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Penitent Magdalene (Donatello)
The ''Penitent Magdalene'' is a wooden sculpture of Mary Magdalene by the Italian Renaissance sculptor Donatello, created around 1453–1455. The sculpture was probably commissioned for the Baptistery of Florence. The piece was received with astonishment for its unprecedented realism. It is now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence. The wood used by Donatello is that of white poplar. Iconography Though the " Penitent Magdalene" was the usual depiction for the many single figures of Mary Magdalene in art, Donatello's gaunt, emaciated figure differs greatly from most depictions, which show a beautiful young woman in nearly perfect health. The Magdalene Penitent is famous for the detailed and very realistic carvings on the statue. Medieval hagiography in the Western church had conflated the figure of Mary Magdalene, already conflated with Mary of Bethany and the unnamed sinner in the Anointing of Jesus, with that of Saint Mary of Egypt. She was a popular figure in the Eastern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Of Egypt
Mary of Egypt ( cop, Ϯⲁⲅⲓⲁ Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ Ⲛⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ; ; c. 344 – c. 421) is an Egyptian saint, highly venerated as a Desert Mother in the Eastern Orthodox and Coptic Churches. The Catholic Church commemorates her as a patron saint of penitents. Life The primary source of information on Saint Mary of Egypt is the ''Vita'' written of her by Saint Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (634–638). Most of the information in this section is taken from this source. Saint Mary of Egypt, also known as Maria Aegyptiaca, was born somewhere in the Province of Egypt, and at the age of twelve ran away from her parents to the city of Alexandria. There, she lived an extremely dissolute life. In her ''Vita'' it states that she often refused the money offered for her sexual favors, as she was driven "by an insatiable and an irrepressible passion", and that she mainly lived by begging, supplemented by spinning flax. After seventeen years of this lifestyle, she t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wooden Sculptures In Italy
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin that resists compression. Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees, or it is defined more broadly to include the same type of tissue elsewhere such as in the roots of trees or shrubs. In a living tree it performs a support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up by themselves. It also conveys water and nutrients between the leaves, other growing tissues, and the roots. Wood may also refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, or woodchips or fiber. Wood has been used for thousands of years for fuel, as a construction material, for making tools and weapons, furniture and paper. More recently it emerged as a feedstock for the produ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sculptures By Donatello
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sculptural processes originally used carving (the removal of material) and modelling (the addition of material, as clay), in stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other materials but, since Modernism, there has been an almost complete freedom of materials and process. A wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or moulded or cast. Sculpture in stone survives far better than works of art in perishable materials, and often represents the majority of the surviving works (other than pottery) from ancient cultures, though conversely traditions of sculpture in wood may have vanished almost entirely. However, most ancient sculpture was brightly painted, and this has been lost. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1966 Flood Of The Arno
The 1966 flood of the Arno ( it, Alluvione di Firenze del 4 novembre 1966) in Florence killed 101 people and damaged or destroyed millions of masterpieces of art and rare books. It is considered the worst flood in the city's history since 1557. With the combined effort of Italian and foreign volunteers alike, or ''angeli del fango'' ("Mud Angels"), many of these fine works have been restored. New methods in conservation were devised and restoration laboratories established. However, even decades later, much work remains to be done. Overview Located in the Tuscany region of Central Italy, the Arno river is approximately long. It flows from the Mount Falterona hills of the Apennine Mountains to the Ligurian Sea, just west of Pisa. Lush vineyards and olive groves line the river's scenic course to the west, out to sea. Principally utilized for irrigation purposes, only of the river is used for navigation. The highest flows of the river generally occur in spring and autumn of eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles VIII Of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable (french: l'Affable; 30 June 1470 – 7 April 1498), was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. He succeeded his father Louis XI at the age of 13.Paul Murray Kendall, ''Louis XI: The Universal Spider'' (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1971), pp. 373–374. His elder sister Anne acted as regent jointly with her husband Peter II, Duke of BourbonStella Fletcher, ''The Longman Companion to Renaissance Europe, 1390–1530'', (Routledge, 1999), 76. until 1491 when the young king turned 21 years of age. During Anne's regency, the great lords rebelled against royal centralisation efforts in a conflict known as the Mad War (1485–1488), which resulted in a victory for the royal government. In a remarkable stroke of audacity, Charles married Anne of Brittany in 1491 after she had already been married by proxy to the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in a ceremony of questionable validity. Preoccupied by the problematic succession in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empoli
