Amongst the numerous masterpieces in the Uffizi Galleries, none bring their patrons to life as do the many portraits. From simple merchants to monarchs and popes, the vast array of Renaissance portraits in the Uffizi allow us to look into the very souls of those protagonists who defined the perio...

Giotto’s 14th-century fresco cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, is perhaps the seminal motion picture in Western Art. Giotto’s mise en scène is full of expressive character types, landscapes, colour and visual arrangements. The sequential arrangement and juxtaposition of scenes produc...

Many of Florence’s greatest artists, such as Giotto, Donatello, Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci, traveled to northern Italian cities and introduced the ideas and movements of the Renaissance. Cities such as Parma would instead produce their own local geniuses such as Correggio and Parmigianino, who...

When Michelangelo was hired by Pope Julius II in 1508 to paint the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, little did he know the turmoil that awaited him. Never before had such a large-scale painting been attempted on a ceiling – and by a sculptor no less! After 4 ½ years of physical strain, personal conflict w...

Of the three major artistic disciplines, sculpture was the first to have its Renaissance. Florentine sculptors such as Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Andrea del Verrocchio and Michelangelo would produce sculptures that, at first, sought to imitate ancient Greco-Roman art, but then began to try to s...

Renaissance Florence was the birthplace of the modern world and is home to many of its greatest artistic treasures. Florentine artists such as Dante, Brunelleschi, Leonardo and Michelangelo revolutionized art and architecture, and families like the Medici dominated European finance and politics. ...

Join Dr. Rocky for this video lecture where he will examine the extraordinary collection of outdoor sculptures in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy. From Donatello's "Judith and Holofernes," Michelangelo's "David," Cellini's "Perseus," Giambologna's "Abduction of the Sabine," - to name...

Join Dr. Rocky for this video lecture where he will explore one of the most famous drawings in the world - Leonardo's "Vitruvian Man." From the meaning of the subject, to those artists who influenced Leonardo, to how the drawing has come to symbolize the historical period known as the Renaissance...

Explore the sometimes violent, often bizarre, but always fascinating representations of saints and martyrs in Italian art by artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Verrocchio, and Caravaggio. From St. Andrew's cross to St. Catherine’s spiked wheel to St. Blaise's iron combs, we...

Born in Milan in 1571, Michelangelo Merisi, better known as Caravaggio, moved to his nearby namesake town at the age of 5. He later trained as a painter with a student of Titian, before making his way to Rome in 1592. After an inauspicious beginning to his career, Caravaggio’s photorealistic styl...

In the first half of the 14th century, the city of Siena was Florence’s main political, economic and artistic rival. Artists such as Duccio, Simone Martini and Ambrogio Lorenzetti were members of one of Europe’s most important schools of painting. In this video lecture, Dr. Rocky will examine the...

At the end of the 15th century, large-scale-cyclical-narrative paintings became quite popular in Renaissance Venice. In this video lecture, Dr. Rocky will examine the two most prominent narrative painters of early Renaissance Venice and two particularly beautiful painting cycles - "The Miracles o...

The Northern Italian city of Mantua was a thriving artistic center during the Renaissance, when the city was ruled over by the Gonzaga family. Not only were the Gonzaga great lords, but also great patrons of the arts. Marquis Ludovico II Gonzaga brought the great Andrea Mantegna to Mantua to serv...

In 1483, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception to paint an altarpiece for their chapel in the church of San Francesco Grande in Milan. Due to a disagreement, it appears that the altarpiece was never delivered, and a second version was later produced....

Join Dr. Rocky for this video lecture where he will examine Donatello's sculptures in various museum collections throughout the world. From his stunning "Madonna of the Clouds" in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to his extraordinary "Ascension" in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Donat...

The art produced in Italy in the first half of the 16th century seemed to intentionally reject the principles of the Renaissance. Artists such as Jacopo Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Giulio Romano, Parmigianino, and Angelo Bronzino introduced their own peculiar styles, creating what was later terme...

In 1515, Medici Pope Leo X commissioned Raphael to produce a series of 16 full-scale cartoons from which an equal number silver and gold-threaded tapestries were to be produced in Brussels. The final location of the tapestries was the Sistine Chapel and would have allowed Raphael’s work to be mea...

This new lecture will retell “the greatest story ever told” through the creative genius of the great Renaissance masters. Come get into the holiday spirit with artists such as Duccio, Raphael, Titian, Giorgione, Tintoretto and Caravaggio and their moving visual interpretations of the story that d...

Although not as famous as many other Renaissance paintings, the Holy Trinity by Masaccio might just be the most important painting in Florence, and is one of the most important of all time. The reason is that it was the first painting to ever apply a technology known as linear or single-point per...

In 1504, Florence found its two greatest artists in the city at the same time. Not wanting to miss this rare opportunity to have them test their talents against each other, massive murals were commissioned from each in the great hall of Florence's Palazzo Vecchio. While Michelangelo only got as f...

After finishing the Sistine ceiling, Michelangelo began work for Popes Leo X and Clement VII (Giovanni and Giuliano de' Medici). Both Popes employed Michelangelo on various projects in Florence such as the facade of San Lorenzo, the New Sacristy, and the Laurentian Library. Join Dr. Rocky for thi...

Not surprisingly, a general existential pessimism permeated post-Black Death Europe, and this pessimism was nowhere better expressed than in art. While pre-plague art had a tendency to be optimistic and to celebrate life - particularly in the revolutionary painting of Giotto - post-plague art had...

The Dome of Florence Cathedral, which was designed and constructed by Filippo Brunelleschi between 1420 and 1436, spans an octagonal space of 143ft. 6in., and is still the largest dome structure in the world today. Inspired by the majestic dome of the Pantheon in Rome, the dome of Florence cathed...

Join me in commemorating the 5th centennial of the death of the great Renaissance painter Raphael Sanzio da Urbino. Since most of us were not able to travel to Rome this year to visit the blockbuster exhibit celebrating the artist's life, this exclusive webinar will examine his most celebrated wo...