergy engaged in the pastoral ministry, bishops especially, to discharge their preaching duties. The great preaching events of the year were still the Lenten sermons given by friars or monks of repute; star preachers journeyed all over Italy. The major collections of sermons published in the 16th century came from friars or monks, several of whom became bishops; sermons of bishops not drawn from the orders are hard to find.

Outstanding preachers of the 15th century whose sermons are extant are the Franciscans S. Bernardino da Siena and Bernardino da Feltre (d. 1494), together with the Dominican Savonarola. For the 16th century there are the Capuchin Ochino; the Franciscans Franceschino Visdomini (1514-73), Cornelio Musso (1511-74), bishop of Bertinoro and Bitonto, and Francesco Panigarola (1548-94), bishop of Asti; the Augustinian Canon Gabriele Fiamma (1533-85), bishop of Chioggia; and, from the secular clergy, Borromeo. The call to repentance was a major feature of Lenten sermons: here Bernardino da Feltre stood out for his harsh, minatory exhortations; Savonarola and Musso, in their appeals for communal religious renewal, took on the dramatic role of Old Testament prophets as if laying claim to divine inspiration. Mendicants of the 15th century castigated the vices of society, not least those of statesmen and prelates, but 16th century ones were more cautious here.

The styles of S. Bernardino da Siena and Bernardino da Feltre were earthy, abrasive even; Savonarola's by contrast was cultivated and his last sermons were complex and arcane; Ochino's unadorned style was peculiarly limpid and conveys a winged emotionality. The sermons of Visdomini, Musso and Panigarola on the other hand often strain after emotional effect by accumulation of rhetoric and largesse of poetic vocabulary; Panigarola is particularly noted for his literary conceits and has been viewed as a significant precursor of the literary Baroque. Fiamma's sermons, however, are not florid in style; his forte was allegorical explication of scriptural references. The flow of Borromeo's grandiose and sometimes emotive style shows how he, by contrast with the mendicant preachers, was versed in classical and patristic rhetoric. In general 16th century sermons were very free in their formal organization and in no way bound to the principles of construction laid down in medieval preaching manuals.

predella (It. "altar step")
An Italian word for the small strip of paintings which forms the lower edge or socle of a large altarpiece (pala). Such a polyptych consists of a principal, central panel with subsidiary side and/or top panels, and a predella: the predella usually has narrative scenes from the lives of the Saints who are represented in the panels above. Because of the small size of predelle - they are not usually more than 25-30 cm high, though often relatively very wide - they were frequently used for pictorial experiments that the painter did not wish to risk making in the larger panels. The first datable example seems to be that in Simone Martini's S. Louis of Toulouse (1317, Naples).
prefiguration
Typology - the notion that aspects of the life and mission of Christ were in many respects prefigured or foreshadowed in the Old Testament - had become popularized visually by the 14th century through versions of works like the Biblia pauperum with their pairs of illustrations: Brazen Serpent/the Crucifixion, Moses receiving the tablets of the Law/the Sermon on the Mount, Joseph sold into captivity/the betrayal of Christ, the temptations of Adam and Christ, Noah's Ark prefiguring the Church as a means of human salvation, and so forth. Strengthened by the 15th century wish to find anticipations of Christian teachings in the ancient world (e.g. the Sybils as the pagan counterparts of the Prophets), this fascination with parallels gave rise to whole cycles, like the frescoes on the walls of the Sistine Chapel showing scenes from the life of Moses answered by scenes from that of Christ, as well as providing some extremely recondite reasons for the choice of Old Testament subjects. The New Testament references in these would, however, have been caught at the time because of the continued popularity of typological analogies in sermons and devotional literature.
presentation drawings
Evolving naturally as a consequence of contemporary workshop practice, these highly finished drawings, intended as complete works of art in themselves, seem to have first assumed an importance in the bottega of Verrocchio. They acquired under Leonardo and especially Michelangelo the role of high art for a privileged few. That the recipients of these drawings studied them carefully is made clear in contemporary letters, again indicative of the purpose they served. The term is perhaps a little too freely applied.
profil perdu (Fr. "lost profile")
A pose in which the figure's head is turned away from the viewer so that only an outline of the cheek is visible.
provenance
The origins of an art work; the history of a work's ownership since its creation. The study of a work's provenance is important in establishing authenticity.
putti sing. putto (It. "boys")
Plump naked little boys, most commonly found in late Renaissance and Baroque works. They can be either sacred (angels) or secular (the attendants of Venus).

Q

Quattrocento (It. "four hundred")
The 15th century in Italian art. The term is often used of the new style of art that was characteristic of the Early Renaissance, in particular works by Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Fra Angelico and others. It was preceded by the Trecento and followed by the Cinquecento.

R

relief (Lat. relevare, "to raise")
A sculptural work in which all or part projects from the flat surface. There are three basic forms: low relief (bas-relief, basso rilievo), in which figures project less than half their depth from the background; medium relief (mezzo-rilievo), in which figures are seen half round; and high relief (alto rilievo), in which figures are almost detached from their background.
religious orders and congregations
An order is a body of men or women bound by solemn vows and following a rule of life, e.g. the great orders of monks, hermits, canons regular, friars and nuns, or the Jesuits. A congregation may be either a subsection of an order, or a body of persons bound by simple vows and generally having a looser structure than an order. Among the old orders there was both fusion and fission. Among the contemplative orders, originally autonomous houses tended to group themselves into congregations, presided over by chapters general. A major stimulus to such reform movements was concern for mutual defence against the abuse of commendams, i.e. the grant of abbacies 'in trust' to non-resident outsiders to the order. At the same time, there was dissidence and fractionalization in almost all of the old orders and congregations, the great issue of contention being the strict observance.

