La Cattedrale di Cortona (Arezzo)

La Cattedrale di Cortona ha tratti etruschi e romani essendo infatti eretta su quella che era la Corys etrusca e alcune parti di essa sono effettivamente etrusche. Verso l'anno 1000 venne eretta una pieve romanica che, successivamente, l'architetto Nicola Pisano ristrutturò nel 1262. Costituita attualmente da tre navate, essa è principalmente rinascimentale a seguito di una ristrutturazione avvenuta tra il 1481 e il 1507. La Cattedrale è praticamente un museo con opere di grandissimo valore artistico, tra i quali la Madonna del Rosario di Lodovico Carli detto il Cigoli, un Crocefisso della scuola di Luca Signorelli, l'Assunzione di Maria di Andrea Del Sarto, la Natività di Pietro Berrettini detto il Cortona.

 

The Cathedral of Cortona (Arezzo)

The Cathedral of Cortona has Etruscans and Romans features because it was built on what once was the Etruscan Corys and some parts of it are actually Etruscan. Around the year 1000 was built a Romanesque church, which later the architect Nicola Pisano rebuilt in 1262. Currently consists of three naves, it is mainly in Renaissance style as a result of a restructuring that took place between 1481 and 1507. The Cathedral is virtually a museum with masterpieces of great artistic value, including the Madonna of the Rosary of Lodovico Carli known as Cigoli, a crucifix from the school of Luca Signorelli, the Assumption of the Virgin by Andrea del Sarto, the Nativity of Pietro Berrettini known as Il Cortona.

 

© Riccardo Senis, All Rights Reserved

This image may not be copied, reproduced, republished, edited, downloaded, displayed, modified, transmitted, licensed, transferred, sold, distributed or uploaded in any way without my prior written permission.

Shot in Montclair, NJ. (c) 2011, Sally Clark Sheola.

Model: Christina Signorelli, Model Mayhem #1155959.

Styling by me (SCSheola). Creative direction contributed by Andy Cohen.

Luca Signorelli, Cortona ca. 1445 - 1523

Trinità, Madonna col Bambino, santi e arcangeli /

Madonna und Kind mit der Dreifaltigkeit, Erzengeln und Heiligen / The Trinity, the Virgin and Two Saints

 

Luca Signorelli wurde wahrscheinlich in der Werkstatt von Piero della Francesca in Arezzo ausgebidet. Er lebte und arbeitete vor allem in der Toskana und in Umbrien und fand in Florenz durch den Einfluss von Antonio del Pollaiolo und Andrea del Verrocchio seinen eigenen Stil mit einer kraftvoll-bewegten Formensprache.

 

Die große Tafel zeigt eine Sacra Conversazione mit der Madonna und dem Kind im Zentrum, über denen die heilige Dreifaltigkeit umgeben von Cherubim schwebt. Links von Maria und dem Kind steht der Erzengel Michael, der als römischer Krieger gekleidet ist und die Seelenwage hält. Rechts trägt der Erzengel Gabriel eine Lilie und eineSchriftband, auf dem die ersten Worte der Verkündigung "Ave Maria gratia plena" zu lesen sind. Am unteren Bildrand sitzen die in reiche Messgewänder gekleideten Heiligen Augustinus and Athanasius von Alexandria.

SIGNORELLI-ASSI

Montepulciano is a medieval and Renaissance hill town and comune in the Italian province of Siena in southern Tuscany. It sits high on a 605-metre limestone ridge, 70 kilometres southeast of Siena. Montepulciano is a major producer of food and drink. Renowned for its pork, cheese, "pici" pasta, lentils, and honey, it is known worldwide for its wine. Connoisseurs consider its Vino Nobile, which should not be confused with varietal wine merely made from the Montepulciano grape, among Italy's best. The main landmarks include:

•The Palazzo Comunale, designed by Michelozzo in the tradition of the Palazzo della Signoria (Palazzo Vecchio) of Florence.

•Palazzo Tarugi, attributed to Antonio da Sangallo the Elder or Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola. It is entirely in travertine, with a portico which was once open to the public.

•The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, or the Duomo of Montepulciano, constructed between 1594 and 1680, includes a masterpiece from the Sienese School, a massive Assumption of the Virgin triptych painted by Taddeo di Bartolo in 1401.

•The church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (late 16th century). It has a simple Mannerist façade with a three-arcade portico. The interior has a single nave, and houses a precious terracotta altar by Andrea della Robbia.

•The Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Biagio is on the road to Chianciano outside the city. It is a typical 16th century Tuscan edifice, designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Elder on a pre-existing Pieve, between 1518 and 1545. It has a circular (central) plan with a large dome over a terrace and a squared tambour. The exterior, with two bell towers, is built in white travertine.

•Baroque church of Santa Lucia has an altarpiece by Luca Signorelli.

•The walls of the city date to around the 14th century.

Italien / Toskana - Volterra

 

Volterra (Italian pronunciation: [volˈtɛrra]; Latin: Volaterrae) is a walled mountaintop town in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its history dates from before the 8th century BC and it has substantial structures from the Etruscan, Roman, and Medieval periods.

 

History

 

Volterra, known to the ancient Etruscans as Velathri or Vlathri and to the Romans as Volaterrae, is a town and comune in the Tuscany region of Italy. The town was a Bronze Age settlement of the Proto-Villanovan culture, and an important Etruscan center (Velàthre, Velathri or Felathri in Etruscan, Volaterrae in Latin language), one of the "twelve cities" of the Etruscan League.

 

The site is believed to have been continuously inhabited as a city since at least the end of the 8th century BC. It became a municipium allied to Rome at the end of the 3rd century BC. The city was a bishop's residence in the 5th century, and its episcopal power was affirmed during the 12th century. With the decline of the episcopate and the discovery of local alum deposits, Volterra became a place of interest of the Republic of Florence, whose forces conquered Volterra. Florentine rule was not always popular, and opposition occasionally broke into rebellion. These rebellions were put down by Florence.

 

When the Republic of Florence fell in 1530, Volterra came under the control of the Medici family and later followed the history of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

 

Culture

 

The main events that take place during the year in Volterra are

 

Volterra gusto

Volterra arte

Volterra teatro

 

Main sights

 

Roman Theatre of Volterra, 1st century BC, excavated in the 1950s

 

the Roman amphitheatre was discovered in 2015 and has been excavated over the succeeding years

 

Piazza dei Priori, the main square, a fine example of medieval Tuscan town squares

 

Palazzo dei Priori, the town hall located on Piazza dei Priori, construction begun in 1208 and finished in 1257

 

Pinacoteca e museo civico di Volterra (Art Gallery) in Palazzo Minucci-Solaini. Founded in 1905, the gallery consists mostly of works by Tuscan artists from 14th to 17th centuries. Includes a Deposition by Rosso Fiorentino.

 

Etruscan Acropolis and Roman Cistern. The acropolis on the citadel dates to the 8th century B.C., while the impressive cistern is from the 1st century B.C.

 

Volterra Cathedral. It was enlarged in the 13th century after an earthquake. It houses a ciborium and some angels by Mino da Fiesole, a notable wood Deposition (1228), a masterwork of Romanesque sculpture and the Sacrament Chapel, with paintings by Santi di Tito, Giovanni Balducci and Agostino Veracini. In the center of the vault are fragments of an Eternal Father by Niccolò Circignani. Also noteworthy is the Addolorata Chapel, with a terracotta group attributed to Andrea della Robbia and a fresco of Riding Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli. In the nearby chapel, dedicated to the Most Holy Name of Jesus, is a table with Christ's monogram, allegedly painted by Bernardino of Siena. The rectangular bell tower is from 1493.

 

Volterra Baptistery of San Giovanni, built in the second half of the 13th century.

 

Fortezza Medicea (Medicean Fortress), built in the 1470s, now a prison housing the noted restaurant, Fortezza Medicea restaurant.

 

Guarnacci Etruscan Museum, with thousands of funeral urns dating back to the Hellenistic and Archaic periods. Main attractions are the bronze statuette "Ombra della sera" (lit. '"Shadow of the Night"'), and the sculpted effigy, "Urna degli Sposi" (lit. '"Urn of the Spouses"') of an Etruscan couple in terra cotta.

 

The Etruscan Walls of Volterra, including the well-preserved Walls of Volterra (3rd-2nd centuries BC), and Porta Diana gates.

 

The Medici Villa di Spedaletto, outside the city, in direction of Lajatico

 

There are excavations of Etruscan tombs in the Valle Bona area.

 

Volterra Psychiatric Hospital, Founded in 1888 until 1978, it was reopened for public and will be once more used for psychiatric purposes.

 

In popular culture

 

Volterra features in Horatius, a poem by Lord Macaulay.

 

Linda Proud's A Tabernacle for the Sun (2005), the first volume of The Botticelli Trilogy, begins with the sack of Volterra in 1472. Volterra is the ancestral home of the Maffei family and the events of 1472 lead directly to the Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478. The protagonist of the novel is Tommaso de' Maffei, half brother of one of the conspirators.

 

Volterra is an important location in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. In the books, Volterra is home to the Volturi, a clan of rich, regal, powerful ancient vampires, who essentially act as the rulers of the world's vampire population. (However, the relevant scenes from the movie were shot in Montepulciano.)

 

Volterra is the site of Stendhal's famously disastrous encounter in 1819 with his beloved Countess Mathilde Dembowska: she recognised him there, despite his disguise of new clothes and green glasses, and was furious. This is the central incident in his book On Love

 

Volterra is mentioned repeatedly in British author Dudley Pope's Captain Nicholas Ramage historical nautical series. Gianna, the Marchesa of Volterra and the fictional ruler of the area, features in the first twelve books of the eighteen-book series. The books chart the progress and career of Ramage during the Napoleonic wars of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, providing readers with well-scripted articulate details of life aboard sailing vessels and conditions at sea of that time.

 

Volterra is the site where the novel Chimaira by the Italian author Valerio Massimo Manfredi takes place.

 

Valerio Massimo Manfredi's The Ancient Curse is also set in Volterra, where a statue called 'The Shade of Twilight' is stolen from the Volterra museum.

 

Volterra is featured in Jhumpa Lahiri's 2008 collection of short stories Unaccustomed Earth. It is where Hema and Kaushik, the protagonists of the final short story "Going Ashore," travel before they part.

 

Volterra is featured in Luchino Visconti's 1965 film Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa, released as Sandra (Of a Thousand Delights) in the United States and as Of These Thousand Pleasures in the UK.

 

Volterra's scenery is used for Central City in the 2017 film Fullmetal Alchemist (film) directed by Fumihiko Sori.

 

The 2016 video game The Town of Light is set in a fictionalized version of the notorious Volterra Psychiatric Hospital.

 

"Volaterrae" is the name given by Dan and Una to their secret place in Far Wood in Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill. They named it from the verse in Lord Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome:

 

From lordly Volaterrae,

Where scowls the far-famed hold

Piled by the hands of giants

For Godlike Kings of old.

 

Volterra and its relationship with Medici Florence features in the 2018 second season of Medici: Masters of Florence.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Volterra, lateinisch Volaterrae, ist eine italienische Stadt mit 9980 Einwohnern (Stand 31. Dezember 2019) in der Provinz Pisa in der Region Toskana.

