In art, a Madonna is a representation of Mary, either alone or with her child Jesus. These images are central icons for both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The word is from Italian ma donna 'my lady' (archaic). The Madonna and Child type is very prevalent in Christian iconography, divided into many traditional subtypes especially in Eastern Orthodox iconography, often known after the location of a notable icon of the type, such as the Theotokos of Vladimir, Agiosoritissa, Blachernitissa, etc., or descriptive of the depicted posture, as in Hodegetria, Eleusa, etc.
BartolomeoMontagna was an Italian Renaissance painter who mainly worked in Vicenza. He also produced works in Venice, Verona, and Padua. He is most famous for his many Madonnas and his works are known for their soft figures and depiction of eccentric marble architecture. He is considered to be heavily influenced by Giovanni Bellini, in whose workshop he might have worked around 1470. Benedetto Montagna, a productive engraver, was his son and pupil and active until about 1540. He was mentioned in Vasari's Lives as a student of Andrea Mantegna but this is widely contested by art historians.
Carlo Crivelli was an Italian Renaissance painter of conservative Late Gothic decorative sensibility, who spent his early years in the Veneto, where he absorbed influences from the Vivarini, Squarcione, and Mantegna. He left the Veneto by 1458 and spent most of the remainder of his career in the March of Ancona, where he developed a distinctive personal style that contrasts with that of his Venetian contemporary Giovanni Bellini.
Franciabigio was an Italian painter of the Florentine Renaissance. His true name may have been Francesco di Cristofano; he is also referred to as either Marcantonio Franciabigio or Francia Bigio.
Alessandro Bonvicino, more commonly known as Moretto, or in Italian Il Moretto da Brescia, was an Italian Renaissance painter from Brescia, where he also mostly worked. His dated works span the period from 1524 to 1554, but he was already described as a master in 1516. He was mainly a painter of altarpieces that tend towards sedateness, mostly for churches in and around Brescia, but also in Bergamo, Milan, Verona and Asola; many remain in the churches they were painted for. Most are on canvas, but a number even of large ones are on wood panel. Only a handful of drawings survive.
The Doni Tondo or Doni Madonna, is the only finished panel painting by the mature Michelangelo to survive. Now in the Uffizi in Florence, Italy, and still in its original frame, the Doni Tondo was probably commissioned by Agnolo Doni to commemorate his marriage to Maddalena Strozzi, the daughter of a powerful Tuscan family. The painting is in the form of a tondo, meaning in Italian, 'round', a shape which is frequently associated during the Renaissance with domestic ideas.
La Belle Jardinière, also known as the Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist, is a painting started by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, and finished by Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, that depicts the Madonna, a young Christ, and a young John the Baptist. It is believed to have been commissioned by the Sienese patrician Fabrizio Sergardi in approximately 1507. It is currently displayed in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.
The Ansidei Madonna is a 1505–1507 painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, painted during his Florentine period. It shows the Blessed Virgin Mary sitting on a wooden throne, with the child Christ on her lap. On her right John the Baptist stands, on her left Saint Nicholas is reading.
The Pesaro Madonna is a painting by the late Italian Renaissance master Titian, commissioned by Jacopo Pesaro, whose family acquired in 1518 the chapel in the Frari Basilica in Venice for which the work was painted, and where it remains today. Jacopo was Bishop of Paphos, in Cyprus, and had been named commander of the papal fleet by the Borgia pope, Alexander VI. This painting recalls one of Titian's earliest paintings Jacopo Pesaro being presented by Pope Alexander VI to Saint Peter, c. 1510-11
The Brera Madonna is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca, executed in 1472–1474. It is housed in the Pinacoteca di Brera of Milan, where it was deposited by Napoleon.
The Pucci family has been a prominent noble family in Florence over the course of many centuries. A recent notable member of this family was Emilio Pucci, an Italian fashion designer who founded a clothing company after World War II.
Giovanni Agostino da Lodi was an Italian painter who was active from c. 1495 to c. 1525.
The Perugia Altarpiece is a painting by the Italian early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico, housed in the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria of Perugia, Italy.
The San Giobbe Altarpiece is a c. 1487 oil painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini. Inspired by a plague outbreak in 1485, this sacra conversazione painting is unique in that it was designed in situ with the surrounding architecture of the church, and was one of the largest sacra conversazione paintings at the time. Although it was originally located in the Church of San Giobbe, Venice, it is now housed in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice after having been stolen by Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Santa Maria dei Fossi Altarpiece is a 1496-1498 painting by Pinturicchio, now in the Galleria nazionale dell'Umbria in Perugia. Unusually for an altarpiece, it is painted on canvas stretched over wooden panels.
The Dei Altarpiece is an oil on panel painting by Rosso Fiorentino, commissioned in 1509 by the Dei family and completed in 1522. It is now in Florence's Galleria Palatina, whilst the Uffizi holds a preparatory drawing which may be the original idea for the work.
Villamagna Altarpiece is a 1521 oil on panel painting by Rosso Fiorentino, produced for Pieve dei Santi Giovanni Battista e Felicita, Villamagna's parish church, where it remained until the mid 1860s. It is now in the Diocesan Museum in Volterra. The artist's second commission in Volterra after Deposition, it is signed and dated in the lower left-hand corner. To the left of the Madonna and Child is John the Baptist in his camel-skin tunic and holding a cross, whilst to the left is Saint Bartholomew holding an open book and the knife used to flay him.
Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist is an oil on panel painting by Pontormo, now in the Uffizi, whose Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe also houses a preparatory drawing for the work. The two theories on its dating are 1534-1536 and Antonio Natali's theory of 1529–1530.
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Four Saints is an oil painting on panel by Pontormo in the Louvre, Paris. References in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists are taken by some to date the work to 1528–1529, the years immediately after Pontormo painted the Capponi Chapel. More recent art historians argue that its style is close to works he produced between 1524 and 1526.
Madonna and Child with Saints is a common theme in Christian art, and is thus the title of a number of works.
