The Florentine Renaissance in art is the new approach to art and culture in Florence during the period from approximately the beginning of the 15th century to the end of the 16th. This new figurative language was linked to a new way of thinking about humankind and the world around it, based on the local culture and humanism already highlighted in the 14th century by Petrarch and Coluccio Salutati, among others. Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio's innovations in the figurative arts at the very beginning of the 15th century were not immediately accepted by the community, and for some twenty years remained misunderstood and in the minority compared to International Gothic.
Thereafter, the figurative language of the Renaissance gradually became the most popular and was transmitted to other Italian courts, including the papal court, as well as to European courts, thanks to the movement of artists from one court to another. Contact with these travellers gave rise to local disciples.
The Florentine Renaissance was divided into several periods. Until the middle of the 15th century, this movement was based on technical and practical approaches, then a second phase covering the period of Lorenzo de' Medici's reign, from 1450 to 1492, was characterised by mainly intellectual contributions. The third phase was shaped by the precepts of Girolamo Savonarola, who had a profound and lasting influence on many artists, calling into question freedom of choice through the establishment of a theocratic state in Florence. From 1490 to 1520, the High Renaissance corresponds to the period of "experimentation" by the three major figures of the Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. The art of the period which followed is known as Mannerism.
Historical context
Late 14th – first half of the 15th century After the economic and social crisis of the second half of the 14th century, caused by bank failures, the Black Death, famine and civil wars culminating in the Ciompi Revolt of 1378, an economic recovery began in Florence. The population began to grow, and public works began again under the initiative of the bourgeois oligarchy. In 1391, construction began on the Porta della Mandorla at the Duomo. In 1404, the Arti decorated the outer niches of Orsanmichele.
The recovery was threatened by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who laid siege to Florence with the aim of creating a national state in Italy under the domination of Milan. Nevertheless, the Florentines held on to their independence. With the death of Visconti in 1402 and the loosening of the military stranglehold on the city, economic recovery resumed and Florence conquered Pisa in 1406 and the port of Livorno in 1421. In 1424, Florence suffered defeat at the hands of the Visconti and of Lucca. The burden of war and the cost of completing the cathedral dome necessitated new taxes. Thus, in 1427, the Signoria imposed the catasto, taxing families according to their wealth, i.e. at the time taxing the families of merchant bankers.
Medici seigneury
During the 1430s, Cosimo de' Medici began to take political action, bringing in men he trusted, while he remained in the second line, but the confrontation with Florence's other powerful families, such as the Albizzi and the Strozzi backfired on him and he was forced into exile. Nevertheless, the dissatisfied populationThe Florentine public's disavowal of the ancient oligarchs was legitimized in particular by the multiple tax levies attributable to the financial costs of the wars of the 1420s, but also to the investments made in new monumental edifices. chased away his enemies and forced his return. Received with acclaim, he was dubbed . From then on, the Medici family took power and held it for three centuries.
In 1439, with Cosimo reigning, the Church council held in Ferrara was transferred to Florence because of the plague. Although this council aimed to settle the problem of the Eastern schism, its concrete result was hardly visible.
The reign of Lorenzo de' Medici, in power from 1469 to 1492, after a difficult start with the Pazzi conspiracy, was a period of peace, prosperity and cultural refinement. Florence became an influential centre, exporting its art and know-how to the other courts of Italy and Europe by sending its artists and scholars as ('cultural ambassadors'). The first decoration of the Sistine Chapel in Rome was the work of a group of Florentine artists, including Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Pietro Perugino.
After Lorenzo's death, a dark era began with the appearance of Girolamo Savonarola, who, after the exile of Piero the Unfortunate, established the Republic and created a theocratically inspired state. His proclamations from the pulpit of San Marco had a profound influence on Florentine society, which, fearful of the political crisis sweeping the Italian peninsula, turned to a more austere, fundamentalist religion, in contrast to the humanist ideals inspired by the classical world which had run through the preceding period. Many artists, such as Botticelli and the young Michelangelo, abandoned creations of "profane inspiration", sometimes (as in the cases of Fra Bartolomeo and Botticelli) destroying their earlier productions, which were burnt at the bonfire of the vanities.
The confrontation between Savonarola and Pope Alexander VI put an end to the influence of Savonarola, who was condemned as a heretic and burned in the Piazza della Signoria in 1498. From then on, the social situation became even more confused, and many artists left the city.
Meanwhile, Lorenzo de' Medici's son Giovanni, now a cardinal, intimidated the population with the Sack of Prato in 1512, and was given the keys to the city. He became pope under the name of Leo X in 1513, and governed the city from Rome through members of his family.