 

Geographie

 

Volterra liegt etwa 50 Kilometer südlich von Pisa und 30 Kilometer vom Mittelmeer entfernt. Die Stadt gilt mit ihrem spektakulären landschaftlichen Umfeld als eine der schönsten in der Toskana.

 

Der Kern der heutigen Stadt liegt abgeschieden auf einem 550 m hohen Bergrücken über dem Tal der Cecina (Val di Cecina) inmitten einer kargen, zerfurchten Hügellandschaft. Die Felsabbrüche und Geröllhalden sind das Produkt jahrhundertelanger Erosion. Das Gebiet Le Balze im Nordwesten Volterras vermittelt einen beispielhaften Eindruck dieses Phänomens.

 

Die Stadt wird beherrscht von einer heute als Staatsgefängnis benutzten Festung der Medici, der Fortezza Medicea. Volterra ist ein Zentrum der Alabasterverarbeitung.

 

Zu den Ortsteilen (Frazioni) zählen Mazzolla, Montemiccioli, Saline di Volterra und Villamagna.

 

Die Nachbargemeinden sind Casole d’Elsa (SI), Colle di Val d’Elsa (SI), Gambassi Terme (FI), Lajatico, Montaione (FI), Montecatini Val di Cecina, Peccioli, Pomarance und San Gimignano (SI).

 

Geschichte

 

Volterra kann auf eine lange Geschichte zurückblicken. Bereits im 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. entstand der Ort aus der Verbindung mehrerer kleiner etruskischer Ansiedlungen, deren Bestand bis ins 7. Jahrhundert v. Chr. zurückverfolgt werden kann. Zu dieser Zeit bauten die Etrusker eine sieben Kilometer lange Ringmauer und nannten die nunmehr vereinigte Stadt Velathri.

 

Volterra war eine der ältesten und größten der zwölf Bundesstädte Etruriens. Später war es eine römische Stadt mit den Rechten eines Municipiums. Ihre hohe Lage machte sie zu einer starken Festung, die Sulla im ersten Bürgerkrieg erst nach zweijähriger Belagerung 79 v. Chr. einnehmen konnte.

 

Im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert war Volterra eine Republik; im 14. Jahrhundert fiel es an Florenz.

 

Sehenswürdigkeiten

 

Architektonische und künstlerische Zeugnisse der verschiedenen Epochen zeugen von der wechselvollen Existenz und Bedeutung der Stadt. Einige der etruskischen Nekropolen und mittelalterlichen Kirchenmauern sind jedoch in der Vergangenheit der Erosion zum Opfer gefallen.

 

Am Hauptplatz der Stadt, der Piazza dei Priori, steht der älteste erhaltene Kommunalpalast der Toskana, der Palazzo dei Priori.

 

Von der etruskischen Stadtmauer ist als einziges Tor die Porta all’Arco gut erhalten. Es stammt aus dem 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Im äußeren Bogen sind drei verwitterte Köpfe zu erkennen, deren Bedeutung aber umstritten ist.

 

Außerhalb der mittelalterlichen Porta Fiorentina liegt das Teatro Romano, erbaut zur Zeit des Kaisers Augustus. Von der Zuschauertribüne für etwa 2000 Personen blickt man auf die teilweise rekonstruierte Bühnenwand. Die unterhalb des Theaters liegenden Thermenanlagen stammen aus späterer Zeit.

 

Andere historische öffentliche Gebäude sind der Dom Santa Maria Assunta aus dem frühen 12. Jahrhundert mit einer Kassettendecke und mit Granit vortäuschender Stuckverkleidung der Säulen sowie etlichen künstlerisch hochrangigen Ausstattungsstücken, das oktogonale Baptisterium mit einem Taufbecken von Andrea Sansovino, der auf Privatpaläste und Wohntürme aus dem 12. und 13. Jahrhundert zurückgehende Palazzo Pretorio sowie der als Gefängnis dienende Torre del Porcellino. Schließlich gehört der Palazzo Incontri-Viti zu den prachtvollsten Gebäuden Volterras.

 

Unter den Kirchen sind zu nennen: die spätromanische S. Michele sowie die Kirchen von S. Francesco, S. Lino und S. Girolamo mit Bildern und Skulpturen aus der Schule von Florenz.

 

Museen

 

Von besonderer Bedeutung ist das archäologische Museo Etrusco Guarnacci im Palazzo Desideri Tangassi. Mario Guarnacci (1701–1785), ein vielseitig interessierter Gelehrter, widmete seine Studien der antiken Geschichte. Dabei konnte er durch Ankäufe und Ausgrabungen eine ansehnliche Menge Belegmaterial über die etruskische Zivilisation sammeln.

 

Ein bedeutender Teil der Sammlung umfasst Ascheurnen sowie Stücke aus Bronze und Keramik. Die Urnen bestehen aus Tuffstein, Alabaster und Tonerde. Eine der bekanntesten ganz Etruriens ist die Urna degli Sposi (dt. Urne der Brautleute), auf deren Deckel ein Paar beim Festmahl liegend dargestellt ist.

 

Das bedeutendste Stück der Sammlung ist jedoch die Bronzefigur Ombra della sera (dt. Abendschatten). Es ist mit der Zeit zu einer „Ikone“ für das Museum und die Stadt Volterra geworden. Seine Berühmtheit verdankt es hauptsächlich seiner einzigartigen Form, die den italienischen Dichter Gabriele D’Annunzio an den Schatten einer menschlichen Figur in der Abendsonne erinnert haben soll. Es ist ein Meisterwerk etruskischer Bronzegießer aus der hellenistischen Periode. Ein weiteres bedeutendes Exponat ist die Stele des Avile Tite aus dem 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr.

 

Weitere Ausstellungsstücke sind verschiedene Mosaikböden aus der römischen Kaiserzeit, die aus Volterra und Segalari stammen. Hinzu kommt eine Münzsammlung mit seltenen etruskischen Münzen aus Gold, Silber und Bronze. Schließlich sind noch mit Edelsteinen verzierte etruskische und römische Schmuckstücke zu sehen.

 

Wichtig ist die Sammlung der seit 1982 im Minucci-Solaini-Palast untergebrachten „Pinacoteca“ mit der berühmten Kreuzesabnahme (1521), dem Meisterwerk des Malers Rosso Fiorentino, und den bedeutendsten Arbeiten von Taddeo di Bartolo, Domenico Ghirlandaio und Luca Signorelli, welche die künstlerischen Einflüsse aus Pisa, Florenz und Siena anschaulich machen.

 

Im April 2003 wurde im Turmhaus des Palazzo Minucci-Solaini das Ecomuseo dell’Alabastro eröffnet, in dem die Geschichte der Gewinnung und der Verarbeitung von Alabaster seit der Antike bis zur Gegenwart dargestellt ist.

 

Volterra in der Literatur

 

Volterra ist eine wichtige Stadt in Stephenie Meyers „Biss“-Serie. Dort ist Volterra die Heimatstadt der Volturi, einer königlichen Vampirfamilie.

 

Volterra spielt auch in der von Dudley Pope geschriebenen Romanreihe um den britischen Marineoffizier Nicolas Ramage eine Rolle. Im ersten Band rettet er während der Napoleonischen Kriege die Marchesa von Volterra vor den französischen Besatzungstruppen. Er verliebt sich in sie, und ihre Herrschaft über Volterra spielt in den weiteren Bänden eine wichtige Rolle. Auch ihr Neffe, Paolo Orsini, nächster in der Erbreihenfolge der Regentschaft, kommt in den meisten Romanen vor, da er als Fähnrich unter Ramages Kommando segelt.

 

(Wikipedia)

Rootstein

CarneMag® Issue#12 is finally online!

 

Some of the artists featured on this issue are:

ANDREA D'AQUINO / MATEUSZ KOLEK / FACUNDO GARAY / JOSEPH MARCONI / BORJA BONAQUE / FLORENCIA SIGNORELLI / MARULINA / KRISTINA COLLANTES / CECILIA AUSTIN / FEDERICO SCOPINICH / VICTORIA LEITES / CALLY WHITHAM / EMMAN MONTALVAN / CHARLY V REAL / LOBO VELAR / YOSIGO / ANDY SMITH / JACOB RING / DAVID NIKOLAISEN / MATTHEW THE HORSE / IAN FLANIGAN / THANARUTH PHOMVEHA / MICHAL PUDELKA / SIVAN MILLER / JORGE ARAGON / LAURA CAMMARATA / RACHEL AUST / RAFAEL AGUILAR / GIORGIA BORNETO / LARISSA FELSEN

  

Also some exclusive interviews to great artists like: Cecilia Austin, Lobo Velar & Facundo Garay.

 

Musical Guest: Florentino

 

Cover Artist: Joseph Marconi

 

To download this Issue or any other visit: www.carnemag.com

 

Closer look at the depiction of fantasy figures and beasts that are part of the wall decoration on the ground level walls of the Chapel of San Brizio.

Duomo Orvieto; March 2017

 

More Duomo Orvieto Pics at - www.flickr.com/photos/justaslice/albums/72157666258857589

Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art

On loan to the exhibition, The Renaissance Nude, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2018-2019

Luca Signorelli -

Self-portrait with Niccolò di Angelo Franchi [ca. 1504] -

Selbstbildnis mit Niccolò di Angelo Franchi [um 1504] - Orvieto, Museo Opera del Duomo

c. 1505-1507. Oli i or sobre fusta. 51,4 x 47,6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nova York. 49.7.13. Obra exposada: Galeria 604.

Luca Signorelli & Bartolomeo della Gatta

Testament and death of Moses [1482] fresco

Vatican, Sistine chapel, South wall

*************************************************************

Description:

The fresco portrays the last episode in Moses' life, in two sectors: a foreground one including two scenes, and a background one, with three further scenes and, on the right, a landscape. Moses is always recognizable through his yellow garments and the green cloak, as in the rest of the cycle. The artist made an extensive use of gold painting.

 

On the background Moses, on the Mount Nebo, receives by an angel the command baton, which gives him the authority to lead the Israelites towards the Promised Land. Below, Moses descends from the mountain with the baton in his hand, similarly to Cosimo Rosselli's Descent from Mount Sinai nearby. In the foreground, on the right, is a 120-year-old Moses speaking at the crowd while holding the baton and a Holy Book: rays of light stem from his head. At his feet is the Ark of the Covenant, opened to show the Twelve Tables and the vase of the Manna. In the center, the procession includes a woman holding a child on her shoulders, wearing silk, an elegant youth portrayed from behind and a naked man sitting. The latter two characters are attributed to Luca Signorelli, as well as the man with a stick next the throne of Moses.

 

On the left is the appointment of Joshua as Moses' successor; the former kneels to receive the command baton, while the prophet has his cloak opened, showing a red-lined interior. Finally, on the left background, is the corpse of Moses on a shroud, surrounded by the dismayed Israelites.

Source:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testament_and_Death_of_Moses

Die römisch-katholische Pfarrkirche Dornbirn-St. Martin (auch: Marktkirche oder Pfarrkirche Dornbirn-Markt) steht im zentralen Stadtteil Markt in der Gemeinde Dornbirn im Bezirk Dornbirn in Vorarlberg. Sie ist dem heiligen Martin geweiht und gehört zum Dekanat Dornbirn in der Diözese Feldkirch. Das Bauwerk steht unter Denkmalschutz.