The Benedictines, who had no overall organization originally, were mostly grouped into congregations by the 16th century. The Silvestrines, Celestines and Olivetines were old congregations. That of S. Giustina, Padua, which was to become the main Italian one, developed from 1419 under the leadership of the Venetian Lodovico Barbo. He was particularly concerned to develop sacred studies and eventually there were certain designated houses of study for the entire congregation, the most notable being S. Benedetto, Mantua. In 1504, having absorbed St Benedict's original monastery, it became the Cassinese congregation. The Camaldolese were an offshoot of the Benedictines. Founded by St Romuald c. 1012, they followed a distinctive eremetical rule of life, rather on the model of Eastern monasticism, with hermitages linked to matrix monasteries. In the second decade of the 16th century Paolo Giustiniani led a movement for a revival of the strict eremetical ideal; hence the formation of the Monte Corona congregation.

Canons Regular of St Augustine follow a rule and are basically monks; they are to be distinguished from secular canons who serve cathedral and collegiate churches. Two major congregations arose from reform movements in the 15th century: that of S. Salvatore, Bologna (1419), and the Lateran one (1446) which grew from S. Maria di Fregonaia, Lucca. A body genuinely monastic and contemplative in spirit, although technically of secular canons, was the congregation of S. Giorgio in Alga, Venice (1404), whose foundation is especially associated with Gabriel Condulmer (later Eugenius IV) and S. Lorenzo Giustiniani, the great patriarch of Venice. The Hermits of St Augustine and the Carmelites were originally contemplative eremetical orders which turned to the active life of friars. The Hermits of St Jerome (Hieronymites or Gerolimini) appeared from the 15th century and included the Fiesole and Lombard congregations and that of Pietro Gambacorta of Pisa.

The Friars Minor (Franciscans) had been split after their founder's death by disputes between the Spirituals, with their ideology of an absolute apostolic poverty, and their more institutionalized brethren, the Conventuals. After the repression of the Spirituals, the great dispute in the order was primarily a legalistic one: the division was between the Conventuals, whose friaries were corporate property-owners; and the generally moderate Observants; whose friaries were technically non-property owning, their resources being in the hands of trustees. 'The Observance' did not necessarily designate a very straitened rule of life but in the 15th century a strict movement of the Observance developed whose leading figures were S. Bernardino of Siena, S. Giovanni da Capestrano and Giacomo della Marca. In 1517, the bull 'Ite vos' of Leo X instituted the Great Division between Friars Minor (Conventual) and Friars Minor of the Observance; various groups were fused in the latter body, which was given precedence over the Conventuals. The Conventuals, however, continued to hold the order's great basilicas. The same bull provided for special friaries within the Observance for those dedicated to a very strict interpretation of the Rule. Failure to implement this clause caused a splinter movement of zealot groups which finally coalesced into the Capuchins and the Reformed (canonically recognized in 1528 and 1532 respectively). The Order of Preachers (Dominicans) underwent similar if less serious crises over the issue of poverty and a body of the strict observance was established in the late 14th century; however, the Dominicans were substantially reunited under the generalate of the great Tommaso di Vio da Gaeta (1508-18). Other orders of Friars were the Minims, founded by S. Francesco da Paola in 1454 on the primitive Franciscan model, and the Servites following the Augustinian rule.

The 16th century produced the Jesuits (founded in 1541) and several rather small congregations of clerks regular, who had many of the marks of secular clergy but who lived a common life. Generally they were devoted to pastoral and welfare work. The first, the Theatines, founded by Giampietro Caraffa (later Paul IV) and the Vicentine aristocrat S. Gaetano da Thiene, emerged from the Roman Oratory of Divine Love in 1524. The Somaschi were founded at Somasca near Bergamo in 1532 by S. Gerolamo Aemiliani, a Venetian noble castellan turned evangelist; this congregation specialized in the upbringing of orphan boys. The Barnabites were founded at Milan by S. Antonio Maria Zaccaria in 1533, while the Congregation of the Oratory was founded in Rome in the 1560s by S. Filippo Neri. One of the few significant innovations among the female orders were the Ursulines, an offshoot of the Brescian Confraternity of Divine Love, founded in 1535 by S. Angela Merici. S. Angela's intention was that they should be a congregation of unenclosed women dedicated to the active life in charitable and educational work; however, the ecclesiastical authorities forced the Ursulines into the mould of an enclosed contemplative order. While the friars basically remained attached to scholastic philosophy and theology, certain sections of contemplative orders were distinguished for humanist studies and related forms of religious scholarship; most notably the Cassinese Benedictine congregation, the Lateran Canons (especially of the Badia Fiesolana) and the Camaldolese, who included Ambrogio Traversari in Florence and a group of scholars at S. Michele in Isola, Venice.

Renaissance
A French label given to an Italian cultural movement and to its repercussions elsewhere; also, on the assumption that chronological slices of human mass experience can usefully be described in terms of a dominant intellectual and creative manner, a historical period. For Italy the period is popularly accepted as running from the second generation of the 14th century to the second or third generation of the 16th century. Though there is something inherently ridiculous about describing a period of 250 years as one of rebirth, there is some justification for seeing a unity within it, if only in terms of the chronological self-awareness of contemporaries.

For Petrarch the challenge to understand and celebrate the achievements of ancient Rome led him to scorn the intervening centuries which had neglected them; he saw them as an age of intellectual sleep, of 'darkness', and his own as potentially one of light, of an energetic revival of interest in, and competition with, too long forgotten glories. Thanks to his fame not only as a scholar but also as a poet and a voluminous correspondent, this sense of living in an age of new possibilities was rapidly shared by others who worked within the intellectual framework which came to be known as Humanism. Perhaps the sense of living in a new mental atmosphere can be compared to the exhilaration that followed the realization that Marxist analysis could be used to look afresh at the significance of intellectual and creative, as well as political, life. The humanistic enthusiasm lasted so long, however, because its core of energy, the historical reality of antiquity, was so vast and potent, because it was uncontroversial (save when an assassin borrowed the aura of Brutus, or a paganizing faddist mocked Christianity), and because the scholarly excitement about the need to imitate the achievements of the Roman (and, increasingly, Greek) past was sustained by evidence from contemporary art and literature that it could be done. Even when the Wars of Italy had inflicted grievous humiliations on Italian pride, Vasari could still see a process of restored vigour in the arts, which had begun early in the 14th century, as only coming near its close with the death of Michelangelo in 1564.

