ANTONIO DA FIRENZE

When Venetian artists began to break away from the grip of Byzantium, Antonio Veneziano was among the first to lead the way. He was popular in Siena, Florence, and Pisa, all gave him important commissions. The panel, part of a polyptych and representing St James the Great, shows the artist at his best.

Originally this panel was the front of a double-sided standard that would have been carried in processions. The reverse of the standard represented the stigmatisation of St Francis. Noteworthy is the rich ornamentation.

The standard, the reverse side of which is dated 1452, is a copy of the standard that Gentile da Fabriano painted for the Franciscan church in Fabriano around 1420.

One side of a panel painted on both sides. The other side represents the Madonna and Child with Saints.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 3 minutes):

Guillaume Dufay: Hymn for Easter

The San Petronio in Bologna, Antonio di Vincenzo’s major work, is the final climax to the chapter of Italian brick construction opening with San Francesco in Bologna. The building of San Petronio started in 1390 and reached substantially its present state in 1525. By 1400 only the first two nave bays were complete, and Antonio died c. 1402. Despite the virtual suspension of the work until 1445, the pattern was, however, firmly enough set for the design of the nave, which was all that was ever completed, to be considered an essentially fourteenth-century conception. Originally in 1390 a Latin-cross plan of some kind was intended. Later, in 1514, a revised plan in the form of a Latin cross was proposed with the intent to outdo even Saint Peter’s Basilica of Rome, the greatest church of the Western Christian world even in its ancient version. According to tradition, Pope Pius IV halted such a majestic project.

In the interior the piers and capitals and pilaster forms are clearly derived from the Duomo in Florence. Important is the influence on the interior of the running rhythms of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, the airiest Gothic church in Italy. Large oculi, set high up in the walls, spread even light throughout the building. The height of the nave is thoroughly exploited by the soaring continuity of its supports. The eye is drawn to an unbroken and identical succession of vaults that both accentuates the length of the building and speeds the flow towards the altar. The chapels flanking the nave contain many important works of art, altarpieces, frescoes, windows, and others. The ciborium above the altar was made by Vignola.

The facing of the main fa�ade remains unfinished: many architects (notably Baldassarre Peruzzi, Vignola, Andrea Palladio and Alberto Alberti) were commissioned to propose solutions for it, but a definitive one was never found. Jacopo della Quercia enriched the main doorway with sculptures.

View the ground plan of San Petronio, Bologna.

The San Petronio in Bologna, Antonio di Vincenzo’s major work, is the final climax to the chapter of Italian brick construction opening with San Francesco in Bologna. The building of San Petronio started in 1390 and reached substantially its present state in 1525. By 1400 only the first two nave bays were complete, and Antonio died c. 1402. Despite the virtual suspension of the work until 1445, the pattern was, however, firmly enough set for the design of the nave, which was all that was ever completed, to be considered an essentially fourteenth-century conception. Originally in 1390 a Latin-cross plan of some kind was intended. Later, in 1514, a revised plan in the form of a Latin cross was proposed with the intent to outdo even Saint Peter’s Basilica of Rome, the greatest church of the Western Christian world even in its ancient version. According to tradition, Pope Pius IV halted such a majestic project.

In the interior the piers and capitals and pilaster forms are clearly derived from the Duomo in Florence. Important is the influence on the interior of the running rhythms of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, the airiest Gothic church in Italy. Large oculi, set high up in the walls, spread even light throughout the building. The height of the nave is thoroughly exploited by the soaring continuity of its supports. The eye is drawn to an unbroken and identical succession of vaults that both accentuates the length of the building and speeds the flow towards the altar. The chapels flanking the nave contain many important works of art, altarpieces, frescoes, windows, and others. The ciborium above the altar was made by Vignola.

The facing of the main fa�ade remains unfinished: many architects (notably Baldassarre Peruzzi, Vignola, Andrea Palladio and Alberto Alberti) were commissioned to propose solutions for it, but a definitive one was never found. Jacopo della Quercia enriched the main doorway with sculptures.

View the ground plan of San Petronio, Bologna.

The San Petronio in Bologna, Antonio di Vincenzo’s major work, is the final climax to the chapter of Italian brick construction opening with San Francesco in Bologna. The building of San Petronio started in 1390 and reached substantially its present state in 1525. By 1400 only the first two nave bays were complete, and Antonio died c. 1402. Despite the virtual suspension of the work until 1445, the pattern was, however, firmly enough set for the design of the nave, which was all that was ever completed, to be considered an essentially fourteenth-century conception. Originally in 1390 a Latin-cross plan of some kind was intended. Later, in 1514, a revised plan in the form of a Latin cross was proposed with the intent to outdo even Saint Peter’s Basilica of Rome, the greatest church of the Western Christian world even in its ancient version. According to tradition, Pope Pius IV halted such a majestic project.

