What do a cucumber, a fly, figures in turbans, and ancient reliefs tell us about the Madonna and Child?
Central and Northern Italy 1400s
This painting blends deep piety with scientific observation. Both its architecture and figures were radically new.
Masaccio, Holy Trinity
Brilliant golden brocades. Psuedo-Arabic. Turbans. Leopards and lions. The Adoration of the Magi speaks to the global flow of goods at this time.
Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi ...
What are Persian carpets, a peacock, and a cucumber doing in a painting of The Annunciation?
Carlo Crivelli, The Annunciation with Saint Emidius
Printing and publishing in fifteenth century Venice, the Silicon Valley of its day
Aldo Manuzio (Aldus Manutius): inventor of the modern ...
Don’t stand so straight! Relax. Shift your weight. Bend a knee. Just respond to the world, like this spear-bearer.
Contrapposto
When the citizens of Florence looked up at St. Mark, they saw a mirror of their own dignity—and of ancient nobility.
Donatello, St. Mark
Romanesque, Gothic, or ancient Greek? Whether you divide this façade by styles or squares, its stones come alive.
Façade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Three men arrive to bless Christ. Are they wise—or just rich? Better defer to that young painter in the crowd...
Dissecting Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi
When reconstructed, the panels of this altarpiece resemble the architecture of an Italian Gothic cathedral.
Illustrating a Fifteenth-Century Italian Altarpiece
These gilded bronze doors are a masterpiece of clarity and illusionism. Space coheres, and figures move with ease.
Lorenzo Ghiberti, Gates of Paradise, East Doors ...
Capturing figures in thought, stonemasons understood what it meant to be human—just like the ancient Romans.
Nanni di Banco, Four Crowned Saints
This difficult sculpture is an exercise in contrasts: frailty and power, pure spirituality and anatomical accuracy.
Donatello, Mary Magdalene
No Photoshop! Just a vanishing point, a horizon line, and some orthogonals—that’s the magic formula for reality.
How one-point linear perspective works
The secrets of large-scale casting were lost for a thousand years, but bronze horses were no sweat for Donatello.
Donatello, Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata
The Italian city-states were constantly at war, but this battle is between surface decoration and deep space.
Paolo Uccello, Battle of San Romano
Brunelleschi’s panel may be scarier, but Ghiberti’s is more emotionally complex. In both, an angel saves the day.
Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti, Sacrifice of ...
Squaring the circle? At this burial site, pendentives unite the dome of heaven and the gravity of earth.
Brunelleschi, Old Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence
A central dome dominates this space, while greyish-green stone articulates its perfect geometry.
Filippo Brunelleschi, Pazzi Chapel, Florence
So much emotion, so much shame. After an angel evicts Adam and Eve, they walk straight into the story of St. Peter.
