Barbara Longhi of Ravenna(1552-1638)enjoyed creating small devotional paintings depicting holy saints,in particular Saint Agnes(c.291-304).This saint’s life and martyrdom was recorded by the Bishop of Milan,Saint Amb...
In 1569,Giorgio Vasari(1511-1574)completed a painting of the Madonna of the Rosary for the private chapel of the Capponi family in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence.In his Ricordanze(Book of Records),Vasar...
From the variety of types of portraiture,there evolved the imaging of a self-portrait as we see in Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Barbara Longhi of Ravenna(1552-1638).The self-portrait is a unique work of art,an int...
In 1564,in honor of the death of Michelangelo Buonarroti(1475-1564),an artistic extravaganza was invented by the Benedictine monk Vincenzo Borghini(1515-1580)-prior of the hospital of the innocents,humanist,and admini...
Lavinia Fontana’s(1552-1614)Galatea and Cherubs riding the Stormy Waves on a Sea Monster(aka Galatea)of 1590 is an intriguing mythological painting.Being painted on copper,it is a fine example of Lavinia’s explorati...
This essay examines one aspect of Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s portraiture: His genre depictions where he expands the art of illusionism or magic visualization into grilli (intellectual whims) and teste composte (composite ...
Giorgio Vasari’s conception of artistic creativity is related to his theory of painting. He proposes two alternatives in a painter’s development or achievement of artistic creativity: imitation (imitazione) and inve...
The first part of this essay deals with Giorgio Vasari's conception of architecture in sixteenth-century Italy, and the second part examines Vasari's practical application of one of his constructions, the loggia (o...
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), painter, architect, and writer, was fascinated with the image of Saint Francis because of the association of La Verna with Arezzo, his native town, where the miraculous event of Saint Fra...