Comeniusproject rond keizer Karel V In juni was in ons Comeniuscomité in Edegem overeengekomen te proberen met volgende scholen samen te werken rond de figuur van keizer Karel V: Benidorm (Spanje) , Szekszard (Hongarije) en Ancona (Italië). Doel: Het uitwisselen van lesmateriaal over een historische figuur die in onze vier landen een rol gespeeld heeft. Op die manier kan (misschien) aangetoond worden hoe sterk nationaal ons geschiedenisonderwijs nog georiënteerd is en hoe een meer Europese benadering misschien mogelijk is. Overzicht van de activiteiten: 1) Afspraken met de partnerscholen Begin schooljaar: voorstel gemaild aan de drie partnerscholen. Reacties: Szekszard: geen. Tijdens hun bezoek aan Edegem (oktober) zegden ze dat de taal een onoverkomelijk probleem was. Ancona: een beetje verwarrend. In eerste instantie werd het voorstel afgewezen omdat dit onderwerp dit jaar niet aan bod kwam (ik vermoed bij de eventueel geïnteresseerde leerkracht geschiedenis). Tegenvoorstel: dictatoriale regimes. Dit is wel een heel interessant onderwerp maar komt in onze school pas aan bod op het einde van het vijfde jaar. Vermits het project bedoeld was voor het eerste trimester, leek dit minder geschikt. Enkele maanden later plots een nieuwe contactpersoon (was voordien ziek geweest). Nu ontvingen wij een heel uitgebreide lesvoorbereiding over de Renaissance in Italië. Benidorm: van in het begin akkoord om samen te werken. Toch was ook hier de taal een groot obstakel. De leerkrachten geschiedenis kennen geen Engels. Alles moet dus via de Comeniusverantwoordelijke (bottle-neck). Uiteindelijk heb ik dan gekozen voor het Spaans: ik kon rekenen op hulp van Kurt van Laken: hij vertaalde mijn lessen naar het Spaans en, omgekeerd, gaat hij nu in de paasvakantie hun handboekteksten vertalen. 2) Wat is er tot nu toe gebeurd? Benidorm stuurde een overzicht van hun lessen over Karel V op (in het Engels) èn kopies uit het handboek (Spaans, worden in de vakantie vertaald door Kurt). Ik bezorgde mijn lesvoorbereidingen over Karel V in het Spaans (dankzij Kurt) aan Benidorm. 3) Wat werd nog gepland? Ik geef een extra les over Karel V, gebaseerd op het Spaanse handboek. In Benidorm geven ze één extra les, gesteund op mijn voorbereiding. Volgende stap: a) België zendt vragen aan Spanje b) Spanje beantwoordt en stuurt ze terug. Daarna: a) Spanje zendt vragen voor onze leerlingen. b) België beantwoordt ze en stuurt ze terug. Tenslotte: België en Spanje selecteren de beste vragen en plaatsen ze op de Comenius-site. Opmerking: door de vertaalproblemen zijn we achter op schema. Voor vragen op de site is het te laat. We zijn vast van plan de andere stappen wel nog te zetten. Dit kan ook volgend jaar opnieuw gebeuren. Ook de samenwerking met Ancona rond autoritaire staatsvormen kan nog uitgewerkt worden.

CONTENIDO

Índice

Introducción

Carlos 1 de España y de Alemania

Carlos 1 y sus padres

Carlos 1 y las Germanías

Carlos 1 y la guerra de las Comunidades

Batalla de Villalar

Carlos V y Alemania

Batalla de Mühlberg

Carlos V y Francisco Pizarro

Carlos V y Hernán Cortés

Carlos I y Europa

Posesiones (mapa)

Carlos V y el monasterio de Yuste

Edición facsímil del rostro de Carlos I en un billete

Bibliografía

Con Carlos I, nieto de los Reyes Católicos, se entronizó en las Coronas de Castilla y Arag5n, ya definitivamente unidas, una nueva dinastía: la de los Habsburgo, también conocidos como los Austrias, por ser Austria el territorio patrimonial del que procedía el linaje de Carlos I por línea masculina. En la mayor parte del siglo (de 1516 a 1598) gobernaron tan sólo dos reyes: Carlos I, durante la primera mitad del siglo; y su hijo Felipe II, dura la segunda. Ambos han sido denominados Austrias mayores por la historiografía tradicional, en un afán de exaltar su labor y distinguirlos de sus sucesores en el siglo XVII, los Austrias menores, a los que se responsabilizó del declive político de España. Sin embargo aunque es incuestionable que l monarquía hispánica se convirtió en el siglo XVI en la gran potencia hegemónica de Europa, con un imperio colonial que alcanzó grandes dimensiones al unirse a ella la Corona de Portugal, lo cierto es que bajo su aparente grandeza política y económica iba creciendo el germen de su decadencia futura, que se manifestó en toda su magnitud en la centuria siguiente. El siglo XVI, por tanto, fue un periodo de la historia de España en el que se combinaron las luces y las sombras: junto a las grandes conquistas en el nuevo mundo y el brillo deslumbrante de sus metales preciosos convivieron el endeudamiento crónico de la n y el empobrecimiento de Castilla, en beneficio de la banca, la industria y el comercio extranjero. Carlos 1 decidió abandonar el trono y retirar se al monasterio de Yuste, donde pasó sus últimos días (1556). Pero, consciente de los graves problemas y sinsabores que le había ocasionado la persecución de la herejía protestante en Alemania, decidió liberar a su hijo de esta fuente de conflictos, por lo que cedió a su hermano las posesiones de los Austrias y, con ellas, los derechos a aspirar a la corona imperial alemana. CARLOS I (Gante l500 - Yuste 1558), príncipe de los Países Bajos (de 1506 a 1555), rey de España (de 1516 a 1556), rey de Sicilia (CARLOS IV, de 1516 a 1556), titular del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico (CARLOS V de 1519 a 1556). Hijo de Felipe el Hermoso y de Juana La Loca, heredó unos dominios heterogéneos de gran extensión: el patrimonio de la casa de Austria (básicamente germánico, más el condado de Tirol), el condado de Gorizia, la casa de Borgoña (que incluía la herencia flamenca), las posesiones catalana-aragonesas e italianas, los dominios castellanos, norteafricanos y

