ART HISTORY

Journey Through a Thousand Years

“The Rebirth”

Week Three: Proto- and Early Renaissance

How to Recognize Italian Renaissance Art - Fra Angelico – What is Fresco

Art? – Masaccio – Alberti’s Revolution in Painting –

Guido Mazzoni and Renaissance Emotions - Botticelli – Gentile da

Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi

View of Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance By Steve Hersey -

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sherseydc/2954982676/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5099526

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker: "How to Recognize Italian Renaissance Art"

From smARThistory (2017) There is no “official starting date” for the Renaissance Era – it is not as though one morning everyone woke up, leaned out the window, and cried, “Hoorah! It’s the Renaissance! Where are the tights?” But gradually the culture changed – in many areas, not simply art – centring around a new fascination with humanity, inspired by the culture of Greece and Rome in a far more direct way than Romanesque had been, in all its physicality, rationality, beauty, and capability. Artistic styles shifted to reflect a new naturalism, and a rebirth of classical ideals. In this video, Dr. Harris and Dr. Zucker will take you on a whirlwind tour of how to recognize the different eras of Renaissance art. Link to the Video: https://smarthistory.org/how-to-recognize-italian-renaissance-art/

Jennie Ellis Keysor: “Fra Angelico” From Great Artists (1901)

Detail from Deeds of the Antichrist by Luca Signorelli (c. 1501) in Orvieto Cathedral, Italy,

believed to be a portrait of Fra Angelico (Giovanni of Fiesole) "The art of Angelico, both as a colorist and a draughtsman, is consummate; so perfect and so beautiful that his work may be recognized at a distance by the rainbow-play and brilliancy of it; however closely it may be surrounded by other works of the same school, glowing with enamel and gold, Angelico's may be told from them at a glance, like so many huge pieces of opal among common marbles." - John Ruskin

"The light of his studio came from Paradise." - Paul de St. Victor

Let us for a few moments turn our attention to a friary a short distance from Florence. From its elevated position on the hills which skirt the vale of the Arno it commands a panoramic view of the "Lily City." It is the time when the Renaissance is virgin new to the world. Faith was still so real and living a thing that men and women shut themselves up from the world in order to live holy lives and devote themselves entirely to the service of God.

It is a body of such men on the heights of Fiesole that interests us. They are Dominican [friars,], of the order of great preachers, founded long ago by St. Dominic. Over long white robes the brothers, or fraters, as they are called, wear black capes and back from their tonsured heads fall hoods, which protect them in inclement weather. […]

Indoors there is the silence which attends toil, intense and absorbing. […]One does this work, using the most exquisite lettering, while another indites the hymns long loved by the church.[…] Here in the walk of the cloisters, his pallid face lit up by fiery eyes, strolls another, the preacher of the friary. To-night he will electrify his audience with the eloquence of his sermon that shall tell of the curse of evil, of the saving power of love.

Yonder, with the face and attitude of one who prays, painting a lovely angel with flame upon her forehead, with stars upon her robe and with a golden trumpet in her hand, is a man whose fancy has outgrown the margin, the full page even, of the beloved parchment book, and so he fills a whole wall with his vision from Paradise. Little need is there to name

this painter-friar. It is Fra Angelico, the "Angelical Painter," Il Beato, "The Blessed."

Fra Angelico: San Marco, Florence,The Day of Judgement, upper panel of an altarpiece. It shows

the precision, detail and colour required in a commissioned work

Detail of Heaven from “The Last Judgement”

To this man, who prays as he paints and who paints as he prays, we are to give our attention for a time. It is particularly delightful to find such a character in a time when holy men and women sometimes forgot their religious vows and ordinary citizens, in their scramble for place, lost sight of the laws of honor and manhood. In a time of greed it pleases us to find a man, who, though his art was the fashion of his period, would take no money for his pictures; in a time of ambition for place, to find one who could refuse an elevated position because he did not think himself fitted to fill it; to find a man so simple and yet so wise that he knew the work allotted to him in life and had the devotion to stick to it in spite of inducements to give it up. […] Fra Angelico is the last figure of the old simple time in art when the spirit counted for most. He lingered long on the threshold of that later time, when

men forgot the spirit in their enthusiasm for copying the real thing as it presents itself in nature[…]

When the repairs were completed, Cosimo bethought him of the painter friar of the brotherhood, and asked him to make the house beautiful for his brethren. […It] seems certain that he knew of the mature artist's work and his reputation throughout Tuscany.

