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Portrait Of The Dwarf Nano Morgante
''Portrait of the Dwarf Nano Morgante'' is a 1552 double-sided painting offering front and back views on either side of the canvas by Bronzino of Nano Morgante (nickname of Braccio di Bartolo) the famed court dwarf of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany who is also immortalized in Valerio Cioli's Fontana del Bacchino at the Boboli Gardens in Florence. The work was commissioned from Bronzino by Cosimo. It portrays Morgante on both sides as a bird-catcher, as he was not permitted to hunt bigger game, this being a pursuit reserved for persons of greater echelon. Morgante is depicted respectively from the front and back at two subsequent moments of the action: at the front he is depicted before the hunt, holding an owl in a snare to be used as a bait to capture a jay that is flying in the air. A duo of rare swallowtail butterflies cover his genitals; these were discovered recently, when the painting was last restored. From behind, he is seen just about to turn towards the v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronzino
Agnolo di Cosimo (; 17 November 150323 November 1572), usually known as Bronzino ( it, Il Bronzino ) or Agnolo Bronzino, was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. His sobriquet, ''Bronzino'', may refer to his relatively dark skin or reddish hair. He lived all his life in Florence, and from his late 30s was kept busy as the court painter of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. He was mainly a portraitist but also painted many religious subjects, and a few allegorical subjects, which include what is probably his best-known work, ''Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time'', c. 1544–45, now in London. Many portraits of the Medicis exist in several versions with varying degrees of participation by Bronzino himself, as Cosimo was a pioneer of the copied portrait sent as a diplomatic gift. He trained with Pontormo, the leading Florentine painter of the first generation of Mannerism, and his style was greatly influenced by him, but his elegant and somewhat elongated figures always a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fontana Del Bacchino
Fontana del Bacchino is an Italian Renaissance sculpture of 1560 by Valerio Cioli (1529-1599) in the Boboli Gardens in Florence featuring a statue in the likeness of the famed dwarf buffoon from the court of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Nano Morgante modeled after Bacchus and riding a tortoise. In 1572 the statue was turned into a fountain. In popular culture In the first (of four) programs in the Israeli series "Lool", cast member Uri Zohar recounts how a friend sent a postcard with a photo on the statue, which inspired the members of the Lool group to write a song called "The Man on the Turtle" (lyrics: Shalom Hanoch, music: Robb Huxley). Following the narration the group is shown performing the song, along with footage of a store front display in Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1560 Paintings
Year 156 ( CLVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Silvanus and Augurinus (or, less frequently, year 909 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 156 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place America * The La Mojarra Stela 1 is produced in Mesoamerica. By topic Religion * The heresiarch Montanus first appears in Ardaban (Mysia). Births * Dong Zhao, Chinese official and minister (d. 236) * Ling of Han, Chinese emperor of the Han Dynasty (d. 189) * Pontianus of Spoleto, Christian martyr and saint (d. 175) * Zhang Zhao, Chinese general and politician (d. 236) * Zhu Zhi, Chinese general and politician (d. 224) Deaths * Marcus Gavius Maximus, Roman praetorian prefect * Zhang Daoling, Chinese Taoist master (b. AD 34 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paragone
Paragone ( it, paragone, meaning ''comparison''), was a debate during the Italian Renaissance in which painting and sculpture (and to a degree, architecture) were each championed as forms of art superior and distinct to each other. While other art forms, such as architecture and poetry existed in the context of the debate, painting and sculpture were the primary focus of the debate. The debate extended beyond the fifteenth century and even influences the discussion and interpretation of artworks that may or may not have been influenced by the debate itself. A comparable question, generally posed less competitively, was known as ''ut pictura poesis'' (a quote from Horace), comparing the qualities of painting and poetry. The debate The debate began around the 15th century. Leonardo da Vinci's treatise on painting, observing the difficulty of painting and supremacy of sight, is a notable example of literature on the subject. Bendetto Varchi further sparked the conversation bet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work ''The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'', considered the ideological foundation of all art-historical writing, and the basis for biographies of several Renaissance artists, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Vasari designed the ''Tomb of Michelangelo'' in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence that was completed in 1578. Based on Vasari's text in print about Giotto's new manner of painting as a ''rinascita'' (rebirth), author Jules Michelet in his ''Histoire de France'' (1835) suggested adoption of Vasari's concept, using the term ''Renaissance'' (rebirth, in French) to distinguish the cultural change. The term was adopted thereafter in historiography and still is in use today. Life Vasari was born prematurely on 30 July 1511 in Arezzo, Tuscany. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swallowtail Butterflies