del continente americano. Estructurar políticamente este imperio y dotarlo de una mínima cohesión interna, fueron los principales objetivos que se marcó Carlos I. Además, en 1519, con el apoyo financiero de los Fugger (poderosa familia alemana de banqueros), obtuvo también la corona imperial de Alemania, que, aunque era electiva, por tradición solía recaer en la dinastía austriaca de los Habsburgo, previa compra de la voluntad de los electores (de ahí la necesidad del apoyo financiero de los Fugger). Desde entonces, se le conoce como Carlos I de España y V de Alemania. La pugna que mantuvo con Francisco I de Francia para acceder al trono imperial y la necesidad de asegurarse el apoyo financiero de los banqueros alemanes, le mantuvieron apartado de los problemas internos hispánicos, cuya gestión encargó a regentes como el arzobispo Alonso de Aragón y Adriano de Utrecht. Una vez proclamado emperador (Aquisgrán, 1519), se encontró con una triple amenaza: la de Francia, que hostigaba constantemente sus posesiones en Italia; la acción turca en el Mediterráneo, en la que el Sultán Solimán el Magnífico y el pirata Barbarroja se adueñaron de sus dominios norteafricanos; el nacimiento del protestantismo de Lutero en Alemania (tesis de Wittenberg, 31 dic. 1517) que de cisma religioso se convirtió en lucha por la emancipación territorial y de secularización de bienes eclesiásticos. El emperador tuvo que firmar la paz de Aubsburgo, reconociendo la libertad de cultos y la propiedad de los bienes secularizados. España se vio embarcada en una costosísima política imperial y militar, que Carlos Quinto y sus banqueros necesitaban sufragar mediante el aumento continuo de los impuestos y la utilización masiva de las riquezas que llegaban de América. El descontento se tradujo en las revueltas antiaristocráticas de las Comunidades en Castilla y de las Germanías en el reino de Valencia, que fueron sofocadas en la batalla de Villalar (23 abril 1521) y con la toma de Valencia (1522) y Mallorca (1523) por Iñigo de Velasco y el almirante Enríquez de Cabrera. Tras esas rebeliones, las cortes de los reinos hispánicos se convirtieron en un apéndice de la política imperial. Extenuado por la gota y decepcionado por sus fracasos, Carlos Quinto abdicó de todos sus títulos a lo largo de 1555 y de 1556 y se retiró al monasterio de Yuste. Su hijo Felipe heredó sus dominios hispano-flamenco-italiano, mientras su hermano Fernando, recibió el título de emperador del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico.

FELIPE I el Hermoso (Brujas 1478 - Burgos 1506), soberano de los Países Bajos (de 1482 a 1506), rey de Castilla (de 1504 a 1506), hijo de Maximiliano de Austria y de María de Borgoña. Gobernó efectivamente los Países Bajos desde 1495 con la oposición de su padre que ejercía la regencia, y practicó una política exterior contraria a los intereses de éste. En 1496 casó con Juana la Loca, hija de los Reyes Católicos. Al heredar ésta el trono de Castilla (1504), se formó entre la aristocracia castellana un partido felipista, deseoso de que Felipe ocupara realmente el trono. En 1506 Fernando el Católico cedió el gobierno de Castilla a su hija y a su yerno. La prematura muerte de éste provocó la locura definitiva de Juana. JUANA I La Loca (Toledo 1479 - Tordesillas 1555), reina de Castilla (de 1504 a 1555). Hija de los Reyes Católicos casó en 1496 con el archiduque de Austria, Felipe el Hermoso En 1504, pese a sus nuestras de locura, heredó Castilla de su madre Isabel. Felipe, apoyado por la nobleza, reclamó la regencia a su suegro Fernando, que abandonó Castilla. Muerto Felipe (1506), Juana se retiró a Tordesillas, dejando como regente a Don Fernando. En 1516 heredó de su padre la corona de Aragón, que gobernó su hijo Carlos, el cual, desde 1517, gobernó también en Castilla. LAS GERMANÍAS, fue un movimiento revolucionario contra la nobleza que se produjo en el reino de Valencia (1519 - 1523). Abandonadas las ciudades del litoral valenciano por los nobles que huían de la peste y por temor a los ataques berberiscos, los gremios de estas ciudades obtuvieron permiso de Carlos Quinto para armarse y formaron en Valencia la Junta de los Trece, presidida por Joan Llorenç. Al advertir el cariz antinobiliario del movimiento, Carlos Quinto envió a Adriano de Utrecht y, más tarde, a Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, corro virrey, el cual no pudo imponerse. Apoyaban la germanía las ciudades del litoral (artesanos y burgueses) y las zonas de huerta que las separaban; la nobleza era sostenida por los campesinos de las zonas más sometidas al régimen señorial y los moriscos que trabajaban en los latifundios nobiliarios del interior. En el verano de 1520 la Germanía sufrió varias derrotas, a pesar de lo cual surgían jefes cada vez más radicales (Vicent Peris). En noviembre de 1521 la Junta de los Trece aceptó la rendición, aunque algunos grupos lucharon hasta 1523. La represión fue muy dura. Este movimiento debe verse, como el de las Comunidades de Castilla y el conflicto entre forans i ciutadans en Mallorca, como un fenómeno de crisis del régimen señorial. Es de destacar que las zonas y los grupos sociales que habían apoyado la Germanía coincidieron con los partidarios del archiduque Carlos en la guerra de

Sucesión, mientras que los defensores de la nobleza apoyaron entonces a Felipe V. GUERRA DE LAS COMUNIDADES, contienda civil castellana (1520 - 1522). La política de Carlos Quinto y de sus consejeros flamencos, y su presión para que los procuradores de las ciudades concedieran elevados subsidios, produjeron un descontento general en Castilla, aumentado por la partida de Carlos Quinto hacia Alemania para la elección imperial. Iniciada la rebelión en Segovia, el regente Adriano de Utrecht no pudo impedir que se extendiese a otras ciudades. En Ávila se reunió la Santa Junta de los Comuneros, que nombró capitán general de sus tropas a Juan de Padilla y organizó no solo la rebelión sino todo lo concerniente al reino; poco después se trasladaron a Tordesillas para acogerse a la protección de la reina Juana, madre de Carlos Quinto, y aprestarse para una lucha ya generalizada. Desde Alemania el rey tomó medidas conciliadoras que no menguaron la rebelión, pero la inoperancia o la traición del aristócrata y nuevo capitón general Pedro Girón comportó la toma de Tordesillas por el bando realista (4 dic. 1520). Padilla reorganizó el ejército, pero entretenidos en negociaciones dilatorias, los comuneros fueron derrotados en la batalla de Villalar (23 abril 1521). Padilla, Bravo y Maldonado fueron ejecutados, a la vez que se desencadenó una gran represión sobre ciudades y personas. Sólo Toledo, al mando del obispo Acuña y de la viuda de Padilla, María de Pacheco, resistió hasta febrero de 1522. Ya nada obstaculizó el absolutismo del soberano y la prepotencia de la aristocracia señorial. A pesar de que la guerra de las Comunidades ha pretendido ser presentada caro una reacción localista y feudal ante la renovación de la monarquía universal del renacimiento, en realidad encarnó la rebelión de las ciudades mercantiles y artesanales (industriales) de Castilla. BATALLA DE VILLALAR, victoria decisiva de las tropas reales en la guerra de las Comunidades (23 abril 1521). La caballería realista, dirigida por Íñigo de Velasco, atacó al ejército comunero (formado por milicias locales, campesinos y algunos nobles), que apenas ofreció resistencia, pese a los esfuerzos de sus jefes, Padilla, Bravo y Maldonado, quienes fueron apresados y ajusticiados al día siguiente en la plaza de Villamar, actual Villalar de los Comuneros, Valladolid.