It must have been a great joy to Fra Giovanni [for though Angelic was his nickname, his name in fact was brother John,] to be given this congenial task in which he could glorify God and gratify his own passion for art. Henceforth he left the parchment books to his brother to embellish while he occupied himself on the larger space his soul had long craved.

Lest this work, which he loved so dearly, should be done in a spirit of self-indulgence, he laid certain strictures upon himself in carrying it on. He believed that he had a message direct from God to bear to men through his pictures, so he never undertook one of them without prefacing the work with a season of fasting and prayer, and then, when he began his work, he never changed a stroke lest he prove disobedient to the heavenly vision. Often and often his lips moved in prayer while his hand laid on the colors of the robes or the gold of the background.

While he painted the Crucifixion tears streamed down his cheeks in sympathy with the agony there endured. The pictures of a man who painted in such a spirit are not mere works of art. They are more, for they lay bare to us a human soul, making the thoughts he thought our own, the devoutness and sympathy he felt a part of our own lives.

Savonarola [the great preacher] thundered forth his message from the pulpit of San Marco; Angelico delivered his, more enduring, though hardly less eloquent, on his knees, through the rainbow colors on his palette. In an age when monasteries and convents were an essential part of civilization, it was a mighty contribution that San Marco gave to the world in the earnest preacher, in the angelic painter. Both were simple men, great in their devotion, leaders of their age in their respective places, but the one was wending along a quiet way that should terminate peacefully in a secluded grave in Rome, while the other was moving on like a whirlwind, tearing up many things sacred in its course and ending in a violent death.

Everyone talks of Angelico's work in San Marco. Let us see what it was, what we should look for were we to go there to-day. In the cloister, where the friars were constantly

passing to and fro, are many of his best works. Here above a doorway, is "St. Peter, Martyr,"  standing with his finger on his lips in token of the silence that should reign in a holy house. Above another door two of the brotherhood welcome their Lord, a weary traveller.

Fra Angelico: Annunciation, c. 1440-1445, Museo San Marco, Florence, Fresco

In a larger space he has painted the angel Gabriel announcing the coming of the Christ Child to the youthful Mary. The sweet submissiveness of Mary together with her mild surprise at the angelic appearance, the grace and earnestness of Gabriel, with his wings still spread, as if just alighted from heaven, are wholly to our satisfaction for representing this naive scene from sacred history.

Here, too, we find the solemn last scene in the Christ-drama, as "The Annunciation" 

was the first. "The Crucifixion,"  which we find here, was simply portrayed, but with a pathos that Angelico's sympathetic nature would naturally show. It was afterwards reproduced in each of the cells.

Fra Angelico: “Christ on the Cross Adored by St. Dominic,” c. 1441-42, Museo San Marco, Florence, Fresco

Fra Angelico: “Crucifixion with Saints,” c. 1441, Museo San Marco, Florence, Fresco

In the chapter house we find a more elaborate representation of the Crucifixion. Here it is large enough to fill an entire wall and its excellence hardly in proportion to its size. The attention is drawn from the great central figure to the figures at the foot of the Cross, whose awe and adoration are well expressed by the painter. It was in the room adorned with this great fresco that George Eliot had Romola and Savonarola meet in their famous interview. That the presence of the solemn picture added force to that powerful scene goes without saying.

Into the cloisters, the chapter house, the chapel, men of the world might enter and look about. Not so the narrow cells, huddled together, where each friar was supposed to commune with his Lord in uninterrupted silence. For these narrow cells, forty in number, Fra Angelico did his best work, believing, doubtless, with the ancient builders that "The gods see everywhere." The subjects selected were the events in Christ's life and to each cell was given one chapter, as it were, from the wondrous story. Nothing could more forcibly prove the absolute devotion of the painter, his total disregard for the attention of men, than his dedication of his best work to the narrow and dimly lighted cells of San Marco.

Long ago the good brothers of San Marco were sent away and the doors thrown wide to the public, who now call it the Museum of San Marco. Easel pictures have been gathered here to swell the number of Angelico's works in the place that was so long his home. One of these is a small copy, made by the artist, of what is known to us as the "Tabernacle

Madonna"  which is in the Uffizi gallery in Florence. The glory of this work is not in the Madonna or the child she holds but, strange to say, in the frame which encloses the picture. A broad band of smooth gold intervenes between the outer and inner molding of the frame

and in this space are painted the twelve angels playing various musical instruments, which are so familiar to us to-day.