Vasari's Lives became a textbook of European repute. It was his contention that he was describing what followed from the rinascita or rebirth of the arts that launched the word on its increasingly inclusive career. For long, however, it was a 'renaissance' of this or that, of arts, of scholarship, of letters. Not until the publication in 1855 of the volume in Jules Michelet's Histoire de France entitled 'La Renaissance' was the label attached to a period and all that happened in it; not until the appearance of Jacob Burckhardt's still seminal Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy in 1860 was it ineluctably identified in particular with Italy and more generally with a phase of human development thought to be markedly different in kind from what went before and what came after.

Thereafter, 'Renaissance' became a mercurial term: not just a label for a period or a movement but a concept, a concept redolent (in spite of Burckhardt's precautions) of Individualism, All-Roundness, even Amoralism; man had escaped from the medieval thought-dungeon, and the world (and its expanding physical and mental horizons) was his oyster; culture was linked to personality and behaviour; the Renaissance became both the scene and the work of Renaissance Man. To a northern European world (whence the alertest scholars and popularizers came), morally confined by Protestantism and social decorum, 'Renaissance' became a symbol of ways of conduct and thought that were either to be castigated (John Ruskin, whose The stones of Venice of 1851-53 had anticipated the art-morality connection) or envied (John Addington Symonds's avidly nostalgic Renaissance in Italy, 1875-86).

A term that had become so liable to subjective interpretation was bound to attract criticism. During this century it has been challenged chiefly on the following points. (1) There is no such thing as a self-sufficient historical period. Much that was characteristic of the Middle Ages flowed into and through the Renaissance. Much that was characteristic of the Renaissance flowed on until the age of experimental science, of industrialization, mobilized nationalism, and mass media. (2) Renaissance art and literature did not develop so consistently that they can be seen in one broad Vasarian sweep. There was an early, a 'high' and a late stage (all variously dated) in terms of artistic and literary aims and style. (3) There is not a true, let alone a uniform, congruence between, 'culture' and 'history' during the period; 'Renaissance' culture came late to Venice, later still to Genoa, both thriving centres of political and commercial activity. (4) To define a period in terms of a cultural élite is to divert attention unacceptably from the fortunes of the population as a whole.

Though thus challenged, mocked (the 'so-called Renaissance'), aped (the 'Carolingian' or 'Ottonian' renaissance, etc.) and genially debased ('the renaissance of the mini-skirt'), the term retains most of its glamour and much of its usefulness. It is surely not by chance that 'rebirth' rather than the 18th century and early 19th century 'revival' (of arts, letters, etc.) was the term chosen, because it applies to a society the resonance of a personal, spiritual and perhaps psychological aspiration: the new start, the previous record - with all its shabbiness - erased. It is for this additional, subjective reason a term to be used with caution. The challenges are to be accepted, however, gratefully, as having led to an enormous extension of knowledge and sensitivity.

rilievo (It. "relief")
In painting, the impression that an object is three-dimensional, that it stands out from its background fully rounded.
Rococo
A style of design, painting, and architecture dominating the 18th century, often considered the last stage of the Baroque. Developing in the Paris townhouses of the French aristocracy at the turn of the 18th century, Rococo was elegant and ornately decorative, its mood lighthearted and witry. Louis XV furniture, richly decorated with organic forms, is a typical product. Leading exponents of the Rococo sryle included the French painter Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), and the German architect Johann Balthasar Neumann (1687-1753). Rococo gave way to Neo-classicism.
Romanesque
Style of art and architecture prevailing throughout most of Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries, the first style to achieve such international currency. The dominant art of the Middle Ages was architecture, and 'Romanesque', like 'Gothic', is primarily an architectural term that has been extended to the other arts of the period. As the name suggests, it indicates a derivation from Roman art, and sometimes Romanesque is used to cover all the developments from Roman architecture in the period from the collapse of the Roman Empire until the flowering of the Gothic roughly AD 500-1200. More usually, however, it is applied to a distinctive style that emerged, almost simultaneously, in several countries - France, Germany, Italy, Spain - in the 11th century. It is characterized most obviously by a new massiveness of scale, reflecting the greater political and economic stability that followed a period when Christian civilization seemed in danger of extinction. Romanesque painting and sculpture are generally strongly stylized, with little of the naturalism and humanistic warmth of classical or later Gothic art. The forms of nature are freely translated into linear and sculptural designs which are sometimes majestically calm and severe and at others are agitated by a visionary excitement that can become almost delirious. Because of its expressionistic distortion of natural form, Romanesque art, as with other great non-naturalistic styles of the past, has had to wait for the revolution in sensibility brought about by the development of modern art in order to be widely appreciated.
Romanist
Name used to describe Northern artists of the early 16th century whose style was influenced by Italian Renaissance painting, usually as a result of a visit to Italy. Mabuse, B. van Orley, M. van Heemskerk, Q. Massys and M. van Reymerswaele are important Romanists.
rosette
A small architectural ornament consisting of a disc on which there is a carved or molded a circular, stylized design representing an open rose.