CARLOS QUINTO (de 1519 a 1556) se enfrentó también a la endémica debilidad institucional y política del imperio, debilidad que a las consecuencias de la Reforma. Cuando abdicó en 1556, la unidad del imperio estaba totalmente quebrantada. Su hermano Fernando I (+ 1564) intentó recuperar una parte del terreno perdido, favoreciendo en Alemania la Contrarreforma. En cuanto a sus sucesores, unas veces practicaron la tolerancia religiosa (católica); otras, cono Fernando II de Estiria (de 1619 a 1637), pos su intolerancia religiosa provocaron la rebeldía de parte de sus súbditos. La defenestración de Praga (23 mayo 1618), preludio de la sublevación de los checos, inició una nueva guerra de religión, la guerra de los Treinta Años (1618 - 1648), guerra atroz que hizo de Alemania el centro de todas las ambiciones extranjeras (suecos, daneses, franceses...) y que asoló el país, que perdió el 35% de su población. El tratado de Westfalia (1648) liquidó esta guerra y arruinó toda esperanza de unificación de Alemania, fragmentándola en 350 estados; este tratado evidenció el fracaso de los Habsburgo y de la Contrarreforma en A1emania la paz de Augsburgo de 1555 (cuius regio, eius religio) resultó de hecho ratificada. BATALLA DE MÜHLBERG, fue un combate que representó el afianzamiento de Carlos V en Alemania (24 abril 1547). Los ejércitos del emperador, de su hermano Fernando, de Mauricio de Sajonia y de Juan de Brandeburgo, reunidos en Eger, obligaron a Juan Federico de Sajonia a retroceder hasta Mühlberg. El ejército imperial al mando del duque de Alba atacó por sorpresa a su enemigo, cuyas tropas fueron diezmadas por la caballería húngara, y el mismo Juan Federico cayó prisionero. FRANCISCO PIZARRO, conquistador español (Trujillo 1478 - Lima 1541). Era miembro de una familia de hidalgos empobrecidos y nunca aprendió a leer ni a escribir. Participó en las guerras de Italia y en 1502 pasó a las Indias con Nicolás de Ovando. Lugarteniente de Alonso de Ojeda (1510) y de Núñez de Balboa, exploró parte de Centroamérica y fue nombrado alcalde de Panamá (c. 1522). Hacia 1524, junto con Diego de Almagro y Hernando de Luque, decidió invertir su dinero en la exploración del SE de Panamá. Una primera expedición al Perú mandada por Pizarro (1524 - 1525) resultó un fracaso. Una se expedición (1526 – 1528), en la que Almagro iba como segundo capitán, resultó igualmente fallida; Pizarro se retiró a la isla del Gallo con trece soldados (los “trece de la fama”), y Almagro regresó a Panamá a buscar refuerzos. Tras una exploración hacia el sur, alcanzaron la costa norte del actual Perú y descubrieron el Incario; al tener referencias de la guerra civil que dividía al

imperio inca, concluyeron que las posibilidades de conquista eran buenas. Pizarro volvió a España y obtuvo de Carlos el nombramiento de gobernador, capitón general y adelantado de las nuevas tierras. Al volver a Panamá Pizarro llevo consigo a sus hermanos. HERNÁN CORTÉS conquistador español ( Medellín 1485 - Castilleja de la Cuesta 1547). Participó en la expedición de Velázquez a Cuba (1511), donde fue encarcelado, acusado de conspirar contra éste. Prontamente liberado, casó con Catalina Juárez, cuñada del propio Velázquez. Partió de Santiago en noviembre de 1518 para arribar a Yucatán, y, después de la matanza indígena de Cholula, los españoles llegaron a Tenochtitlán, capital azteca (nov. 1519). Fueron bien recibidos, aunque los aztecas no quisieron reconocer la soberanía de Carlos Quinto ni convertirse al cristianismo; sólo reconocieron aquélla cuando Cortés se apoderó de su emperador Moctezuma. Pero al afrontar la expedición que Velázquez había mandado en su contra, a causa de su desobediencia, Cortés abandonó la capital, en la que dejó como gobernador a Pedro de Alvarado, quien, con su imprudente conducta, provocó un levantamiento indígena que derivó en la derrota española conocida como Noche Triste (30 junio - 1 julio 1520). En Otumba, los españoles obtuvieron un decisivo triunfo, y, desde el refugio de Tlaxcala, prepararon la segunda etapa de una conquista, en esta ocasión ya eminentemente militar. La gran extensión de sus territorios dotaba a Carlos I de un gran poder y de la hegemonía en Europa, pero esto traía consigo dos inconvenientes: -Una gran vulnerabilidad, ya que los territorios estaban muy dispersos y podían ser atacados por numerosos frentes. -Una considerable dificultad de gobierno no sólo por su dispersión, sino porque cada territorio conservaba sus propias leyes e instituciones. Los conflictos exteriores de tan vasto imperio fueron constantes y numerosos y generaron enormes gastos militares que absorbieron gran parte de la riqueza económica de Castilla. Estos conflictos eran consecuencia de las pretensiones imperiales y religiosas de Carlos I que determinaron las tres grandes líneas de actuación de su política exterior: - Entre 1519 y 1544, la lucha por la hegemonía en Europa le llevó al enfrentamiento con Francisco I de Francia, la otra gran potencia europea, que, rodeada por las posesiones de los Austrias, buscaba abrirse camino hacia el Mediterráneo. La lucha por el predominio en Italia se saldó con la