Lagebeschreibung

Die Kirche steht im zentralen Stadtteil Markt am Marktplatz.

Geschichte

Skizze der Architekten Schöch und Kornberger zum projektierten aber nicht ausgeführten Umbau 1901

Mit dem Jahre 1266 ist ein Pfarrer nachweisbar und mit dem Jahre 1401 ist eine Kirche beurkundet. Nach einem Brand wurde die Kirche in den Jahren 1669 bis 1670 vergrößert und barockisiert. In den Jahren 1751 bis 1753 wurde ein Neubau nach den Plänen von Kaspar Koller errichtet. In den Jahren 1839 bis 1840 erfolgte wieder der heutige Neubau nach den Plänen von Martin von Kink und Weihe im Jahre 1857. Von 1967 bis 1969 erfolgte eine Innenrestaurierung und Umgestaltung unter Architekt Emil Steffan.

Der ursprünglich um die Kirche liegende Friedhof wurde 1842, anlässlich des Neubaus der Kirche etwa 300 Meter Luftlinie östlich neben dem Rathaus neu errichtet, wo er noch heute besteht. Der bisherige "alte" Friedhof wurde aufgelassen und teilweise mit Bäumen bepflanzt und ist heute ein Teil des sogenannten Martinspark. 1854 wurde beim alten Friedhof vom damaligen Pfarrer ein Missionskreuz errichtet.

Architektur

Kirchenäußeres

Die Kirche mit mächtigem Saalbau und Rundchor unter einem Satteldach besitzt an der Hauptgiebelfassade einen Säulenportikus über die gesamte Breite und hat nördlich einen freistehenden Kirchturm mit Giebelspitzhelm. An der Eingangswand über den drei Portalen ist ein Fresko Christus der Weltenrichter, davon links Einzug der Krieger in den Himmel mit Heiligen Martin und Maria und rechts die Kirchenlehrer Augustinus, Hieronymus und Chrystostomus und die Dichter Dante und Milton und Künstler Michelangelo, Dürer, Rubens, Signorelli und oben Kampf der bösen Geister ist vom Maler Josef Huber aus dem Jahre 1923. Im Giebelfeld des Portikus ist ein Mosaik Einzug Jesu in Jerusalem von Josef Huber aus 1924.

Kircheninneres

Im Inneren befindet sich an der Decke ein Fresko Anbetung der Könige und Hirten, mit Vertretern des Alten und Neuen Testamentes aus 1849 vom Maler Johann Kaspar Rick. Weiters Fresken stammen von Franz Plattner aus den Jahren 1876 bis 1877.

Ausstattung

Der Volksaltar und der Taufstein sind vom Bildhauer Herbert Albrecht aus dem Jahre 1969.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfarrkirche_Dornbirn-St._Martin

L'Apocalypse

Détail des fresques de la chapelle Saint-Brice / Cappella San Brizio (1408)

Oeuvres des peintres Fra Angelico (1447-1449) puis Luca Signorelli (1499-1504) qui a complété et achevé les fresques.

 

Le site officiel du duomo d'Orvieto

www.opsm.it/

 

Article de Wikipedia sur la cathédrale d'Orvieto

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cath%C3%A9drale_d%27Orvieto

Luca Signorelli (ca. 1450-1523) - Flagellation of Jesus (ca. 1482-1485). In the collction of the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.

 

Painting commissioned by the Confraternità dei Raccomandati [Confraternity of the Commended] a brotherhood devoted to charitable works for abandonned children, whose forms of penance included auto-flagellation.

Exterior of the Sistine Chapel, from saint Peter's Basilic Sistine Chapel.

Text, in english, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Sistine Chapel (Italian: Cappella Sistina) is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. Its fame rests on its architecture, evocative of Solomon's Temple of the Old Testament and on its decoration which has been frescoed throughout by the greatest Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Raphael, Bernini, and Sandro Botticelli. Under the patronage of Pope Julius II, Michelangelo painted12,000 square feet (1,100 m2) of the chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512. He resented the commission, and believed his work only served the Pope's need for grandeur. However, today the ceiling, and especially The Last Judgement, are widely believed to be Michelangelo's crowning achievements in painting.

The Sistine Chapel takes its name from a pope, Pope Sixtus IV, who restored the old Cappella Magna between 1477 and 1480. During this period a team of painters that included Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio created a series of frescoed panels depicting the life of Moses and the life of Christ, offset by papal portraits above and trompe l’oeil drapery below. These paintings were completed in 1482, and on August 15, 1483, Sixtus IV consecrated the first mass in honor of Our Lady of the Assumption.

Since the time of Sixtus IV, the chapel has served as a place of both religious and functionary papal activity. Today it is the site of the Papal conclave, the ceremony by which a new Pope is selected.

The Sistine Chapel is best known for being the location of Papal conclaves. More commonly, it is the physical chapel of the Papal Chapel. At the time of Pope Sixtus IV in the late 15th century, this corporate body comprised about 200 people, including clerics, officials of the Vatican and distinguished laity. There were 50 occasions during the year on which it was prescribed by the Papal Calendar that the whole Papal Chapel should meet. Of these 50 occasions, 35 were masses, of which 8 were held in Basilicas, generally St. Peters, and were attended by large congregations. These included the Christmas Day and Easter masses, at which the Pope himself was the celebrant. The other 27 masses could be held in a smaller, less public space, for which the Cappella Maggiore was used before it was rebuilt on the same site as the Sistine Chapel.

The Cappella Maggiore derived its name, the Greater Chapel, from the fact that there was another chapel also in use by the Pope and his retinue for daily worship. At the time of Pope Sixtus IV this was the Chapel of Pope Nicholas V, which had been decorated by Fra Angelico. The Cappella Maggiore is recorded as existing in 1368. According to a communication from Andreas of Trebizond to Pope Sixtus IV, by the time of its demolition to make way for the present chapel the Cappella Maggiore was in a ruinous state with its walls leaning.

The present chapel, on the site of the Cappella Maggiore, was designed by Baccio Pontelli for Pope Sixtus IV, for whom it is named, and built under the supervision of Giovannino de Dolci between 1473 and 1481. The proportions of the present chapel appear to closely follow those of the original. After its completion, the chapel was decorated with frescoes by a number of the most famous artists of the High Renaissance, including Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino and Michelangelo.

The first mass in the Sistine Chapel was celebrated on August 9, 1483, the Feast of the Assumption, at which ceremony the chapel was consecrated and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

The Sistine Chapel has maintained its function to the present day, and continues to host the important services of the Papal Calendar, unless the Pope is travelling. There is a permanent choir for whom much original music has been written, the most famous piece being Allegri's Miserere.

One of the primary functions of the Sistine Chapel is as a venue for the election of each successive pope in a conclave of the College of Cardinals. On the occasion of a conclave, a chimney is installed in the roof of the chapel, from which smoke arises as a signal. If white smoke appears, created by burning the ballots of the election and some chemical additives, a new Pope has been elected. If a candidate receives less than a two-thirds majority, the cardinals send up black smoke—created by burning the ballots along with wet straw or chemical additives—it means that no successful election has yet occurred.

The conclave also provides for the cardinals a space in which they can hear mass, and in which they can eat, sleep, and pass time abetted by servants. From 1455, conclaves have been held in the Vatican; until the Great Schism, they were held in the Dominican convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

Canopies for each cardinal-elector were once used during conclaves—a sign of equal dignity. After the new Pope accepts his election, he would give his new name; at this time, the other Cardinals would tug on a rope attached to their seats to lower their canopies. Until reforms instituted by Saint Pius X, the canopies were of different colours to designate which Cardinals had been appointed by which Pope. Paul VI abolished the canopies altogether, since under his papacy, the population of the College of Cardinals had increased so much to the point that they would need to be seated in rows of two against the walls, making the canopies obstruct the view of the cardinals in the back row.

The Chapel is a high rectangular brick building, its exterior unadorned by architectural or decorative details, as common in many Medieval and Renaissance churches in Italy. It has no exterior facade or exterior processional doorways as the ingress has always been from internal rooms within the Papal Palace, and the exterior can only be seen from nearby windows and light-wells in the palace. The internal spaces are divided into three stories of which the lowest is huge with a robustly vaulted basement with several utilitarian windows and a doorway giving onto the exterior court.

Above is the main space, the Chapel, the internal measurements of which are 40.9 meters (134 ft) long by 13.4 meters (44 ft) wide—the dimensions of the Temple of Solomon, as given in the Old Testament. The vaulted ceiling rises to 20.7 meters (68 ft). The building had six tall arched windows down each side and two at either end. Several of these have been blocked, but the chapel is still accessible. Above the vault rises a third story with wardrooms for guards. At this level an open projecting gangway was constructed, which encircled the building supported on an arcade springing from the walls. The gangway has been roofed as it was a continual source of water leaking in to the vault of the Chapel.

Subsidence and cracking of masonry such as must also have affected the Cappella Maggiore has necessitated the building of very large buttresses to brace the exterior walls. The accretion of other buildings has further altered the exterior appearance of the Chapel.

As with most buildings measured internally, absolute measurement is hard to ascertain. However, the general proportions of the chapel are clear to within a few centimetres. The length is the measurement and has been divided by three to get the width and by two to get the height. Maintaining the ratio, there were six windows down each side and two at either end. The screen which divides the chapel was originally placed half way from the altar wall, but this has changed. Clearly defined proportions were a feature of Renaissance architecture and reflected the growing interest in the Classical heritage of Rome.

The ceiling of the chapel is a flattened barrel vault springing from a course that encircles the walls at the level of the springing of the window arches. This barrel vault is cut transversely by smaller vaults over each window, which divide the barrel vault at its lowest level into a series of large pendentives rising from shallow pilasters between each window. The barrel vault was originally painted brilliant blue and dotted with gold stars, to the design of Piermatteo Lauro de' Manfredi da Amelia. The pavement is in opus alexandrinum, a decorative style using marble and coloured stone in a pattern that reflects the earlier proportion in the division of the interior and also marks the processional way form the main door, used by the Pope on important occasions such as Palm Sunday.

The screen or transenna in marble by Mino da Fiesole, Andrea Bregno and Giovanni Dalmata divides the chapel into two parts. Originally these made equal space for the members of the Papal Chapel within the sanctuary near the altar and the pilgrims and townsfolk without. However, with growth in the number of those attending the Pope, the screen was moved giving a reduced area for the faithful laity. The transenna is surmounted by a row of ornate candlesticks, once gilt, and has a wooden door, where once there was an ornate door of gilded wrought iron. The sculptors of the transenna also provided the cantoria or projecting choir gallery.

During occasional ceremonies of particular importance, the side walls are covered with a series of tapestries originally designed for the chapel from Raphael, but looted a few years later in the 1527 Sack of Rome and either burnt for their precious metal content or scattered around Europe. The tapestries depict events from the Life of St. Peter and the Life of St. Paul as described in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. In the late 20th century a set was reassembled (several further sets had been made) and displayed again in the Sistine Chapel in 1983. The full-size preparatory cartoons for seven of the ten tapestries are known as the Raphael Cartoons and are in London.

Michelangelo Buonarroti was commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1508 to repaint the ceiling, originally representing golden stars on a blue sky; the work was completed between 1508 and 1 November 1512. He painted the Last Judgment over the altar, between 1535 and 1541, on commission from Pope Paul III Farnese.