Empoli () is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Florence, Tuscany, Italy, about southwest of Florence, to the south of the Arno in a plain formed by the river. The plain has been usable for agriculture since Roman times. The commune's territory becomes hilly as it departs from the river. Empoli is on the main railway line from Florence to Pisa, and is the point of divergence of a line to Siena. Empoli has an enduring tradition as an agricultural centre. It has given its name to a local variety of artichoke. History Archaeological finds have revealed that Empoli was already settled in the early Roman Empire times, and continued to exist until the 4th century AD. The river acted as a communication way for the trade of agricultural products, together with the local amphorae. In the Tabula Peutingeriana of the 4th century Empoli is called ''in portu'' ("in the port") as a river port on the Roman road ''Via Quinctia'', which led from Fiesole and Florence to Pisa. Emp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neri Di Bicci
Neri di Bicci (1419–1491) was an Italian painter active in his native Florence. A prolific painter of mainly religious themes, he studied under his father, Bicci di Lorenzo, who had in turn studied under his father, Lorenzo di Bicci. The three thus formed a lineage of great painters that began with Neri's grandfather. Neri di Bicci's main works include a fresco of ''Saint John Gualbert Enthroned with Ten Saints'' (1455) for the church of San Pancrazio, Florence (now in the nearby church of Santa Trinita), an ''Annunciation'' (1464) for Santa Maria alla Campora (now in the Florentine Academy), two altarpieces (one dated 1452) in the Diocesan Museum of San Miniato, a ''Coronation of the Virgin'' (1472) on the high altar of the abbey church at San Pietro a Ruoti (Bucine), and the ''Madonna with Child with Four Female Saints'' (1474) on loan to the Sacred Art Museum in Casole d'Elsa from the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena. Neri is most famous for his ''Ricordanze,'' a series of j ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Padua
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 214,000 (). The city is sometimes included, with Venice (Italian ''Venezia'') and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE) which has a population of around 2,600,000. Padua stands on the Bacchiglione, Bacchiglione River, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza. The Brenta River, which once ran through the city, still touches the northern districts. Its agricultural setting is the Venetian Plain (''Pianura Veneta''). To the city's south west lies the Colli Euganei, Euganaean Hills, praised by Lucan and Martial, Petrarch, Ugo Foscolo, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley. Padua appears twice in the UNESCO World Heritage List: for its Botanical Garden of Padua, Botanical Garden, the most anc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lives Of The Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, And Architects
''The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'' ( it, Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori), often simply known as ''The Lives'' ( it, Le Vite), 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",Max Marmor, ''Kunstliteratur'' translated by , in Art Documentation Vol 11 # 1, 1992 "some of the 's most influential writing on ... [...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] |
Florence Baptistery
The Florence Baptistery, also known as the Baptistery of Saint John ( it, Battistero di San Giovanni), is a religious building in Florence, Italy, and has the status of a minor basilica. The octagonal baptistery stands in both the Piazza del Duomo and the Piazza San Giovanni, across from Florence Cathedral and the Campanile di Giotto. The Baptistery is one of the oldest buildings in the city, constructed between 1059 and 1128 in the Florentine Romanesque style. Although the Florentine style did not spread across Italy as widely as the Pisan Romanesque or Lombard styles, its influence was decisive for the subsequent development of architecture, as it formed the basis from which Francesco Talenti, Leon Battista Alberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, and other master architects of their time created Renaissance architecture. In the case of the Florentine Romanesque, one can speak of "proto-renaissance", but at the same time an extreme survival of the late antique architectural traditi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