victoria y supremacía de Carlos 1, que incorporó el Milanesado a los dominios españoles. — Entre 1545 y 1555, la defensa de la ortodoxia católica en el seno de la Cristiandad le empujó a luchar contra los protestantes dentro del Imperio. Alemania había sido el principal escenario de la reforma protestante de Lutero, a la que se habían adherido numerosos príncipes para fortalecer su poder mediante la confiscación de bienes a la Iglesia Católica. Carlos 1, en una primera fase, sometió a los protestantes (victoria de Mühlberg, 1547), pero después los príncipes protestantes alemanes obtuvieron el apoyo del rey francés y cambió la correlación de fuerzas. Por la Paz de Augsburgo (1555), Carlos 1 reconoció la vigencia de las dos religiones en el Imperio, aunque se obligó a los súbditos a profesar, en cada territorio, la religión de su príncipe. -Durante todo el reinado, la defensa de la Cristiandad frente a la amenaza turca convirtió el Mediterráneo musulmán en permanente escenario de conflictos, que se saldaron con una continua sucesión de triunfos y fracasos, de plazas conquistadas y perdidas (como Túnez). MONASTERIO DE YUSTE, monasterio de la orden jerónima situado en el municipio español de Cuacos de Yuste (Cáceres) Fundado a principios del siglo XV, fue ampliado en el siglo XVI con motivo de la estancia (1557 - 1558) del emperador Carlos Quinto, que vivió allí sus últimos años; se introdujeron nuevas fórmulas constructivas y ornamentales renacentistas (claustro y palacio) dentro del recinto gótico. BIBLIOGRAFÍA EDITORIAL PLANETA: Enciclopedia Larousse, 1984. EDITORIAL ALMADRABA: Historia de España, 2º de Bachillerato, 2003. Libro de texto.

Emperor Charles V

The holy Roman Empire came to a sort of climax in the reign of the Emperor Charles V. He

was one of the most extraordinary monarchs that Europe has ever seen. For a time he had the air of being the greatest monarch since Charlemagne. His greatness was not of his own making. It was largely the creation of his grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian I (1459–1519). Some families have fought, others have intrigued their way to world power; the Habsburgs married their way. Maximilian began his career with Austria, Styria, part of Alsace and other districts, the original Habsburg patrimony; he married—the lady’s name scarcely matters to us—the Netherlands and Burgundy. Most of Burgundy slipped from him after his first wife’s death, but the Netherlands he held. Then he tried unsuccessfully to marry Brittany. He became Emperor in succession to his father, Frederick III, in 1493, and married the duchy of Milan. Finally he married his son to the weak-minded daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Columbus, who not only reigned over a freshly united Spain and over Sardinia and the kingdom of the two Sicilies, but over all America west of Brazil. So it was that this Charles V, his grandson, inherited most of the American continent and between a third and a half of what the Turks had left of Europe. He succeeded to the Netherlands in 1506. When his grandfather Ferdinand died in 1516, he became practically king of the Spanish dominions, his mother being crazy; and his grandfather Maximilian dying in 1519, he was in 1520 elected Emperor at the still comparatively tender age of twenty. He was a fair young man with a not very intelligent face, a thick upper lip and a long clumsy chin. He found himself in a world of young and vigorous personalities. It was an age of brilliant young monarchs. Francis I had succeeded to the French throne in 1515 at the age of twenty-one, Henry VIII had become King of England in 1509 only eighteen. It was the age of Baber in India (1526–1530) and Suleiman the Magnificent in Turkey (1520), both exceptionally capable monarchs, the Pope Leo X (1513) was also a very distinguished Pope. The Pope and Francis I attempted to prevent the election of Charles as Emperor because they dreaded the concentration of so much power in the hands of one man. Both Francis I and Henry VIII offered themselves to the imperial electors. But there was now a long established tradition of Habsburg Emperors (since 1273), and some energetic At first the young man was very much a magnificent puppet in the hands of his ministers. Then slowly he began to assert himself and take control. He began to realize something of the threatening complexities of his exalted position. On the whole, Charles, in alliance with Henry VIII, was successful against Francis I and the Turk. Their chief battlefield was North Italy; the generalship was dull on both sides; their advances and retreats depended mainly on the arrival of reinforcements. The German army invaded France, failed to take Marseilles, fell back into Italy, lost Milan, and was besieged in Pavia. Francis I made a long and unsuccessful siege of Pavia, was caught by fresh German forces, defeated, wounded and taken prisoner. But thereupon the Pope and Henry VIII, still haunted by the fear of his attaining excessive power, turned against Charles. The German troops in Milan, under the Constable of Bourbon, being unpaid, forced rather than followed their commander into a raid upon Rome. They stormed the city and pillaged it (1527). The Pope took refuge in the Castle of St. Angelo while the looting and slaughter went on. He bought off the German troops at last by the payment of four hundred thousand ducats. Ten years of such confused fighting impoverished all Europe. At last the Emperor found himself triumphant in Italy. In 1530, he was crowned by the Pope—he was the last German Emperor to be so crowned—at Bologna. Germany was at war again, only a precipitate flight from Innsbruck saved Charles from capture, and in 1552, with the treaty of Passau, came another unstable equilibrium. Such is the brief outline of the politics of the Empire for thirty-two years. It is interesting to note how entirely the European mind was concentrated upon the struggle for European ascendancy.

Then in a sort of magnificent dudgeon he retired to a monastery at Yuste, among the oak and chestnut forests in the hills to the north of the Tagus valley. There he died in 1558. Much has been written in a sentimental vein of this retirement, this renunciation of the world by this tired majestic Titan, world-weary, seeking in an austere solitude his peace with God. But his retreat was neither solitary nor austere; he had with him nearly a hundred and fifty attendants; his establishment had all the splendour and indulgences without the fatigues of a court, and Philip II was a dutiful son to whom his father’s advice was a command And if Charles had lost his living interest in the administration of European affairs, there were other motives of a more immediate sort to stir him. In 1554 Charles had obtained a bull from Pope Julius III granting him a dispensation from fasting, and allowing him to break his fast early in the morning even when he was to take the sacrament. Eating and doctoring! it was a return to elemental things. He had never acquired the habit of reading, but he would make what one narrator describes as a “sweet and heavenly commentary.” He also amused himself with mechanical toys, by listening to music or sermons, and by attending to the imperial business that still came drifting in to him. The death of the Empress, to whom he was greatly attached, had turned his mind towards religion, which in his case took a punctilious and ceremonial form; every Friday in Lent he scourged himself with the rest of the monks with such good will as to draw blood. These exercises and the gout released a bigotry in Charles that had hitherto been restrained by considerations of policy. The appearance of Protestant teaching close at hand in Valladolid roused him to fury. “Tell the grand inquisitor and his council from me to be at their posts, and to lay the axe at the root of the evil before it spreads further.” He expressed a doubt whether it would not be well, in so black an affair, to dispense with the ordinary course of justice, and to show no mercy; “lest the criminal, if pardoned, should have the opportunity of repeating his crime.” He recommended, as an example, his own mode of proceeding in the Netherlands, “where all who remained obstinate in their errors were burned alive, and those who were admitted to penitence were beheaded.” And almost symbolical of his place and rôle in history was his preoccupation with funerals. He seems to have had an intuition that something great was dead in Europe and sorely needed burial, that there was a need to write Finish, overdue. He not only attended every actual funeral that was celebrated at Yuste, but he had services conducted for the absent dead, he held a funeral service in memory of his wife on the anniversary of her death, and finally he celebrated his own obsequies. Within two months of this masquerade he was dead. And the brief greatness of the Holy Roman Empire died with him. His realm was already divided between his brother and his son. The Holy Roman Empire struggled on indeed to the days of Napoleon I but as an invalid and dying thing. To this day its unburied tradition still poisons the political air. Appendix to Robertson’s History of Charles V.

