Page 32 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Italy

30  In T roduCI n g IT a ly

Medieval and Early Renaissance Art

The story of early Italian art, from the 13th century until
the late 15th century, illuminates one of the richest periods
in European art history. For the first time since Classical
antiquity, painters and sculptors created a convincing
pictorial space in which figures, modelled “in the round”,
were given life. Ethereal buildings were replaced by
those firmly rooted in the real world,
reproducing what artists actually
saw. This revolution in art
included the reintroduction
of the fresco technique,
giving artists huge surfaces
for telling pictorial stories. c.1305 Giotto di Bondone,
The Meeting at the Golden Gate (Cappella
1235 degli Scrovegni, Padua). Giotto broke
Bonaventura away from the ornate Byzantine style
Berlinghieri, to visualize naturalness and human
St Francis Altarpiece emotions. His way of working would
(San Francesco, Pescia) later be dubbed the Florentine style.
1285 Duccio di Buoninsegna, Rucellai 1339 Ambrogio Lorenzetti,
Madonna, panel (Uffizi, Florence). Good Government Enthroned
Duccio dominated the Sienese painting (Sala dei Nove, Palazzo
style, which combined bold linear Pubblico, Siena)
movements with a new human intimacy.
1220 1240 1260 1280 1300 1320 1340
Middle Ages Forerunners to Renaissance
1220 1240 1260 1280 1300 1320 1340
c.1259 Nicola Pisano, Pulpit c.1316–18
(Baptistry, Pisa cathedral) Simone Martini,
Vision of St Martin
(Lower Church of San
c.1265 Coppo
di Marcovaldo, Francesco, Assisi)
Madonna and Child
(Santa Monica dei
Servi, Orvieto) c.1297 Giovanni Pisano,
Pulpit (Sant’Andrea, Pistoia)
c.1280 Cimabue, Madonna
Enthroned with Angels and c.1336 Andrea Pisano,
Prophets, also known as Santa Baptism of St John the Baptist,
Trinità Madonna (Uffizi, Florence)
panel on the South Doors
(Baptistry, Florence cathedral)
c.1291 Pietro Cavallini,
Last Judgment, detail (Santa
Cecilia, Trastevere, Rome)

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