The Sculptor Who Brought Stone to Life ItalyStories.com Donatello changed sculpture before the Renaissance had even fully learned what it could become. Born Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi in Florence around 1386, he belonged to the first generation of…
Poet of Beauty and Myth ItalyStories.com Sandro Botticelli painted some of the most beautiful and mysterious images of the Italian Renaissance. The Birth of Venus and Primavera have become universal symbols of Florence, of classical myth reborn, and of a…
Sculpted Vision of the Renaissance ItalyStories.com Andrea Mantegna was born in 1431 near Padua, probably at Isola di Carturo, and became one of the most intellectually ambitious painters of the Italian Renaissance. His art is immediately recognizable: hard, clear contours;…
ItalyStories.com — Great Italian Artists Masaccio's career lasted scarcely more than six years, yet he changed the direction of European painting. He died in 1428 at only twenty-six or twenty-seven, leaving behind a small body of work. But in those…
ItalyStories.com — Great Italian Artists Piero della Francesca occupies a unique place in Renaissance art. His paintings are calm, lucid, and geometrically ordered, yet they possess a mystery that resists explanation. Figures stand in clear light, architecture is measured with…
The Sicilian Master of Portraits ItalyStories.com — Great Italian Artists Antonello da Messina occupies a special place in the history of Italian painting. Born in Messina in Sicily around 1430 and dead by 1479, he spent a comparatively short career…
Master of Venetian Serenity ItalyStories.com — Great Italian Artists Giovanni Bellini stands at the beginning of one of the greatest chapters in the history of painting: the triumph of Venetian color. Born in Venice around 1430 and active until his…
The Angelic Light of the Early Renaissance ItalyStories.com — Great Italian Artists Fra Angelico, born Guido di Pietro around the end of the fourteenth century in the Mugello region north of Florence, occupies a unique place in Renaissance art. He…