In the interior the piers and capitals and pilaster forms are clearly derived from the Duomo in Florence. Important is the influence on the interior of the running rhythms of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, the airiest Gothic church in Italy. Large oculi, set high up in the walls, spread even light throughout the building. The height of the nave is thoroughly exploited by the soaring continuity of its supports. The eye is drawn to an unbroken and identical succession of vaults that both accentuates the length of the building and speeds the flow towards the altar. The chapels flanking the nave contain many important works of art, altarpieces, frescoes, windows, and others. The ciborium above the altar was made by Vignola.

The facing of the main fa�ade remains unfinished: many architects (notably Baldassarre Peruzzi, Vignola, Andrea Palladio and Alberto Alberti) were commissioned to propose solutions for it, but a definitive one was never found. Jacopo della Quercia enriched the main doorway with sculptures.

View the ground plan of San Petronio, Bologna.

This magnificent life-size altarpiece, the only confirmed work by the artist, stands halfway between the aesthetic world of Gothic realism and Renaissance revival of classical antiquity.

With a refined naturalistic taste, the painter painstakingly depicted the espalier of roses in the background and the many kind of birds in the foreground. The throne of the Virgin is a complicated structure, with classical details absorbed into a fantastic and eclectic whole.

The lunette, depicting God the Father, was added at the beginning of the sixteenth century by a Francesco Bissolo, a follower of Giovanni Bellini.

This magnificent life-size altarpiece, the only confirmed work by the artist, stands halfway between the aesthetic world of Gothic realism and Renaissance revival of classical antiquity.

With a refined naturalistic taste, the painter painstakingly depicted the espalier of roses in the background and the many kind of birds in the foreground. The throne of the Virgin is a complicated structure, with classical details absorbed into a fantastic and eclectic whole.

The lunette, depicting God the Father, was added at the beginning of the sixteenth century by a Francesco Bissolo, a follower of Giovanni Bellini.

The picture shows one side of a panel painted on both sides. The other side represents the Crucifixion with Mary and St John the Evangelist. The inscription at the foot of the throne can be read as “Antonius. De Florentia”. It is assumed that the painter was Antonio di Jacopo whose name can be found on the list of the members of the painters’ guild from 1415.

The double-sided work was meant to be carried in religious processions.

This is a chiaroscuro woodcut imprinted on white paper from two plates in different dark colours (in this case green and black), so that it creates the impression of a drawing on coloured paper heightened with white. It was made after Parmigianino. According to Giorgio Vasari, Antonio da Trento learned this technique from Parmigianino, who was much admired in Venice.

In the last centuries this painting was attributed to different painters based on the initials to be found in the lower part of the picture. Since these initials were resolved as A. F(errariensis) P(ixit), the painting was mentioned for a long time as the work of A.F. Master from Ferrara. Later it was attributed to Baldassare Estense, the natural son of Niccolò III d’Este. Finally, the attribution to the Bolognese painter Antonio Leonelli da Crevalcore (Crevalcore is north of Bologna) seems to be final.

The painting shows a carefully coifed, tight-lipped sitter in sharp profile behind an elaborate window casement of luxurious marbles. Matrimonial objects, a pearl and a gold ring set with a ruby are displayed on a breviary that projects into the viewer’s space.

The identity of the young man on the picture is not established. Constanzo Sforza, Antonio Ordelaffi or somebody from the Fugger family are usually mentioned as possible identification.

This portrait is the artist’s earliest surviving work and the one that most reveals his indebtedness to the example of Francesco del Cossa.

This panel was intended for devotional use in a home or a monastic institution. The subject of St Jerome in his study was an autonomous one in the mid-fifteenth century in Flemish art. In accordance with Flemish practice, Antonio da Fabriano painted his name “antonio de fabr[ian]o” on a fictive cartellino on the bottom of the frame, which is original.

Antonio makes the domestic description of Jerome’s study humbler and more real through such details as the veining and knots in the wood, the cardinal’s hat hanging from a nail, and the small crucifix affixed to the keystone of a brick archway. There is a still-life of books randomly scattered on shelves together with a candlestick and an hourglass. Antonio’s Flemish tendencies could be the result of a journey to Naples or Genoa in the 1440s,

Antonio da Atri was an Italian painter who in 1397 returned to his native city Atri and transferred his workshop from L’Aquila. In Atri he executed various frescoes in the cathedral, among them the Trinity with Three Faces.