Michelangelo was intimidated by the scale of the commission, and made it known from the outset of Julius II's approach that he would prefer to decline. He felt he was more of a sculptor than a painter, and was suspicious that such a large scale project was being offered to him by enemies as a set-up for an inevitable fall. For Michelangelo, the project was a distraction from the major marble sculpture that had preoccupied him for the previous few years.

The sources of Michelangelo's inspiration are not easily determined; both Joachite and Augustinian theologians were within the sphere of Julius influence. Nor is known the extent to which his own hand physically contributed to the actual physical painting of any of particular images attributed to him.

n 1508, Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II to paint the vault, or ceiling of the chapel. It took him until 1512 to complete. To be able to reach the ceiling, Michelangelo needed a support; the first idea was by Julius' favoured architect Donato Bramante, who wanted to build for him a scaffold to be suspended in the air with ropes. However, Bramante did not successfully complete the task, and the structure he built was flawed. He had perforated the vault in order to lower strings to secure the scaffold. Michelangelo laughed when he saw the structure, and believed it would leave holes in the ceiling once the work was ended. He asked Bramante what was to happen when the painter reached the perforations, but the architect had no answer.

The matter was taken before the Pope, who ordered Michelangelo to build a scaffold of his own. Michelangelo created a flat wooden platform on brackets built out from holes in the wall, high up near the top of the windows. He stood on this scaffolding while he painted.

Michelangelo used bright colours, easily visible from the floor. On the lowest part of the ceiling he painted the ancestors of Christ. Above this he alternated male and female prophets, with Jonah over the altar. On the highest section Michelangelo painted nine stories from the Book of Genesis. He was originally commissioned to paint only 12 figures, the Apostles. He turned down the commission because he saw himself as a sculptor, not a painter. The Pope offered to allow Michelangelo to paint biblical scenes of his own choice as a compromise. When the work was finished there were more than 300. His figures showed the creation, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the Great Flood.

The Sistine Chapel's ceiling restoration began on November 7th, 1984. The restoration complete, the chapel was re-opened to the public on April 8th, 1994. The part of the restoration in the Sistine Chapel that has caused the most concern is the ceiling, painted by Michelangelo. The emergence of the brightly-coloured Ancestors of Christ from the gloom sparked a reaction of fear that the processes being employed in the cleaning were too severe.

The problem lies in the analysis and understanding of the techniques utilised by Michelangelo, and the technical response of the restorers to that understanding. A close examination of the frescoes of the lunettes convinced the restorers that Michelangelo worked exclusively in "buon fresco"; that is, the artist worked only on freshly laid plaster and each section of work was completed while the plaster was still in its fresh state. In other words, Michelangelo did not work "a secco"; he did not come back later and add details onto the dry plaster.

The restorers, by assuming that the artist took a universal approach to the painting, took a universal approach to the restoration. A decision was made that all of the shadowy layer of animal glue and "lamp black", all of the wax, and all of the overpainted areas were contamination of one sort or another:- smoke deposits, earlier restoration attempts and painted definition by later restorers in an attempt to enliven the appearance of the work. Based on this decision, according to Arguimbau's critical reading of the restoration data that has been provided, the chemists of the restoration team decided upon a solvent that would effectively strip the ceiling down to its paint-impregnated plaster. After treatment, only that which was painted "buon fresco" would remain.

 

Vista externa da Capela Sistina do alto da cúpula principal da Basílica de São Pedro.

Texto, em português, da Wikipédia, a Enciclopédia livre:

A Capela Sistina é uma capela situada no Palácio Apostólico, residência oficial do Papa na Cidade do Vaticano, erigida entre os anos 1475 e 1483, durante o pontificado do Papa Sisto IV. A Celebração Eucarística de inauguração ocorreu em 15 de Agosto de 1483.

Era um projeto relativamente simples e despretensioso, no início, destinado ao culto particular dos papas e da alta hierarquia eclesiástica, contudo, fruto de uma época de expansão política e territorial da Santa Sé, viria a tornar-se num dos símbolos desta, tamanha magnificência adquiriu.

A celebridade da capela deve-se, também, ao fato de nela se realizarem os conclaves para a eleição do Sumo Pontífice da Igreja Católica Romana.

A virada do Quattrocento para o Cinquecento foi um dos momentos mais marcantes para a História da arte ocidental, quiçá mundial. A Itália, com epicentro em Florença, deu ao mundo uma tal gama de geniais artistas que parece milagrosa. "Não há como explicar a existência do gênio. É preferível apreciá-lo", diz Gombrich, tentando entender por que tantos grandes mestres nasceram no mesmo período.

A Capela Sistina é um dos locais mais propícios para aquilatar a dimensão desta explosão criativa. Para a sua feitura concorreram os maiores nomes de que dispunha a Itália no momento.

Sisto IV, como parte da política que empreendia para o restabelecimento do prestígio e fortalecimento do papado, convocou a Roma os maiores artistas da Itália. Florença era o centro de excelência até então. De lá e da Úmbria vieram os maiores nomes, fato que deslocaria para Roma a capitalidade cultural, que atingiria o zênite algumas décadas depois, com a eleição de Júlio II para ocupar a Cátedra de São Pedro. Para a história da cultura o significado do projeto e construção da Sistina é imenso, juntamente com as demais obras encomendadas por Sisto IV. Não somente porque marca o deslocamento da capitalidade cultural para Roma, mas por se tratar do ciclo pictórico de maior relevo da Itália no final do século XV, "constituindo além disso um documento inapreciável para observar as virtudes e os limites da pintura do Quattrocento'".

Com exceção de Ghirlandaio, os pintores que nela assinalaram seus talentos avançam com a sua obra o século seguinte e os gênios que mudaram os rumos da pintura no período estão todos estreitamente relacionados com eles: Ghirlandaio fora mestre de Michelangelo; Rafael aprendiz de Perugino; e no atelier de Verrocchio passaram: Leonardo, Perugino e Botticelli.

Mais que um liame entre o Quattrocento e o Cinquecento, esta geração de artistas "representa um ponto final, a constatação de uma crise. Algo que ficará manifesto pelo fato de que tanto Leonardo como Michelangelo construírem em boa medida suas respectivas linguagens sobre a negação da deles".

foi o autor do projeto arquitetônico para a construção da capela. Este florentino era um dos responsáveis pela reformulação e revitalização urbanística que Sisto IV efetuava em Roma, tendo realizado dezenas de obras públicas.

No projeto, construído com a supervisão de Giovannino de Dolci entre 1473 e 1484, emprestaram seus dons: Perugino, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Rosselli, Signorelli, Pinturicchio, Piero di Cosimo, Bartolomeo della Gatta, Rafael e outros. Coroando este festival, alguns anos depois, um dos maiores gênios artísticos de todos os tempos: Michelangelo Buonarroti.

As dimensões do projeto de Baccio Pontelli tiveram como inspiração as descrições contidas no Antigo Testamento relativas ao Templo de Salomão. A sua forma é retangular medindo 40,93 m de longitude, 13,41 m e largura e 20,70 m de altura. Os numerosos artistas vestiram o seu interior, esculpindo e pintando as suas paredes, transformando-a em um estupendo e célebre lugar conhecido em todo o mundo pelas maravilhosas obras de arte que encerra.

Uma finíssima transenna de mármore, em que trabalharam Mino de Fiesole, Giovanni Dálmata e Andréa Bregno, divide a capela em duas partes desiguais. Os mesmos artistas levaram a cabo a construção do coro.

Internamente, as paredes, divididas por cornijas horizontais, apresentam 3 níveis:

 

* o primeiro nível, junto ao chão em mármore - que, em alguns setores, apresenta o característico marchetado cosmatesco - simula refinadas tapeçarias. No lado direito, próximo à transenna está o coro;

 

* o intermediário é onde figuram os afrescos narrando os episódios da vida de Cristo e de Moisés. A cronologia inicia-se a partir da parede do altar, onde se encontravam, antes da feitura do Juízo Final de Michelangelo, as primeiras cenas e um retábulo de Perugino representando a Virgem da Assunção, a quem foi dedicada a capela.

 

* o nível mais alto, onde estão as pilastras que sustentam os pendentes do teto. Acima da cornija estão situadas as lunettes, entre as quais foram alocadas as imagens dos primeiros papas.

No último quartel do século XX, obras empreendidas no teto da Capela Sistina no intuito de recuperar o brilho original do tempo de Michelangelo foram motivo de inúmeras controvérsias.

Restaurações vinham sendo feitas ao longo dos anos, e desde a década de 1960 já se trabalhava nos afrescos mais antigos. O projeto mais audacioso, a cargo do restaurador Gianluigi Colalucci, iniciou-se em 1979 com a limpeza da parede do altar: o Juízo Final, de Michelangelo.

Durante este período a capela esteve fechada ao público que visita o Museu do Vaticano - cerca de 3.000.000 pessoas por ano - só voltando a ser reaberta em 8 de Abril de 1994.

The construction of this chapel (also known as the Cappella Nuova and Signorelli chapel) was started in 1408 and completed in 1444. The chapel was decorated with frescos initially by Fra Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli in 1447, but most of the frescos were made by Luca Signorelli between 1500 and 1503.

Severus Alexander. AD 222-235. AV Aureus (21mm, 6.35 g, 12h). Rome mint. 14th emission, AD 231. IMP ALEXAN DER PIVS AVG, laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / VOTIS/VICEN/NALI/BVS in four lines within wreath. RIC IV 260; Calicó 3146a; Cohen 595; BMCRE 818; Biaggi –. Choice EF, lustrous. Well centered on a broad flan. Extremely rare, apparently the third known of this reverse type and the second known of this variety. RIC references Cohen who, along with BMCRE, cites the piece in Vienna. There are none in CoinArchives, and the type is absent from all the following collections: (public) ANS, BM, BN, Boston MFA, Fitzwilliam, Hunterian, Milan, Princeton, Torino, and Uppsala; (private) Bahrfeldt, Bement, Biaggi, Brand, Cantoni, Caruso, Echt, A.J. Evans, Garrucci, Giorgi, Hunt, Jameson, Levis, Magnaguti, Mazzini, Montagu, Piancastelli, Platt-Hall, Ponton d’Amecourt, de Quelen, Roth, Sartiges, Signorelli, and Trau. Cf. Calicó 3146 for the unique aureus with the same reverse type, but a different bust type.

 

This extremely limited issue produced in AD 231 to celebrate Severus Alexander’s vicennalia poses some interesting questions for numismatists. The year previous, types commemorating Alexander’s decennalia were minted, and were evidently intended to mark a decade since Alexander had been installed as Caesar by Elagabalus. Although Melville Jones suggests that coins commemorating vows could be struck several years ahead of time (the emperor Valens, for example, celebrated his vicennalia despite only reigning for fourteen years), striking an issue an entire decade in advance seems rather unusual. One possibility is that the issue in AD 230 was to commemorate the discharge of Alexander’s first set of vows, which were then renewed the following year, at which point another special issue was struck. In this sense the two issues would be the precursor of the “VOT X MULT XX” types seen so frequently from the fourth century onwards. This coin lacks the “SIC” or “MULT” wording common in later issues, however, and the lapse in time between the decennalia and vicennalia types suggests that they were not conceived as two halves of the same issue.