The Renaissance in Italy

The "rebirth" of art in Italy was connected with the rediscovery of ancient philosophy, literature, and science and the evolution of empirical methods of study in these fields. Increased awareness of classical knowledge created a new resolve to learn by direct observation and study of the natural world. Consequently, secular themes became increasingly important to artists, and with the revived interest in antiquity came a new repertoire of subjects drawn from Greek and Roman history and mythology. The models provided by ancient buildings and works of art also inspired the development of new artistic techniques and the desire to re-create the forms and styles of classical art.

Central to the development of Renaissance art was the emergence of the artist as a creator, sought after and respected for his erudition and imagination. Art, too, became valued--not merely as a vehicle for religious and social didacticism, but even more as a mode of personal, aesthetic expression.

Although the evolution of Italian Renaissance art was a continuous process, it is traditionally divided into three major phases: Early, High, and Late Renaissance. The last phase has been the subject in recent years of complex interpretations that recognize many competing and contrasting trends. Some scholars date the beginning of the Italian Renaissance from the appearance of Giotto di Bondone in the early 14th century; others regard his prodigious achievements in naturalistic art as an isolated phenomenon. According to the second view, the consistent development of Renaissance style began only with the generation of artists active in Florence at the beginning of the 15th century.

The Early Renaissance

The principal members of the first generation of Renaissance artists--DONATELLO in sculpture, Filippo BRUNELLESCHI in architecture, and MASACCIO in painting--shared many important characteristics. Central to their thinking was a faith in the theoretical foundations of art and the conviction that development and progress were not only possible but essential to the life and significance of the arts. Ancient art was revered, not only as an inspiring model but also as a record of trial and error that could reveal the successes of former great artists. Intending to retrace the creative process rather than to merely imitate the final achievements of antiquity, Early Renaissance artists sought to create art forms consistent with the appearance of the natural world and with their experience of human personality and behavior. The challenge of accurate representation as it concerned mass sculptural form, or the pictorial considerations of measurable space and the effects of light and color, was addressed in the spirit of intense and methodical inquiry.

Rational inquiry was believed to be the key to success; therefore, efforts were made to discover the correct laws of proportion for architecture and for the representation of the human body and to systematize the rendering of pictorial space. Although these artists were keenly observant of natural phenomena, they also tended to extrapolate general rules from specific appearances. Similarly, they made an effort to go beyond straightforward transcription of nature, to instill the work of art with ideal, intangible qualities, endowing it with a beauty and significance greater and more permanent than that actually found in nature. These characteristics--the rendering of ideal forms rather than literal appearance and the concept of the physical world as the vehicle or imperfect embodiment of monumental spiritual beauty--were to remain fundamental to the nature and development of Italian Renaissance art.

The term Early Renaissance characterizes virtually all the art of the 15th century. Florence, the cradle of Renaissance artistic thought, remained one of the undisputed centers of innovation. About 1450 a new generation of artists that included such masters as Pollaiuolo (see POLLAIUOLO family) and Sandro Botticelli came to the fore in Florence. Other Italian cities--Milan, Urbino, Ferrara, Venice, Padua, Naples--became powerful rivals in the spreading wave of change. Leon Battista ALBERTI's work in Rimini and Mantua represented the most progressive architecture of the new HUMANISM; Andrea Mantegna's paintings in Padua displayed a personal formulation of linear perspective, antiquarianism, and realistic technique; and Giovanni Bellini's poetic classicism exemplified the growing strength of the Venetian school.

By the late 15th century the novelty of the first explosive advances of Renaissance style had given way to a general acceptance of such basic notions as proportion, contraposto (twisted pose), and linear perspective; consequently many artists sought means of personal expression within this relatively well-established repertoire of style and technique. The Early Renaissance was not, as was once maintained, merely an imperfect but necessary preparation for the perfection of High Renaissance art but a period of great intrinsic merit. In retrospect, however, Early Renaissance painting seems to fall short of thoroughly convincing figural representation, and its expression of human emotion is stylized rather than real. Furthermore, the strength of individual features of a work of art is disproportionate to the whole composition.

The High Renaissance

The art of the High Renaissance, however, sought a general, unified effect of pictorial representation or architectural composition, increasing the dramatic force and physical presence of a work of art and gathering its energies and forming a controlled equilibrium. Because the essential characteristic of High Renaissance art was its unity--a balance achieved as a matter of intuition, beyond the reach of rational knowledge or technical skill--the High Renaissance style was destined to break up as soon as emphasis was shifted to favor any one element in the composition.

The High Renaissance style endured for only a brief period (c.1495-1520) and was created by a few artists of genius, among them Leonardo da Vinci, Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian. Leonardo da Vinci's unfinished Adoration of the Magi (1481; Uffizi Gallery, Florence) is regarded as a landmark of unified pictorial composition, later realized fully in his fresco The Last Supper (1495-97; Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan). Leonardo is considered the paragon of Renaissance thinkers, engaged as he was in experiments of all kinds and having brought to his art a spirit of restless inquiry that sought to discover the laws governing diverse natural phenomena. In a different way, Michelangelo has come to typify the artist endowed with inexplicable, solitary genius. His universal talents are exemplified by the tomb of Julius II (c.1510-15), San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome; the Medici Chapel (1519-34), Florence; the SISTINE CHAPEL ceiling (1508-12) and Last Judgment (1536-41), Rome; and the cupola of SAINT PETER's BASILICA (begun 1546)--works that represent major and inimitable accomplishments in the separate fields of sculpture, painting, and architecture. Raphael, a man of very different temperament, evoked, in paintings of Madonnas and in frescoes, not overwhelming forces but sublime harmony and lyric, graceful beauty.

