Podcast - Rocky Ruggiero

REBUILDING THE RENAISSANCE PODCAST

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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.

"No one brings the Renaissance to life better than Rocky"

- Valoreev

"No one brings the Renaissance to life better than Rocky"

- Historywrocky

"No one brings the Renaissance to life better than Rocky"

- Treskovich

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Episodes

Episode 295 – Bernini’s “St. Longinus”

Posted: September 11th, 2024

In 1627, Bernini became the head architect of St. Peter’s Basilica. His first project was to oversee the decoration of the great crossing piers of the church. Four different sculptors – including Bernini – each produced a large-scale sculpture of a saint. But it was Bernini’s 4m tall marble ...

Episode 294 – Maderno’s “Confessio” in St. Peter’s

Posted: September 4th, 2024

Located directly in front of the high altar of St. Peter’s and below Bernini’s magnificent Baldacchino, Maderno’s “Confessio” is an architectural stage that allows the faithful to revere the remains of St. Peter. It consists of a beautiful marble balustrade, nearly 100 perpetually burnin...

Episode 293 – Bernini’s Baldacchino

Posted: August 29th, 2024

Commissioned in 1623 by Pope Urban VIII – whose coat of arms are ubiquitous throughout the monument - Bernini’s Baldacchino was his first large-scale project. Standing over 100ft. tall, the bronze structure marks the central point of the great Basilica of St. Peter over the tomb of the first pop...

Episode 292 – Bernini’s “David”

Posted: August 21st, 2024

Gian Lorenzo Bernini carved his statue of “David” in 1623 in only 7 months, interrupting his work working on the “Apollo and Daphne” to do so. His “David” shows the young shepherd boy in the act of casting the stone with an assortment of symbols surrounding him. Perhaps the most striki...

Episode 291 – Bernini’s “Apollo and Daphne”

Posted: August 15th, 2024

In 1622, at the age of 24, Gian Lorenzo Bernini began carving his most spectacular sculpture, the “Apollo and Daphne,” for Cardinal Scipione Borghese. The marble statue magically demonstrates the transformation of the nymph Daphne into a laurel tree to escape the advances of the god Apollo....

Episode 290 – Bernini’s “Pluto and Persephone”

Posted: August 7th, 2024

Located in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, Italy, and carved when Bernini was only 23 years old, the spectacular “Pluto and Persephone” depicts the Greek myth which explains the cyclical seasons. Pluto, the god of the underworld, abducts Persephone. Eventually forced to release her, Pluto tricks P...

Episode 289 – Bernini’s “Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius”

Posted: July 31st, 2024

Carved when Bernini was only 20 years old for the powerful cardinal-nephew Scipione Borghese, the “Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius” demonstrated the extraordinary talent of the sculptor to the world. Mesmerizing special effects transform stone into stretching, malleable flesh, and textures that yo...

Episode 288 – The Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Posted: July 24th, 2024

Born in Naples in 1598, the sculptor, painter and architect, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, showed signs of genius from a very early age. He produced some of history’s greatest sculptures, such as the “Apollo and Daphne” and the “Pluto and Persephone.” But he also blurred the lines between sculptur...

Episode 287 – The Façade St. Peter’s

Posted: July 17th, 2024

In 1608, the architect Carlo Maderno was commissioned by Pope Paul V to complete the Basilica of St. Peter by building its façade. That façade has been criticized for centuries for looking more like a palace façade than a church façade because of its emphasis on horizontality. This podcast explo...

Episode 286 – Answers to Open Question XXI

Posted: July 10th, 2024

From Caravaggio’s courtesan models to the “Michelangelo” kitchen drawing going up for sale for €8M, to the restoration of Masaccio’s “Holy Trinity” and Brancacci Chapel frescoes, to my recommendations for art historical journals, to moving massive canvas paintings and much, much more �...

Episode 285 – The Death of Caravaggio

Posted: July 3rd, 2024

In the summer of 1610, allegedly after obtaining a papal pardon for his crime of murder, Caravaggio headed back to Rome. But he would never make it to Rome nor enjoy his reacquired freedom. Instead, he would die under rather mysterious circumstances in southern Tuscany. This podcast explores the m...

Episode 284 – Caravaggio’s “Martyrdom of St. Ursula”

Posted: June 26th, 2024

Located in the Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano in Naples, Caravaggio’s “Martyrdom of St. Ursula” is considered the great artist’s last painting. Depicting the moment when St. Ursula is shot at close range by an arrow and including a self-portrait of the artist in the background, the painting mark...

Episode 283 – Caravaggio’s “Denial of St. Peter”

Posted: June 19th, 2024

In the fall of 1609, shortly after returning to Naples in hopes of receiving a papal pardon, Caravaggio was ambushed by four men who severely disfigured his face. It was a few months later that Caravaggio painted the “Denial of St. Peter,” which was one of his last two paintings and that perhaps...

Episode 282 – Caravaggio’s “Adoration of the Shepherds”

Posted: June 12th, 2024

Painted for the Capuchin fathers at the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Messina, Sicily, in 1609, Caravaggio’s “Adoration of the Shepherds” is a moving spiritual scene within an impoverished and dilapidated setting....

Episode 281 – Caravaggio’s “The Raising of Lazarus”

Posted: June 5th, 2024

After spending some time in Siracusa, Sicily, Caravaggio – still on the run from the Knights of Malta - headed north to the town of Messina. There he painted another of his hauntingly beautiful late works, which, in this case, depicts Christ bringing Lazarus back from the dead. The disturbingly re...