 

TRITONXXI, 800

c. 1500-1520. Oli sobre fusta. 25 x 20,32 cm. High Museum of Art. Atlanta. 58.54. Obra no exposada.

1510s. Oli sobre fusta. 155,7 x 135,6 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. 1961.9.87. Obra exposada: Galeria 19.

This shows the left side of the chapel.

On top here are the ceiling panels depicting Doctors/Learned Men and the Choir of the Apostles.

Two large frescoes showing the Sermon of the Antichrist and The Elect in Heaven are in the middle.

And below, at ground level, is a small Chapel/Alcove to Mary Magdalene with various paintings/frescoes on the wall, including (immediately to the right) a portrait of Dante Alighieri

Duomo Orvieto, March 2017

Panorama Stitched from 2 Images with Arcsoft Panorama Maker

 

More Duomo Orvieto Pics at - www.flickr.com/photos/justaslice/albums/72157666258857589

 

This chapel was a fifteenth-century addition to the cathedral. It is almost identical in structure to the Chapel of the Corporal. The construction of this chapel (also known as the Cappella Nuova and Signorelli chapel) was started in 1408 and completed in 1444. It is closed off from the rest of the cathedral by two wrought iron gates. The first one closes off the right arm of the transept. It was signed by the Sienese master Conte di lello Orlandi (1337). The second gate stands at the entrance of the chapel and is of a much later date. It was signed by master Gismondo da Orvieto (1516).

Originally called the Cappella Nuova, or New Chapel, in 1622 this chapel was dedicated to Saint Britius (San Brizio), one of the first bishops of Spoleto and Foligno, who evangelized the people of Orvieto. Legend says that he left them a panel of the Madonna della Tavola, a Madonna enthroned with Child and Angels. This painting is from an anonymous late 13th-century master from Orvieto, who was probably influenced by Cimabue and Coppo di Marcovaldo. The face of the Child is a restoration from the 14th century. This panel stands on the late-Baroque altar of the Gloria, dating from 1715 and made by Bernardino Cametti.

Fra Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli began the decoration of the vault of the chapel in 1447. They painted only two sections: Christ in Judgment and Angels and Prophets as they were summoned in the same year to the Vatican by Pope Nicholas V to paint the Niccoline Chapel. Work came to a halt until Perugino was approached in 1489. However, he never began. After being abandoned for about 50 years, the decoration of the rest of the vault was awarded to Luca Signorelli on 5 April 1499. He added the scenes with the Choir of the Apostles, of the Doctors, of the Martyrs, Virgins and Patriarchs.

His work pleased the board and they assigned him to paint frescoes in the large lunettes of the walls of the chapel. Work began in 1500 and was completed in 1503. (There was a break in 1502 because funds were lacking.) These frescoes in the chapel are considered the most complex and impressive work by Signorelli. He and his school spent two years creating a series of frescoes concerning the Apocalypse and the Last Judgment, starting with the Preaching of the Antichrist, continuing with tumultuous episodes of the End of the World, finding a counterpart in the Resurrection of the Flesh. The fourth scene is a frightening depiction of the Damned taken to Hell and received by Demons. On the wall behind the altar, Signorelli depicts on the left side the Elect being led to Paradise and on the right side the Reprobates driven to Hell. He added to these expressive scenes some striking details.

The Preaching of the Antichrist was painted shortly after the trial on charges of heresy and execution of the Observant Dominican friar, Giralamo Savonarola in Florence on 23 May 1498. The Antichirst is depicted under the influence of the incarnated angel named Satan who suggests him what to say, while touching his rib cage. The analogy of the Antichrist sowing discord by preaching slander and calumny, would not have been lost on late 15th-century viewers. To underscore the contemporary analogy, at lower right, Signorelli includes recognizable portraits of the young Raphael, in a striking pose; Dante; possibly Christopher Columbus; Boccaccio; Petrarch; and Cesare Borgia, and, on the left, he depicts himself, dressed in noble garments, and Fra Angelico, in his Dominican habit.

In the left background the Antichrist is expelled from heavens by the archangel Michael, and his acolytes killed by a rain of fire. In the right background he depicts a large, domed temple in the Renaissance style.

The End of the World is painted over the arch of the entrance to the chapel. Signorelli paints frightening scenes as cities collapse in ruins and people flee under darkened skies. On the right side below he shows the Sibyl with her book of prophesies, and King David with raised hand predicting the end of the world. In the left corner below, people are scrambling and lying in diverse positions on the ground, producing an illusion as if falling out of the painting. This successful attempt in foreshortening was striking in its day.

The Resurrection of the Flesh is a study by Signorelli, exploring the possibilities of the male and female nude, while trying to recreate a three-dimensional setting. Signorelli shows his mastery in depicting the many positions of the human body. The risen, brought back to life, are crawling in an extreme effort from under the earth and are received by two angels in the sky blowing on a trumpet.

The Damned are taken to Hell and received by Demons is in stark contrast to the previous one. Signorelli has gone to the extremes of his fantasy and evocative powers to portray his cataclysmic vision of the horrible fate, the agony and the despair of the damned. He uses the naked human body as his only expressive element, showing the isolated bodies entangling each other, merging in a convoluted mass. They are overpowered by demons in near-human form, depicted in colours of every shade of decomposing flesh. Above them, a flying demon transports a woman. This is probably a depiction of the Whore of the Apocalypse.

The Elect in Paradise shows the elect in ecstasy looking up to music-making angels. The few extant drawings, made in preparation for this fresco, are kept in the Uffizi in Florence. They show each figure in various positions, indicating that Signorelli must have used real models in the nude to portray his figures.

Below this are smaller paintings of famous writers and philosophers watching the unfolding disaster above them with interest. Legend states that the writers depicted here are Homer, Empedocles, Lucan, Horace, Ovid, Virgil, and Dante, but the identifications are disputed by modern scholars. Several small-scale grisaille medallions depicting images from their works, including the first eleven books of Dante's Purgatorio, Orpheus, Hercules, and various scenes from Ovid and Virgil, among others.

In a niche in the lower wall is shown a Pietà that contains explicit references to two important Orvietan martyr saints, S. Pietro Parenzo (podestà of Orvieto in 1199) and S. Faustino. They stand next to the dead Christ, along with Mary Magdalen and the Virgin Mary. The figure of the dead Christ, according to Giorgio Vasari, is the image of Signorelli's son Antonio, who died from the plague during the course of the execution of the paintings. This fresco was Signorelli's last work in the chapel. But Tom Henry in his book "The Life and Art of Luca Signorelli" (Yale University Press, 2012) states that Vasari's story is not correct: "Signorelli had two sons, Antonio and Tomasso. Tomasso outlived his father and Antonio was alive when this Lamentation was delivered in February 1502, dying a few months later in July 1502." (Preface, p. xiii)

 

1508. Oli i tremp sobre fusta. 127 x 222,89 x 14,61 cm. Museu d'Art de San Diego, San Diego. 1985.59. Obra exposada.

Die unter Sixtus IV. zwischen 1475 und 1481 erbaute Sixtinische Kapelle ist die Hauptattraktion der Vatikanischen Museen und immer überfüllt. Ihre malerische Ausstattung ließ sie zum Synonym für Renaissancemalerei werden.

 

In den Jahren 1482 und 1483 wurden unter der Leitung von Pietro Perugino an den Längswänden 16 Fresken ausgeführt, von denen noch 12 erhalten sind, und die Szenen aus dem Leben von Moses als Vorläufer Christi auf der einen Seite und aus dem Leben Christi auf der anderen Seite darstellen. Die beteiligten Künstler waren neben Perugino, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Luca Signorelli und Cosimo Roselli.

 

Das riesige Deckenfresko, das die Schöpfung und die frühe Menschheitsgeschichte zum Thema hat, wurde von Michelangelo Buonarotti in zwischen 1508 und 1512 im Auftrag von Julius II. della Rovere geschaffen.

 

Michelangelo schuf in den Jahren 1535 und 1536 im Auftrag von Paul III. Farnese auch das riesige Fresko des Jüngsten Gerichts an der Stirnseite der Kapelle.

 

Leider herrscht in der Sixtinischen Kapelle Fotoverbot, so dass nur wenige Schnappschüsse, wenn überhaupt, möglich sind.

Creator: Signorelli, Luca, 1441?-1523

Title: School of Pan

Inscription: signed LVCA. CO/RTONEN

Date: ca. 1470's

Date destroyed or lost: 1945

Nationality: Italian

Medium: oil on canvas

Object dimensions: 194 x 257 cm

Former repository: Gemäldegalerie (Berlin, Germany)

Former inventory number: Inv. Nr. 79 A

Circumstances of destruction or loss: One of around 417 works of art from the Kaiser Friedrich Museum deposited in the Friedrichshain flak tower, or Flakturm, for safekeeping. The painting is presumed to have been destroyed when the tower was burned in May of 1945.

Notes: Photograph stamped: "Walter Steinkopf, Photographisches Atelier, 1 Berlin 33 (Dahlem) Fabeckstrasse 20"

Subject: Pan (Greek mythology character)

Figures, Nude

Echo (Greek mythology)

Mythological figures

Mythology, Classical

Satyrs (Greek mythology)

Nymphs (Greek dieties)

World War, 1939-1945 -- Destruction and pillage -- Germany

World War, 1939-1945 -- Art and the war

Art treasures in war

Source:Library Collection of Study Photographs and Clippings, ca. 1930-2000, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Records , 225 South Street, Williamstown MA, 01267

Type: Painting

Collection: Lost Art

 

The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted in fresco by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is a cornerstone work of High Renaissance art.

The Sistine Chapel is the large papal chapel built within the Vatican between 1477 and 1480 by Pope Sixtus IV, for whom the chapel is named. The ceiling was painted at the commission of Pope Julius II.

The ceiling's various painted elements form part of a larger scheme of decoration within the chapel. Prior to Michelangelo's contribution, the walls were painted by several leading artists of the late 15th century including Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Pietro Perugino. After the ceiling was painted, Raphael created a set of large tapestries (1515–1516) to cover the lower portion of the wall. Michelangelo returned to the chapel to create The Last Judgment, a large wall fresco situated behind the altar. The chapel's decoration illustrates much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church, serving as the location for papal conclaves and many other important services.

Central to the ceiling decoration are nine scenes from the Book of Genesis, including The Creation of Adam. The complex design includes several sets of figures, some clothed and some nude, allowing Michelangelo to demonstrate his skill in depicting the human figure in a variety of poses. The ceiling was immediately well-received and imitated by other artists, continuing to the present. It has been restored several times, most recently from 1980-94.

The walls of the Sistine Chapel had been decorated 20 years before Michelangelo's work on the ceiling. Following this, Raphael designed a set of tapestries (1515–1516) to cover the lowest of three levels; the surviving tapestries are still hung on special occasions. The middle level contains a complex scheme of frescoes illustrating the Life of Christ on the right side and the Life of Moses on the left side. It was carried out by some of the most renowned Renaissance painters: Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, Luca Signorelli, and Cosimo Rosselli. The upper level of the walls contains the windows, between which are painted pairs of illusionistic niches with representations of the first 32 popes.

