Fra Bartolommeo

It is probable that the dissolution of partnership marked the time of Fra Bartolommeo's visit to Rome. Fra Mariano Fetti, once a lay brother of S. Marco, who had gone over to th...

Andrea Del Sarto is a curious instance of the vital power of art, which, like a flower forcing its way to the light through walls or rocks, will find expression in spite of obst...

During the interval between the second and third partnership of this incongruous pair of friends, the life of Albertinelli had been very different from that of the Frate. So dis...

From 1524 to 1528 the plague desolated Italy, never entirely leaving it. During this time Andrea obtained a commission through Antonio Brancacci, to paint some pictures in the c...

Padre Marchese, himself a Dominican, speaks thus of his convent:--"San Marco has within its walls the Renaissance, a compendium in two artists. Fra Angelico, the painter of the...

We now come to the studio of S. Marco, where the two friends, who had dreamed together as boys, and worked together as youths, now laboured jointly as men, bringing to light som...

Giuliano Bugiardini should be called the assistant rather than the scholar of Albertinelli, being older than his master. He was born in 1471 in a suburb outside the Via Faenza,...

From 1511 to 1514 Andrea was employed on the two last frescoes in the courtyard of the SS. Annunziata the _Epiphany_ and the _Nativity of the Virgin_. The sum fixed for these wa...

Andrea's scholars were numerous, though only a few rose to any great eminence. Of these, JACOPO CARRUCCI, "da Pontormo" (born 1494, died 1557), was by far the most talented. Lef...

This law is nowhere more apparent than in the history of Art. Three times has the world been illuminated by the full brilliance of Art, and three times has a corresponding perio...

This chapter will speak of the _man_, and not of the _artist_. As it is now understood that history is not a dry record of battles and laws, but the story of the inner life of a...

The two boys left the studio of Cosimo Roselli at an early age. There had been trouble in the house of Paolo the ex-muleteer, and Baccio's already serious mind had been awed by...

Amongst the thousand arteries in which the life blood of the Renaissance coursed in all its fulness, none were so busy or so important as the "botteghe" of the artists. In these...

Four years had passed, and the monk had never touched a pencil, but his mission in art was not fulfilled, and events were working towards that end, for the spirit of art once aw...

Meanwhile fate was working Andrea del Sarto on to what might have been the culminating point of his fame, had not his weakness rendered it a blot on his honour; i.e. his journey...

RIDOLFO (DI DOMENICO) BIGORDI, called GHIRLANDAJO, &c., was born on the 4th of January, 1483. Although not strictly a scholar, he is one of Fra Bartolommeo's principal followers...

The next great works were the frescoes in the Court of S. Annunziata, if indeed they were not carried on simultaneously with those in the Scalzo. This famous series of Andrea's...

The Medici, always patrons of art, did not neglect to enrich their palaces with the works of Andrea del Sarto. Ottaviano de' Medici, a cousin of the reigning branch, was an espe...

Of these, little more than the names have come down to us. Vasari speaks of Benedetto Cianfanini, Gabbriele Rustici, and Fra Paolo Pistojese; Padre Marchese mentions two monks,...

II. THE SERVITE CLOISTER. A.D. 1511-1512 III. SOCIAL LIFE AND MARRIAGE. A.D. 1511-1516 IV. WORKS IN FLORENCE. A.D. 1511-1515 V. GOING TO FRANCE. A.D. 1518-1519 VI. ANDREA AND OT...