S

Sack of Rome
Climax of the papal-Imperial struggle and a turning point in the history of Italy, the Sack of Rome resulted from Clement VII's adhesion to the League of Cognac (1526). Imperial troops under the Duke of Bourbon left Milan and joined an army of mainly Lutheran landsknechts (January 1527). The Duke of Bourbon marched on Rome, hoping to force Clement to abandon the League and to provide money for the pay of the Imperial army. A truce made by the Pope and Lannoy failed to halt this advance, and Rome was attacked and taken on 6 May, the Duke of Bourbon being killed at the first assault. Clement escaped into Castel S. Angelo but for a week Rome itself was subjected to a sacking of a peculiarly brutal nature. Although the army was then brought back under some kind of control, it continued to occupy Rome until February 1528, when it finally left the city it had devastated, gutted, and impoverished.
Sacra Conversazione (It. "holy conversation")
A representation of the Virgin and Child attended by saints. There is seldom a literal conversation depicted, though as the theme developed the interaction between the participants - expressed through gesture, glance and movement - greatly increased. The saints depicted are usually the saint the church or altar is dedicated to, local saints, or those chosen by the patron who commissioned the work.
sacra rappresentazione
A dramatic form that flourished particularly in Quattrocento Tuscany, supported by lay confraternities. Written primarily in ottava rima, the sacra rappresentazione was staged in an open space with luoghi deputati, multiple sets used in succession. Subjects were nominally sacred, from the Old and New Testaments, pious legend and hagiography, but the injection of realistic vignette and detail from contemporary local life or of romantic elaboration was considerable. There were no limits on time; a single rappresentazione or festa could begin with the Creation and end with the Final Judgment, and available techniques of elaborate scenery made such subjects desirable. Many compositions were anonymous, but others were the work of well-known figures, among them Feo Belcari (1410-84), author of La rappresentazione di Abram ed Isac (1449), and Lorenzo de' Medici, whose Rappresentazione dei SS. Giovanni e Paolo (1491) was performed by the children of the Compagnia del Vangelista. The rappresentazioni were often printed in the Cinquecento and continued to be performed on municipal occasions, but eventually they became fare only for monasteries and convents.
Salt War, the
Exasperated by the overriding of their privileges by papal governors, and hit by the rise in price of provisions after two disastrous harvests, the Perugians seized on Pope Paul III's order of 1540, that the price of salt should be increased, as an excuse to revolt. They were still seeking aid, notably from Florence and in Germany, when a papal army forced the city to surrender and swear allegiance to the legate sent to govern it. The chief focus of discontent, the area containing the houses of the old ruling family, the Bentivoglio, was buried under a new fortress, the Rocca Paolina, designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.
Saracens
During the Middle Ages, the Arabs or Muslims, particularly those who fought against the Christian Crusades.
sarcophagus, pl. sarcophagi (Gk. "flesh eating")
A coffin or tomb, made of stone, wood or terracotta, and sometimes (especially among the Greeks and Romans) carved with inscriptions and reliefs.
satyr
In Greek mythology, human-like woodland deities with the ears, legs and horns of a goat. Often depicted as the attendant of the Bacchus, the god of wine.
Scepticism
This generic term covers several different anti-dogmatic tendencies in ancient and modern philosophy. The founder of the school is traditionally considered to be Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360 - c. 270 BC), whose writings, along with all the other original works of the formulators of the tradition, are lost. Information about the movement is contained in later writings such as Cicero's Academica (c. 45 BC), Diogenes Laertius' Life of Pyrrho (3rd century AD), and especially the works of Sextus Empiricus (c. 160 - c. 210 AD). The central thesis of the Sceptics is that certitude is impossible, owing to the many obstacles preventing valid empirical knowledge, in particular the absence of a criterion by which to distinguish truth from falsity. Rather than establishing a system of positive philosophy, the Sceptics emphasized the critical and negative nature of philosophy in questioning what was taken as legitimate knowledge by dogmatic schools such as Platonism and Stoicism.

Little known in the Middle Ages, the Sceptical position was revived in the Renaissance when the writings of Diogenes Laertius and Sextus Empiricus once again became available. Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola was the first Renaissance writer to utilize Sceptical arguments in a systematic way: his lead was followed by Francisco Sanches (1552-1623 ), Michel de Montaigne (1533-92), and many others. The publication of Latin (1562, 1569) and Greek (162I) editions of Sextus Empiricus was important for later diffusion.

Schism, the Great
It began 20 September 1378 when a majority of the cardinals, having declared their election of the Neapolitan Bartolomeo Prignano (Urban VI) 5 months previously to be invalid because of the undue pressure exerted by the Roman mob, elected the Frenchman Robert of Geneva (Clement VII). Although the schism was caused by acute personal differences between Urban and the cardinals, most of whom, being Frenchmen, were deeply unhappy over the return of the Papacy from Avignon to Rome, Christendom divided along political lines once the double election had taken place, with France and her allies Aragon, Castile and Scotland supporting Clement, while England, the Emperor and most other princes remained loyal to Urban.

Most of the Italian states stood behind Urban but in Naples Queen Giovanna I of Anjou provoked a popular and baronial revolt by sheltering Clement, and for the next 20 years the kingdom was contested between, on one side, Charles III of Durazzo (d. 1386) and his son Ladislas, who recognized the Roman pope, and, on the other, Louis I (d. 1384) and Louis II of Anjou, who had the support of the Avignon pope. In northern Italy, the scene was dominated by the expansionist policies of Giangaleazzo Visconti of Milan until his death in 1402; from time to time both he and his opponents, the Florentines, flirted with the Avignon popes in the hope of obtaining French support, but with little effect.

Meanwhile the temporal power of the Roman popes survived despite Urban's gift for quarrelling with all his allies, and was considerably built up by his able successor Boniface IX (1389-1404). However, on his death the Roman papacy fell under the domination of King Ladislas of Naples, who drove north through Rome to threaten central Italy, causing the Florentines and most of the other Italian states to throw their weight behind a group of cardinals from both camps who met at Pisa and elected a third pope, Alexander V, in June 1409. It was the continued pressure of Ladislas that finally compelled Alexander's successor Baldassare Cossa (John XXIII) to summon the Council of Constance (1414-18}. This Council healed the Schism by deposing both John and the Avignon pope Benedict XIII and accepting the resignation of the Roman pope, thus leaving the way open for the election in 1417 of Martin V (1417-31), who set about the task of restoring the shattered power and prestige of the Holy See. The 39-year schism killed the supranational papacy of the Middle Ages, for; while devout Christians agonized, practical politicians (often the same people) seized the chance to extend their jurisdiction at the Church's expense. As a result, the Renaissance popes were much more dependent on their Italian resources, and therefore far more purely Italian princes, than their medieval predecessors.

scholasticism
The term is ambivalent. It describes the characteristic method of instruction and exposition used in medieval schools and universities: the posing of a case (quaestio), arguing (disputatio) and settling it (sententia). It also describes the subject matter that was particularly shaped by this method: philosophy, with its strong connection with Christian theology and its dependence on Aristotelian texts and commentaries, and theology, with its assumption that spiritual truths can be seized with the tools of formal logic. 'Scholasticism' has thus become almost synonymous with medieval thought. As such, it can appear the antithesis of Renaissance thought, especially as writers like Petrarch and Valla poured scorn on both the methods and the content of medieval scholarship.

