Dionysus-cult:

see above page 233- Dionysian movement

 

bodily plastic tradition:

reference to Spengler’s Apollonian Culture prime form, in particular the sculpture of Polykleitos (his Doryphoros)

see Chapter I page 27, Chapter III 112, Chapter V page 177

 

Medicean court (music):

The Medici family ruled Florence for most of the 15th century.  Cosimo the Elder, called Pater Patriae (father of the country), took over in 1434 as unofficial head of the Florentine Republic; 3 successive generations of the Medici (Cosimo, Piero & Lorenzo) went onto rule the city.  Pre-1450 Florence was one of the main centres of the Italian Ars nova.  The Pifferi (an ensemble of 3 shawm players) provided music at important civic occasions, daily at the Palazzo (City Hall) & private functions for the aristocratic families, notably the Medici.  There was a preference for foreign musicians in these ensembles, especially German trombonists, known for their strong performance proficiency & skills as improvisers.  When it was decided to hire a trombonist to join the pifferi, it was agreed to hire a German musicians. When he was hired, the officials subsequently fired the 3 native, Florentine players & replaced all with German speaking musicians. At this time, city officials also passed a motion declaring that only foreigners should hold positions in the pifferi.

 

ars nova (southern French):

Ars nova (Latin for new art) first flourished in France & the Burgundian Low Countries 1310-77.  The term "ars nova" is used to contrast "ars antiqua", the music of the preceding age (1170-1320).  Thus ars antiqua is the music of the 13th century; ars nova  the music of the 14th.  The related "Italian ars nova" denotes the music of Francesco Landini and his compatriots.  Landini (1335-97) was a famous Florentine composer, organist, singer, poet & instrument maker.  Spengler relates ars nova to the Medici court (giving it a reference to post- 1434) and Southern France.    Ars nova may also include the ars subtilior style from the period 1377 to the early 15th century.  Ars subtilior (more subtle art) is characterized by rhythmic & notational complexity.  Its origins are in Paris, Avignon in southern France & northern Spain.  Musically, its productions are highly refined, complex, difficult to sing, and probably were produced, sung and enjoyed by a small audience of specialists and connoisseurs.  They are almost exclusively secular songs, their subject matter being love, war, chivalry, and stories from classical antiquity.   Avignon was one of the centres for this music.  It was an active cultural nexus & produced the most significant surviving body of secular songs of the late 14th century.

 

music of the Florentine Duomo (Low German counterpoint):

Du Fay (1397-1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer & central figure in the Burgundian School, one of the leading composers in Europe mid-15th century.  In 1435 Du Fay was in Florence at the service of Pope Eugene (who had been driven from Rome in 1434 by the establishment of a republic sympathetic to the Council of Basel & Conciliar movement). In 1436 Du Fay composed the festive motet Nuper rosarum flores ("Recently Flowers of Roses”), his most famous compositions, dedicated to & performed at the cathedral of Florence.  It was composed for the consecration of the Florence cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore, or St. Mary of the Flower.) on the occasion of the completion of the dome built (25 March, 1436), its title stems from the name of the cathedral itself.  The opening lines of the text refer to Pope Eugene IV's gift to the cathedral & Florence, of a golden rose to decorate the high altar, a gift made the week before the dedication.  It is striking for its synthesis of the older isorhythmic style & new contrapuntal style that Dufay himself would explore further in the coming decades (as would his successors Ockeghem & Josquin des Prez).

 

Burckhardt:

1818-97, Swiss historian of art & culture, influential in the historiography of both fields, known as one of the major progenitors of cultural history. His best known work is The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860).  His writings established the importance of art in history; he was a founding father of art history.  The great discoverer of the age of the Renaissance, he first showed how a period should be treated in its entirety, with regard not only for its painting, sculpture and architecture, but for the social institutions of its daily life as well.

 

S. Marie Novella (cloister): * see Endnote<A>

church in Florence, Italy; the 1st great basilica in Florence & principal Dominican church.  The complex (church-cloister-chapter house) contains many Gothic & Renaissance art treasures; financed by the most important Florentine families.  Called Novella (New) as it was built on the site of the much older 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria delle Vigne; building began 1246, finished 1360 with the completion of the Romanesque-Gothic bell tower & sacristy although only the lower part of the Tuscan gothic façade was finished.  The 3 portals are spanned by round arches, while the rest of the lower part of the facade is spanned by blind arches, separated by pilasters, with below Gothic pointed arches, striped in green and white, capping tombs of the nobility. This same design continues in the adjoining wall around the old churchyard. The church was consecrated in 1420.  