Fra Angelico and Lorenzo Ghiberti: “The Tabernacle Madonna,” closed.

“The Tabernacle Madonna,” Opened

[…] His angels that we enjoy most are not those entrusted with some special mission, but they are of that great multitude whose joy it is to bring good tidings of great joy to men. Here is one glowing in ruby red, the color of passion. She lifts on high her golden trumpet and we know that God is a ready helper, waiting only to be summoned to our rescue. Another, arrayed all in green, the color of spring, brings us hope, without which man would be crushed by the iron weight of his sorrows. This one in blue bears her message of heavenly love and fidelity. That one in yellow, the color of the sun itself, brings light to those who sit in darkness. Truly they are a ministering band with their halo-encircled heads, their heavenward-lifted eyes, their star-bespangled robes.

What matter if critics tell us that Angelico's knowledge of anatomy was defective and that it is fortunate for his angels that their creator represented them all closely draped? Their talk for centuries has not made the devout painter's fame one whit less, while all the time his angels have been bringing comfort to generations of men and women.

[…] For nearly forty years Fra Angelico had served his convent faithfully, with devout life and the work of his hand. Everything paid for his pictures went to swell the income of the convent. He never took an order without first consulting his prior. His fame had long ago reached Rome. The art-loving Popes of that time could not remain oblivious to his great ability. In 1445, the quiet life of the friary was interrupted by Pope Eugenius, who called Angelico to Rome to assist in decorating the Vatican. We can easily imagine that there was some shrinking on Angelico's part at severing the ties that had held him so long among the brothers of his order. This may have been somewhat offset by a vague desire to see Rome, the pilgrim city of the Christian world.

However that may be, he obeyed the call of the Pope and journeyed by easy stages, passing from convent to convent, until the Holy City was reached. It would have been an interesting journey to have taken with the pious friar. One could have seen how the various monasteries exercised one of the most beneficial purposes of their organization, that of ministering to tired and hungry travellers. At many convents at whose doors he appeared, a stranger, he probably left pictures and certainly the memory of a charming personality. Perhaps he relieved for an hour some weary illuminator of the parchment and left a page of his work to encourage the tired friar.

The Pope who called Angelico to Rome did not live long after the painter's arrival there, but he did not die before he had shown special favor to the friar of San Marco. Taking for granted that, because Angelico could paint such beautiful pictures he could do everything else equally well, he asked him to become the Archbishop of Florence, one of the most important church offices within the gift of the Pope. How we admire the good brother when he responded, with the simplicity which was so marked a characteristic of him, "I can paint pictures but I cannot rule men." And further, how we delight in him as he recommends another brother of his order, Fra Antonio. That his judgment in this matter was equal to his generosity is proved by the fact that Antonio became the wisest archbishop Florence had ever had.

[…] When the heat of summer came on in Rome, the painter from the hills of the Arno wilted under the depressing influence and he longed for his native heights. An opportunity for release from the stagnant weather of Rome during the months of June, July and August came from an unexpected quarter. It was the time of the building of the great Italian cathedrals. Every large community seemed bent on excelling its neighbor in the splendor of the church it erected. Florence reared her Duomo [Cathedral with an enormous dome, the largest the world had ever seen,] the Santa Maria del Fiore, [and Siena built her fine cathedral, striped black and yellow like a tiger.

Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, Dome designed by Brunelleschi, By Bruce Stokes on Flickr - [1], CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30585923

Siena Duomo (Domed Cathedral,) By I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17028352

Detail from the floor of Siena Cathedral (“The She-Wolf of Siena”) By Tango7174 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8900922

[They sent him back and forth from city to city, spreading glory with his brush wherever he went. At long last, after a full live, t]he work completed, he wended his way back to Rome where he died, in 1455, or, as a contemporary historian says, "Envious death broke his pencil and his beautiful soul winged its way among the angels to make Paradise more joyous." He was buried in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva where he had lived since his first coming to Rome. His tomb is simple enough, enriched merely with the quaint figure of a Dominican friar, with his hands crossed, and wearing the dress of his order. At the feet of the stone friar is this epitaph, composed by Nicholas V., Angelico's friend and patron—

"Not that in me a new Apelles lived, But that thy poor, O Christ, my gains received; This be my praise: Deeds done for fame on earth Live not in heaven. Fair Florence gave me birth."