None the less, in spite of Valla's insistence (in his Encomion S. Thomae of 1457) that theologians should eschew dialectic and listen anew to the sources of spiritual understanding, the gospels and the early Greek and Roman Fathers, scholastic method maintained its vitality in the areas where continuity with medieval practice was strongest, theology itself and 'Aristotelian' philosophy. Medieval scholars, moreover, notably Aquinas, were quoted with admiration even by neo-Platonic philosophers. It was because the central concerns of humanism - moral philosophy, textual scholarship, history and rhetoric - were different from those of medieval, university-based study, and were less suited to a dialectical form of exposition, that scholasticism was left, as it were, on one side. But to ignore its presence is to exaggerate the difference between the new learning and the old.

secco
See fresco
sibyls
In antiquity, women who could prophesy. The many Sibylline prophecies were kept in Rome and consulted by the Senate. In Christian legend, Sibyls foretold the Birth, Passion and Resurrection of Christ, just as the male prophets of the Bible did.
sinopia
The preparatory drawing for a fresco drawn on the wall where the painting is to appear; the red chalk used to make such a drawing.
soft style
A name given to the style found principally in Germany (where it is called Weiche Stil), at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries. It is very closely related to International Gothic, and, as the name implies, is characterized by soft and gentle rhythms, especially in the flow of drapery, and by a sweet and playful sentiment. The principal subject is the Madonna playing with the Christ Child and these are sometimes called Schöne Madonnen - 'Beautiful Madonnas'. Sculpture and the earliest woodcuts show the style even more clearly than painting.
sotto in sù (It. "up from under")
Perspective in which people and objects are seen from below and shown with extreme foreshortening.
staffage
This word, pronounced as French, is used in both English and German to describe the figures and animals which animate a picture intended essentially as a landscape or veduta; in other words, figures which are not really essential and could be added by another painter. In the highly specialized world of the Dutch painters of the 17th century this was very often the case, so that a landscape painter like Wynants rarely did his own staffage; whereas Canaletto or Guardi always did.
Stanze (Ital. rooms)
The suite of rooms in the Vatican decorated by Raphael.
stigmata, sing. stigma (Gk. "mark, brand, tattoo")
The five Crucifixion wounds of Christ (pierced feet, hands and side) which appear miraculously on the body of a saint. One of the most familiar examples in Renaissance art is the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi.
studiolo, pl. studioli (It.)
A room in a Renaissance palace in which the rich or powerful could retire to study their rare books and contemplate their works of art. The studiolo became a symbol of a person's humanist learning and artistic refinement. Among the best known are those of Duke Federico da Montefeltro in Urbino, and Isabella D'Este in Mantua.

T

tapestry (in Italian Renaissance)
As historical climatologists have not shown that Renaissance Italian winters and springs were warmer than they are now, it is puzzling that Italy did not fabricate tapestries to decorate and draught-proof the stony rooms of its palaces until 1545, when Cosimo I set up a manufactory in Florence. To hardiness or stinginess (tapestry was by far the most expensive form of wall decoration) we owe the existence of such secular frescoed decorative schemes as the labours of the months in the castle at Trent (c. 1407), the Arthurian scenes of Pisanello and the courtly ones of Mantegna in the Ducal Palace of Mantua, the delicious calendar fantasies of Cossa and others in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara - and, doubtless, many others that await liberation from whitewash or later panelling. These are all in situations where northern patrons would have used tapestries.

These were imported, chiefly from Flanders, into Italy. The influence of their hunting and ceremonial scenes in particular registered on Italian 'gothic' painting or illumination and stained glass, and in literature. But the Italians did not make them. The most famous of all 'Italian' tapestries, those for the Sistine Chapel designed by Raphael, were made in Brussels from the full-scale coloured patterns, or cartoons, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Nor is it clear whether imported tapestries were used habitually or simply to add grandeur to special occasions. Even when Cosimo's manufactory was in being, and working from designs by court artists of the calibre of Bronzino, Salviati and Allori, his own headquarters, the Palace of the Signoria (now the Palazzo Vecchio), was being decorated with frescoes. The subject is underexplored.