The Late Renaissance

A major watershed in the development of Italian Renaissance art was the sack of Rome in 1527, which temporarily ended the city's role as a source of patronage and compelled artists to travel to other centers in Italy, France, and Spain. Even before the death of Raphael, in 1520, anticlassical tendencies had begun to manifest themselves in Roman art. Some early exponents of MANNERISM, including Jacopo Carucci PONTORMO, PARMIGIANINO, and ROSSO FIORENTINO, contributed to the development of a style that reached its most extreme expression in the work of Giorgio VASARI and Giovanni da BOLOGNA. Mannerism was an aesthetic movement that valued highly refined grace and elegance--the beautiful maniera, or style, from which Mannerism takes its name. Although the fundamental characteristics of Late Renaissance style were shared by many artists, this period, dominated by Mannerism, was marked by artistic individuality--a quality demonstrated to its fullest extent by the late works of Michelangelo. The display of individual virtuosity became an important criterion of artistic achievement, and rivalry often provoked competition based on brilliance of individual performance. The self-consciousness of Mannerist artists, and their efforts to match or surpass the great masters who had immediately preceded them, were the symptoms of a somewhat overripe development, far removed from the fresh dawn of discovery that first gave meaning to the concept of the Renaissance.

Author : Michelangelo Buonarroti

Title : David

Time : 1504 Description : Marble, height 434 cm In 1501 Michelangelo was commissioned to create the David by “the arte della lana” (Guild of Wool Merchant), who were responsible for the upkeep and the decoration of the Cathedral in Florence. For this purpose, he was given a block of marble which Agostino di Duccio had already attempted to fashion forty years previously, perhaps with the same subject in mind. Michelangelo breaks away from the traditional way of representing David. He does not present us with the winner, the giant's head at his feet and the

powerful sword in his hand, but portrays the youth in the phase immediately preceding the battle: perhaps he has caught him just in the moment when he has heard that his people are hesitating, and he sees Goliath jeering and mocking them. The artist places him in the most perfect " contraposto", as in the most beautiful Greek representations of heroes. The right-hand side of the statue is smooth and composed while the left-side, from the outstretched foot all the way up to the disheveled hair is openly active and dynamic. The muscles and the tendons are developed only to the point where they can still be interpreted as the perfect instrument for a strong will, and not to the point of becoming individual self-governing forms. Once the statue was completed, a committee of the highest ranking citizens and artists decided that it must be placed in the main square of the town, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the Town Hall. It was the first time since antiquity that a large statue of a nude was to be exhibited in a public place. This was only allowed thanks to the action of two forces, which by a fortunate chance complemented each other: the force of an artist able to create, for a political community, the symbol of its highest political ideals, and, on the other hand, that of a community, which understood the power of this symbol. "Strength" and "Wrath" were the two most important virtues, characteristic of the ancient patron of the city Hercules. Both these qualities, passionate strength and wrath, were embodied in the statue of David.

Place : Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence

AUTHOR: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

TITLE: Pietà

TIME: 1499

DESCRIPTION: Marble, height 174 cm, width at the base 195 cm In the Pietà, Michelangelo approached a subject which until then had been given form mostly north of the Alps, where the portrayal of pain had always ,been connected with the idea of redemption: it was called the "Vesperbild" and represented the seated Madonna holding Christ's body in her arms. But now the twenty-three year-old artist presents us with an image of the Madonna with Christ's body never attempted before. Her face is youthful, yet beyond time; her head leans only slightly over the lifeless body of her son lying in her lap. "The body of the dead Christ exhibits the very perfection of research in every muscle, vein, and nerve. No corps could more completely resemble the dead than does this. There is a most exquisite expression in the countenance. The veins and pulses, moreover, are indicated with so much exactitude, that one cannot but marvel how the hand of the artist should in a short time have produced such a divine work." One must take these words of Vasari about the " divine beauty" of the work in the most literal sense, in order to understand the meaning of this composition. Michelangelo convinces both himself and us of the divine quality and the significance of these figures by means of earthly

beauty, perfect by human standards and therefore divine. We are here face to face not only with pain as a condition of redemption, but rather with absolute beauty as one of its consequences.

PLACE: St. Peter’s Cathedral - Vatican

AUTHOR: Sandro Botticelli TITLE: Venus TIME: 1485-86 DESCRIPTION: Tempera on canvas, 172,5x 278,5 cm Botticelli’s Venus is so beautiful that we do not notice the unnatural length of her Neck, the steep fall of her shoulders and the queer way her left arm is hinged to the body. Or, rather, we should say that these liberties which Botticelli took with nature in order to achieve a graceful outline add to the beauty and armony of the design because they enhance the impression of an infinitely tender and delicate being, wafted to ours shores as a gift from Heaven. PLACE: Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

AUTHOR: Leonardo da Vinci TITLE: Mona Lisa (la Gioconda) TIME:c. 1503-05 DESCRIPTION: oil on panel, 77 x 53 cm This figure of a woman, dressed in the Florentine fashion of her day and seated in a visionary, mountainous landscape, is a remarkable instance of Leonardo's sfumato technique of soft, heavily shaded modeling. The Mona Lisa's enigmatic expression, which seems both alluring and aloof, has given the portrait universal fame. Taking a living model as his point of departure, Leonardo has expressed in an ideal form the concept of balanced and integrated humanity. The smile stands for the movement of life, and the mystery of the soul. The misty blue mountains, towering above the plain and its river, symbolize the universe. PLACE: Musee du Louvre, Paris

Flemish Art in Europe to reference at Flanders, Spain and Italy

Around 1400 the principal centre of Flemish art might have been in the city of Tournai in Hainaut. There was Robert Campin with his pupils. Soon after the activity of the Flemish artist didn’t meet all the requests, especially for painting and tapestry. Many master gathered in the largest city and obtained citizenship. In ‘500 Holland and Flanders became artistic centers for excellence. In this period Flemish art spread soon in Spain and Italy; The portraits by Jan Van Eyck are in relation to those by Antonello from Messina painted for Tommaso Portinari, representative of Medici to Bruges, the famous Triptych by Portinari, came in 1483 to Florence, provoking the ammiration of the Italian painters to begin from Ghirlandaio. The mediator between the Nordic world and Italy was Antonello from Messina, apprentice of Colantonio (active in Naples between 1440 and 1470) that he carried to Venice the Provencial-borgognona culture and new compositive formulas, like crocifixions with natural background, transparent flesh-coloured, studies and ligth’s effects that influenced also Giovanni Bellini. From the North derives also the topic of the Mercy with Virgin Mary whom it holds in her lap the body of Christ placed from the cross faced by many great masters of the Renaissance. The new art coming from the north fascinated Genoa, Tuscany and also Milan artists, as an example Zanetto Bugatto was sent to Brussels, at the master Rogier van der Weyden, another pupil was Vincenzo Foppa well-known for his deep natural landscape and illuminated from the Nordic cold lights. In Spain it is also underlined the old tradition of good dancers dating back to the Roman age but with the passing of time a new dancing was performed “Flamenco”. It is a Spanish term wich it means Flemish, just of the Flanders (the Flanders is one northern region of Belgium). The mystery that circulates around the name flamenco is not of easy solution. Many students have tried to explain in several ways the construction of meaning of the same term and its consequent one. But the darkness still remaines. While it has been possible to design the entire genealogical tree of the dance, sufficiently the reasons have not been given for which, in order to describe a musical and Korean culture that was born unequivocally in Castile, it has been adopted a controversial word that it wants to say Flemish. One examination it is also expressed of the political and historical events relative to the geographic areas of reference can be useful in order at least, to delineate a context within