The original ceiling painting was by Pier Matteo d'Amelia, and had depicted stars over a blue background like the ceiling of the Arena Chapel decorated by Giotto at Padua.For six months in 1504, a diagonal crack in the chapel's vault had made the chapel unusable, and Pope Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere) had the damaged painting removed by Piero Roselli, a friend of Michelangelo. Julius II was a "warrior pope" who in his papacy undertook an aggressive campaign for political control to unite and empower Italy under the leadership of the Catholic Church. He invested in symbolism to display his temporal power, such as his procession, in which he (in the Classical manner) rode a chariot through a triumphal arch after one of his many military victories. Julius II's project to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica would distinguish it as the most potent symbol of the source of papal power; he ultimately demolished and replaced the original basilica with a grander one intended to house his own tomb. The pope summoned Michelangelo to Rome in early 1505 and commissioned him to design his tomb, forcing the artist to leave Florence with his planned Battle of Cascina painting unfinished. By this time, Michelangelo was established as an artist;[a] both he and Julius II had hot tempers and soon argued. On 17 April 1506, Michelangelo left Rome in secret for Florence, remaining there until the Florentine government pressed him to return to the pope.

In 1506, the same year the foundation stone was laid for the new St. Peter's, Julius II conceived a programme to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It is probable that, because the chapel was the site of regular meetings and Masses of an elite body of officials known as the Papal Chapel (who would observe the decorations and interpret their theological and temporal significance), it was Julius II's intention and expectation that the iconography of the ceiling was to be read with many layers of meaning. The scheme proposed by the pope was for twelve large figures of the Apostles to occupy the pendentives. Michelangelo negotiated for a grander, much more complex scheme and was finally permitted, in his own words, "to do as I liked". It has been suggested that Augustinian friar and cardinal Giles of Viterbo could have influenced the ceiling's theological layout. Many writers consider that Michelangelo had the intellect, the biblical knowledge, and the powers of invention to have devised the scheme himself. This is supported by Michelangelo's biographer Ascanio Condivi's statement that the artist read and reread the Old Testament while he was painting the ceiling, drawing his inspiration from the words of the scripture, rather than from the established traditions of sacral art.

On 10 May 1506, Piero Roselli wrote to Michelangelo on behalf of the pope. In this letter, Roselli mentions that papal court architect Donato Bramante doubted that Michelangelo could take on such a large fresco project, as he had limited experience in the medium. According to Bramante, Michelangelo stated his refusal. In November 1506 Michelangelo went to Bologna, where he received a commission from the pope to construct a colossal bronze statue of him conquering the Bolognese. After he completed this in early 1508, Michelangelo returned to Rome expecting to resume work on the papal tomb, but this had been quietly set aside. Michelangelo was instead commissioned for a cycle of frescoes on the vault and upper walls of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo, who was not primarily a painter but a sculptor, was reluctant to take on the work; he suggested that his young rival Raphael take it on instead. The pope was persistent; according to Giorgio Vasari, he was provoked by Bramante to insist that Michelangelo take on the project, leaving him little choice but to accept. The contract was signed on 8 May 1508, with a promised fee of 3,000 ducats. At the pope's behest, Bramante built the initial scaffolding, hung via ropes from holes in the ceiling. This method displeased Michelangelo as it would force him to paint around the holes, and he had freestanding scaffolding constructed instead. This was built by Piero Roselli, who subsequently roughcasted the ceiling. Michelangelo initially sought to engage assistants who were more well-versed in fresco-painting, but he was unable to find suitable candidates and determined to paint the whole ceiling alone. Among the Florentine artists whom Michelangelo brought to Rome in the hope of assisting in the fresco, Vasari names Francesco Granacci, Giuliano Bugiardini, Jacopo di Sandro, l'Indaco the Elder, Agnolo di Domenico, and Aristotile.

Michelangelo soon began his work, starting at the west end with the Drunkenness of Noah and the Prophet Zechariah and working backwards through the narrative to the Creation of Eve, in the vault's fifth bay, finished in September 1510. The first half of the ceiling was unveiled with a preliminary showing on 14 August 1511 and an official viewing the next day. A long hiatus in painting occurred as new scaffolding was made ready. The second half of the ceiling's frescoes were done swiftly, and the finished work was revealed on 31 October 1512, All Hallows' Eve, being shown to the public by the next day, All Saints' Day. Michelangelo's final scheme for the ceiling includes over 300 figures. Vasari states that "When the chapel was uncovered, people from everywhere [rushed] to see it, and the sight of it alone was sufficient to leave them amazed and speechless." At the age of 37, Michelangelo's reputation rose such that he was called il divino, and he was henceforth regarded as the greatest artist of his time, who had elevated the status of the arts themselves, a recognition that lasted the rest of his long life. The ceiling was immediately considered one of the greatest masterpieces of all time, a distinction which continues to endure.

Michelangelo probably began working on the plans and sketches for the design from April 1508. The preparatory work on the ceiling was complete in late July the same year and on 4 February 1510, Francesco Albertini recorded that Michelangelo had "decorated the upper, arched part with very beautiful pictures and gold". The main design was largely finished in August 1510, as Michelangelo's texts suggest. From September 1510 until February, June, or September 1511, Michelangelo did no work on the ceiling on account of a dispute over payments for work done; in August 1510 the pope left Rome for the Papal States' campaign to reconquer Bologna and despite two visits there by Michelangelo, resolution only came months after the pope's return to Rome in June 1511. On 14 August 1511, Julius held a papal mass in the chapel and saw the progress of the work so far for the first time. This was the vigil for Assumption Day on 15 August, the Sistine Chapel's patronal feast. The whole design was revealed to visitors on 31 October 1512 with a formal papal mass the following day, the feast of All Saints.[40] Clerical use of the chapel continued throughout, exempting when the work on the scaffolding necessitated its closure, and disruption to the rites was minimized by beginning the work at the west end, furthest from the liturgical centre around the altar at the east wall. Debate exists on what sequence the parts of the ceiling were painted in and over how the scaffold that allowed the artists to reach the ceiling was arranged. There are two main proposals.

The majority theory is that the ceiling's main frescoes were applied and painted in phases, with the scaffolding each time dismantled and moved to another part of the room, beginning at the chapel's west end. The first phase, including the central life of Noah, was completed in September 1509 and the scaffolding removed; only then were the scenes visible from the floor level. The next phase, in the middle of the chapel, completed the Creation of Eve and the Fall and Expulsion from Paradise. The Cumaean Sibyl and Ezekiel were also painted in this phase. Michelangelo painted the figures at a larger scale than in the previous section; this is attributed to the artist's ability to effectively judge the foreshortening and composition from ground level for the first time. The figures of the third phase, at the east end, were at still grander scale than the second; The Creation of Adam and the other Creation panels were finished at this stage, which took place in 1511. The lunettes above the windows were painted last, using a small movable scaffold. In this scheme, proposed by Johannes Wilde, the vault's first and second registers, above and below the fictive architectural cornice, were painted together in stages as the scaffolding moved eastwards, with a stylistic and chronological break westwards and eastwards of the Creation of Eve. After the central vault the main scaffold was replaced by a smaller contraption that allowed the painting of the lunettes, window vaults, and pendentives. This view supplanted an older view that the central vault formed the first part of the work and was completed before work began on the other parts of Michelangelo's plan.

Another theory is that the scaffolding must have spanned the entire chapel for years at a time. To remove the existing decoration of the ceiling, the entire area had to be accessible for workmen to chisel away the starry-sky fresco before any new work was done. On 10 June 1508, the cardinals complained of the intolerable dust and noise generated by the work; by 27 July 1508, the process was complete and the corner spandrels of the chapel had been converted into the doubled-spandrel triangular pendentives of the finished design. Then the frame of the new designs had to be marked out on the surface when frescoeing began; this too demanded access to the whole ceiling. This thesis is supported by the discovery during the modern restoration of the exact numbers of the giornate employed in the frescoes; if the ceiling was painted in two stages, the first spanning two years and extending to the Creation of Eve and the second lasting just one year, then Michelangelo would have to have painted 270 giornate in the yearlong second phase, compared with 300 painted in the first two years, which is scarcely possible. By contrast, if the ceiling's first register – with the nine scenes on rectangular fields, the medallions, and the ignudi – was painted in the first two years, and in the second phase, Michelangelo painted only their border in the second register with the Prophets and Sibyls, then the giornate finished in each year are divided almost equally. Ulrich Pfisterer, advancing this theory, interprets Albertini's remark on "the upper, arched part with very beautiful pictures and gold" in February 1510 as referring only to the upper part of the vault – the first register with its nine picture fields, its gnudi, and its medallions embellished with gold – and not to the vault as a whole since the fictive architectural attic with its prophets and prophetesses were yet to be started.

The scaffolding needed to protect the chapel's existing wall frescoes and other decorations from falling debris and allow the religious services to continue below, but also to allow in air and some light from the windows below. The chapel's cornice, running around the room below the lunettes at the springing of the window arches themselves, supported the structure's oblique beams, while the carrying beams were set into the wall above the cornice using putlog holes. This open structure supported catwalks and the movable working platform itself, whose likely stepped design followed the contour of the vault. Beneath was a false ceiling that protected the chapel. Though some sunlight would have entered the workspace between the ceiling and the scaffolding, artificial light would have been required for painting, candlelight possibly influencing the appearance of the vivid colors used.

Restoration overseer Fabrizio Mancinelli speculates that Michelangelo may have only installed scaffolding platforms in one half of the room at a time to cut the cost of timber and to allow light to pass through the uncovered windows. The areas of the wall covered by the scaffolding still appear as unpainted areas at the base of the lunettes.

The entire ceiling is a fresco, which is an ancient method for painting murals that relies upon a chemical reaction between damp lime plaster and water-based pigments to permanently fuse the work into the wall. Michelangelo had been an apprentice in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, one of the most competent and prolific of Florentine fresco painters, at the time that the latter was employed on a fresco cycle at Santa Maria Novella and whose work was represented on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. At the outset, the plaster, intonaco, began to grow mildew or mould because it was too wet. When Michelangelo despaired of continuing, the pope sent Giuliano da Sangallo, who explained how to remove the fungus. Because Michelangelo was painting alfresco, the plaster was laid in a new section every day, called a giornata. At the beginning of each session, the edges would be scraped away and a new area laid down.

The work commenced at the end of the building furthest from the altar with the last chronological part of the narrative and progressed towards the altar with the scenes of the Creation. The first three scenes, from The Drunkenness of Noah, contain crowded compositions of smaller figures than other panels, evidently, because Michelangelo misjudged the ceiling's size. Also painted in the early stages was the Slaying of Goliath. After painting the Creation of Eve adjacent to the marble screen which divided the chapel,[h] Michelangelo paused in his work to move the scaffolding to the other side. After having seen his completed work so far, he returned to work with the Temptation and Fall, followed by the Creation of Adam. As the scale of the work got larger, Michelangelo's style became broader; the final narrative scene of God in the act of creation was painted in a single day.

According to Vasari, the ceiling was unveiled before it could be reworked with a secco and gold to give it "a finer appearance" as had been done with the chapel's wall frescoes. Both Michelangelo and Pope Julius II wanted these details to be added, but this never took place, in part because Michelangelo did not want to rebuild the scaffolding; he also argued that "in those days men did not wear gold, and those who are painted ... were holy men who despised wealth." Julius II died only months after the ceiling's completion, in February 1513.

