A Guide to Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture

The Cinquecento

Mannerism

Bronzino.  Portrait of Eleanora da Toledo.

Painting

The School of Fontainebleau

French painters, linked to the Italian artists who inspired them.

Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530)

• Vasari's Life of Andrea del Sarto.
• A biography and links.
• A large selection of his paintings
• A drawing and a painting National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• The Last Supper at the Conacolo of San Salvi, Florence 1520-1525.
• The Sacrifice of Abraham Dresden, Gemaldegalerie.
• Drawing: two male heads Circa 1520. Red chalk on beige paper. The Louvre.

Rosso Fiorentino (1495-1540)

• Vasari's Life of Rosso Fiorentino
• A short biography and links
• A collection of his paintings
• Rosso's Dead Christ with Angels at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
• Portrait of a Man Early 1520s. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Virtual Restoration of his "Madonna col Bambino e quattro Santi" From the Uffizi.

Jacopo Pontormo (1494-1556)

• Vasari's Life of Pontormo.
• A short biography with links
• Many of his paintings and a chronology
• An exhibition of Pontormo's diaries and drawings
• Portrait of Giovanni della Casa Circa 1541/1544. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• An excerpt from Pontormo's diaries
• A study of Pontormo's Certosa frescoes By Don Seeley.

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, "il Parmigianino" (1503-1540)

• Vasari's Life of Parmigianino
• Many of his paintings and a chronology
• "La Schiava turca" Parma, National Gallery.
• Lucretia A drawing, circa 1539. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572)

• Many of his paintings
• Biography and several paintings The WebMuseum.
• Small site with biography and links
• A small collection of his paintings.
• Three paintings From the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Holy Family with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist 1550, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
• Portrait of a Young Man Circa 1540. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Shown right)
• Portrait of Cosimo I.
• Eleanora di Toledo and her son, Giovanni
• Portrait of Maria de'Medici
• Another portrait of Maria
• Portrait of Francesco I

Francesco Salviati (1510-1563)

• Vasari's Life of Salviati
• A painting and a fresco Bathsheba goes to King David (1552/1554) and Charity (1554/1558).
• Portrait of a Lady Circa 1555. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Sofonisba Anguissola (Circa 1530/40-1632)

• A reproduction of her Portrait of the Artist's Three Sisters with Their Governess and some meditation on women artists in the Renaissance.
• The Chess Game Circa 1555.
• The paintings of Sofonisba Anguissola A large collection from Irene Oberg.
• Bibliography of Women Artists Compiled by Robin Masi.
• Women Artists...from the Medieval Period to the Present By someone at CSU Pomona.

Mannerist Sculpture

Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571)

Selections from John Addington Symonds' translation of the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, 1888

• Some of his sculpture
• Brief biography.
• Genius of Fontainebleau. Bronze. 1543-1544.
• Views of Fontainebleau.
• A collection of Cellini's sculpture.
• Perseus Bronze, 1545-1554. Florence.
• A perhaps slightly overproduced site devoted to the restoration of Cellini's statue of Perseus, including a live camera view of the statue. If he moves, be sure to let me know!
• Francois I visiting Benvenuto Cellini in his studio A romantic nineteenth-century interpretation.

Giovanni da Bologna (aka Giambologna)

• Abduction of the Sabine Woman. Completed 1583.
• Views of the Sculpture

Mannerist Architecture

History of Mannerist Architecture

Giulio Romano

1. Giulio Romano. Palazzo del Te. Mantua. Inner courtyard. 1525-1535.
2. Giulio Romano. Fall of the Giants. Fresco. Sala dei Giganti, Palazzo del Te, Mantua. 1532-1534.

• A Site devoted to the Palazzo del Te. This is in Italian, but just click on the underlined blue words for details. Take a look at the Sala dei Cavalli (Room of the Horses).
• Palazzo del Te Many details, and a link to a Mannerist palace in Poland.

Bartolomeo Ammannati (1511-1592)

• Some of his sculpture
• The Pitti Palace, Florence.

A Special Place for Giorgio Vasari: painter, architect, courtier, art historian

Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574)

• Brief biography
• A fuller biography with links to several of his works

Vasari as painter

• Casa Vasari in Arezzo One clickable photo of the main room.
• Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane "About 1550." From the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan.
• Vasari's frescoes in the cupola of the Duomo of Florence

Vasari as architect

• Vasari and the Uffizi.
• Palazzo Vecchio: interior
• Palazzo Uffizi Florence, begun 1560.
• The Vasari Corridor Florence, 1564.
• A clickable view of the Studiolo of Francesco I Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, 1570-1572.
• Thesaurus Florentinus Documentation of the restoration of the frescoes by Vasari and Zuccari for the cupola of the Duomo of Florence. Site still in process.

Vasari as art historian

• A new online edition of Vasari's Lives of the Artists, with illustrations and bibliography. (In process)