Leonardo (his red-chalk sketches): * see EndNote<A>

The man in red chalk (1512) is the most famous red chalk work of Leonardo & widely accepted as a self-portrait of the artist, age 60.

 

Leonardo (his backgrounds): * see EndNote<B>

one of the best examples of Michelangelo’s aerial backgrounds is The Madonna of the Yarnwinder or Madonna of the Spindles, dated 1501-07; possibly commissioned for Florimond Robertet (secretary to King Louis XII of France).  It may have been delivered to the French court in 1507.

 

Leonardo (aviation): * see EndNote<C>

Leonardo was the first European interested in a practical solution to flight & designed a multitude of mechanical devices, including parachutes, which embraced flight.  He studied the flight of birds as well as their structure.  In 1485 he drew detailed plans for a human-powered ornithopter (a wing-flapping device intended to fly) although no evidence suggests he actually attempted to build such a device.  He was fascinated by the phenomenon of flight for much of his life, producing many studies, including Codex on the Flight of Birds (1505), as well as plans for several flying machines including a machine with a helical rotor.

 

Masaccio (Peter and the Tribute Money): * see EndNote <D>

The Tribute Money is a fresco by the Italian Early Renaissance painter Masaccio, located in the Brancacci Chapel of the basilica of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence.  It illustrates an episode in the life of Saint Peter, in which Jesus directs him to find a coin in the mouth of a fish to pay the temple tax (Gospel of Matthew).  Painted in the 1420s, it is widely considered among Masaccio's best work, and a vital part of the development of renaissance art, in particular its revolutionary use of perspective and chiaroscuro.

 

Piero della Francesca (Federigo & Battista of Urbino portrait): * see Endndote<D>

aka Diptych of Federico da Montefeltro & Battista Sforza, double portrait oil on panel (47 × 33 cm each panel), dated 1465-72-1472.  The profiles of Battista and Federico stand amid a sweeping landscape, celebrating the pair as landowners & rulers of Urbino; suggests the expansive extent of their rule.  

 

Perugino (Christ Giving the Keys): * see EndNote<D>

fresco, dated 1481–1482, Sistine Chapel, Rome; commissioned in 1480, by Pope Sixtus IV for the new Chapel recently built in the Vatican Palace.  It was a large work & Perugino was joined by a group of Florentine painters- Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and others.  The scene (taken from Matthew 16:2) in which the keys of the kingdom of heaven are given to Saint Peter

 

Raphael (the Vatican stanze): * see EndNote<D>

aka the Stanza della Segnatura, the 4 rooms which formed part of the apartment situated on the 2nd floor of the Pontifical Palace.  Famous for their frescoes, painted by Raphael and his workshop, executed 1508-24.  This first & most famous of the "Stanze" or Raphael Rooms to be painted,  included  Raphael’s greatest masterpieces: The School of Athens, The Parnassus and the Disputa.

 

architectonic:

resembling architecture, especially in its highly organized manner or technique of structure

 

Oresme: * see EndNote<E>

Oresme’s most significant contribution to mathematics was a tract called Tractatus de figuratione potentiarum (1361).  In a quality, or accidental form, such as heat, he distinguished the intensio (the degree of heat at each point) and the extensio (the length of the heated rod).  These 2 terms were often replaced by latitudo and longitudo.  Oresme conceived the idea of visualizing these concepts by plane figures, approaching the idea of rectangular co-ordinates.  In effect he was using a form of coordinate geometry to show the graphical representation of a function.  Indeed Descartes was probably influenced by Oresme when he applied the ideas, combined with algebraic symbolism.  He not only foreshadowed Descartes, but also gave hints of Galileo’s law for a falling body.

and see also Chapter II  page 67

 

co-ordinate geometry :

branch of geometry where the position of the points on a plane is defined with the help of an ordered pair of numbers also known as coordinates.  Any point on a plane  can be located with the help of coordinate geometry. Using the two numbers of the coordinate geometry, a location of any point can be found.

 

linear perspective (architectural):

see Chapter VII pages 240, 246

 

aerial perspective (gradations of tone):

aka atmosphere depth effects

see Chapter VII pages 227, 246

 

Leonardo (Last Supper, oil on bare walls):

dated 1490s; represents the Last Supper of Jesus with his apostles (in the Gospel of John, 13:21)  Leonardo has depicted the consternation that occurred among the Apostles when Jesus announced that one of them would betray him.  In order to give himself the opportunity of making changes as he went along (impossible with wet fresco) he experimented.  He first sealed the stone wall surface, then painted over it using an impasto (oil & tempera), to be placed on a wall covered with a layer of varnish made of a gesso mixture.  He painted on it as if it were a wooden panel.  Alas the technique failed.  The work began deteriorating almost from the moment it was finished.  Writing a mere 70 years later, Vasari described it as "so badly done that all that can now be seen of it is a glaring spot"

 

Michelangelo (painted pictures as if they were wall frescoes): * see EndNote<F>

Michelangelo produced only 3 panel paintings; all of which are dated to his first period in Rome.  The rest of his output is fresco (Sistine Chapel, Last Judgment, Conversion of St Paul, Crucifixion of St Peter).

 

The Adoration of the Magi: * see EndNote<G>

1481, Virgin Mary & Child in the foreground, forming a triangular shape with the Magi kneeling in adoration; commissioned by the Augustinian monks of San Donato a Scopeto, Florence; however Leonardo left for Milan the next year, the painting was unfinished.