tempera (Lat. temperare, "to mix in due proportion")
A method of painting in which the pigments are mixed with an emulsion of water and egg yolks or whole eggs (sometimes glue or milk). Tempera was widely used in Italian art in the 14th and 15th centuries, both for panel painting and fresco, then being replaced by oil paint. Tempera colors are bright and translucent, though because the paint dried very quickly there is little time to blend them, graduated tones being created by adding lighter or darker dots or lines of color to an area of dried paint.
terracotta (It. "baked earth")
Unglazed fired clay. It is used for architectural features and ornaments, vessels, and sculptures.
tondo, pl. tondi (It. "round")
A circular painting or relief sculpture. The tondo derives from classical medallions and was used in the Renaissance as a compositional device for creating an ideal visual harmony. It was particularly popular in Florence and was often used for depictions of the Madonna and Child.
topiary (Gk. topia, "fields, gardens")
The craft of cutting bushes and trees into decorative shapes, usually those of animals or geometrical forms. triumphal arch, in the architecture of ancient Rome, a large and usually free-standing ceremonial archway built to celebrate a military victory. Often decorated with architectural features and relief sculptures, they usually consisted of a large archway flanked by two smaller ones. The triumphal archway was revived during the Renaissance, though usually as a feature of a building rather than as an independent structure. In Renaissance painting they appear as allusion to classical antiquity.
topos, pl. topoi (Gk. "a commonplace")
In literature, figure of speech; in art, widely used form, model, theme or motif.
Trajan's Column
A monumental column erected in Rome in 113 AD to commemorate the deeds of Emperor Trajan. Around its entire length is carved a continuous spiral band of low relief sculptures depicting Trajan's exploits.
triptych (Gk. triptukhos, "threefold")
A painting in three sections, usually an altarpiece, consisting of a central panel and two outer panels, or wings. In many medieval triptychs the two outer wings were hinged so that could be closed over the center panel. Early triptychs were often portable.
triumph
With growing interest from the early 14th century in the history of ancient Rome came a fascination with the city's conquests, the wars by which they were won - and the ceremony which marked their success: the victor's triumph. The knowledge that the privilege of being commemorated by one of these enormous and costly processions of warriors, loot and prisoners was given sparingly, only to the sole commander of a major victory over a foreign army of whom at least 5000 were slain, added to the glamour of the triumph. Its centrepiece was the chariot of the victor himself. Dante gave one to Beatrice in Purgatorio XXIX: 'Rome upon Africanus ne'er conferred / Nor on Augustus's self, a car so brave'. But it was tentatively with the relief carvings on the Triumphal Arch (1452-66) at Castelnuovo in Naples commemorating Alfonso the Magnanimous, and finally with Mantegna's superb Triumph of Caesar cartoons (Hampton Court), that the visual reconstruction of a Roman triumph became complete.

Meanwhile, in an age which did not like the idea of large numbers of victory-flushed soldiers parading through its streets, the military triumph became sublimated, as it were, into a number of less controversial forms. This was largely under the influence of Petrarch's 'Trionfi' - poems describing the processions commemorating the triumphs of love, chastity, death; fame, time and eternity. Disseminated soon after his death, they soon appeared in illuminated manuscripts, and the triumph scene became a popular one for woodcuts, decorated marriage chests and other paintings, most beautifully of all on the backs of Piero della Francesca's portraits of Federigo da Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza. Other 'triumphs' were invented: of the seasons, of virtues and of the arts. Nor was the theme allowed to be simply a profane one. Just before his death Savonarola published his 'Triumph of the Cross', in which the reader was invited to imagine 'a four-wheeled chariot on which is seated Christ as Conqueror.' Before it go the apostles, patriarchs and prophets, beside it the army of martyrs, behind it, after 'a countless number of virgins, of both sexes', come the prisoners: 'the serried ranks of the enemies of the Church of Christ.' This aspect of the theme was magnificently realized in Titian's great woodcut 'The Triumph of the Faith'.

triumphal arch
In the architecture of ancient Rome, a large and usually free-standing ceremonial archway built to celebrate a military victory. Often decorated with architectural features and relief sculptures, they usually consisted of a large archway flanked by two smaller ones. The triumphal archway was revived during the Renaissance, though usually as a feature of a building rather than as an independent structure. In Renaissance painting they appear as allusion to classical antiquity.
tromp l'oeil (Fr. "deceives the eye")
A type of painting which, through various naturalistic devices, creates the illusion that the objects depicted are actually there in front of us. Dating from classical times, tromp l'oeil was revived in the 15th century and became a distinctive feature of 17th-century Dutch painting.
tympanum (Lat. "drum")
In classical architecture, the triangular area enclosed by a pediment, often decorated with sculptures. In medieval architecture, the semi-circular area over a a door's lintel, enclosed by an arch, often decorated with sculptures or mosaics.
typology
A system of classification. In Christian thought, the drawing of parallels between the Old Testament and the New. Typological studies were based on the assumption that Old Testament figures and events prefigured those in the New, e.g. the story of Jonah and the whale prefigured Christ's death and resurrection. Such typological links were frequently used in both medieval and Renaissance art.
tyrannicide
Assassination of rulers (often in church, where they were most accessible, and often by cadets of their family) had long played an important part in the Italian political process. From the end of the 14th century these deeds came frequently to be gilded by biblical and classical references: to the precedents of Brutus (condenmed by Dante as an arch-traitor, then raised by such republican enthusiasts as Michclangelo to heroic stature), Judith, killer of Holofernes, and David, slayer of Goliath. So the killing of Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1476) was carried out by three Milanesi patricians inspired in part by the teachings of the humanist Cola Montano, while the Pazzi conspiracy in Florence was seen by Alamanno Rinuccini as an emulation of ancient glory. Intellectuals who combined a taste for violence with a classicizing republicanism featured largely too in the plots of Stefano Porcari against Nicholas V (1453), of the Roman Academy against Paul II (1468), and of Pietro Paolo Boscoli against the Medici in 1513.

U

uomo universale (It.)
The Renaissance "universal man", a many-talented man with a broad-ranging knowledge of both the arts and the sciences.
Utrecht school
Principally a group of three Dutch painters - Dirck van Baburen (c. 1590-1624), Gerrit van Honthorst (1590-1656), and Hendrik Terbrugghen (1588-1629) - who went to Rome and fell fully under the pervasive influence of Caravaggio's art before returning to Utrecht. Although none of them ever actually met Caravaggio (d. 1610), each had access to his paintings, knew his former patrons, and was influenced by the work of his follower Bartholomeo Manfredi (1580-1620/21), especially his half-length figural groups, which were boldly derived from Caravaggio and occasionally passed off as the deceased master's works.

Back in the Netherlands the "Caravaggisti" were eager to demonstrate what they had learned. Their subjects are frequently religious ones, but brothel scenes and pictures in sets, such as five works devoted to the senses, were popular with them also. The numerous candles, lanterns, and other sources of artificial light are characteristic and further underscore the indebtedness to Caravaggio.

Although Honthorst enjoyed the widest reputation at the time, painting at both the Dutch and English courts, Terbrugghen is generally regarded as the most talented and versatile of the group.