[…] "He was never known to get angry with the friars; if anyone desired work from him he would say that he would obtain consent of the Prior to it, and then would not fail to fulfill the request. In fact, this father, who cannot be sufficiently praised, was in all his works and conversation most humble and modest, and in his painting dexterous and conscientious, and the saints of his painting have more the air and resemblance of saints than those of any other painter."

Kelly Richman-Abdou: “What Is Fresco Art?” From “My Modern Met” (2018)

The fresco is celebrated as one of the most significant mural-making techniques in the history of art. Though most commonly associated with art of the Italian Renaissance, the painting technique has been around for millennia, inspiring ancient and contemporary artists alike.

Created by painting directly onto plaster, frescoes offer a permanence not found in other forms of art. Unsurprisingly, muralists favor this durability, as illustrated by well-preserved masterpieces including the Roman wall paintings of Pompeii and Renaissance artist Michelangelo's world-famous Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Pietro Perugino: The Delivery of the Keys fresco, 1481–1482, Sistine Chapel, Rome.

What is a Fresco? A fresco painting is a work of wall or ceiling art created by applying pigment

onto intonaco, or a thin layer of plaster. Its title translates to “fresh” in Italian, as a true fresco's intonaco is wet when the paint is applied. [ Fresco technique allows the artist’s colours to be long-lastingly bright, as the paint mingles with the hardening plaster.]

Types of Fresco

There are three common types of fresco: buon, secco, and mezzo. To paint a buon (“true”) fresco, an artist paints directly onto freshly mixed plaster. Due to the natural tack of the wet intonaco, the pigment used to paint a buon fresco does not need to contain a binding medium; instead, it can simply be mixed with water.

Contrarily, a secco (“dry”) fresco employs dry plaster as its canvas. To make the paint stick to the plaster, the pigments must be mixed with a binding medium, such as a glue adhesive or egg yolk.

A mezzo (“medium”) fresco is painted onto nearly dry intonaco. During the Renaissance, this type of fresco became widely used, eventually surpassing buon fresco in popularity.

Amy Steedman: “Masaccio” From Knights of Art (1907)

"There goes Tommaso the painter," the people would say, watching the big awkward figure passing through the streets on his way to work. "Truly he pays but little heed to his appearance. Look but at his untidy hair and the holes in his boots."

"Ay, indeed!" another would answer; "and yet it is said if only people paid him all they owed he would have gold enough and to spare. But what cares he so long as he has his paints and brushes? 'Masaccio' would be a fitter name for him than Tommaso."

Masaccio: Cappella Brancacci, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Fresco

So the name Masaccio, or Ugly Tom, came to be that by which the big awkward painter was known. But no one thinks of the unkind meaning of the nickname now, for Masaccio is honoured as one of the great names in the history of Art.

This painter, careless of many things, cared with all his heart and soul for the work he had chosen to do. It seemed to him that painters had always failed to make their pictures like living things. The pictures they painted were flat, not round as a figure should be, and very often the feet did not look as if they were standing on the ground at all, but pointed downwards as if they were hanging in the air.

So he worked with light and shadow and careful drawing until the figures he drew looked rounded instead of flat, and their feet were planted firmly on the ground. His models were taken from the ordinary Florentine youths whom he saw daily in the studio, but he drew them as no one had drawn figures before. The buildings, too, he made to look like real houses leading away into the distance, and not just like a flat picture.

Masaccio, Tribute Money, 1427, fresco (Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence)

Christ and apostles (detail), Masaccio, Tribute Money, c. 1427, fresco

(Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence)

He painted many frescoes both in Florence and Rome, this Ugly Tom, but at the time the people did not pay him much honour, for they thought him just a great awkward fellow with his head always in the clouds. Perhaps if he had lived longer fame and wealth would have come to him, but he died when he was still a young man, and only a few realised how great he was.

But in after years, one by one, all the great artists would come to that little chapel of the Carmine there to learn their first lessons from those life-like figures. Especially they would stand before the fresco which shows St. Peter baptizing a crowd of people. And in that fresco they would study more than all the figure of a boy who has just come out of the water, shivering with cold, the most natural figure that had ever been painted up to that time.

All things must be learnt little by little, and each new thing we know is a step onwards. So this figure of the shivering boy marks a higher step of the golden ladder of Art than any that had been touched before. And this alone would have made the name of Masaccio worthy to be placed upon the list of world's great painters.

Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Dr. Heather Graham: “Alberti’s

Revolution in Painting” From smARThistory (2020) The Italian Renaissance marked an enormous jump into realism in the world of art, with the majority of artists setting their sights on what we today might call “photo-realism.” But what makes the difference in creating the illusion of fidelity to nature in art? Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank and Dr. Heather Graham uncover some of the secrets in this article. Link to Article: https://smarthistory.org/albertis-revolution-in-painting/

Dr. Heather Graham: “Guido Mazzoni and Renaissance Emotions”

From smARThistory (2020)

Guido Mazzoni, Lamentation, 1480s, created for the no longer extant church of Santa Maria della Rosa,

today in the Church of the Gesù (Ferrara, Italy) (photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

[…]A life-size, terracotta sculpture group shows seven biblical figures gathered around the

dead body of Jesus Christ. Created in the 1480s for Duke Ercole d’Este of Ferrara, Guido

Mazzoni’s sculpture group also includes the duke and his wife, the Duchess Eleanora of

Aragon, cast in the roles of Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Salome. All of the figures express

a range of emotional responses to the death of Jesus. These emotional displays in Mazzoni’s

Ferrarese sculpture group are key to understanding the work’s function as a display of the

patron’s nobility and piety. Emotions are inherent to humanity, but they are not universal

and unchanging. Emotions vary across time and culture. They are nurtured or suppressed,

constructed and understood according to people’s ideas about the human body, the human

psyche, and humanity’s place within the universe.

Guido Mazzoni, the Duchess Eleanora of Aragon as Mary Salome and Duke Ercole d’Este as Joseph of

Arimathea, detail of the Lamentation, 1480s, created for the no longer extant church of Santa Maria della

Rosa, today in the Church of the Gesù (Ferrara, Italy) (photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

In renaissance Italy, displays of grief were expected to be moderated by Christian

viewers’ faith in their salvation through Jesus Christ. Although sorrow at the death of a loved

one was expected and valued as a display of personal affection, there were definite limits to

how extreme the public display of grief was supposed to be. Saint Paul, one of the leaders of

the early Christian church, had explicitly prohibited excessive mourning: “I would not have

you grieve as others do without hope” (I Thessalonians 4:13–14). Emotional moderation

was so important that in various parts of Italy throughout the renaissance period laws were

passed prohibiting excessive mourning behaviors at funerals. Works of art that showed

people in mourning situations (as in the scene of grieving over the dead body of Christ

created by Mazzoni) were one way to help guide Christian audiences in appropriate behavior.

While each of Mazzoni’s figures displays a believable sorrow, none of them tear their hair,

shred their clothes, gesture wildly, or perform other expressions of what would have been

considered socially inappropriate levels of grief.

Guido Mazzoni, Mary Magdalen, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Cleofas, detail of the Lamentation, 1480s,

created for the no longer extant church of Santa Maria della Rosa, today in the Church of the Gesù

(Ferrara, Italy) (photo: Nicola Quirico, CC BY 3.0)

[…] While we may never truly know the inner emotional experiences of people living in the

distant past, we may use works of art, like Mazzoni’s grieving figures, to understand how

people were expected to behave in emotionally charged situations. Works like this may

provide clues into how men and women were expected to behave differently, as were people

of different social classes. In Mazzoni’s work, it is the women who display their sorrow most

forcefully. […] We also see how emotional control was nuanced across social class. Of the

women displayed, the aristocratic Duchess Eleonora as Mary Salome is the most restrained

in her sorrow.

Left: Guido Mazzoni, the Duchess Eleanora of Aragon as Mary Salome, detail of the Lamentation,

1480s, Ferrara, Italy (photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0); right: Guido Mazzoni, Mary Magdalen, detail of

the Lamentation, 1480s, created for the no longer extant church of Santa Maria della Rosa, today in the

Church of the Gesù (Ferrara, Italy) (photo: Heather Graham)

A comparison between her figure and that of Mary Magdalen—the supreme example of an

emotional woman in the Christian tradition—shows the duchess to be sorrowful, yet nobly

restrained.

