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Rebuilding The Renaissance podcast will explore the development of the art, architecture, culture and history in Italy, from ancient Roman times through the Renaissance. Listeners will develop an understanding of Italy’s role in the development of Western civilization and an ability to appreciate and understand works of art in their historical context.
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Episodes
Cities Artists Theory Answers to Open Questions Interviews
Episode 359 – Rome: The Borghese Gallery (Part III)
  • Posted: December 4th, 2025
This episode takes you through the 1st-floor rooms of the Borghese Gallery in Rome, Italy. It discusses the breathtaking early statues by Gian Lorenzo Bernini - “Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius,” “Pluto and Persephone,” “Apollo and Daphne,” and “David,” as well as Antonio Canova’s s...
Episode 358 – Rome: The Borghese Gallery (Part II)
  • Posted: November 26th, 2025
This podcast takes you into the extraordinary building and collection of the Borghese Gallery in Rome, Italy. From the great hall with its beautiful ceiling fresco, ancient Roman floor mosaics depicting gladiators and beast hunters, and ancient/Baroque statue of “Marcus Curtius,” to the adjoinin...
Episode 357 – Rome: The Borghese Gallery I
  • Posted: November 19th, 2025
Shortly after his election, Pope Paul V Borghese decided to transform his land outside the Porta Pinciana in Rome, Italy, into the city’s greatest villa complex. The result was one of the most beautiful and majestic examples of traditional and landscape architecture. The building, today known as t...
Episode 356 – Answers to Open Questions XXVI
  • Posted: November 12th, 2025
From my opinion on the recently discovered paintings attributed to Caravaggio, to the influence of Hadrian’s Villa on Borromini’s architecture, to a possible connection between Caravaggio’s “Burial of St. Lucy” and the movie "Schindler’s List,” to why Michelangelo’s “David...
Episode 355 – Rome – The Doria Pamphilj Gallery
  • Posted: November 6th, 2025
Located in the Doria Pamphilj Palace (where the Doria Pamphilj family still resides) on the Via del Corso in the heart of Rome, Italy, the gallery houses one of Italy’s most important art collections. It includes portraits of Pope Innocent X by Velasquez and Bernini, as well as two of Caravaggio...
Episode 354 – Rome – The Capitoline Museums
  • Posted: October 30th, 2025
The Capitoline Museums are a group of art and archaeological museums located on top of the Capitoline Hill, which was the political and religious center of ancient Rome. Their collections focus on the history of Rome and include masterpieces such as the “Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius...
Episode 353 – Milan: The Ambrosian Art Gallery
  • Posted: October 22nd, 2025
Part of the Ambrosian Library in Milan, Italy, the Ambrosian Art Gallery was founded along with the library by the celebrated Cardinal Federico Borromini in 1609 to house his extensive collection of manuscripts, books, and paintings. The collection today includes “The Portrait of a Musician” att...
Episode 352 – Milan – The Brera Gallery (Part II)
  • Posted: October 15th, 2025
Located in Milan, Italy, and inaugurated on Napoleon’s birthday on August 15, 1812, the Pinacoteca di Brera (Brera Art Gallery) contains one of the world’s most important collections of Italian Renaissance painting. This second episode explores masterpieces by Piero della Francesca, Raphael, and...
Episode 351 – Milan – The Brera Art Gallery (Part I)
  • Posted: October 8th, 2025
Located in Milan, Italy, and inaugurated on Napoleon’s birthday on August 15, 1812, the Pinacoteca di Brera (Brera Art Gallery) contains one of the world’s most important collections of Italian Renaissance painting. This first episode explores masterpieces by Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna, T...
Episode 350 – Siena: The National Painting Gallery
  • Posted: October 1st, 2025
The National Painting Gallery in Siena, Italy, known locally as the “Pinacoteca Nazionale,” houses one of the world’s most important collections of medieval and Renaissance Sienese paintings. It includes two rare paintings by Duccio di Buoninsegna, as well as masterpieces by Simone Martini, Am...
