Italian and Spanish Renaissance Art and Architecture

The Italian Renaissance: Rome as the New Art Capital

The death of Lorenzo “the Magnificent” in 1492 marked the end of Florence’s reign as the Italian Renaissance art capital, giving way to Rome. It’s the time of the great geniuses: Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. The Eternal City experienced a Golden Age of the arts under the glorious pontificates of Julius II and Leo X.

Julius II was a great patron of the arts. He initiated the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica, commissioned the decoration of the Sistine Chapel and the Stanze, and promoted archaeological excavations, buying the statues that were discovered. According to Vasari, copies of these works allowed 16th-century sculptors to surpass those of the Quattrocento. Leo X sponsored further findings. Numerous buried galleries were found in Nero’s Domus Aurea, whose corridors became known as “caves” and whose paintings as “grotesque”.

Leonardo da Vinci’s *The Last Supper*

The Last Supper represents the last meeting of Christ with his apostles before his death. The work utilizes linear perspective, optimally enlarging the wall with a depiction of the Last Supper. The position of the apostles, behind the table and grouped in threes, is innovative. Until then, Judas was typically placed alone and in front of the other diners.

Leonardo was not interested in the fresco technique, as it required speed, and he was very meticulous. Leonardo was a scientist who brought a spirit of research to painting. His main contribution was the technique of *sfumato*, or blurring, which involves shading the figures and diluting them through chiaroscuro in space. He died in France, at one of Francis I’s castles.

Spanish Renaissance Architecture: Three Stages

Sixteenth-century Spanish architecture is structured in three stages: Plateresque, Romanist, and Purist. The Plateresque is a term coined from the similarity between the decoration of buildings in the first half of the 16th century and the work of goldsmiths. An example is the facade of the University of Salamanca.

Romanism involved the assimilation of classical proportions and the Christianization of the grotesque. Purism resulted from the strict transplantation of Bramante’s designs to Spain. An example is the Palace of Charles V in Granada.

Donato Bramante and the Tempietto

Donato Bramante began his career in Urbino, where he acquired knowledge of architectural perspective. In Milan, he developed ideas for centrally planned buildings. He reworked these ideas in Rome, studying the ruins. His first important work in the Eternal City was for the Spanish court: the Tempietto.

El Escorial: Monastery of San Lorenzo el Real

El Escorial, the Monastery of San Lorenzo el Real, was built in the 16th century. Started by Juan Bautista de Toledo and continued by Juan de Herrera, it was commissioned by Philip II. The monument is harmonious, based on the mathematical combination of geometric shapes, articulated by pilasters, friezes, and cornices of the Tuscan order.

The building was conceived as a modern reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, intended to serve as a palace, convent, and cemetery.

Raphael’s *The School of Athens*

Commissioned by Pope Julius II, The School of Athens is an allegory representing the triumph of ancient philosophy. It illustrates the Temple of Science, with Plato and Aristotle pointing to heaven and earth, respectively.

Raphael: A Master of Harmony

Raphael possessed an understandable, serene, and harmonious artistic language. The painter’s physical attractiveness, his friendly nature, and the grace of his art, combined with the fervent devotion his works inspired and the happy circumstance of his birth and death at age 37 on Good Friday, made him a demigod in the eyes of his contemporaries.