V

vanishing point
In perspective, the point on the horizon at which sets of lines representing parallel lines will converge.
vanitas (Lat. "emptiness")
A painting (or element in painting) that acts as a reminder of the inevitabiliry of death, and the pointlessness of earthly ambitions and achievements. Common vanitas-symbols include skulls, guttering candles, hour-glasses and clocks, overturned vessels, and even flowers (which will soon fade). The vanitas theme became popular during the Baroque, with the vanitas still life flourishing in Dutch art.
varietà (It. "variety")
In Renaissance art theory, a work's richness of subject matter. Also varietas (Lat.).
vault
A roof or ceiling whose structure is based on the arch. There are a wide range of forms, including the barrel (or tunnel) vault, formed by a continuous semi-circular arch; the groin vault, formed when two barrel vaults intersect; and the rib vault, consistong of a framework of diagonal ribs supporting interlocking arches. The development of the various forms was of great structural and aesthetic importance in the development of church architecture during the Middle Ages.
Vespers (Lat. vesper, "evening")
Prayers said in the evening; the church service at which these prayers are said. The Marian Vespers are prayers and meditations relating to the Virgin Mary.
Vices and Virtues
In the medieval and Renaissance Christianity there were seven principal virtues and seven principal vices, a classification that brought together both ideals of both Christianity and classical Antiquity. Personifications of both appear in medieval and Renaissance art. The seven Vices (also known as the seven Deadly Sins) were: Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Envy, Gluttony, and Sloth. The seven Virtues were: Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, Temperance, Prudence, and Justice.
vimperga
Of German origin, "not exposed to winds". Gothic decorative attic over doors and windows. Attics with tracery in the shape of isosceles triangles are decorated with crockets and cornices, and wooden towers are decorated with finials at the top.
virtù
The Italian word commonly means 'virtue' in the sense of Hamlet's admonition to his mother, 'Assume a virtue, if you have it not', but during the Renaissance it increasingly carried the force of Edmund Burke's 'I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government', in which the word signifies efficacy, actual or latent. Under the influence of the classical 'virtus', 'excellence' (with a strongly virile connotation), virtù could be used, as it most frequently was by Machiavelli, for example, to convey an inherently gifted activism especially in statecraft or military affairs; to possess virtù was a character trait distinguishing the energetic, even reckless (but not feckless) man from his conventionally virtuous counterpart, rendering him less vulnerable to the quirks of Fortuna.
vita, pl. vite (Lat. "life")
An account of someone's life and work, a biography. The best-known writer of the vita in the Renaissance was Vasari, whose Le vite de'più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti italiani ("Lives of the Most Eminent Italian Painters, Sculptors and Architects"), published in 1550 and 1568, provides detailed accounts of the lives of many of the most important artists of the Renaissance.
votive painting/image
A picture or panel donated because of a sacred promise, usually when a prayer for good fortune, protection from harm, or recovery from illness has been made.

W

Wars of Italy
In spite of the endemic warfare which characterized Italy from the 14th century to the Peace of Lodi in 1454, and the occasional wars thereafter (e.g. those of Volterera, 1472, of the Papacy and Naples against Florence, 1478-80, and of Ferrara, 1482-84), by general consensus the Wars of Italy are held to be those that began in 1494 with Charles VIII'S invasion of the peninsula, came virtually to an end with the Habsburg-Valois treaties of Barcelona and Cambrai in 1529, and were finally concluded with the European settlement of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559.

The wars from 1494 do, in fact, fall into a different category from those that preceded them. Campaign followed campaign on a scale and with an unremittingness sharply different from those which had interrupted the post-Lodi peacefulness. Though foreign intervention in Italian affairs was certainly no novelty, the peninsula had never before been seen so consistently by dynastic contenders as both prize and arena. No previous series of combats had produced such lasting effects: the subjection of Milan and Naples to direct Spanish rule and the ossification of politics until the arrival in 1796 of a new Charles VIII in the person of Napoleon Bonaparte. The wars were also recognized as different in kind from their predecessors by those who lived through them: 'before. 1494' and 'after 1494' became phrases charged with nostalgic regret for, and appalled recognition of, the demoted status of the previously quarrelsome but in the main independent comity of peninsular powers. And because the wars forced the rest of western Europe into new alliances and a novel diplomatic closeness, they were from the 18th century until comparatively recently seen as marking the turn from medieval to recognizably modern political times.

The wars, then, were caused by foreign intervention. In these terms they can be chronicled with some brevity. After crossing the Alps in 1494 Charles VIII conquered the kingdom of Naples and retired in 1495, leaving the kingdom garrisoned. The garrisons were attacked later in the same year by Spanish troops under Gonzalo de Cordoba, sent by King Ferdinand II of Aragon (who was also King of Sicily). With this assistance Naples was restored to its native Aragonese dynasty. In 1499 the new King of France, Louis XII, assumed the title Duke of Milan (inherited through his grandfather's marriage to a Visconti) and occupied the duchy, taking over Genoa later in the same year. In 1501 a joint Franco-Spanish expedition reconquered the kingdom of Naples. The allies then fell out and fought one another. By January 1504 Spain controlled the whole southern kingdom, leaving France in control of Milan and Genoa in the north. A third foreign power, the German Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I entered the arena in 1508 with an abortive invasion of the Veronese-Vicentino. He countered the rebuff by joining the allies of the anti-Venetian League of Cambrai: France and Aragon assisted by Pope Julius II and the rulers of Mantua and Ferrara. In 1509 their victory at Agnadello led to the occupation of the whole of the Venetian terraferma apart from Treviso.

The eastward extension of French power gained by this victory (won by a mainly French army) drove Julius and Ferdinand to turn against Louis and in 1512 the French - now also under pressure from a fourth foreign power interesting itself in Italian territory, the Swiss - were forced to evacuate their possessions in Lombardy. Louis's last invasion of the Milanese was turned back in 1513 at the battle of Novara and the duchy was restored to its native dynasty, the Sforza, in the person of Massimiliano; he ruled, however, under the supervision of Milan's real masters, the Swiss. In 1515, with a new French king, Francis I, came a new invasion and a successful one: the Swiss were defeated at Marignano and Massimiliano ceded his title to Francis. To confirm his monopoly of foreign intervention in the north Francis persuaded Maximilian I to withdraw his garrisons from Venetian territory, thus aiding the Republic to complete the recovery of its terraferma.

