Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he has also become known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and palaeontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal, and his collective works comprise a contribution to later generations of artists matched only by that of his younger contemporary Michelangelo.
Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century.
Giorgio Vasari was an Italian Renaissance painter, architect, art historian and biographer, who is best known for his work Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, considered the ideological foundation of all art-historical writing, and still much cited in modern biographies of the many Italian Renaissance artists he covers, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, although he is now regarded as including many factual errors, especially when covering artists from before he was born.
Baccio Bandinelli, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor, draughtsman, and painter.
In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians state that the High Renaissance started between 1490 and 1500, and ended in 1520 with the death of Raphael, although some say the High Renaissance ended about 1525, or in 1527 with the Sack of Rome by the mutinous army of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, or about 1530. The best-known exponents of painting, sculpture and architecture of the High Renaissance include Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Bramante. In the 21st century, the use of the term has been frequently criticized by some academic art historians for oversimplifying artistic developments, ignoring historical context, and focusing only on a few iconic works.
Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli, also known as Giovann'Agnolo Montorsoli, was a Florentine sculptor and Servite friar. He is today as often remembered for his restorations of famous classical works as his original creations.
The Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze (ABAFI) is a state art school and the oldest public institution for fine arts education in the world. Founded in 1563 by Cosimo I de' Medici under the influence of Giorgio Vasari, it was subsequently reorganized at the initiative of the Grand Duke of Tuscany and separated from the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in 1784. Michelangelo, Benvenuto Cellini and other significant artists have been associated with it. Like other state art academies in Italy, it became an autonomous degree-awarding institution under law no. 508 dated 21 December 1999, and falls under the administration of the Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca, the Italian ministry of education and research. The adjacent Galleria dell'Accademia houses the original David by Michelangelo.
Pietro Torrigiano was an Italian Renaissance sculptor from Florence, who had to flee the city after breaking Michelangelo's nose. He then worked abroad, and died in prison in Spain. He was important in introducing Renaissance art to England, but his career was adversely affected by his violent temperament.
Hercules and Cacus is an Italian Renaissance sculpture in marble to the right of the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy.
The Battle of Anghiari (1505) is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Salone dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Its central scene would have depicted four men riding raging war horses engaged in a struggle for possession of a standard at the Battle of Anghiari in 1440.
Peter de Witte, known in Italy as Pietro Candido and in Bavaria as Peter Candid was a Flemish-born Mannerist painter, tapestry designer and draughtsman active in Italy and Bavaria. He was an artist at the Medici court in Florence and at the Bavarian court of Duke William V and his successor Maximilian I in Munich.
Saint Michael Vanquishing Satan is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael. It shows the archangel Michael standing on top of Satan's back with his right foot. The painting was commissioned by Pope Leo X and has been located in the Louvre in Paris since 1667.
The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, often simply known as The Lives, is a series of artist biographies written by 16th-century Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari, which is considered "perhaps the most famous, and even today the most-read work of the older literature of art", "some of the Italian Renaissance's most influential writing on art", and "the first important book on art history".
The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno is an academy of artists in Florence, in Italy. It was founded on 13 January 1563 by Cosimo I de' Medici, under the influence of Giorgio Vasari. It was initially known as the Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno and consisted of two parts: the company was a kind of guild for all working artists, while the academy was for more eminent artistic figures of the Medici court, and supervised artistic production in the Duchy of Florence.
Louis Alexander Waldman is an American art historian and author specializing in the Italian Renaissance.
Perseus Freeing Andromeda or Liberation of Andromeda is a painting created by Piero di Cosimo, during the Italian Renaissance. The painting was praised by critics and art historians for its aesthetic, cosmological and political implications. The painting is a recreation of the myth of Perseus, the demi-god, who slays the sea monster and saves the beautiful Andromeda. The painting is based on a story created by the ancient Roman writer Ovid, in the Metamorphoses. The themes of the painting include platonic love, ideal beauty, marriage, and natural beauty. The painting includes portraits of the Medici family and many of Florentine's elite upper ruling class as characters in the story of Perseus Freeing Andromeda. The painting also represents a paragone between painting and sculpture. The painting resides in the Uffizi in Florence.
An anonymous author known as the Anonimo Gaddiano, Anonimo Magliabechiano, or Anonimo Fiorentino is the author of the Codice Magliabechiano or Magliabechiano, a manuscript with 128 pages of text, probably from the 1530s and 1540s, and now in the Central National Library of Florence. It includes brief biographies and notes on the works of Italian artists, mainly those active in Florence during the Middle Ages. Among several other suggestions, the anonymous author has been suggested to be Bernardo Vecchietti (1514–1590), a politician of the court of Cosimo I. The author clearly had intimate access to the Medici court.
Stiacciato (Tuscan) or schiacciato is a technique where a sculptor creates a very shallow relief sculpture with carving only millimetres deep. The rilievo stiacciato is primarily associated with Donatello (1386–1466).
There are several portraits of the Italian goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1570). Including self-portraits and portraits of him by other artists. Benvenuto Cellini's physical appearance is determined based on a number of his lifetime portraits. However, due to a few known portraits from the 17th – 20th century, where the artists drew Cellini's facial traits from their imagination, as well as because of past posthumous erroneous attributions, there is a level of confusion on this subject.
The Casa Vasari is a building at 8 borgo Santa Croce in Florence, previously the residence in that city of the painter, art historian and architect Giorgio Vasari. It preserves a valuable cycle of frescoes in the hall, conceived and created by Vasari with the help of pupils.
