Verrocchio (Bartolommeo Colleonet Venice): * see Endnote<A>

Condottiero Colleoni, former Captain General of the Republic of Venice, died in 1475 leaving a sum of money for the erection of a statue of him.  Three sculptors competed for the commission.  Their models were exhibited in Venice in 1483; the contract was awarded to Verrocchio who then opened a workshop in Venice, made the final wax model ready to be cast in bronze but died in 1488, before this was done.

and see above page 224, 235

 

Pericles:

see Chapter I, page 9, 34; Chapter III, page 111; Chapter VI page 207

 

Caesar:

see Chapter I, pages 5, 8, 24, 27, 38  Chapter III page 111, Chapter IV 133, 159

 

palace courtyards of Florence (Moorish): * see Endnote<B>

Possibly the most famous courtyard in Florence is the Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence, Italy; given various functions/names, it acquired its current name when the Medici duke's residence was moved across the Arno to the Palazzo Pitti.  In 1299, the commune & people of Florence decided to build a palace worthy of the city's importance, secure & defensible.  Arnolfo di Cambio (1240-1300, architect of the Duomo & Santa Croce church) began construction.  The first courtyard was designed in 1453 by Michelozzo.  The harmoniously proportioned columns, at one time smooth & untouched, were richly decorated with gilt stuccoes.  The barrel vaults are furnished with grotesque decorations.  In the lunettes, high around the courtyard, are crests of the church & city guilds.  In the centre, the porphyry fountain is by Battista del Tadda.  The Putto with Dolphin on top of the basin is a copy of the original by Andrea del Verrocchio (1476).  In the niche, in front of the fountain, stands Samson and Philistine by Pierino da Vinci. 

 

round arches on slender pillars of Florence (Syrian origin): * see Endnote <C>

examples of Florentine round arches from Palazzo Medici (aka Palazzo Medici Riccardi), a Renaissance palace in Florence, Italy; designed by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo for Cosimo de' Medici, head of the Medici banking family, and was built between 1444-84; famous for its stone masonry, which includes architectural elements of rustication and ashlar.  Michelozzo was influenced in his design of the palace by both classical Roman & Brunelleschian principles.  In the Renaissance revival of classical culture, ancient Roman elements were often replicated in architecture.  Here the rusticated masonry & the cornice had precedents in Roman practice, yet in totality it looks distinctly Florentine, unlike any known Roman building.

 

Cimabue (art of Byzantine mosaic):

and see Chapter VI page 192

 

cathedral of Florence (late Gothic):

Its construction began in 1296 in the Gothic style (design by Arnolfo di Cambio); structurally completed by 1436.  Gothic is dated from 1100 to 1499.

 

St. Peter's Cathedral (early Baroque): * see Endnote<>

Art historians date the Baroque period 1500 through-1720 (16th century begins Rococo).  St Peters was designed & built in the first half of the Baroque Age between 1506-1626.  Certainly antiquity inspires the builders of St Peters.  Bramante (famous for his architecture in Milan & Rome) speaking of his design for St Peters said he wished to erect the dome of the Pantheon on the arches of the Basilica of Maxentius & Constantine.  And it was his design that was chosen for St Peters, the design which Michelangelo later followed.  The latter also admired Roman antiquity.  He studied the Pantheon & the Basilica Maxentius to unleash the engineering secrets of the ancients.  He said of the Pantheon: “it was built not by men but by angles”.  Spengler’s does not deny this influence but argues that these buildings were not Apollonian but Magian.

 

Pantheon (Arabian style):

The Pantheon may well be the first building from Classical architecture where the interior is deliberately made to outshine the exterior.  It was designed by master mason Apollodrus of Damascas (from Damascus Roman Syria, lived 2nd century AD), engineer & architect who worked primarily for Trajan (reigned 98–117 AD).  Hadrian banished him after a disagreement about a temple design; he was executed 130 AD.

see Chapter VI, page 208

 

Basilica of Maxentius (Arabian style):  

see Chapter VI page 212

 

Pisano (Northern influence in the early Florentine motives):

see Chapter VI page 212 and above page 235

 

Maiano:

the brothers Maiano - Benedetto da Maiano, 1442-97, early Renaissance Italian sculptor.  He started his career as companion of his brother, the architect Giuliano da Maiano. When he reached the age of thirty he started training under the sculptor Antonio Rossellino.   Giuliano da Maiano,1432-90, Italian architect, intarsia-worker and sculptor, the elder brother of Benedetto da Maiano, with whom he often collaborated.

 

Ghiberti :

see above page 235

 

Della Quercia:

 1374-1438, Italian sculptor of the Italian Renaissance, contemporary of Brunelleschi, Ghiberti & Donatello; considered precursor to Michelangelo.  Born near Sienna; he probably saw the works of Nicola Pisano and Arnolfo di Cambio on the pulpit in the cathedral of Siena.  In 1406 he was asked to build a new fountain in the Piazza del Campo in Siena, a commission showing he was already recognized as Siena's most prominent sculptor.  His magnum opus was the round-arched Porta Magna of the San Petronio church in Bologna, which he began in 1425.  Each side of the door is flanked by a colonette with a spirally wound decoration, then 9 busts of prophets and at the end 5 scenes from the Old Testament (carved in lower relief).  In the Creation of Adam, he uses the same arrangement as in the Fonte Gaia (in Siena), but in reverse order.  Michelangelo (visited Bologna 1494) based his Genesis in the Sistine Chapel on these reliefs.  The architrave above the door contains five reliefs with representations from the New Testament. The lunette contains three free-standing statues : Virgin and Child, Saint Petronius & Saint Ambrose.

 

Donatello:

see above page 221