 

palazzo Strozzi, Florence (facade): * see Endnote<B>

an example of civil architecture with its rusticated stone, inspired by the Palazzo Medici, but with more harmonious proportions.  Unlike the Medici Palace (sited on a corner lot with 2 sides only), this building, surrounded on all 4 sides by streets, is a free-standing structure.  This introduced the problem of integrating the cross axis while maintaining internal symmetry of planning.. Its ground plan is rigorously symmetrical on its 2 axes, with clearly differentiated scales of its principal rooms.  Construction begun in 1489 under da Maiano, for Filippo Strozzi the Elder, a rival of the Medici who had returned to Florence in 1466 & wanted a magnificent palace to assert his family's prominence & to make a political statement.  Many buildings were acquired & demolished to make way for the project.  Strozzi died in 1491 before the construction's completion in 1538.  Cosimo I de' Medici confiscated the building in that year only returning it 30 years later.  

 

Apennines:

mountain range consisting of parallel smaller chains extending 750 miles running north and south along the length of peninsular Italy.  In the northwest they join with the Ligurian Alps at Altare. In the southwest they end at Reggio di Calabria, the coastal city at the tip of the peninsula.

 

Tuscany:

region in central Italy, Florence the regional capital, famous for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy & influence on high culture (birthplace of the Italian Renaissance), home to many influential figures in art & science.  During the medieval period pilgrims travelling between Rome & France brought wealth & development; the food & shelter required by the pilgrims fuelled the growth of communities around churches & taverns.  The conflict between the Guelphs & Ghibellines, factions supporting the Papacy or the Holy Roman Empire in central & northern Italy in the 12th & 13th centuries, split the Tuscan people. this led to the rise of several powerful & rich medieval communes: Arezzo, Florence, Lucca, Pisa & Siena.  Each had their own assets Pisa, a port; Siena, banking; Lucca, banking & silk.  By the Renaissance, Florence had become the cultural capital of Tuscany. the ruling Medici family benefitted from Florence's growing wealth & power was.  The Black Death hit Tuscany in 1348 killing 70% of the population.

 

Upper Italy (Byzantine-tinted Gothic):

In 751 the Lombard king, Aistulf, succeeded in conquering Ravenna, thus ending Byzantine rule in northern Italy.  Nonetheless Byzantine political influence continued & as late as 814 it was recognized that Venice belonged to the Byzantine sphere of influence & links between the Eastern Empire & Venice remained strong.  The Byzantine–Venetian treaty (1082) was a trade and defence pact signed between the Empire and the Republic of Venice, in the form of an imperial golden bull, issued by Emperor Alexios I Komnenos.  This treaty provided the Venetians with major trading concessions in exchange for their help in the wars against the Normans.  The Venetians also gained extensive trading privileges in the Byzantine Empire in the 12th century & their ships often provided the Empire with a navy.  Despite their political eclipse the splendour of Byzantine art was always in the mind of early medieval Western artists & patrons; many of the most important movements in the period were conscious attempts to produce art fit to stand with both classical Roman & contemporary Byzantine art.   There are records of Byzantine artists working in the West, especially during the period of iconoclasm, and some works, like the frescos at Castelseprio (In Lombardy) were produced by such refugees.  Teams of mosaic artists were dispatched as diplomatic gestures by emperors to Italy, where they trained locals to continue their work in a style heavily influenced by Byzantium.  Venice in particular was a centre of Byzantine cultural influence.  The earliest surviving panel paintings in the West were in a style heavily influenced by contemporary Byzantine icons.  It was only during the Trecento that a distinctive Western style began to develop.  Vasari tells us that the story of Western painting begins as a breakaway by Cimabue and then Giotto from the shackles of the Byzantine tradition.  Only in the 14th century did Byzantine artistic influence in the visual arts decline although the migration of Byzantine scholars continued to be of importance in other area such as literature.

 

Siena (monument to counter-Renaissance): * see Endnote<>

Two schools dominated 14th century painting.  The conservative Sienese School of Painting led by Duccio (1255-1318), that promoted the old style of Byzantine art, including its modern variant known as International Gothic (1375-1425).  It was opposed by the Florentine Proto-Renaissance School led by Giotto (1267-1337). The main types of art practised during the Trecento period showed relatively little change from Romanesque times. They included: fresco painting, tempera panel painting, book-painting, gold smithing, metalwork, relief sculpture, and mosaics (a medium greatly favoured by the Byzantine artists).  Although the Florence was the future, it was Byzantine-style art, the style taught of Siena, that was the dominant idiom in the 14th century  in part because International Gothic became popular in many of the royal courts of Europe.  Duccio & others in Siena moved only slowly away from the Byzantine tradition. The Sienese style was much more lyrical & dreamlike than Giotto's new idiom, eminently suited to timeless altarpiece art.  Duccio's pupil Simone Martini (1284-1344) adhered to the decorative aspects of Trecento painting in Siena, heavily influenced by late Gothic book painting.  During the Trecento the gap between the Byzantine traditions of Siena & the Giotto style of Florence narrowed; nonetheless the decorative qualities of Martini were maintained by painters like Lorenzo Monaco (1370-1425), and Gentile da Fabriano (1370-1427).