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.
Episodes
Episode 258 – Caravaggio’s “Crucifixion of St. Peter”
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Posted: December 27th, 2023
Caravaggio’s interpretation of St. Peter’s particular martyrdom – crucifixion in an upside-down position – for the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, Italy, is a moving example of realism and physicality. Three executioners struggle to lift the burly fisherman who seems to embr...
Episode 257 – Caravaggio’s Cerasi Chapel
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Posted: December 20th, 2023
Located in the Augustinian church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, Italy, the Cerasi Chapel contains two paintings by Caravaggio – the “Crucifixion of St. Peter” and the “Conversion of St. Paul.” The paintings were commissioned by Monsignor Tiberio Cerasi, who was the treasurer general o...
Episode 256 – Caravaggio’s “St. Matthew and the Angel”
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Posted: December 13th, 2023
In 1602, Caravaggio signed his final contract with the Contarelli family to paint an altarpiece for their family chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, Italy. The first painting (now lost) that Caravaggio produced was rejected because it depicted St. Matthew as a rustic and rather s...
Episode 255 – Caravaggio’s “Calling of St. Matthew”
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Posted: December 6th, 2023
The “Calling of St. Matthew” was the second of three paintings that Caravaggio executed for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, Italy. It depicts the dramatic moment when Christ called Matthew, the tax collector, to follow him in his mission. Caravaggio transfo...
Episode 254 – Caravaggio’s “Martyrdom of St. Matthew”
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Posted: November 29th, 2023
The first of three paintings that Caravaggio painted for the Contarelli Chapel in the official French church of Rome, San Luigi dei Francesi, the “Martyrdom of St. Matthew" was the artist’s first large scale painting. It depicts the assassination of the saint and evangelist at high mass in a d...
Episode 253 – Caravaggio and the Contarelli Chapel
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Posted: November 22nd, 2023
Only July 23, 1599, Caravaggio signed the contract with the heirs of Cardinal Matthieu Cointerel (“Contarelli” in Italian) to produce three paintings for their family chapel in the official French church of Rome called San Luigi dei Francesi. This episode examines the history of the church, chap...
Episode 251 – Caravaggio’s Paintings in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence
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Posted: November 8th, 2023
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence contains three paintings by Caravaggio. Two of them, the “Bacchus” and “The Medusa Shield” were sent by Cardinal Del Monte to Grand Duke Ferdinand de’ Medici, while the third, the “Sacrifice of Isaac,” was acquired later. All three paintings reflect Carav...
Episode 249 – The Life of Caravaggio – The Cursed Painter
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Posted: October 25th, 2023
Known as the “pittore maledetto” – or the “cursed painter”, Caravaggio not only revolutionized painting at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries with his “hyper-realistic” style, but he also literally turned Rome on its head with his often-criminal behavior. Spending much of his time...
Episode 248 – Answers to Open Questions XVIII
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Posted: October 18th, 2023
From the water source of the Neptune Fountain in Florence, to the animal symbolism of the Nativity subject, to the restorations of Masacccio’s Brancacci Chapel and “Holy Trinity,” to how Leonardo’s notebook ended up in the Windsor collection, to the accuracy of historical fiction movie and t...
Episode 247 – Titian’s “Pietà” (Accademia Gallery, Venice)
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Posted: October 11th, 2023
Left unfinished at this death in 1576, Titian’s “Pietà” was intended to serve as his funerary monument. Its extreme use of loose brushstroke and unconventional color combinations led one art historian to describe the painting as an example of “chromatic alchemy.”
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Episode 246 – Titian’s “Crowning with Thorns” (Alte Pinakothek, Munich)
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Posted: October 4th, 2023
Painted in the last year’s of Titian’s life, the “Crowning with Thorns” in Munich revisited a theme that he painted 30 years earlier in a painting today located in the Louvre in Paris. Examined side by side, there is perhaps no better way to demonstrate the dramatic evolution of Titian’s s...
Episode 245 – Titian’s “Venus Blindfolding Cupid” (Borghese Gallery, Rome)
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Posted: September 27th, 2023
Painted around 1565, this exquisite painting exemplifies Titian’s later style with its loose brushstroke, sophisticated use of color, and delicate tonal transitions. The meaning of the painting is somewhat controversial as it does not fall into any traditional iconographical schemes and has conseq...
Episode 243 – Paolo Veronese’s “Wedding Feast at Cana” (Louvre, Paris)
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Posted: September 13th, 2023
In 1562, Veronese was commissioned to paint a massive painting of the “Wedding Feast at Cana” to adorn the end wall of the refectory of the Benedictine monastery of San Giorgio in Venice, Italy. What he produced was an extraordinary impression of typical Venetian revelry in the late 16th century...
Episode 242 – Paolo Veronese’s Church of San Sebastiano in Venice
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Posted: September 6th, 2023
Paolo Veronese is the third member of the great Venetian late Renaissance trio that also includes Titian and Tintoretto. The church of San Sebastiano in Venice was decorated over 15 years with paintings exclusively by Veronese and is a veritable shrine to the genius of this great painter.
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Episode 239 – Tintoretto’s Scuola di San Rocco P. 3 (The Albergo Paintings)
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Posted: August 16th, 2023
Tintoretto’s paintings in the Albergo (board room) of the Scuola of San Rocco are dramatic representations of the Passion of Jesus Christ. From his tragic “Ecce Homo” all the way to his Hollywood-style “Crucifixion,” Tintoretto produced some of the most innovative and theatrical paintings ...
Episode 237 – Tintoretto’s Scuola of San Rocco (Venice)
The Scuola Grande of San Rocco in Venice, Italy, is the only active “scuola,” or confraternity, in the city. It has maintained its original appearance and magnificent decoration – nearly all of which was by Tintoretto - for the last five centuries. This podcast explores the history of the scuo...
Episode 236 – Answers to Open Questions XVII
From the original location and patron of Donatello’s “Mary Magdalene,” to the influence of Giotto on Taddeo Gaddi, to the original meeting hall of the Florentine government, to the dome of St. Peter’s, to the authenticity of the recently discovered “Flaget Madonna” attributed by some t...
Episode 235 – Gallery of the Maps (Vatican Museums)
Stretching 120m in length with its walls covered entirely in 16th century maps of various Italian city states, principalities, and islands, the Gallery of the Maps is one of the most spectacular spaces in the Vatican Museums.
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Episode 233 – Vasari’s “Last Judgment” (Florence Cathedral)
The dome frescoes of Florence Cathedral cover nearly an acre of dome surface, making it the world’s largest fresco. Begun by Giorgio Vasari in 1572 and completed by Federico Zuccari in 1579, the main subject of the fresco is the Last Judgment and incudes some strikingly graphic imagery in the Hell...
Episode 232 – Ammannati’s “Neptune Fountain” (Piazza Signoria, Florence)
Commissioned by Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici for the marriage of his son Francesco to Johanna of Austria, the massive fountain occupies the northwestern corner of the Palazzo Vecchio. Portraying the duke as the god of the sea, the fountain imagery was intended to glorify the Medici dynasty, but was no...