Episode 349 – Siena – The Museo dell’Opera del Duomo (Cathedral Museum)
  • Posted: September 25th, 2025
The Museo dell’Opera del Duomo houses some of medieval Siena’s most important masterpieces. Works such as Duccio’s “Maestà” and stained-glass window,  Giovanni Pisano's 13th-century facade sculptures, and Donatello’s “Madonna del Perdono” are but a few of those masterpieces....
Episode 348 – Florence – The Accademia Gallery
  • Posted: September 18th, 2025
While most people visit the Accademia Gallery in Florence, Italy, to see Michelangelo’s great statue of “David,” there is much more to this museum. The Accademia is also home to masterpieces by Botticelli, Lippi, Giambologna, Perugino, Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo, as well as Michelangelo’s...
Episode 347 – Florence – Museum of Orsanmichele
  • Posted: September 10th, 2025
Built in the 14th century, the Museum of Orsanmichele was originally a grain market, but later turned into a church.  The museum is housed inside of this church and includes a beautiful “Madonna and Child by Bernardo Daddi and a magnificent Gothic “Tabernacle” by Orcagna on the ground floor, ...
Episode 346 – Florence – The Casa Buonarroti Museum
  • Posted: September 3rd, 2025
Once a property owned and lived in by Michelangelo, the Casa Buonarroti Museum was created by the famous artist’s nephew to celebrate the legacy of his famous uncle. The museum contains Michelangelo’s two earliest known sculptures - “The Madonna of the Stairs” and “The Battle of the Centau...
Episode 345 – Florence – The Bargello Museum Part III
  • Posted: August 27th, 2025
The collection of sculptures on the ground floor of the Bargello Museum in Florence, Italy, contains one of the world’s most important collections of 16th-century sculptures, including Michelangelo’s “Bacchus”  and  “Pitti Tondo,” Giambologna’s “Mercury” and “Florence Triumph...
Episode 344 – Florence – The Bargello Museum Part II
  • Posted: August 20th, 2025
The collection of sculptures in the great hall of the Bargello Museum in Florence, Italy, located on the second floor, contains one of the world’s most important collections of sculptures, including Ghiberti’s and Brunelleschi’s “Competition Panels,” Donatello’s marble and bronze “Davi...
Episode 343 – Florence: The Bargello Museum – Part I
  • Posted: August 14th, 2025
The building that houses the Bargello Museum in Florence, Italy,  is the earliest example of civic architecture in Florence, built in 1255. Today it houses one of the world’s greatest collections of Renaissance sculpture, including works by Donatello, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Verrocchio, Michelang...
Episode 338 – Answers to Open Questions XXV
  • Posted: July 9th, 2025
From Leonardo making marzipan sculptures and his “Madonna of the Yarnwinder,” to whether Jesus died of cardiogenic shock or asphyxiation, to the recently discovered “Judith and Holofernes” and “Ecce Homo” attributed to Caravaggio, to how to transfer panel paintings to canvas, to how to r...
Episode 337 – Canova’s “Three Graces”
  • Posted: July 2nd, 2025
Antonio’s Canova’s statue of the “Three Graces” is considered a benchmark of beauty. It’s elegantly erotic representation of the Three Graces huddled in an intimate composition is a fitting final representation of the subject born in the ancient Greco-Roman world and later revived in the R...
Episode 336 – Canova’s “Paolina Bonaparte as Venus Victrix”
  • Posted: June 25th, 2025
Napoleon’s younger sister, Paolina Bonaparte, married Prince Camillo Borghese in 1803. One year later the prince commissioned Antonio Canova to carve his new wife as the mythological goddess of chastity, Diana. The licentious Paolina laughed off the suggestion claiming that no one would be believe...
