round arch & column:

see Chapter VI page 214

 

leitmotif:

theme associated throughout a music drama with a particular person, situation, or idea.

 

Dufay (Papal Chapel, 1428):

In 1420 Du Fay left his post as sub deacon at Cambria Cathedral.  He travelled first to Rimini  & then to Pesaro, where he worked for the Malatesta family.  Here he met the composers Hugo & Arnold de Lantins, fellow musicians in the household.  Several of Du Fay’s compositions can be dated to this period; they contain colloquial references to Italy.  In 1424 a death in the family led to his return to Cambria but by 1426 he was back in Italy.  In Bologna he entered the service of papal legate Cardinal Louis Aleman.  Here he was made a deacon & ordained in 1428.  That year the Cardinal was driven from Bologna by the rival Canedoli family.  Du Fay now left for Rome & became a member of the Papal Choir, the most prestigious musical establishment in Europe. He served Pope Martin V until the latter’s death in 1431, then Pope Eugene IV.  It was this year that the Council of Basle sat; initially the conciliar movement was strong while papal authority was weak.  The Council soon adopted an anti-papal attitude, proclaimed its superiority over the Pope & even prescribed an oath to be taken by every Pope on his election.   Late in the year Pope Eugene IV tried but failed to dissolve the Council.  This political instability combined with a crisis in financing the Papal Choir.  Du Fay was now a famous & respected musician & as such the recipient of benefices from his homeland churches. He decided to leave turbulent Rome.  In 1434 he was appointed maistre de chappelle in Savoy, where he served Duke Amédée VIII.

and see above page 230

 

Willaert (1516 -at Papal Chapel): * see Endnote<A>

1490-1562, Netherlandish composer, born at Rumbeke, West Flanders; founder of the Venetian School;  representative of a generation of northern composers who moved to Italy & transplanted the polyphonic Franco-Flemish style there.  A versatile composer who wrote music in almost every extant style & form.  A strong personality combined with his position as maestro di cappella at St. Mark's, he became the most influential musician in Europe between Josquin & Palestrina.  Some of his motets & chanzoni franciose a quarto sopra doi (double canonic chansons) were published as early as 1520 in Venice.  His motets were especially well liked & famous.

 

Willaert (1527 Venetian school): * see endnote<B>

In 1527 Willaert was appointed maestro di cappella of St. Mark's where he invented the Venetian polychoral composition style.  His Venetian school was active 1550- 1610 & gave Europe some of its most famous musical events.  Its impact on music across countries was huge.  These innovations, along with the contemporary development of monody & opera in Florence, define the end of the musical  Renaissance & beginning of the Baroque.

 

de Rore of Antwerp (successor to Willaert): * see Endnote<C>

1515-65, Franco-Flemish composer active in Italy; one of the main players of the Franco-Flemish generation post-Josquin des Prez who went to live & work in Italy, a prominent composers of madrigals mid 16th century. His experimental, chromatic & highly expressive style had a decisive influence on the subsequent development of future madrigal form.

 

Hugo van der Goes (Portinari altar for Santa Maria Nuova, Florence): * see Endnote<D>

1440-82, Flemish painter of altarpieces & portraits; born near Ghent; introduced important innovations in painting through his monumental style, use of a specific colour range & individualistic manner of portraiture.  His masterpiece, the Portinari Triptych in Florence inspired Italian painters from 1483 onwards, in developing greater realism & wider use of colour.  Hebecame a master in the Painter’s Guild of Ghent (1467) & received commissions form the cities of Ghent & Bruges during this period.  By 1470-77 he was recognized as the leading painter in Ghent; during these years he produced the Portinari Triptych.  In 1477 he closed his workshop to become a lay brother in a monastic community.  Near the end of his life (1482) he suffered acute depression, declared himself damned & attempted suicide.

 

Memlinc (his Last Judgment):* see endnote<E>

1430-94, German painter, born in the Middle Rhine region, spent childhood in Mainz, moved to Flanders 1465; spent time in the Brussels workshop of Rogier van der Weyden & worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting.  Became a citizen of Bruges, where he rose to be one of the leading artists, painting portraits & diptychs for personal devotion, as well as several large religious works, continuing the style he learned in his youth.  He became very successful, and by 1480 was quite wealthy.