According to Vasari and Condivi, Michelangelo painted in a standing position, not lying on his back, as another biographer, Paolo Giovio, imagined. Vasari wrote: "These frescos were done with the greatest discomfort, for he had to stand there working with his head tilted backwards." Michelangelo may have described his physical discomfort in a poem, accompanied by a sketch in the margin, which was probably addressed to the humanist academician Giovanni di Benedetto da Pistoia, a friend with whom Michelangelo corresponded. Leonard Barkan compared the posture of Michelangelo's marginalia self-portrait to the Roman sculptures of Marsyas Bound in the Uffizi Gallery; Barkan further connects the flayed Marsyas with Michelangelo's purported self-portrait decades later on the flayed skin of St Bartholomew in his Last Judgment but cautions that there is no certainty the sketch represents the process of painting the chapel ceiling. Michelangelo wrote the poem describing the arduous conditions under which he worked. Michelangelo's illustrated poem reads:

I’ ho già fatto un gozzo in questo stento,

coma fa l’acqua a’ gatti in Lombardia

o ver d’altro paese che si sia,

c’a forza ’l ventre appicca sotto ’l mento.

La barba al cielo, e la memoria sento

in sullo scrigno, e ’l petto fo d’arpia,

e ’l pennel sopra ’l viso tuttavia

mel fa, gocciando, un ricco pavimento.

E’ lombi entrati mi son nella peccia,

e fo del cul per contrapeso groppa,

e ’ passi senza gli occhi muovo invano.

Dinanzi mi s’allunga la corteccia,

e per piegarsi adietro si ragroppa,

e tendomi com’arco sorïano.

Però fallace e strano

surge il iudizio che la mente porta,

ché mal si tra’ per cerbottana torta.

La mia pittura morta

difendi orma’, Giovanni, e ’l mio onore,

non sendo in loco bon, né io pittore.

I've grown a goitre by dwelling in this den–

As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy,

Or in what other land they hap to be–

Which drives the belly close beneath the chin:

My beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in,

Fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly

Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery

Bedews my face from brush-drops thick and thin.

My loins into my paunch like levers grind:

My buttock like a crupper bears my weight;

My feet unguided wander to and fro;

In front my skin grows loose and long; behind,

By bending it becomes more taut and strait;

Crosswise I strain me like a Syrian bow:

Whence false and quaint, I know,

Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye;

For ill can aim the gun that bends awry.

Come then, Giovanni, try

To succour my dead pictures and my fame;

Since foul I fare and painting is my shame.

—№ 5. "A Giovanni quel propio da Pistoia"—№ 5: To Giovanni a Pistoia – On the Painting of the Sistine Chapel,

trans. John Addington Symonds, 1878

Jelbert has suggested that the physical pain described in this poem, and the pose of Michelangelo in his illustration for it, resonate with the agonised postures of the Vatican's 'Laocoön Group'. In the illustration, suggests Jelbert, Michelangelo appears to have drawn himself as the dying son on the right-hand side of the group (his arm sheered at the wrist), and the figure he is painting has the raised knees, wild eyes and broken right arm of Laocoön himself. Michelangelo's reference to the 'Laocoön Group' in the 'Brazen Serpent' has been noted above, but the artist also alluded to this sculpture in other areas of the Sistine ceiling, including the 'Punishment of Haman', and a pair of ignudi between the 'Sacrifice of Noah' and the 'Prophet Isiah'.

 

A closer look as the Angels play music in the The Elect in Heaven fresco.

Orvieto, March 2017

Luca Signorelli's 'The Damned in Hell' (below) and Fra Angelico's 'Sixteen Prophets' (above) are among the many amazingly beautiful frescoes in the Cappella di San Brizio at the Duomo in Orvieto; March 2017

This boy is in the Monte Oliveto Maggiore Abbey (Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore), which is a stunning abbey perched on the top of a cliff in the Crete Senese area. The Abbey was built in the 15th century. The Great Cloister is decorated with a fresco cycle depicting the life of St Benedict by Luca Signorelli, who began work on its 36 large scenes in 1497. The cycle was finished in 1508 by Sodoma.

Sodoma, the painter himself. The Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore (south of Siena) has a magnificent Chiostro Grande (Great Cloister), constructed between 1426 and 1443. Under the vaults of the cloister are frescoes of the Life of St. Benedict painted by Luca Signorelli and il Sodoma, considered amongst the most important Renaissance artworks in Italy. Signorelli's paintings were executed in 1497-98, while Sodoma's date to 1505 afterwards.

 

See my video about the monastery at

youtu.be/wUjUje-EEE8

Il chiostro grande dell’Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore (Asciano Siena) venne realizzato tra il 1426 e il 1443; è completamente dipinto, sotto le volte, da affreschi riguardanti la vita di San benedetto realizzati da Luca Signorelli (1497/1498) e da Antonio Bazzi detto Il Sodoma (dal 1505), seguendo la biografia di Benedetto scritta da San Gregorio.

È una delle più importanti testimonianze della pittura italiana dell'epoca rinascimentale.

 

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The “big” cloister of Monte Oliveto Maggiore Abbey (located in Tuscany, Italy) was built between 1426 and 1443. Is is entirely painted with frescos showing the life of Saint Benedetto, done by Luca Signorelli in 1497/1498 and by Antonio Bazzi also known as Sodoma, starting from 1505.; for doing this work, they took inspiration by the Saint Benedetto’s biography written by Saint Gregorio.

This cloister is considered one of the most important testimony of the Italian painting during the Renaissance.

  

Just outside the second of two beautiful wrought iron gate to the Chapel of San Brizio (Saint Brictius).

Construction of, what was then called the "Cappella Nova", began in the 1440s. The chapel was renamed when the icon of the Madonna of San Brizio was placed here.

Orvieto, March 2017

 

(Panorama Stitched from 2 images)

Attributed to Luca Signorelli and collaborators.

 

This was part of a special exhibition on the works of Luca Signorelli the Italian Renaissance painter.

 

Capitoline Museum, Rome; July 2019

An in-phone panorama stitch inside the Chapel of the Madonna of Saint Britius (Cappella Madonna di San Brizio).

This image is a 150 degree view from the entrance archway (bottom), over the ceiling to the chapel altar (top).

Duomo Orvieto; March 2017

 

(In-Phone Panorama Stitch; Samsung Note 4)

The abbey was founded in 1313 and it became a wealthy abbey. It has a cloister with frescos by Luca Signorelli and Il Sodoma.

Italien / Toskana - Volterra

 

Volterra (Italian pronunciation: [volˈtɛrra]; Latin: Volaterrae) is a walled mountaintop town in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its history dates from before the 8th century BC and it has substantial structures from the Etruscan, Roman, and Medieval periods.

 

History

 

Volterra, known to the ancient Etruscans as Velathri or Vlathri and to the Romans as Volaterrae, is a town and comune in the Tuscany region of Italy. The town was a Bronze Age settlement of the Proto-Villanovan culture, and an important Etruscan center (Velàthre, Velathri or Felathri in Etruscan, Volaterrae in Latin language), one of the "twelve cities" of the Etruscan League.

 

The site is believed to have been continuously inhabited as a city since at least the end of the 8th century BC. It became a municipium allied to Rome at the end of the 3rd century BC. The city was a bishop's residence in the 5th century, and its episcopal power was affirmed during the 12th century. With the decline of the episcopate and the discovery of local alum deposits, Volterra became a place of interest of the Republic of Florence, whose forces conquered Volterra. Florentine rule was not always popular, and opposition occasionally broke into rebellion. These rebellions were put down by Florence.

 

When the Republic of Florence fell in 1530, Volterra came under the control of the Medici family and later followed the history of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

 

Culture

 

The main events that take place during the year in Volterra are

 

Volterra gusto

Volterra arte

Volterra teatro

 

Main sights

 

Roman Theatre of Volterra, 1st century BC, excavated in the 1950s

 

the Roman amphitheatre was discovered in 2015 and has been excavated over the succeeding years

 

Piazza dei Priori, the main square, a fine example of medieval Tuscan town squares

 

Palazzo dei Priori, the town hall located on Piazza dei Priori, construction begun in 1208 and finished in 1257

 

Pinacoteca e museo civico di Volterra (Art Gallery) in Palazzo Minucci-Solaini. Founded in 1905, the gallery consists mostly of works by Tuscan artists from 14th to 17th centuries. Includes a Deposition by Rosso Fiorentino.

 

Etruscan Acropolis and Roman Cistern. The acropolis on the citadel dates to the 8th century B.C., while the impressive cistern is from the 1st century B.C.

 

Volterra Cathedral. It was enlarged in the 13th century after an earthquake. It houses a ciborium and some angels by Mino da Fiesole, a notable wood Deposition (1228), a masterwork of Romanesque sculpture and the Sacrament Chapel, with paintings by Santi di Tito, Giovanni Balducci and Agostino Veracini. In the center of the vault are fragments of an Eternal Father by Niccolò Circignani. Also noteworthy is the Addolorata Chapel, with a terracotta group attributed to Andrea della Robbia and a fresco of Riding Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli. In the nearby chapel, dedicated to the Most Holy Name of Jesus, is a table with Christ's monogram, allegedly painted by Bernardino of Siena. The rectangular bell tower is from 1493.

 

Volterra Baptistery of San Giovanni, built in the second half of the 13th century.

 

Fortezza Medicea (Medicean Fortress), built in the 1470s, now a prison housing the noted restaurant, Fortezza Medicea restaurant.

 

Guarnacci Etruscan Museum, with thousands of funeral urns dating back to the Hellenistic and Archaic periods. Main attractions are the bronze statuette "Ombra della sera" (lit. '"Shadow of the Night"'), and the sculpted effigy, "Urna degli Sposi" (lit. '"Urn of the Spouses"') of an Etruscan couple in terra cotta.

 

The Etruscan Walls of Volterra, including the well-preserved Walls of Volterra (3rd-2nd centuries BC), and Porta Diana gates.

 

The Medici Villa di Spedaletto, outside the city, in direction of Lajatico

 

There are excavations of Etruscan tombs in the Valle Bona area.

 

Volterra Psychiatric Hospital, Founded in 1888 until 1978, it was reopened for public and will be once more used for psychiatric purposes.

 

In popular culture

 

Volterra features in Horatius, a poem by Lord Macaulay.

 

Linda Proud's A Tabernacle for the Sun (2005), the first volume of The Botticelli Trilogy, begins with the sack of Volterra in 1472. Volterra is the ancestral home of the Maffei family and the events of 1472 lead directly to the Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478. The protagonist of the novel is Tommaso de' Maffei, half brother of one of the conspirators.

 

Volterra is an important location in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. In the books, Volterra is home to the Volturi, a clan of rich, regal, powerful ancient vampires, who essentially act as the rulers of the world's vampire population. (However, the relevant scenes from the movie were shot in Montepulciano.)

 

Volterra is the site of Stendhal's famously disastrous encounter in 1819 with his beloved Countess Mathilde Dembowska: she recognised him there, despite his disguise of new clothes and green glasses, and was furious. This is the central incident in his book On Love

 

Volterra is mentioned repeatedly in British author Dudley Pope's Captain Nicholas Ramage historical nautical series. Gianna, the Marchesa of Volterra and the fictional ruler of the area, features in the first twelve books of the eighteen-book series. The books chart the progress and career of Ramage during the Napoleonic wars of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, providing readers with well-scripted articulate details of life aboard sailing vessels and conditions at sea of that time.

