The course concentrates on major masters of Florentine art in the 15th and 16th centuries. It begins with the emergence, against the background of the late Middle Ages, of the great founders of the art of the Renaissance-Donatello in sculpture, Masaccio in painting, and Brunelleschi in architecture. It moves on to artists in the second generation and later, Fra Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Leon Battista Alberti, Domenico Veneziano, Andrea del Castagno, Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio, and Botticelli-ending with Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Pontormo, Andrea del Sarto, and others. Themes such as humanism, interpretations of antiquity, patronage, urbanism, and Florentine civic ideals form a framework for understanding the works of art beyond style and iconography. Achievements of the chief painters of the 15th century studied through their major artistic commissions.
Special attention is given to the Tuscan tradition.
In the later 15th century, social and cultural changes generated by power shifts from Medici Florence to papal Rome also affected art patronage, creating new tensions and challenges for artists and fostering the emergence of new modes of visualization. The Gardens and Landscapes of Florence V43.9650.002 - 4 points. Florence has long been admired for its combination of buildings and gardens. The art and science of landscape and garden design was a serious pursuit in Renaissance Italy. Representations of landscapes played an important, often emblematic, role in painting and portraiture, interior decoration, and literature of the period.