 

portraits (of the Low Countries): * see endnote<F>

Most early medieval portraits were donor portraits, mostly of popes in mosaics & illuminated manuscripts.  There was little attempt at a likeness.  Stone tomb monuments spread in the Romanesque period.  Between 1350-1400 secular figures began to reappear in frescos & panel paintings, such as in Master Theodoric's Charles IV receiving fealty, the artist now working for a clear likeness.  In the late 14th century the first oil portraits of contemporary individuals, painted on small wood panels, were produced in Burgundy & France, first in profile, then in other views.  The Wilton Diptych (1400) is 1 of 2 surviving panel portraits of Richard II of England.  Leading Early Netherlandish masters of the portrait included Jan van Eyck, Robert Campin & Rogier van der Weyden.  Donor portraits were shown as participates in the main sacred scenes & in more private court images subjects sometimes appear as significant figures such as the Virgin Mary.

 

Rogier van der Weyden (in Florence 1450): * see Endnote<G>

1400-64, Early Netherlandish painter, born in Tournai, painted mainly religious triptychs, altarpieces, single & diptych portraits; highly successful & internationally famous; his paintings were exported to Italy & Spain; the most influential Northern painter of the 15th century. He received commissions from Philip the Good, Netherlandish nobility & foreign princes.  By the last half of the 15th century he had eclipsed Jan van Eyck in popularity & is considered 1 of 3 great Early Flemish artists (along with Campin & van Eyck- the "Flemish Primitives").

 

Justus van Gent (1470 introduced oil-painting to Umbria):

1410-80, Early Netherlandish painter; trained & worked in Flanders, a member of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke (1460) & a freemaster in the Ghent painters' guild (1464); he enjoyed an international reputation & in 1467-68 he produced 40 coats of arms for the Pope.  He travelled to Rome in 1470.  In Italy he was employed by the duke of Urbino.  Famous for his religious compositions done in early Netherlandish style & a series of portraits of famous men (which reflect the influence of early Italian Renaissance painting).  He operated a workshop in Urbino (1473-75) & was a court painter for duke Federico da Montefeltro (leading politician & art patron); the duke gave him the commission for the Communion of the Apostles (1472-74).  He also worked on the decoration of the ducal residences in Urbino & Gubbio which included a commission for a portrait series of famous men for the duke.

 

Antonello da Messina (in Venice): * see Endnote<H>

1430-79, Italian painter from Messina, Sicily; his work shows strong influences from Early Netherlandish painting (although he never travelled beyond Italy).  His style is a union between Italian simplicity & Flemish concern for detail.  Unusually for a south Italian artist in the Renaissance, his work influenced painters in northern Italy, especially Venice, through the introduction of the Flemish invention, & also by the transmission of Flemish tendencies.  

 

Filippino Lippi:

1457-1504, Italian painter working in Florence, Italy in the late years of the Early Renaissance and first few years of the High Renaissance.

 

Ghirlandaio:

1448-94, Italian Renaissance painter, born in Florence, part of the 3rd generation of the Florentine Renaissance, along with Verrocchio, the Pollaiolo brothers & Botticelli.  He produced many great works & led a large, efficient workshop thru which may apprentices passed; he is credited as the teacher of Michelangelo & sent him to the Medici Academy.  His special talent lay in his ability to depict contemporary life & contemporary people within the context of religious narratives, bringing him great popularity & large commissions.  He worked mainly in fresco, with a number of important works being executed in tempera; one of the first to abandon gilding in his pictures.  His grand scheme of composition & chiaroscuro is excellent.  His sense of perspective was especially acute with mathematically accurate proportion.  His colour is more open to criticism especially the tempera-pictures (much less to the frescoes). 

 

Botticelli:

1445-1510, Italian painter, Florentine School, under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici; his work to represents the linear grace of Early Renaissance painting.  He painted a range of subjects: religious, portraits & a small number of mythological scenes.  He & his workshop were famous for their Madonna & Childs, many in tondo.  His best-known works are The Birth of Venus & Primavera.  He lived in Florence, visited Pisa (1474) and helped paint the Sistine Chapel (1481–82).  He was an independent master in the 1470s, with a growing reputation; he peaked in the 1480s when he painted all his large mythological works & many of his best Madonnas.  By the 1490s his style had became more personal & mannered, he was returning to the Gothic, moving in the opposite direction to Leonardo da Vinci & High Renaissance; an outsider to the mainstream of Italian painting with limited interest in the development of painting in the Quattrocento (e.g. the realistic depiction of anatomy, perspective, landscape & direct borrowings from classical art).  His training enabled him to represent all these but contribute little to their development.