 

Volterra is the site where the novel Chimaira by the Italian author Valerio Massimo Manfredi takes place.

 

Valerio Massimo Manfredi's The Ancient Curse is also set in Volterra, where a statue called 'The Shade of Twilight' is stolen from the Volterra museum.

 

Volterra is featured in Jhumpa Lahiri's 2008 collection of short stories Unaccustomed Earth. It is where Hema and Kaushik, the protagonists of the final short story "Going Ashore," travel before they part.

 

Volterra is featured in Luchino Visconti's 1965 film Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa, released as Sandra (Of a Thousand Delights) in the United States and as Of These Thousand Pleasures in the UK.

 

Volterra's scenery is used for Central City in the 2017 film Fullmetal Alchemist (film) directed by Fumihiko Sori.

 

The 2016 video game The Town of Light is set in a fictionalized version of the notorious Volterra Psychiatric Hospital.

 

"Volaterrae" is the name given by Dan and Una to their secret place in Far Wood in Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill. They named it from the verse in Lord Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome:

 

From lordly Volaterrae,

Where scowls the far-famed hold

Piled by the hands of giants

For Godlike Kings of old.

 

Volterra and its relationship with Medici Florence features in the 2018 second season of Medici: Masters of Florence.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Volterra, lateinisch Volaterrae, ist eine italienische Stadt mit 9980 Einwohnern (Stand 31. Dezember 2019) in der Provinz Pisa in der Region Toskana.

 

Geographie

 

Volterra liegt etwa 50 Kilometer südlich von Pisa und 30 Kilometer vom Mittelmeer entfernt. Die Stadt gilt mit ihrem spektakulären landschaftlichen Umfeld als eine der schönsten in der Toskana.

 

Der Kern der heutigen Stadt liegt abgeschieden auf einem 550 m hohen Bergrücken über dem Tal der Cecina (Val di Cecina) inmitten einer kargen, zerfurchten Hügellandschaft. Die Felsabbrüche und Geröllhalden sind das Produkt jahrhundertelanger Erosion. Das Gebiet Le Balze im Nordwesten Volterras vermittelt einen beispielhaften Eindruck dieses Phänomens.

 

Die Stadt wird beherrscht von einer heute als Staatsgefängnis benutzten Festung der Medici, der Fortezza Medicea. Volterra ist ein Zentrum der Alabasterverarbeitung.

 

Zu den Ortsteilen (Frazioni) zählen Mazzolla, Montemiccioli, Saline di Volterra und Villamagna.

 

Die Nachbargemeinden sind Casole d’Elsa (SI), Colle di Val d’Elsa (SI), Gambassi Terme (FI), Lajatico, Montaione (FI), Montecatini Val di Cecina, Peccioli, Pomarance und San Gimignano (SI).

 

Geschichte

 

Volterra kann auf eine lange Geschichte zurückblicken. Bereits im 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. entstand der Ort aus der Verbindung mehrerer kleiner etruskischer Ansiedlungen, deren Bestand bis ins 7. Jahrhundert v. Chr. zurückverfolgt werden kann. Zu dieser Zeit bauten die Etrusker eine sieben Kilometer lange Ringmauer und nannten die nunmehr vereinigte Stadt Velathri.

 

Volterra war eine der ältesten und größten der zwölf Bundesstädte Etruriens. Später war es eine römische Stadt mit den Rechten eines Municipiums. Ihre hohe Lage machte sie zu einer starken Festung, die Sulla im ersten Bürgerkrieg erst nach zweijähriger Belagerung 79 v. Chr. einnehmen konnte.

 

Im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert war Volterra eine Republik; im 14. Jahrhundert fiel es an Florenz.

 

Sehenswürdigkeiten

 

Architektonische und künstlerische Zeugnisse der verschiedenen Epochen zeugen von der wechselvollen Existenz und Bedeutung der Stadt. Einige der etruskischen Nekropolen und mittelalterlichen Kirchenmauern sind jedoch in der Vergangenheit der Erosion zum Opfer gefallen.

 

Am Hauptplatz der Stadt, der Piazza dei Priori, steht der älteste erhaltene Kommunalpalast der Toskana, der Palazzo dei Priori.

 

Von der etruskischen Stadtmauer ist als einziges Tor die Porta all’Arco gut erhalten. Es stammt aus dem 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Im äußeren Bogen sind drei verwitterte Köpfe zu erkennen, deren Bedeutung aber umstritten ist.

 

Außerhalb der mittelalterlichen Porta Fiorentina liegt das Teatro Romano, erbaut zur Zeit des Kaisers Augustus. Von der Zuschauertribüne für etwa 2000 Personen blickt man auf die teilweise rekonstruierte Bühnenwand. Die unterhalb des Theaters liegenden Thermenanlagen stammen aus späterer Zeit.

 

Andere historische öffentliche Gebäude sind der Dom Santa Maria Assunta aus dem frühen 12. Jahrhundert mit einer Kassettendecke und mit Granit vortäuschender Stuckverkleidung der Säulen sowie etlichen künstlerisch hochrangigen Ausstattungsstücken, das oktogonale Baptisterium mit einem Taufbecken von Andrea Sansovino, der auf Privatpaläste und Wohntürme aus dem 12. und 13. Jahrhundert zurückgehende Palazzo Pretorio sowie der als Gefängnis dienende Torre del Porcellino. Schließlich gehört der Palazzo Incontri-Viti zu den prachtvollsten Gebäuden Volterras.

 

Unter den Kirchen sind zu nennen: die spätromanische S. Michele sowie die Kirchen von S. Francesco, S. Lino und S. Girolamo mit Bildern und Skulpturen aus der Schule von Florenz.

 

Museen

 

Von besonderer Bedeutung ist das archäologische Museo Etrusco Guarnacci im Palazzo Desideri Tangassi. Mario Guarnacci (1701–1785), ein vielseitig interessierter Gelehrter, widmete seine Studien der antiken Geschichte. Dabei konnte er durch Ankäufe und Ausgrabungen eine ansehnliche Menge Belegmaterial über die etruskische Zivilisation sammeln.

 

Ein bedeutender Teil der Sammlung umfasst Ascheurnen sowie Stücke aus Bronze und Keramik. Die Urnen bestehen aus Tuffstein, Alabaster und Tonerde. Eine der bekanntesten ganz Etruriens ist die Urna degli Sposi (dt. Urne der Brautleute), auf deren Deckel ein Paar beim Festmahl liegend dargestellt ist.

 

Das bedeutendste Stück der Sammlung ist jedoch die Bronzefigur Ombra della sera (dt. Abendschatten). Es ist mit der Zeit zu einer „Ikone“ für das Museum und die Stadt Volterra geworden. Seine Berühmtheit verdankt es hauptsächlich seiner einzigartigen Form, die den italienischen Dichter Gabriele D’Annunzio an den Schatten einer menschlichen Figur in der Abendsonne erinnert haben soll. Es ist ein Meisterwerk etruskischer Bronzegießer aus der hellenistischen Periode. Ein weiteres bedeutendes Exponat ist die Stele des Avile Tite aus dem 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr.

 

Weitere Ausstellungsstücke sind verschiedene Mosaikböden aus der römischen Kaiserzeit, die aus Volterra und Segalari stammen. Hinzu kommt eine Münzsammlung mit seltenen etruskischen Münzen aus Gold, Silber und Bronze. Schließlich sind noch mit Edelsteinen verzierte etruskische und römische Schmuckstücke zu sehen.

 

Wichtig ist die Sammlung der seit 1982 im Minucci-Solaini-Palast untergebrachten „Pinacoteca“ mit der berühmten Kreuzesabnahme (1521), dem Meisterwerk des Malers Rosso Fiorentino, und den bedeutendsten Arbeiten von Taddeo di Bartolo, Domenico Ghirlandaio und Luca Signorelli, welche die künstlerischen Einflüsse aus Pisa, Florenz und Siena anschaulich machen.

 

Im April 2003 wurde im Turmhaus des Palazzo Minucci-Solaini das Ecomuseo dell’Alabastro eröffnet, in dem die Geschichte der Gewinnung und der Verarbeitung von Alabaster seit der Antike bis zur Gegenwart dargestellt ist.

 

Volterra in der Literatur

 

Volterra ist eine wichtige Stadt in Stephenie Meyers „Biss“-Serie. Dort ist Volterra die Heimatstadt der Volturi, einer königlichen Vampirfamilie.

 

Volterra spielt auch in der von Dudley Pope geschriebenen Romanreihe um den britischen Marineoffizier Nicolas Ramage eine Rolle. Im ersten Band rettet er während der Napoleonischen Kriege die Marchesa von Volterra vor den französischen Besatzungstruppen. Er verliebt sich in sie, und ihre Herrschaft über Volterra spielt in den weiteren Bänden eine wichtige Rolle. Auch ihr Neffe, Paolo Orsini, nächster in der Erbreihenfolge der Regentschaft, kommt in den meisten Romanen vor, da er als Fähnrich unter Ramages Kommando segelt.

 

(Wikipedia)

Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Brasil - 29/06/2022 - CTCC - João Carlos, Leonardo Signorelli e Cadu

Treino da equipe Sub-23 do Fluminense.

FOTO DE MAILSON SANTANA/FLUMINENSE FC

  

IMPORTANTE: Imagem destinada a uso institucional e divulgação, seu uso comercial está vetado incondicionalmente por seu autor e o Fluminense Football Club.

 

IMPORTANT: Image intended for institutional use and distribution. Commercial use is prohibited unconditionally by its author and Fluminense Football Club.

 

IMPORTANTE: Imágen para uso solamente institucional y distribuición. El uso comercial es prohibido por su autor y por el Fluminense Football Club

Die unter Sixtus IV. zwischen 1475 und 1481 erbaute Sixtinische Kapelle ist die Hauptattraktion der Vatikanischen Museen und immer überfüllt. Ihre malerische Ausstattung ließ sie zum Synonym für Renaissancemalerei werden.

 

In den Jahren 1482 und 1483 wurden unter der Leitung von Pietro Perugino an den Längswänden 16 Fresken ausgeführt, von denen noch 12 erhalten sind, und die Szenen aus dem Leben von Moses als Vorläufer Christi auf der einen Seite und aus dem Leben Christi auf der anderen Seite darstellen. Die beteiligten Künstler waren neben Perugino, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Luca Signorelli und Cosimo Roselli.

 

Das riesige Deckenfresko, das die Schöpfung und die frühe Menschheitsgeschichte zum Thema hat, wurde von Michelangelo Buonarotti in zwischen 1508 und 1512 im Auftrag von Julius II. della Rovere geschaffen.

 

Michelangelo schuf in den Jahren 1535 und 1536 im Auftrag von Paul III. Farnese auch das riesige Fresko des Jüngsten Gerichts an der Stirnseite der Kapelle.

 

Leider herrscht in der Sixtinischen Kapelle Fotoverbot, so dass nur wenige Schnappschüsse, wenn überhaupt, möglich sind. Dieses Album beinhaltet daher überwiegend Scans.