Episode 335 – Canova’s “Perseus Triumphant”
  • Posted: June 18th, 2025
Carved in only a few months between 1800-1801, Canova’s “Perseus Triumphant” is one of history’s great sculptures. It exists in several versions, the most important of which are in the Vatican and Metropolitan Museums. Clearly inspired by Cellini’s earlier version, Canova also depicts the ...
Episode 334 – Canova’s “Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker”
  • Posted: June 11th, 2025
In 1802, Napoleon courted Antonio Canova to go to Paris to make a bust of him. Four years later, Canova instead completed an 11ft. (3.5m) free-standing idealized nude statue depicting Napoleon as the Roman god of war, Mars. Surprisingly, Napoleon was not pleased with the sculpture, describing it as ...
Episode 333 – Canova’s “Cupid and Psyche”
  • Posted: June 4th, 2025
Carved by Antonio Canova in 1787 and today located in the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Neoclassical sculpture of “Cupid and Psyche” is one of history’s most beautiful and popular sculptures. The romantic sculpture depicts Cupid cradling the head of his lover after reviving her from a supernatur...
Episode 332 – The Life of Antonio Canova
  • Posted: May 28th, 2025
Antonio Canova was Europe’s most famous artist round the year 1800. His sublime Neoclassical style sculptures – such as “Cupid and Psyche,” ”Perseus with the Head of Medusa,” and the “The Venus Victrix (Paolina Bonaparte)” - are some of the most beautiful in the history of art. This ...
Episode 331 – The Ceiling Fresco of Sant’Ignazio in Rome
  • Posted: May 21st, 2025
One of Rome’s most spectacular works of art is the illusionistic fresco that covers the ceiling of the church Sant’Ignazio. It was painted in 1685, covers nearly 40m of ceiling surface and depicts the “Glorification of St. Ignatius of Loyola” in an extraordinary example of trompe-l’oeil pe...
Episode 330 – Rome: The Capuchin Crypt
  • Posted: May 14th, 2025
Located on the famous Via Veneto in Rome, Italy, the 17th-century Capuchin Crypt is one of the world’s most unique examples of funerary decoration. It consists of a series of rooms decorated with human bones! Each room has a different theme based on the type of bone used – skulls, pelvises, leg ...
Episode 329 – Rome: The Spanish Steps
  • Posted: May 7th, 2025
Built between 1723 and 1725, the Spanish Steps in Rome, Italy, are one of the most famous staircases in the world. Consisting of 135 stairs spread over different levels, the steps were immortalized in the famous movie “Roman Holiday” and today are one of the most popular destinations of the “e...
Episode 328 – The Trevi Fountain (Rome)
  • Posted: April 30th, 2025
The Trevi Fountain is arguably the world’s most famous fountain! It was designed in 1732 by the Roman architect Nicola Salvi for a competition staged by Pope Clement XII. Rushing water passes through massive allegorical sculptures and blocks of stones into a massive stone basin in a uniquely drama...
Episode 327 – Answers to Open Questions XXIV
  • Posted: April 23rd, 2025
From how many paintings Caravaggio produced, to visiting Florence at Easter time, to how form and color were applied in Renaissance painting, to an overlooked equestrian monument, to finding the wooden beams in Brunelleschi’s dome, to the model used by Leonardo da Vinci in three of his most ...
Episode 325 – Borromini’s Church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza
  • Posted: April 9th, 2025
Borromini began construction on another of his architectural masterpieces, the church of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza in Rome, Italy, in 1642 for Pope Urban VIII. His curvilinear façade, bulging drum, and spiraling lantern are all eye-popping aspects of his design. But it is the extraordinary floor plan ...
Episode 324 – Borromini’s Oratory of the Filippini
  • Posted: April 3rd, 2025
In 1637, Francesco Borromini designed and began building an oratory – a place for public worship and musical performances – for the followers of St. Phillip Neri, known as the “Filippini.” The façade of this oratory is another of Borromini’s visionary architectural projects with its curve...
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