Left: Guido Mazzoni, St. John the Evangelist, detail of the Lamentation, 1480s, Ferrara, Italy (photo:

Heather Graham); right: Guido Mazzoni, Duke Ercole d’Este as Joseph of Arimathea, detail of

the Lamentation, 1480s, created for the no longer extant church of Santa Maria della Rosa, today in the

Church of the Gesù (Ferrara, Italy) (photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0

Amy Steedman: Botticelli From Knights of Art (1907)

Probable self portrait of Botticelli

"And what, I should like to know, is going to be the use of all this," [cried a Florentine father one day] "as long as thou takest no pains to read and write and do thy sums? What am I to do with such a boy, I wonder?"

Then in despair the poor man decided to send [his son,] Sandro[,] to a neighbour's workshop, to see if perhaps his hands would work better than his head.

The name of this neighbour was Botticelli, and he was a goldsmith, and a very excellent master of his art. He agreed to receive Sandro as his pupil, so it happened that the boy was called by his master's name, and was known ever after as Sandro Botticelli.

Sandro worked for some time with his master, and quickly learned to draw designs for the goldsmith's work.

Botticelli: “St. Augustine in His Study,” 1480, Church of Ognissanti, Florence, Fresco

In those days painters and goldsmiths worked a great deal together, and Sandro

often saw designs for pictures and listened to the talk of the artists who came to his master's shop. Gradually, as he looked and listened, his mind was made up[…]

"So now thou wilt become a painter," said his father, with a hopeless sigh. Truly this boy was more trouble than all the rest put together. Here he had just

settled down to learn how to become a good goldsmith, and now he wished to try his hand at something else. Well, it was no use saying "no." The boy could never be made to do anything but what he wished. There was the Carmelite monk Fra Filippo Lippi, of whom all men were talking. It was said he was the greatest painter in Florence. The boy should have the best teaching it was possible to give him, and perhaps this time he would stick to his work.

So Sandro was sent as a pupil to Fra Filippo, and he soon became a great favourite with the happy, sunny-tempered master. The quick eye of the painter soon saw that this was no ordinary pupil. There was something about Sandro's drawing that was different to anything that Filippo had ever seen before. His figures seemed to move, and one almost heard the wind rustling in their flowing drapery. Instead of walking, they seemed to be dancing lightly along with a swaying motion as if to the rhythm of music. The very rose-leaves the boy loved to paint, seemed to flutter down to the sound of a fairy song. Filippo was proud of his pupil.

Botticelli: “The Temptations of Christ,” 1480 – 1482,

Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, Fresco

"The world will one day hear more of my Sandro Botticelli," he said; and, young

though the boy was, he often took him to different places to help him in his work.

So it happened that, in that wonderful spring of Filippo's life, Sandro too was at Prato, and worked there with Fra Diamante. And in after years when the master's little daughter was born, she was named Alessandra, after the favourite pupil, to whom was also left the training of little Filippino.

Now, indeed, Sandro's good old father had no further cause to complain. The boy had found the work he was most fitted for, and his name soon became famous in Florence.

It was the reign of gaiety and pleasure in the city of Florence at that time. Lorenzo the Magnificent, the son of Cosimo de Medici, was ruler now, and his court was the centre of all that was most splendid and beautiful. Rich dresses, dainty food, music, gay revels, everything that could give pleasure, whether good or bad, was there. Lorenzo, like his father, was always glad to discover a new painter, and Botticelli soon became a great favourite at court.

But pictures of saints and angels were somewhat out of fashion at that time, for people did not care to be reminded of anything but earthly pleasures. So Botticelli chose his subjects to please the court, and for a while ceased to paint his sad-eyed Madonnas. What mattered to him what his subject was? Let him but paint his dancing figures, tripping along in their light flowing garments, keeping time to the music of his thoughts, and the subject might be one of the old Greek tales or any other story that served his purpose. All the gay court dresses, the rich quaint robes of the fair ladies, helped to train the young painter's fancy for flowing draperies and wonderful veils of filmy transparent gauze.

There was one fair lady especially whom Sandro loved to paint—the beautiful Simonetta, as she is still called.

First he painted her as Venus, who was born of the sea foam. In his picture she floats to the shore standing in a shell, her golden hair wrapped round her. The winds behind blow her onward and scatter pink and red roses through the air. On the shore stands Spring, who holds out a mantle, flowers nestling in its folds, ready to enwrap the goddess when the winds shall have wafted her to land.

