Rebuilding The Renaissance
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This podcast will explore the development of the art, architecture, culture, and history in Italy, from ancient Roman times through the Renaissance. Listeners will develop an understanding of Italy's role in the development of Western civilization and an ability to appreciate and understand works of art in their historical context.
Rebuilding The Renaissance
1d ago
When Caravaggio arrived in Naples as a fugitive on the run from papal justice in 1606, he immediately began to receive commissions. One of his first was for a charitable organization called the “Pio Monte della Misericordia.” This organization had just built a church with seven altars upon which seven separate paintings illustrating the “Seven Acts of Mercy” were to be placed. In true impetuous Caravaggio fashion, he produced a single beautiful painting that represented all seven acts ..read more
Rebuilding The Renaissance
1w ago
From similar faces in the Scrovegni Chapel, to identifying Judas in Veronese’s “Feast in the House of Levi,” to the symbolic gestures of the apostles in Caravaggio’s “Supper at Emmaus,” to the “Isleworth Mona Lisa,” to my advice to a young person about life and much, much more - this episode answers the very questions that you ask me about the great art, artists and history of the Italian Renaissance – and the meaning of life ..read more
Rebuilding The Renaissance
2w ago
Painted shortly after Caravaggio killed a man in Rome and was a fugitive from justice, the “David with the Head of Goliath” is today located in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, Italy. The painting was given to Cardinal Scipione Borghese in hopes that he could convince his uncle, Pope Paul V, to pardon Caravaggio who was wanted dead or alive ..read more
Rebuilding The Renaissance
1M ago
O May 28, 1606, Caravaggio stabbed and killed a man named Ranuccio Tommasoni in Rome, allegedly over an unpaid wager. Discover the details of the homicide that changed Caravaggio’s life forever and turned him into a fugitive from justice ..read more
Rebuilding The Renaissance
1M ago
In 1605, Caravaggio painted an image of St. Jerome for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, and the painting is still located in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, Italy. Caravaggio’s depiction of the Father of the Church is a very quiet and intimate one, where we see a scholar in a sparsely furnished room consumed with the enormous task of translating the Hebrew Bible into Latin ..read more
Rebuilding The Renaissance
1M ago
Painted in 1605 for the chapel of the Papal grooms, known as “Palafrenieri,” in the new Basilica of St. Peter, Caravaggio’s painting was removed after only a few days because it was considered indecorous. The stark nudity of the Christ Child, the bulging breasts of the Virgin Mary (who was modeled from a well-known prostitute!) and the unflattering representation of St. Anne (patron saint of the grooms) were most likely the reasons the painting was thought to be inappropriate for the most important church in the Catholic world ..read more
Rebuilding The Renaissance
1M ago
Located in the Pinacoteca of the Vatican Museums, Caravaggio’s “Deposition” was thought by many of his contemporaries to be the painter’s greatest work. The dramatic representation of very real-looking biblical characters handling the dead body of Christ in a shallow, tenebrously-lit foreground space makes for a very moving visual narrative ..read more
Rebuilding The Renaissance
2M ago
Commissioned in 1601 for a chapel in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Scala, Caravaggio’s “Death of the Virgin” was rejected by the Carmelite friars of the church. While some believe it was because of the stark and indecorous representation of the dead Virgin Mary, one of Caravaggio’s biographers suggests instead it was because Caravaggio used a well-known courtesan as his model for Mary ..read more
Rebuilding The Renaissance
2M ago
Located in the Augustinian church of Sant ’Agostino in Rome, Italy, the “Madonna of Loreto” is one of Caravaggio’s most beautiful paintings. It was painted for the Cavalletti family in 1604 and depicts a barefoot Virgin Mary (who was modeled from a well-known prostitute) standing in a rundown contemporary Roman doorway carrying the Christ child who blesses two peasant pilgrims. The stark realism and lack of pretense made it very popular amongst the masses, who, according to one of Caravaggio’s biographers, “made a great cackle over it ..read more
Rebuilding The Renaissance
2M ago
In the summer of 1602, Caravaggio painted what one art historian described as “the most nakedly libidinous of the painter’s secular mythological works.” Employing the same model that he previously used for his “St. John the Baptist,” Caravaggio creates a disturbingly realistic sexual metaphor of the power of love.  ..read more