which assuming cultural and artistic exchanges amomg various lands therefore between Spain and the Flanders. Such context is represented from the reign of Carles V (of Habsburg). Premised that the term flamenco reported to the entirely music, sing, dance, is not traced before 1800, while, the Emperor Carles V had become first king of Spain in 1517. During the reign of the Habsburgs, the Flemish art, already present in Europe from the half of the 1400's, spread in capillary way, also in Spain, investing the fields of the architecture, the sculpture and the painting. Of this phenomenon the tests are under the eyes of all. The critics and the students of Art have not codified a precise Spanish- Flemish style whose main representatives are Luis Dalmau, Jorge Inglés, Jan de Flandes, Bartolomé Bermejo, Pedro Berruguete. Seen several the contacts that the Flanders and the rest of the Europe were kept between this art was diffused soon to Spain and Italy not to lose here are, beyond to portraits of Jan Van Eyck, to put in relation with those of Antonello from Messina, the works of Petrus Christus and Ugo van der Goes that it executed for Tommaso Portinari, representative of the Medici to Bruges, the famous Triptych Portinari, come in the 1483 to Florence, provoking the ammiration of the Italian painters to begin from the Ghirlandaio. The mediator between the Nordic world and the Italy was Antonello from Messina, apprentice of Colantonio (active to Naples between 1440 and 1470) that he carried to Venice the Provencial-borgognona culture and new compositive formulas, like crocifixions with natural background, transparent flesh-coloured, studies and ligth’s effects that influenced also Giovanni Bellini. From the North derives also the topic of the Mercy with Virgin Mary whom it holds in her lap the body of the Christ placed from the cross faced from many great masters of the Renaissance. The new art coming from the north fascinated genoese, Tuscany and also Milan artists, as an example Zanetto Bugatto was sended to Brussels, at the of Rogier van der Weyden, was the painter who then becoming collaborator of Vincenzo Foppa weel-know for his deep natural landscaped and illuminated from the Nordic’s cold lights

AUTHOR: Denys Calvaert TITLE: The presentation of Mary TIME:? DESCRIPTION: oil on canvas, 93x78 cm PLACE: Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna

AUTHOR: Joos van Cleve TITLE: Portrait of a man and woman TIME: 1520 and 1527 DESCRIPTION: oil on wood, 57x42 (each)

The painting of fthe Uffizi, which represents the portrait of an unknown man and woman, was once thought to be a self -portrait of Quentin Massys and his wife. Later its author was identified as the Master of the Death of the Virgin, Joos van Cleve.

AUTHOR: Jan Bruegel dei Velluti TITLE: Vase of flowers TIME: 1606 DESCRIPTION: branch, 65x45 cm

Author: Goes, Hugo van der Title: The Adoration of the Shepherds Time: ca. 1440, Ghent, 1482, Bruxelles Description: Adoration of the shepherds. Jesus Christ-Nativity-Art. The Virgin and Joseph are kneeling -almost symmetrically placed -on either side of the crib which, viewed end-on, adds depth to the scene. Angels are crowding round behind the crib in order to be near the Child.

AUTHOR: Justus Sustermans TITLE: Portrait of Leopoldo di Cosimo II dè Medici TIME:?

AUTHOR: Gerrit van Honthorst TITLE: Supper Party TIME: 1619 DESCRIPTION: oil on canvas, 142 x 212 cm Honthorst's genre pictures of light-hearted gatherings had a great impact in Utrecht. He made such pictures while he was stilI in Italy. His Supper Party, painted during his last months in Italy, set a precedent for similar scenes done in the 1620s at Utrecht where artists favoured the erotic as well as the ascetic side of Baroque art. This is already evident in Honthorst's Supper Party where the person

AUTHOR: Rogier van der weyden TITLE: Entombment of Christ TIME: 1450 DESCRIPTION: Oil on oak panel, 110 x 96 cm PLACE: Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (Italy).

Flemish Art in Italy

Author: Hans Memling

Title: Portrait of a Young Man

Time:1480s Description: Oil on wood 33 x 25 cm The vision of man and the world free from the transcendental conception of the Middle Ages achieved on the threshold of the fifteenth century in Tuscany through the laws of linear perspective, was reached almost at the same time in Flanders in an empirical fashion through the continuous lyrical modulation of light which, embracing form and space in a unified synthesis, brings out the natural value and weight of colours. This is the background to the intimate, contemplative, natural quality of the painting of Hans Memling, an excellent example of which is the 'Portrait of a Young Man'. The light gently explores the features of the human face and of landscape and evokes each detail with incomparable naturalness.

Place: Galleria Corsini, Florence

Author : Hans Memling

Title : Madonna Enthroned with Child and Two Angels

Time: 1490-91 Description: Oil on wood, 57 x 42 cm

Memling often painted sacred scenes with a sense of serene harmony and decorative elegance. In this work splendor of the colours dominates the foreground, with the Madonna's throne framed in an arch and adorned with festoons of leaves, fruit and flowers held by putti: a set of motifs that clearly reveal the artist's attention to Italian models of Venetian art, while peculiarly Flemish is the natural landscape on the background.

Place: Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

AUTHOR: Pieter Pauwel Rubens TITLE: The Consequences of War TIME: 1637-38 DESCRIPTION: oil on canvas, 206 X 342 cm PLACE: Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

AUTHOR: Pietre Pauwel Rubens TITLE: The Four Philosopheres TIME: c. 1602 DESCRIPTION: oil on canvas, 167 x 148 cm PLACE: Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

Flemish Art in The Marches In the special tapestry museum of Fabriano and adjacent there are some important Flemish pieces. The most important artists presented in this Art Gallery are the so called Maestro of Campodonico and Staffolo, Allegretto Muri, Antonio from Fabriano, Orazio Gentileschi. Other Flemish tapestry are placed in Fermo (as the Annunciation-woven on paper designed by Giusto of Gand) with a lot of canvasses by Jacobello del Fiore, Ghissi, Andrea from Bologna, Vincenzo Pagani. A lot of tapestry can be admired in the Shrine of the Holy House in Loreto. Worth mentioning is the Diocesan Museum in Ancona, rich of important testimony as well as Flemish tapestries on paper designed by Rubens. However the most famous Italian painters influenced by the Flemish school are: Piero Della Francesca from Urbino, Giovanni Bellini from Pesaro and the Spanish Pedro Berruguete who lived in Urbino.