Detail from Botticelli's most famous work,[2] The Birth of Venus (c. 1484–1486,) Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Botticelli: “The Hora of Spring,” Detail from [2] The Birth of Venus (c. 1484–1486,)

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Botticelli: Detail from the “Primavera,” (Spring,) Late 1470’s or early 1480, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Tempera on Panel

Then again we see her in his wonderful picture of [“The Primavera,” or] "Spring," and in another called "Mars and Venus." She was too great a lady to stoop to the humble painter, and he perhaps only looked up to her as a star shining in heaven, far out of the reach of his love. But he never ceased to worship her from afar. He never married or cared for any other fair face, just as the great poet Dante, whom Botticelli admired so much, dreamed only of his one love, Beatrice.

But Sandro did not go sadly through life sighing for what could never be his. He was kindly and good-natured, full of jokes, and ready to make merry with his pupils in the workshop.

It once happened that one of these pupils, Biagio by name, had made a copy of one of Sandro's pictures, a beautiful Madonna surrounded by eight angels. This he was very anxious to sell, and the master kindly promised to help him, and in the end arranged the matter with a citizen of Florence, who offered to buy it for six gold pieces.

"Well, Biagio," said Sandro, when his pupil came into the studio next morning, "I have sold thy picture. Let us now hang it up in a good light that the man who wishes to buy it may see it at its best. Then will he pay thee the money."

Biagio was overjoyed. "Oh, master," he cried, "how well thou hast done."

Then with hands which trembled with excitement the pupil arranged the picture in the best light, and went to fetch the purchaser.

Now meanwhile Botticelli and his other pupils had made eight caps of scarlet pasteboard such as the citizens of Florence then wore, and these they fastened with wax on to the heads of the eight angels in the picture. Presently Biagio came back panting with joyful excitement, and brought with him the citizen, who knew already of the joke. The poor boy looked at his picture and then rubbed his eyes. What had happened? Where were his angels? The picture must be bewitched, for instead of his angels he saw only eight citizens in scarlet caps.

He looked wildly around, and then at the face of the man who had promised to buy the picture. Of course he would refuse to take such a thing. But, to his surprise, the citizen looked well pleased, and even praised the work.

"It is well worth the money," he said; "and if thou wilt return with me to my house, I will pay thee the six gold pieces."

Biagio scarcely knew what to do. He was so puzzled and bewildered he felt as if this must be a bad dream. As soon as he could, he rushed back to the studio to look again at that picture, and then he found that the red-capped citizens had disappeared, and his eight angels were there instead. This of course was not surprising, as Sandro and his pupils had quickly removed the wax and taken off the scarlet caps.

"Master, master," cried the astonished pupil, "tell me if I am dreaming, or if I have lost my wits? When I came in just now, these angels were Florentine citizens with red caps on their heads, and now they are angels once more. What may this mean?"

"I think, Biagio, that this money must have turned thy brain round," said Botticelli gravely. "If the angels had looked as thou sayest, dost thou think the citizen would have bought the picture?"

"That is true," said Biagio, shaking his head solemnly; "and yet I swear I never saw anything more clearly." And the poor boy, for many a long day, was afraid to trust his own eyes, since they had so basely deceived him.

But the next thing that happened at the studio did not seem like a joke to the master, for a weaver of cloth came to live close by, and his looms made such a noise and such a shaking that Sandro was deafened, and the house shook so greatly that it was impossible to paint.

But though Botticelli went to the weaver and explained all this most courteously, the man answered roughly, "Can I not do what I like with my own house?" So Sandro was angry, and went away and immediately ordered a great square of stone to be

brought, so big that it filled a waggon. This he had placed on the top of his wall nearest to the weaver's house, in such a way that the least shake would bring it crashing down into the enemy's workshop.

When the weaver saw this he was terrified, and came round at once to the studio. "Take down that great stone at once," he shouted. "Do you not see that it would crush me and my workshop if it fell?"

"Not at all," said Botticelli. "Why should I take it down? Can I not do as I like with my own house?"

And this taught the weaver a lesson, so that he made less noise and shaking, and Sandro had the best of the joke after all.

There were no idle days of dreaming now for Sandro. As soon as one picture was finished another was wanted. Money flowed in, and his purse was always full of gold, though he emptied it almost as fast as it was filled. His work for the Pope at Rome alone was so well paid that the money should have lasted him for many a long day, but in his usual careless way he spent it all before he returned to Florence.

Perhaps it was the gay life at Lorenzo's splendid court that had taught him to spend money so carelessly, and to have no thought but to eat, drink, and be merry. But very soon a change began to steal over his life.