Episode 280 – Caravaggio’s “Burial of St. Lucy”

Posted: May 29th, 2024

After his daring escape from the island of Malta, Caravaggio went to Siracusa, Siscily. There he painted one of his most haunting works – the “Burial of St. Lucy.” An oppressive yellowish light illuminates the macabre burial of the early Christian martyr whose head almost looks detached from i...

Episode 279 – Caravaggio: Back to Black

Posted: May 22nd, 2024

After having been invested into the Knights of Malta and producing two of his most beautiful paintings while he was on the island, Caravaggio finally seemed to have cleaned up his act. But, on the night of August 28, 1608, Caravaggio was involved in a near fatal assault on a superior officer and imp...

Episode 278 – Caravaggio’s “The Beheading of St. John the Baptist”

Posted: May 15th, 2024

While in Malta in 1608, Caravaggio painted one of his most sensational paintings – “The Beheading of St. John the Baptist.” Measuring 12ft. (3.7n) x 17ft. (5.2m), the massive oil on canvas work depicts the moment after the executioner had used his sword to decapitate the Baptist. We now see hi...

Episode 277 – Caravaggio’s “Sleeping Cupid”

Posted: May 8th, 2024

Caravaggio, still a fugitive from justice, left Naples for Malta in the second half of 1607 most likely because the sensational paintings he produced in Naples were drawing too much attention to him. When he arrived in Malta, he was inducted into the brotherhood and apparently changed his ways. One ...

Episode 276 – Caravaggio’s “Madonna of the Rosary”

Posted: May 2nd, 2024

Painted in 1607 while Caravaggio was in Naples, Italy, trying to elude the long arm of papal law for the murder he committed in Rome, the “Madonna of the Rosary” is Caravaggio’s most standard Baroque painting. While the patron is unknown, curiously, the painting went up for sale a few months a...

Episode 275 – Caravaggio’s “Flagellation”

Posted: April 24th, 2024

Located in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, Italy, Caravaggio painted the “Flagellation” in 1607 while he was hiding out in Naples because he was wanted for murder in Rome. The “Flagellation” is dramatically sadistic scene of imminent torture set – like so many of Caravaggio’s paintings...

Episode 274 – Caravaggio’s “Seven Acts of Mercy”

Posted: April 17th, 2024

When Caravaggio arrived in Naples as a fugitive on the run from papal justice in 1606, he immediately began to receive commissions. One of his first was for a charitable organization called the “Pio Monte della Misericordia.” This organization had just built a church with seven altars upon which...

Episode 273 – Answers to Open Questions XX

Posted: April 10th, 2024

From similar faces in the Scrovegni Chapel, to identifying Judas in Veronese’s “Feast in the House of Levi,” to the symbolic gestures of the apostles in Caravaggio’s “Supper at Emmaus,” to the “Isleworth Mona Lisa,” to my advice to a young person about life and much, much more - this...

Episode 272 – Caravaggio’s “David with the Head of Goliath”

Posted: April 3rd, 2024

Painted shortly after Caravaggio killed a man in Rome and was a fugitive from justice, the “David with the Head of Goliath” is today located in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, Italy. The painting was given to Cardinal Scipione Borghese in hopes that he could convince his uncle, Pope Paul V, to par...

Episode 271 – Caravaggio’s “Supper at Emmaus” (2nd Version)

Posted: March 27th, 2024

Located in the Brera Gallery in Milan, Italy, Caravaggio’s 2nd “Supper at Emmaus” was painted in the immediate aftermath of Caravaggio’s murder of Ranuccio Tommasoni on the streets of Rome. A wounded Caravaggio was a fugitive from justice and hiding out from the authorities in the hills sur...

Episode 270 – Caravaggio: Wanted Dead or Alive

Posted: March 20th, 2024

O May 28, 1606, Caravaggio stabbed and killed a man named Ranuccio Tommasoni in Rome, allegedly over an unpaid wager. Discover the details of the homicide that changed Caravaggio’s life forever and turned him into a fugitive from justice....

Episode 269 – Caravaggio’s St. Jerome (Borghese Gallery)

Posted: March 13th, 2024

In 1605, Caravaggio painted an image of St. Jerome for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, and the painting is still located in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, Italy. Caravaggio’s depiction of the Father of the Church is a very quiet and intimate one, where we see a scholar in a sparsely furnished room cons...

Episode 268 – Caravaggio’s “Madonna of the Palafrenieri”

Posted: March 6th, 2024

Painted in 1605 for the chapel of the Papal grooms, known as “Palafrenieri,” in the new Basilica of St. Peter, Caravaggio’s painting was removed after only a few days because it was considered indecorous. The stark nudity of the Christ Child, the bulging breasts of the Virgin Mary (who was mod...

Episode 267 – Caravaggio’s “Deposition”

Posted: February 28th, 2024

Located in the Pinacoteca of the Vatican Museums, Caravaggio’s “Deposition” was thought by many of his contemporaries to be the painter’s greatest work. The dramatic representation of very real-looking biblical characters handling the dead body of Christ in a shallow, tenebrously-lit f...

Episode 266 – Caravaggio’s “Death of the Virgin”

Posted: February 21st, 2024

Commissioned in 1601 for a chapel in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Scala, Caravaggio’s “Death of the Virgin” was rejected by the Carmelite friars of the church. While some believe it was because of the stark and indecorous representation of the dead Virgin Mary, one of Caravaggio’s b...