The List Piles.

I'm still thinking of Italy and Greece and all of the goodies I'll get to see. This month is dedicated to the Renaissance so I'm really getting to (re)learn all about these gems in advance. 

*It's been a long time since I took classes on the Rinascimento.

San Lorenzo (with projected facade), Florence.

Mocking of Christ, Fra Angelico, 1438, San Marco Monastery, Florence, fresco.

Of course, the Renaissance is not complete without the Greco-Roman world!

Nike, 410 BCE, Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Arch of Titus, Rome.

Constantine, Vatican Museum, Rome. 

Other things I'm excited about!

San Clemente, 1120, Rome.

St. Mark's, 13th c., Venice.

Rape of Proserpina, Bernini, 1621, Rome.
Really looking forward to seeing this. 

 Primavera (detail), Botticelli, tempera, 1480. Uffizi, Florence.
Neoplatonism!!

Daphni Crucifixion, 11th c., Daphni Monastery, Athens.
Monophysitism? Two streams? So many questions.

Pantocrator, 11th c., Daphni Monastery, Athens.

I never really studied Botticelli before having to teach it this week. I had no interest in knowing more about his paintings, despite their obvious beauty, mostly because his are some of the few Renaissance paintings that are constantly reproduced (and drained of their meaning). I am happy to say that I have finally become acquainted with both The Birth of Venus and Primavera and I love them. They are even more beautiful now. I can't wait, CANNOT WAIT, to see them together. That blue behind the personification of spring is stunning and gives me a weird feeling that I like. Also, I realized that I will be able to see the above mosaics in Athens. Oh!

Old Sacristy, 1421-1428

The Old Sacristy is the mausoleum for the Medici family. It is at the south end of the transept in San Lorenzo. The Medici family was the most powerful and influential family in Florence. They were very interested in the cultivation of the arts; for their mausoleum they commissioned Brunelleschi and Donatello. A perfect cube is formed in the sacristy, the walls are equal in height to the sides. The dome is one half the width of the wall and it creates a circle from the square. The Umbrella dome rests on pendentives, which are triangular pieces of vaulting springing from corners used for support.
An Umbrella dome is a hemispherical dome with a circular plan and a ribbed vault.
Brunelleschi used Ionic columns to support entablatures at the doorways, and larger Corinthian columns supporting an entablature that goes around the entire room.
This sacristy is an example of Brunelleschi's mathematical discipline.