Renaissance and Mannerism
The Renaissance section runs from Brunelleschi to the Mannerist crisis of the 1520s-1580s. The exam asks you to identify works, explain linear perspective and proportion, and read the shift from Quattrocento experiment to Cinquecento classicism and then to Mannerist artificiality.
Core rules and vocabulary
- Foundations. Humanism and the revival of antiquity; Brunelleschi's Florence Cathedral dome (1420-1436), built with a double shell and herringbone brick. Alberti codifies one-point perspective in De pictura (1435).
- Quattrocento. Donatello's bronze David (c. 1440s) revives the free-standing nude; Masaccio's Trinity (c. 1425-1427) applies perspective to theology; Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise (1425-1452); Botticelli's mythological allegories; Piero della Francesca's geometry.
- Cinquecento. Leonardo: sfumato, aerial perspective, Last Supper (1495-1498). Michelangelo: terribilita, David (1501-1504), Sistine ceiling (1508-1512), St Peter's dome. Raphael: School of Athens (1509-1511), balanced classicism. Bramante's Tempietto (1502) and St Peter's plan; Palladio's Villa Rotonda and Quattro libri (1570). Venetian colorito against Florentine disegno: Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto.
- Mannerism. Figura serpentinata, elongation, acid colour, spatial ambiguity: Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck (1534-1540); Pontormo, Bronzino; Giulio Romano's Palazzo Te. Vasari's Lives (1550, enlarged 1568) invents the biographical model; Trent (1563) tightens rules on religious imagery.
Worked example
Prompt: analyse Masaccio's Trinity. Reasoning: the vanishing point sits at the viewer's eye level, so the fictive chapel seems to extend the real nave; the architectural framework (barrel vault, Ionic and Corinthian pilasters) shows Brunelleschi's influence; the hierarchy God - Christ - Mary and John - donors - skeleton is also a spatial hierarchy; the skeleton's inscription (I was what you are...) turns perspective into a meditation on death and salvation. Structure, iconography and theology coincide.
Traps that cost marks
Confusing Donatello's and Michelangelo's David; calling Mannerism mere decadence rather than a deliberate aesthetic; mixing sfumato with chiaroscuro; attributing the Tempietto to Michelangelo; dating Michelangelo's David to 1501 instead of 1504.