In 1527, the Sack of Rome sparked a new rebellion. The Siege of Florence in 1529–1530 put an end to the Florentine Republic, which became a duchy under Cosimo I of Tuscany, who became Grand Duke after the conquest of Siena, making Florence the capital of Tuscany.
Guild influence The Medici were bankers, not soldiers raised on chivalric ideals, and many of their commissions were more deliberately aristocratic than those of their princely counterparts. Many of the skills that gave Florentine art its distinctive form, such as practical mathematics, letters and numbers, were products of Florence's mercantile ethics. The guilds representing these interests, from silk and wool merchants to stonecutters and woodcarvers, commissioned most of the public works of the first decades of the 15th century, subjecting them to rigorous control. Like the princes, they competed with each other for prestige, alongside the wealthy Florentine entrepreneurs who built increasingly elaborate palaces and private chapels.
Characteristics
The main characteristics of the new style are found in a formulation of the rules of perspective used to organise space, in the attention paid to the human being as an individual, concerning anatomy and physiognomy as well as the representation of emotions, and in the rejection of decorative elements with a concentration on the essential.
Among these features, the most important is probably the centred monofocal perspective, built using a geometric method perfected at the turn of the century by Filippo Brunelleschi. Its use requires only a basic knowledge of geometry, which probably explains its success. In unison with the mentality of Renaissance man, perspective allows the rational use of space according to criteria established by the artist; the choices that determine the rules are subjective, such as vanishing point, distance from the viewer and height of the horizon.
Pioneers (1401) At the dawn of the 15th century, while International Gothic was in vogue in Italy and Europe, a debate was taking place in Florence on two antagonistic artistic trends: one was inclined to accept the Gothic style adapted to local tradition, the other was inclined to reappropriate the more rigorous manner of the Ancients, restoring Florentia's original Roman bond.
These two trends can be seen in the construction of the Porta della Mandorla (1391), where, alongside Gothic spirals and ornamentation, the doorcases feature figures solidly modelled in the antique style.
The competition for the north door of Florence's Baptistery, sponsored by the Arte di Calimala in 1401, further highlights these two tendencies. The specifications called for a , a bas-relief depicting the Binding of Isaac. Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi, among others, took part in the competition, whose finalist panels have survived.
Ghiberti's work presents figures modelled in a Hellenistic style, with an abandonment of physical beauty and perfection, without expression or implication, while Brunelleschi's work is inspired by the ancient style of Giovanni Pisano, a pyramid-shaped scene, with attention drawn to the intersection of the perpendicular lines of Abraham's hands, the angel and Isaac's body, the central point of the scene, according to a less elegant but more disruptive expressivity.
The competition was won by Ghiberti, demonstrating that it was not yet the right time for the change proposed by Brunelleschi.
Origin and development (1410–1440) The first phase of the Renaissance, which developed in the 1430s and 1440s, was a period of experimentation, characterised by a technical and practical approach in which innovations and advances were taken up by local artists.
The first art form to develop this new artistic language was sculpture. The local presence of ancient works facilitated this development. As early as 1410–1420, the sculptor Donatello developed an original style inspired by Antiquity. followed by architecture dominated by Filippo Brunelleschi. The first works on the new Ospedale degli Innocenti and the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo date to 1419. Finally, painting was dominated by Masaccio, active from 1422 to 1428.
The best creations are the result of artistic competitions between artists asked to work "face to face" on identical or similar subjects, such as the crucifixes by Brunelleschi and Donatello, the in the Duomo by Donatello and Luca della Robbia, and the frescoed stories in the Brancacci Chapel by Masaccio, Masolino and Filippino Lippi.
Sculpture
Two crucifixes
Brunelleschi and Donatello were two artists who quickly assimilated the concepts of the new artistic language. Brunelleschi was about ten years older, and was probably the guide and stimulator for his younger colleague, with whom he travelled to Rome in 1409, where they studied ancient works and sought to discover the techniques that made such creations possible. Despite their similar way of thinking, their different temperaments and sensibilities meant that their artistic works had very different characteristics.
An example of this is the comparison of two wooden crucifixes, at the centre of an anecdote told by Giorgio Vasari, who witnessed Brunelleschi's criticism of Donatello's Santa Croce Crucifix and his response with the Crucifix of Santa Maria Novella, which leaves his colleague shocked. In reality, it seems that the two pieces were not produced at the same time, and the gap would be around ten years, but nonetheless the anecdote remains eloquent.
Donatello's Crucifix focuses on human suffering, emphasising aesthetics: the muscular contractions underline the moment of agony, and the body is heavy and graceless, but exudes vigorous energy.
Brunelleschi's Crucifix, on the other hand, is more idealised and calibrated, its perfect forms echoing the divine perfection of the subject.