With the spirit of the Swiss broken, the death of Ferdinand in 1516 and of Maximilian I in 1519 appeared to betoken an era of stability for a peninsula that on the whole took Spanish rule in the south and French in the north-west for granted. However, on Maximilian's death his grandson Charles, who had already become King of Spain in succession to Ferdinand, was elected Emperor as Charles V; Genoa and Milan formed an obvious land bridge between his Spanish and German lands, and a base for communications and troop movements thence to his other hereditary possessions in Burgundy and the Netherlands. Equally, it was clear to Francis I that his Italian territories were no longer a luxury, but strategically essential were his land frontier not to be encircled all the way from Provence to Artois. Spanish, German and French interests were now all centred on one area of Italy and a new phase of the wars began.

Between 1521 and 1523 the French were expelled from Genoa and the whole of the Milanese. A French counter-attack late in 1523, followed by a fresh invasion in 1524 under Francis himself, led, after many changes of fortune, to the battle of Pavia in 1525; not only were the French defeated, but Francis himself was sent as a prisoner to Spain, and released in 1526 only on condition that he surrender all claims to Italian territory. But by now political words were the most fragile of bonds. Francis allied himself by the Treaty of Cognac to Pope Clement VII, previously a supporter of Charles but, like Julius II in 1510, dismayed by the consequences of what he had encouraged, and the Milanese once more became a theatre of war. In 1527, moreover, the contagion spread, partly by mischance - as when the main Imperial army, feebly led and underpaid, put loot above strategy and proceeded to the Sack of Rome, and partly by design - as when, in a reversion to the policy of Charles VIII, a French army marched to Naples, having forced the Imperial garrison out of Genoa on the way and secured the city's navy, under Andrea Doria, as an ally. In July 1528 it was Doria who broke what had become a Franco-Imperial stalemate by going over to the side of the Emperor and calling off the fleet from its blockade of Naples, thus forcing the French to withdraw from the siege of a city now open to Spanish reinforcements.

By 1529, defeated in Naples and winded in Milan, Francis at last allowed his ministers to throw in the sponge. The Treaty of Barcelona, supplemented by that of Cambrai, confirmed the Spanish title to Naples and the cessation of French pretensions to Milan, which was restored (though the Imperial leading strings were clearly visible) to the Sforza claimant, now Francesco II. Thereafter, though Charles took over the direct government of Milan through his son Philip on Francesco's death in 1535, and Francis I in revenge occupied Savoy and most of Piedmont in the following year, direct foreign intervention in Italy was limited to the localized War of Siena. In 1552 the Sienese expelled the garrison Charles maintained there as watchdog over his communications between Naples and Milan, and called on French support. As an ally of Charles, but really on his own account, Cosimo I, Duke of Florence, took the city after a campaign that lasted from 1554 to 1555. But in the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis of 1559, by which France yet again, and now finally, renounced Italian interests, Cosimo was forced to grant Charles the right to maintain garrisons in Siena's strategic dependencies, Orbetello, Talamone and Porto Ercole.

The Wars of Italy, though caused by foreign interventions, involved and were shaped by the invitations, self-interested groupings and mutual treacheries of the Italian powers themselves. At the beginning, Charles VIII was encouraged by the Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, jealous of the apparently expanding diplomatic influence of Naples, as well as by exiles and malcontents (including the future Julius II) who thought that a violent tap on the peninsular kaleidoscope might provide space for their own ambitions. And the 1529 Treaty of Cambrai did not put an end to the local repercussions of the Franco Imperial conflict. France's ally Venice only withdrew from the kingdom of Naples after the subsequent (December 1529) settlement negotiated at Bologna. It was not until August 1530 that the Last Florentine Republic gave in to the siege by the Imperialist army supporting the exiled Medici. The changes of heart and loyalty on the part of Julius II in 1510 and Clement VII in 1526 are but illustrations of the weaving and reweaving of alliances that determined the individual fortunes of the Italian states within the interventionist framework: no précis can combine them.

A final point may, however, be made. Whatever the economic and psychological strain produced in individual states by their involvement, and the consequential changes in their constitutions or masters, no overall correlation between the Wars and the culture of Italy can be made. The battles were fought in the countryside and peasants were the chief sufferers from the campaigns. Sieges of great cities were few, and, save in the cases of Naples in 1527-28 and Florence in 1529-30, short. No planned military occasion had so grievious effect as did the Sack of Rome, which aborted the city's cultural life for a decade.

War of the Eight Saints (1375-78)
Conflict between Pope Gregory XI and an Italian coalition headed by Florence, which resulted in the return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome. In 1375, provoked by the aggressiveness of the Pope's legates in Italy, Florence incited a widespread revolt in the Papal States. The Pope retaliated by excommunicating the Florentines (March 1376), but their war council, the Otto di Guerra (popularly known as the Eight Saints), continued to defy him. In 1377 Gregory sent an army under Cardinal Robert of Geneva to ravage the areas in revolt, while he himself returned to Italy to secure his possession of Rome. Thus ended the papacy's 70-year stay in France. The war ended with a compromise peace concluded at Tivoli in July 1378.
Weltanschauung (Gr. "world view")
A comprehensive world view, a philosophy of life.
Westwerk
German word, "Western work of art". Central space at the Western façade of medieval cathedrals vaulted on the ground floor, pompous on the floor above. It was intended to have a variety of functions, but it was associated with the emperor or aristocrats: it served as a chapel, gallery, treasury or a place where justice was administered.
woodcut
A print made from a wood block. The design is drawn on a smooth block of wood and then cut out, leaving the design standing up in relief the design to be printed. The person who carved the woodcut often worked to a design by another artist.

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