Swallowtail butterflies are large, colorful Butterfly, butterflies in the family Papilionidae, and include over 550 species. Though the majority are tropical, members of the family inhabit every continent except Antarctica. The family includes the largest butterflies in the world, the birdwing, birdwing butterflies of the genus ''Ornithoptera''. Swallowtails have a number of distinctive features; for example, the papilionid caterpillar bears a Ozopore, repugnatorial organ called the osmeterium on its prothorax. The osmeterium normally remains hidden, but when threatened, the larva turns it outward through a transverse dorsal groove by inflating it with fluid. The forked appearance in some of the swallowtails' hindwings, which can be seen when the butterfly is resting with its wings spread, gave rise to the common name ''swallowtail''. As for its formal name, Carl Linnaeus, Linnaeus chose ''Papilio'' for the type genus, as ''papilio'' is Latin for "butterfly". For the Specific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico anno 2013, datISTAT/ref> Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy (established in 1861). The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Ital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boboli Gardens
The Boboli Gardens ( it, Giardino di Boboli) is a historical park of the city of Florence that was opened to the public in 1766. Originally designed for the Medici, it represents one of the first and most important examples of the Italian garden, which later served as inspiration for many European courts. The large green area is a real open-air museum with statues of various styles and periods, ancient and Renaissance that are distributed throughout the garden. It also has large fountains and caves, among them the splendid Buontalenti grotto built by the artist, architect, and sculptor Bernardo Buontalenti between 1536 and 1608. History and layout The Gardens, directly behind the Pitti Palace, the main seat of the Medici grand dukes of Tuscany at Florence, are some of the first and most familiar formal 16th-century Italian gardens. The mid-16th-century garden style, as it was developed here, incorporated longer axial developments, wide gravel avenues, a considerable "built" elem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valerio Cioli
Valerio Cioli (or Cigoli or Giogoli) (1529–1599) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor. Works His most famous work is the '' Fontana del Bacchino'' (1560) in the Giardino di Boboli, near the entrance to piazza Pitti in Florence. It depicts the famed dwarf buffoon at the court of Cosimo I, ironically nicknamed ''Morgante'' (after the giant of the poem ''Morgante'' by Luigi Pulci), portrayed nuded and sitting on a tortoise like a drunken Bacchus.https://www.frilligallery.com/goto/popup/catalogue-detail/show/268,5/morgante-dwarf-from-boboli-garden Two more of Cioli's works (collaborations with Giovanni Simone Cioli) are to be found in the giardino di Boboli - the ''Uomo che vanga'' (digging man) and the ''Uomo che scarica il secchio in un tino'' (man emptying a bucket into a vat). Other works of his include a ''Satyr with a flask'' in the Museo del Bargello and sculptures of personifications of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture on the tomb of Michelangelo Buonarroti in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oil Painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of the world. The advantages of oil for painting images include "greater flexibility, richer and denser colour, the use of layers, and a wider range from light to dark". But the process is slower, especially when one layer of paint needs to be allowed to dry before another is applied. The oldest known oil paintings were created by Buddhist artists in Afghanistan and date back to the 7th century AD. The technique of binding pigments in oil was later brought to Europe in the 15th century, about 900 years later. The adoption of oil paint by Europeans began with Early Netherlandish painting in Northern Europe, and by the height of the Renaissance, oil painting techniques had almost completely replaced the use of tempera paints in the majority ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosimo I De' Medici, Grand Duke Of Tuscany
Cosimo I de' Medici (12 June 1519 – 21 April 1574) was the second Duke of Florence from 1537 until 1569, when he became the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, a title he held until his death. Life Rise to power Cosimo was born in Florence on 12 June 1519, the son of the famous condottiere Ludovico de' Medici (known as Giovanni delle Bande Nere) and his wife Maria Salviati, herself a granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was the grandson of Caterina Sforza, the Countess of Forlì and Lady of Imola. Cosimo came to power in 1537 at age 17, just after the 26-year-old Duke of Florence, Alessandro de' Medici, was assassinated. Cosimo was from a different branch of the Medici family, descended from Giovanni il Popolano, the great-grandson of Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, founder of the Medici Bank. It was necessary to search for a successor outside of the "senior" branch of the Medici family descended from Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici, since the only male child of Alessandro, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Court Dwarf
Some of the first dwarfs to have their histories recorded were employed as court dwarfs. They were owned and traded amongst people of the court, and delivered as gifts to fellow kings and queens. Visual effect Court dwarfs were made to stand right next to the king or queen in a royal court during public appearances and ceremonies. Because they were so small, the king appeared much larger and visually enhanced his powerful position. Other than court jesters who were professional entertainers and clowns, court dwarfs were also used as "natural fools" to create amusement due to their unusual bodies. Their appearance also created allusions of mythology and magic like kobolds and wights. Antiquity Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome From the earliest historic times dwarfs attracted attention, and there was much competition on the part of kings and the wealthy to obtain dwarfs as attendants. Ancient Egypt saw dwarfs as being people with significant sacred associations, so owning a dwarf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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