The High Renaissance in Italy:

Michelangelo and Bramante

 Michelangelo
 His parents beat him severely to force him
into a “respectable” profession-not art
 Painter, sculptor, architect
 A sculptor by trade, but commissioned by the
Pope to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling
 Commissioned by SIX popes!
 He was the first Western artist whose
biography was published while he was alive !
 Michelangelo & Sculpture

 Exemplifies High Renaissance sculpture

 Balance between static and movement
 Two of his best-known works, the Pietà
and the David, were sculpted before he
turned 30!!
 Did not believe in mathematics to
guarantee proportion—he eyeballed
everything
MICHELANGELO
Pieta, ca. 1498-
1500. Marble, 5’
8 ½” high. Saint
Peter’s, Vatican
City, Rome*.

He was 23 at the
time!
 The Pietà=pity
 St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City
 Commissioned by French cardinal for his burial
 Balances the Renaissance ideals of classical
beauty with naturalism
 Interpretation far different than those previously
created —he decided to create a youthful, serene
Virgin Mary instead of a broken-hearted and
somewhat older woman.—More Northern Euro
subject than Italian
 Barely see Christ’
 Structure is pyramidal
 Statue widens
progressively down the
drapery of the Virgin's
dress to the base
 Figures are quite out of
proportion,
BUT the relationship of
the figures appears
quite natural.
Sad fact:
 In 1972, a mentally
disturbed geologist named
Laszlo Toth walked into
the chapel and attacked
the Virgin with a
geologist's hammer while
shouting "I am Jesus
Christ."
 Has undergone lengthy
restoration and is behind
protective glass
Michaelangelo
David
1501-04*
marble,
height 17’ without pedestal,
Galleria dell’Accademia,
Florence
 David
 Biblical King David, at the moment that he
decides to battle with Goliath
 David is not depicted with the slain Goliath
 David looks tense and ready for combat
 A representation of the moment between
conscious choice and conscious action
 Remember, David=Florence
 Michelangelo believed
that the image of
David was already in
the block of stone he
was working on — in
much the same way
as the human soul is
found within the
physical body.
 Hellenistic
 Carved from an 18’
block of marble!
 Proportions are not true to
the human form
– the head and upper body
are somewhat larger the
lower body
– the hands are also larger
 The statue was originally
intended to be placed on
the buttress of the
Florence Cathedral and the
proportions would appear
correct when viewed from
below
 After he finished, it was so
admired, it was placed in
Florence’s square
 Michelangelo also
used a technique,
much like Bernini,
where he left a
raised outline
around features
on the face in
order to catch
light and create
more realistic
shadow
MICHELANGELO , Moses, from the tomb of Pope Julius II, Rome,
Italy, ca. 1513–1515 *Marble, 7’ 8 1/2” high. San Pietro in Vincoli,
Rome.
 Moses
 Pope Julius II interrupted the commission
probably to divert funding to rebuilding St.
Peter’s
 After Julius dies in 1513, Michelangelo
reduced the scale until it turned into a
simple wall tomb with 1/3 less than the
planned figures
MICHELANGELO, Bound
Slave from the tomb of
Pope Julius II, Rome,
Italy, ca. 1513–1516*.
Marble, 7’ 5/8” high.
Louvre, Paris.

He finally completes the

tomb in 1545!
 The Sistine Chapel ceiling
1508 - 1512

 After Julius stops commission on his tomb, asks Michelangelo to

do Sistine Chapel

 He did not like to paint but did not want to insult the Pope

 Did not know how to work in fresco—first section needed to be

redone!

 Represents the Downfall of Man and the Promise of Salvation

through the prophets and Genealogy of Christ

 Finished this in 4 years!!!!!!

Interior of the Sistine
Chapel,Vatican City,
Rome, Italy, built
1473.

The Last Judgement

 The composition eventually
contained over 300 figures
and had at its centre nine
episodes from the Book of
Genesis, divided into three
groups:
– God's Creation of the
Earth
– God's Creation of
Humankind and their fall
from God's grace
– The state of Humanity as
represented by Noah and
his famil
 On the pendentives
supporting the ceiling are
painted twelve men and
women who prophesied the
coming of the Jesus
– seven prophets of Israel
– five Sibyls, prophetic
women of the Classical
world.
 Michelangelo designed his own
scaffold, a flat wooden platform
on brackets built out from holes
in the wall near the top of the
windows, rather than being built
up from the floor – mass could
still be held in the chapel

 Because he was painting fresco,

the plaster was laid in a new
section every day, called a
giornata. At the beginning of
each session, the edges would
be scraped away and a new
area laid down.

You can see the

edges of one
giornata
 Techniques

 Bright colors and broad, cleanly-defined

outlines make each subject easily visible
from the floor
 The architecture has been elaborated on
with illusionary or fictive architecture in
order to break up the ceiling into areas to
tell the stories
Left ½ of ceiling AFTER restoration – BIG controversy
 Daniel, before and after restoration

 June 1980 - December 1999: The restoration, which

revealed the frescoes in bright pastel colors, was met
with both praise and criticism. Those who are critical
believe that much original work by Michelangelo was lost
in the removal of various schmutz
Detail of the
Azor-Sadoch lunette
over one of the
Sistine Chapel
windows at the
beginning (left) and
final stage (right) of
the restoration
process.
 Most famous sections

 the Creation of Adam

 Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
 the Great Flood
 the Prophet Isaiah
 the Cumaean Sibyl
Michaelangelo, Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel
Ceiling, fresco, 1508-12*
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
The Great Flood
The Cumaean Sibyl The Libyan Sibyl
 The Last Judgement
 1534 to 1541
 Commissioned by Pope Paul III
 Massive, spaning the entire wall behind
the altar of the Sistine Chapel
 A depiction of the second coming of Christ
and the apocalypse; where the souls of
humanity rise and are assigned to their
various fates, as judged by Christ,
surrounded by the Saints
 Protestant reformation=salvation by faith
MICHELANGELO,
The Last
Judgment, altar
wall of the Sistine
Chapel Vatican
City, Rome, Italy,
1536–1541*.
Fresco, 48’ x 44’.
St Bartholomew displaying his flayed
skin (a self-portrait by Michelangelo)
 Last great achievement
 In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed
architect of St. Peter's Basilica in the
Vatican, and designed its dome.
 Architecture
Donato Bramante
 Bramante expanded the applicability of classical
architecture to contemporary buildings
 The Tempietto
• 1502 – designed & built the Tempietto of San
Pietro
 Influenced by Vitruvius and Alberti
 One of the most harmonious buildings of the
Renaissance
 Despite its small scale, the construction has all
the rigorous proportions and symmetry of
Classical structures, surrounded by slender Doric
columns, surmounted by a dome
 St. Peter’s Basilica
 1503 - Pope Julius II engaged Bramante
for the construction of the grandest
European architectural commission of the
16th century, the complete rebuilding of
St Peter's Basilica
 For the main church of Roman Catholic
Christendom, Bramante envisioned a
centrally planned, domed, Greek-cross
(equal-armed) structure
 READ about me on page 679!!!!
Ms. Edwards says, “Viva Italia!”
 The end?
 Raphael's death in 1520 and the sack of
Rome in 1527 spelled the end of the High
Renaissance.

 By about the 1520s, High Renaissance art

had become exaggerated into the style
known as Mannerism.