 

Pollaiulo (engravings): * see Endnote<I>

(Antonio) 1429-98, Italian painter, sculptor, engraver & goldsmith; born in Florence; his brother, Piero, was also an artist & they frequently worked together.  Their work reflects classical influences & interest in human anatomy (they did dissections to improve their knowledge).  Antonio first studied goldsmithing & metalwork, taught by his father; may have worked in the Florence workshop of Bartoluccio di Michele (where Lorenzo Ghiberti trained).  As a student he also took an interest in engraving.  His main contribution to Florentine painting was his analysis of the human body in movement or under strain, but he was also a pioneer in landscape.  He taught Botticelli.

 

Leonardo:

see Chapter II page 69

 

Nicolaus Cusanus (infinitesimal principle):

Cusa speculated on the problem of the quadrature of the circle (squaring the circle).   He imagined the circle to be an infinilateral regular polygon, a regular polygon with an infinite number of (infinitesimally short) sides. By dividing it up into correspondingly infinite numbers of triangles, its area can be computed as half the product of the apothem (in this case identical with the radius of the circle) & the perimeter. The idea of considering a curve as an infinilateral polygon was employed by a number of later thinkers, for instance, Kepler, Galileo and Leibniz.

 

Nicolaus Cusanus (God as Infinite Being.)

see Chapter II, page 69 and see below

 

Nicholas of Cusa (and Leibniz): * see Endnote<J>

Links between Leibnitz & Cusa are inferential as there are no explicit references from Leibnitz.  He was a man of his times; 17th century scientists stood in 2 contrasting worlds: the new emerging world of evidence based deductions & scientific observation AND the traditional world of older antique authority.  They were interested in mathematical & geometric relationships; mystic beliefs (such as Neo-Pythagoreanism & Neo-Platonism) were resurrected & often incorporated into new theories.  In metaphysical & religious thinking Leibnitz arrived at some of the same conclusions as Cusa, who based many of his theories on mathematical analogies applied to religious or philosophical contexts. 

 

Baroque, Newtonian, physics (dynamic):

Spengler characterises northern physics as true Faustian with its focus on absolute space, rate of change, number as relation and symbolizing of extension.  Baroque (17th century) scientists would include Galileo & his contemporaries in the north- Kepler & Descartes, Newton & Leibnitz.  Johannes Kepler German (1571-1630), astronomer, mathematician & astrologer, key figure in the scientific revolution, known for his laws of planetary motion.  Rene Descartes (1596-1650), French philosopher, mathematician & scientist; invented the Cartesian coordinate system opened the doors for analytical geometry (the bridge between algebra & geometry) & was used in the discovery of infinitesimal calculus & analysis.  Newton (1642-1721) English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian & author, key figure in the scientific revolution.  His book "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" (1687), laid the foundations of classical mechanics.  Last but not least Leibnitz (1646-1716) German polymath & philosopher, who simultaneously with Newton, conceived the ideas of differential & integral calculus.

 

Southern physics (static):

Spengler infers that Italian Renaissance science, and in particular, Galileo, was influenced by Apollonian ideas, embracing static (not dynamic) principles, bodies at rest, number as magnitude, contained bodes.  Archimedes, an Apollonian scientist, reflects these concepts. 

 

Archimedes(Southern physics):

Apollonian scientist; one of the first to apply mathematics to physical phenomena, founded hydrostatics & statics, including an explanation of the principle of the lever.  Statics is a branch of mechanics concerned with the analysis of loads (force & torque) acting on physical systems that do not experience acceleration but are in static equilibrium with their environment.  Archimedes came up with the fundamental principle in hydrostatics (known as Archimedes' principle, in his surviving treatise On Floating Bodies): a body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces.  This method would have been effective in determining the density of an irregular shaped object (like the widely known anecdote of the gold crown).

and see Chapter II, page 59, 69, Chapter III pages 111, 112

 

Galileo (Southern physics):

Galileo Galilei, born Pisa, 1564-1642, Italian astronomer, physicist & engineer, a polymath & "father of modern physics".  In 1586 he invented a hydrostatic balance for weighing metals in air & water inspired by the work of Archimedes.  He praised Archimedes, referred to him as a "superhuman".  The works of Archimedes in Greek & Latin were published 1544 in Basel (The Editio Princeps or First Edition); Galileo clearly knew about the Archimedes Principle & commented: it was "probable that this method is the same that Archimedes followed, since, besides being very accurate, it is based on demonstrations found by Archimedes himself."  Spengler argues Galileo was not only a southerner in origins but also in his science, given that he focused on statics (material, fixed, limited, area, volume) as against dynamics (abstract, direction, force, limits).  The clear influence of Archimedes would also suggests a southern bent.