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REBUILDING THE RENAISSANCE PODCAST
Available on your favorite platform
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
Episode 181 – Raphael’s “Transfiguration” (Vatican Museums)
  • Posted: July 6th, 2022
Commissioned in 1516, four years before Raphael's premature death at the age of 37, by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, the "Transfiguration" was Raphael's last great altarpiece. The painting is a sort of summation of Raphael's artistic evolution, and not only synthesizes the artistic styles of Leonardo ...
Episode 178 – Rome – Raphael’s Room of the Fire in the Borgo
  • Posted: June 15th, 2022
The last of the apartments decorated by Raphael for Popes Julius II and Leo X was the Room of the Fire in the Borgo, painted between 1514-1517. Although largely executed by Raphael's student and friend Giulio Romano, the frescoes represent Raphael's mature period and were completed only 3 years befo...
Episode 177 – Rome – Raphael’s Room of Heliodorus
  • Posted: June 8th, 2022
In 1511, after completing the decoration of the Stanza della Segnatura, Raphael began painting the walls of Pope Julius' private audience room. Named after its principal scene - The Expulsion of Heliodorus - the room contains four of Raphael's most beautiful paintings. This episode will explore the ...
Episode 176 – Rome – Raphael’s School of Athens Part III
  • Posted: June 1st, 2022
This is the final episode of a three-part series dedicated to Raphael's great fresco in the Vatican Museums. It addresses the extraordinary Classically-inspired architectural setting of the painting, as well as identifying the celebrated philosophical and scientific personages depicted. Lastly, this...
Episode 175 – Rome – Raphael’s “School of Athens” Part II
  • Posted: May 25th, 2022
This episode explores the decorative context of Raphael's famous fresco. From Apollo on Mt. Parnassus, to the allegorical figures of the cardinal virtues, the extraordinary "Disputa", the paintings around the "School of Athens" are fundamental to its meaning....
Episode 174 – Rome – Raphael’s “School of Athens” Part I
  • Posted: May 18th, 2022
Although Raphael's fresco known as the "School of Athens" is the most celebrated painting of the Stanza della Segnatura, it is actually a part of a much larger program. This episode addresses the original function of the room, which was Pope Julius II's library, and how all of Raphael's paintings ar...
Episode 173 – Raphael – The Prince of Painters
  • Posted: May 11th, 2022
This episode examines the extraordinary career of one of the most important painters in history – Raphael Sanzio da Urbino – better known simply as “Raphael.” Along with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Raphael heralded in the period known as the High Renaissance. Combining grace, eleganc...
Episode 172 – Answers to Open Questions XII
  • Posted: May 4th, 2022
From unfinished church facades, to postponed Palios, to Renaissance giraffes, to Mona Lisa's smile, to the building behind the Trevi Fountain - and much, much more - this episode answers the very questions that you asked me about the great art, artists and history of the Italian Renaissance....
Episode 171 – Rome: Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel Ceiling Part VI
  • Posted: April 27th, 2022
The prophets and sibyls that flank the main scenes of the Sistine Chapel ceiling are some of Michelangelo's most impressive figures. Their dramatic poses, expressive, vibrant colors and powerful forms are both inspirational and frightening. Below and between them, Michelangelo filled the spandrels ...
Episode 170 – Rome: Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel Ceiling Part V
  • Posted: April 20th, 2022
The last three Genesis scenes of the Sistine Chapel ceiling demonstrate Michelangelo's extraordinary ability to represent complex subjects in incredibly effective ways. But they also reveal the divine artist's haste to complete the ceiling project. This episode closely examines the iconography, styl...
Episode 169 – Rome: Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel Ceiling – Part IV
  • Posted: April 13th, 2022
By the time Michelangelo reached the frescoes in the middle of the ceiling, he introduced a major stylistic change, due, most likely, to being able to see the frescoes from the ground. This episode examines the Adam and Eve scenes and how they reflect this stylistic change as well as revealing the m...