Author: Carlo Crivelli

Title: Madonna with Child

Time: 1430/35 c.a. 1495 c.a.

Description: Panel, cm 21x15;

This single panel is regarded as one of Crivelli's masterpieces, both for its transparent use of colour as well as its sharpness of composition. Signed with the words "OPUS.CAROLI.CRIVELLI.VENETI", it bears no date. Some scholars regard this as an early work while others place it stylistically into a later period, between 1480-6. It originally hung in the city's church of San Francesco in Alto before beinmoved to the museum in 1861.

Place: Ancona, civic pinacoteca

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Author: Piero della Francesca Title: Madonna With the Child and two angels (Madonna of Senigallia) Time: 1470 ca.

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Place: Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche

Author: Piero della Francesca Title: Portrait of Battista Sforza and of Federico from Montefeltro Time: 1465-66 Description: Panel, 47 x 33 cm; In these two relatively small panels Piero attemps a very

difficult compositional construction, that had never been attempted before. Behind the profile portrait of the two rulers, which is iconographically related to the heraldic tradition of medallion portraits, the artist adds an extraordinary landscape that extends so far that is boundaries are lost in the misty distance. Yet the relationship between the landscape and the portraits in the foreground is very close also in meaning: for the portraits, with the imposing hieratic profiles, dominate the painting just as the power of the rulers portrayed dominates over the expanse of their territories. The daringness of the composition lies in this sudden switch between such distant perspective planes. Piero’s ability in rendering volumes is accompanied by his attention to detail. Through is use of light,

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he gives us a miniaturistic description of Sforza’s jewels, of the wrinkles, moles and blemishes on Federico’s olive-coloured skin.

Place: Gallery of the Uffizi, Florence

Author : Pedro Berruguete

Title : Prince Federico from Montefeltro and his Son

Time : 1480-81

Description : Oil on panel, 134 x 77 cm

The great condottiere, Federigo di Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, had summoned Joos van Gent to decorate the library and study of his magnificent palace with allegories of the liberal arts and portraits of Biblical and pagan thinkers. He painted the solemn portrait of Federigo and his son (Ducal Palace, Urbino), which gives some idea of his mastery of tactile values and of the airy

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qualities of physical space, perfectly suggested in depth. These paintings were all executed between 1480 and 1481. During his stay at Urbino, Berruguete completed a certain amount of work which has since remained in Italy

Place : Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino

Author: Lorenzo Lotto Title: Annunciation Time: 1527-’29 Description: oil on canvas; 116x114 cm; Still controversial it is the dating of the painting that comes however

made to fall back to the end of years ' 20. In the Recanati’s painting the Lotto resumes the topic of the Annunciation giving unitary development of story to the miraculous event, picked in the same moment of its to take place itself. The angel has corporeal structure who storm in the room and projects his shadow on the pavement, with the cat that perceives the anomalous presence and escapes some scared, becoming the main witness of the miracle. The scene is carried out to the inside of a domestic atmosphere, in the tidy room of Maria, where all the objects are accurately arrange to you: the cap

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for the night, the towel for the hygiene of the awakening, the candle in order to continue the reading of the sacred books in the hours of the dark and outside the garden with the trees prunes to you, the geometric trellis work, the hedges cured with a cure in the search of the particular of clear Flemish influence like in the “Portrait of Arnolfini’s spouses”; of Van Eyck. In this tidy world storm God Father, like an ancient swimmer from an obliging cloud, little preceded from that angel who seems frightened from the hugeness of the event and shell in its turn the eyes indicating with the hand the advanced order to which it cannot that to correspond. And poor Maria surrenders endured, turns itself towards the spectator, but she already knows not to have escape. We can bet that the only one to earn the escape will be the cat, for nothing content of all that bustle, very accustomed to another calm in that tidy room and with that calm girl.

Place: Recanati’s picture-gallery

Author : Giovanni Bellini Title : Pesaro Altarpiece Time: 1471-74 Description : Oil on panel, 262 x 240 cm Pesaro Altarpiece, depicting the Coronation of the Virgin, is one of the artist's masterpieces and a pivotal work of his mature years. The

6painting does lack a precise chronological reference, and about this,

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and the closely linked and equally unresolved question of its commissioning, critics are particularly intransigent, arriving at controversial and far from conclusive results. The altarpiece certainly has a politico-religious value which is impressed in and in some way determines the composition. On the one hand it celebrates the profession of Franciscan faith (an Order linked to the Sforza family, then lords of Pesaro, by strong bonds of devotion and protection) through the presence, at the sides of the throne and in the left and right-hand pilasters, of saints whose cult was particularly venerated and fostered by the friars in Pesaro and in the territory of the signoria. But, on the other hand, they are particularly significant by virtue of a symbolic meaning attributed to 1heir presence: George, the knightly saint so dear to the noble courts, and Terence, saint of Pesaro represented as an ancient "miles", occupy the compartments at the base of the pilasters, where heraldic insignia were usually placed, and thus represent the civil and military power of the Sforza. Behind Terence, on the left, a Roman memorial tablet with a bust and an inscription extolling the emperor Augustus completes the celebratory reference to the 'potestas' of the ducal family. The occasion for the execution of the altarpiece is also a matter of uncertainty and controversy. It might have been ordered to celebrate the taking of Gradara, the Riminese fortress conquered by Pesaro in 1463: the many-towered and fortified landscape in the background of the Coronation would in this case refer to the representation of Gradara. Alternatively, we might consider the marriage between the lord of Pesaro and Camilla of Aragon in 1474. Stylistically, the Pesaro Altarpiece marks the achievement of a new balance. The lesson of Mantegna appears to have been sublimated in the light of that of Piero della Francesca, thus opening the way to yet another issue: where and when, in other words, had been able to contemplate and become so well acquainted with the art of Piero della Francesca. Probably Pesaro Altarpiece itself constituted for him the occasion of a journey from Venice to the Marches, which was among other things his mother's birthplace, and therefore the possibility of a direct appreciation of the works of Piero della Francesca. The typically Venetian architecture of the altarpiece recalls that of some contemporary funerary monuments, primarily that of the Doge Pasquale Malipiero, erected by Pietro Lombardo in the church of St John and St Paul. However, the typology of a frame that is integrai with the painting, in the interests of an inseparable perspective and spatial continuity, is fundamentally new (even if it drew on various precedents, such as Mantegna's San Zeno Polyptych). The idea of the throne's open back-piece, a veritable painting within a painting, serves precisely to resume and further articulate this new structural and compositional definition. In the great altarpiece that followed, that of San Giobbe (c. 1487) and in the altarpieces to come this intuition would develop and mature until it reached a tqtal, and also optical, indivisibility of the painting from its frame, which constitutes the only real access to it, the starting point of the vision itself. Piace Museo Civico, Pesaro