There was one man in Florence who looked with sad condemning eyes on all the pleasure-loving crowd that thronged the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent. In the peaceful convent of San Marco, whose walls the angel-painter had covered with pictures "like windows into heaven," the stern friar Savonarola was grieving over the sin and vanity that went on around him. He loved Florence with all his heart, and he could not bear the thought that she was forgetting, in the whirl of pleasure, all that was good and pure and worth the winning.

Then, like a battle-cry, his voice sounded through the city, and roused the people from their foolish dreams of ease and pleasure. Every one flocked to the great cathedral to hear Savonarola preach, and Sandro Botticelli left for a while his studio and his painting and became a follower of the great preacher. Never again did he paint those pictures of earthly subjects which had so delighted Lorenzo. When he once more returned to his work, it was to paint his sad-eyed Madonnas; and the music which still floated through his visions was now like the song of angels.

The boys of Florence especially had grown wild and rough during the reign of pleasure, and they were the terror of the city during carnival time. They would carry long poles, or "stili," and bar the streets across, demanding money before they would let the people pass. This money they spent on drinking and feasting, and at night they set up great trees in the squares or wider streets and lighted huge bonfires around them. Then would begin a terrible fight with stones, and many of the boys were hurt, and some even killed. No one had been able to put a stop to this until Savonarola made up his mind that it should cease. Then, as if by magic, all was changed.

Instead of the rough game of "stili," there were altars put up at the corners of the streets, and the boys begged money of the passers-by, not for their feasts, but for the poor.

"You shall not miss your bonfire," said Savonarola; "but instead of a tree you shall burn up vain and useless things, and so purify the city."

So the children went round and collected all the "vanities," as they were called—wigs and masks and carnival dresses, foolish songs, bad books, and evil pictures; all were heaped high and then lighted to make one great bonfire. Some people think that perhaps Sandro threw into the Bonfire of Vanities some of his own beautiful pictures, but that we cannot tell.

Then came the sad time when the people, who at one time would have made Savonarola their king, turned against him, in the same fickle way that crowds will ever turn. And then the great preacher, who had spent his life trying to help and teach them, and to do them good, was burned in the great square of that city which he had loved so dearly.

After this it was long before Botticelli cared to paint again. He was old and weary now, poor and sad, sick of that world which had treated with such cruelty the master whom he loved. One last picture he painted to show the triumph of good over evil. Not with the sword or the might of great power is the triumph won, says Sandro to us by this picture, but by the little hand of the Christ Child, conquering by love and drawing all men to Him. This Adoration of the Magi is in our own National Gallery in London, and is the only painting which Botticelli ever signed.

"I, Alessandro, painted this picture during the troubles of Italy . . . when the devil was let loose for the space of three and a half years. Afterwards shall he be chained, and we shall see him trodden down as in this picture." It is evident that Botticelli meant by this those sad years of struggle against evil which ended in the martyrdom of the great preacher, and he has placed Savonarola among the crowd of worshippers drawn to His feet by the Infant Christ.

It is sad to think of those last days when Sandro was too old and too weary to paint. He who had loved to make his figures move with dancing feet, was now obliged to walk with crutches. The roses and lilies of spring were faded now, and instead of the music of his youth he heard only the sound of harsh, ungrateful voices, in the flowerless days of poverty and old age.

Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank: “Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi” From smARThistory (2019) One of the most popular Renaissance Nativity scenes was painted by Gentile da Fabriano, and a closer look reveals all kinds of fascinating details. Please read the article to discover more.

Link to Article: https://smarthistory.org/gentile-da-fabriano-adoration-magi-reframed/

ATTRIBUTIONS p. 2, Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "How to recognize Italian Renaissance art," in Smarthistory,

February 2, 2017, accessed August 27, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/how-to-recognize-italian-renaissance-art/.

p. 14, Richman-Abdou, Kelly, “What is Fresco Painting? Exploring the Ancient Technique

of Painting on Plaster,” MyModernMet.com, August 14, 2018, Accessed August 28, 2020, https://mymodernmet.com/fresco-definition/.

p. 18, Graham, Dr. Heather "Guido Mazzoni and Renaissance Emotions," in Smarthistory, June 8, 2020,

accessed August 27, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/mazzoni-renaissance-emotions/. p. 31, Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank, "Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi (reframed),"

in Smarthistory, May 29, 2019, accessed August 27, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/gentile-da-fabriano-adoration-magi-reframed/.