Episode 168 – Rome: Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel Ceiling – Part III
  • Posted: April 6th, 2022
Painting an 8,000 sq. ft. fresco cycle onto the ceiling of a chapel must have been a daunting task even for an artist of the caliber of Michelangelo. This episode examines the process and order by which Michelangelo executed his frescoes, focusing specifically on the first three painted scenes that ...
Episode 166 – Rome: Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel Ceiling – Part I
  • Posted: March 23rd, 2022
When Michelangelo signed the contract with Pope Julius II in 1508 to paint the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, little did he know the turmoil that awaited him. This first of several podcasts dedicated to the world's most famous ceiling will examine the circumstances behind the contract between artist and ...
Episode 165 – Rome: The Basilica of St. Peter
  • Posted: March 16th, 2022
After 120 years of construction, the reign of 18 different popes, and the direction of 12 different architects, St. Peter’s Basilica was finally consecrated in 1626. Measuring more than two football fields in length, it was by far the largest church in Christendom, and a fitting monument to the bu...
Episode 164 – Michelangelo and the Tomb of Julius II
  • Posted: March 9th, 2022
When Michelangelo was called to Rome in 1506 by the Pope Julius II, it was to design and carve the mother of all tombs. Intended to stand four stories in height and directly over the tomb of St. Peter, and to accommodate 40 over-life-sized statues, it was a direct reflection of both the pope’s meg...
Episode 161 – Venice: Giorgione’s “Tempest” and “La Vecchia”
  • Posted: February 16th, 2022
Notwithstanding that his life and artistic career were cut short by plague in 1510 while the artist was in his thirties, Giorgione revolutionized European painting by his introduction of enigmatic and unconventional iconography. This episode examines two of Giorgione's most important paintings, both...
Episode 160 – Venice – Vittore Carpaccio’s “The Legend of St. Ursula”
  • Posted: February 9th, 2022
Carpaccio's extraordinary visual narrative of the life of St. Ursula is one of the most celebrated examples of cyclical Venetian Renaissance painting. Recently restored, the nine large canvases are now on display in the Accademia Gallery of Venice and present a vivid snapshot of life in Venice at th...
Episode 158 – Venice: Giovanni Bellini’s “St. Job Altarpiece”
  • Posted: January 26th, 2022
This episode examines the first great Venetian painting of the Renaissance. Although the Venetian school of painting appeared almost a full century after that of Florence, the extraordinary genius of Venetian painters such as Giovanni Bellini rapidly made it the major rival of central Italian Renais...
Episode 157 – Answers to Open Questions XI
  • Posted: January 19th, 2022
From Botticelli and the Bonfires of the Vanities, to the extraordinary collection of artists' portraits and self-portraits in the Uffizi Gallleries, to the use of AI in art authentication, to Botticelli's $92M "Portrait of a Young Man with a Medal," to the Virgin Mary's thoughts in Michelangelo's P...
Episode 156 – The Divine Michelangelo Part VIII – The Doni Tondo
  • Posted: January 12th, 2022
This episode examines the only painting by Michelangelo in Florence, and one of only two finished paintings executed by the artist before he decorated the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In many ways the vibrant, expressive colors and sculptural plasticity of the figures in this painting anticipated ...
Episode 154 – Leonardo vs. Michelangelo- The Battle of the Battles – Part I
  • Posted: December 29th, 2021
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. This first of a two-part series w...
Episode 153 – Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa
  • Posted: December 22nd, 2021
When Leonardo began painting the portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of the wealthy cloth merchant Francesco del Giocondo, in 1503, little did he know just how much employment he would generate for future art historians. From theories concerning her enigmatic smile, to the painting being a self-portra...
Episode 152 – The Divine Michelangelo Part VII – The David (Part III)
  • Posted: December 15th, 2021
This episode is the third and final part of a three-part podcast on the world's most celebrated statue. From the lack of Goliath's head, to the sling and hard-to-see stone in David's hands, to the expressive body language of the statue, this podcast will examine the unique iconography and local civi...
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