GADDI, TADDEO (active c. 1328–1366). One of Giotto’s pupils, principal assistant, and most faithful follower. Cennino Cennini claimed in Il libro dell’ arte, written in c. 1400, that Gaddi was also Giotto’s godson and that he worked for him for 24 years. Taddeo’s most important commission is the Baroncelli Chapel at Santa Croce, Florence (1332–1338), one of the largest in the church. The scenes here depict the life of the Virgin, her parents Joachim and Anne, and Christ. Some have suggested that Giotto provided the designs for the frescoes since the chapel’s altarpiece, the Baroncelli Polyptych, is signed by him. The stained glass window in the chapel, which shows St. Francis receiving the stigmata (the wounds of the crucified Christ), is also by Taddeo. One of Taddeo’s most ambitious works is the Tree of Life of c. 1340 in the refectory of Santa Croce, one of the earliest examples of refectory decoration. It depicts a complex genealogical theme related to the Franciscan Order, meant to inspire contemplation. Taddeo also worked as architect, providing plans for the rebuilding of the Ponte Vecchio and Ponte Trinità in Florence (destroyed in the 16th century) after the Arno River flooded in 1333.
GALLEGO, FERNANDO (c. 1440–c. 1507). The earliest Castilian painter to have a documented career. According to Antonio Palomino, Gallego was born in Salamanca, Spain. He may have visited the Netherlands and Louvain as denoted by the fact that his style has some affinity to that of Dirk Bouts. Gallego is known for his dramatic depictions of religious scenes, as demonstrated by his Pietà (1470s; Madrid, Prado) and Flagellation (c. 1506; Salamanca, Museo Diocesano). In 1468, he is documented in Plasencia and, in 1473, in Soria. The works he executed for the cathedrals in these two cities are unfortunately no longer extant. Gallego also painted the astrological frescoes on the ceiling of the University of Salamanca’s library, one of the earliest astral cycles rendered in Spain.
GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS (c. 1505–1510; Madrid, Prado). Created by Hieronymus Bosch, the Garden of Earthly Delights is a triptych that speaks of the consequences of immoral behavior. It shows in the central panel nude males and females indulging in worldly pleasures. To the left is the Creation of Eve in Eden and to the right a depiction of hell. Here, a monstrous figure devours and defecates the souls of sinners, a detail that has been recognized to stem from the Visione Tondalus, a medieval narrative provided by an Irish Benedictine monk known only as Marcus who resided in the Cistercian Monastery of St. James in Regensburg. When the panels are closed, the scene depicted is the third day of Creation. Several attempts have been made to explain fully the meaning of the work. One suggestion is that it relates to the beliefs of the Adamites, a sect that originated in the second century that advocated a return to the simplicity of life in the Garden of Eden. Saint Augustine described their practices in his writings, stating that the Adamites referred to their church as paradise, they rejected marriage as it did not exist in Eden, believed in sexual freedom, and worshiped in the nude. Others relate the work to the four stages of the alchemical processes, as the architectural forms in Bosch’s painting resemble alchemical vessels.
GATES OF PARADISE, BAPTISTERY OF FLORENCE (1425–1452). Executed by Lorenzo Ghiberti, the Gates of Paradise were the last set of bronze doors commissioned for the Baptistery of Florence. Initially, Ghiberti was asked to include 28 scenes from the Old Testament enclosed in quatrefoil fields to match his earlier east doors (1403–1424). The number was then reduced to 24 and finally to 10 panels. Also different is the fact that gilding was applied to the entire surface and the quatrefoil rejected in favor of quadrangular fields. The prophets and Evangelists, usually relegated to the lower panels, were here moved into small niches along the borders. These alternate with bust heads emerging from circular fields, one recognized as Ghiberti’s self-portrait. The main scenes depict the biblical narrative from the Creation to the era of Solomon. These all utilize the then newly introduced one-point linear perspective technique and diminished depth of carving in the background to further the illusion of depth. They also use the continuous narrative technique whereby several episodes of the same story are rendered on one pictorial field. Of the panels, the one to stand out is Jacob and Esau, in the center of the left door, which includes God’s warning to Rebecca that conflict will plague the relationship of her unborn sons, the birth of the two boys, Isaac sending his son Esau to the hunt, and Jacob receiving Isaac’s blessing. The scenes are coherently arranged along the panel, with a series of classical arches that recede believably into space, providing logical partitions between the various episodes. Ghiberti’s are the doors that face the walkway leading from the Baptistery to the Cathedral of Florence—in Italian, the paradiso. This inspired Michelangelo in the 16th century to coin the name Gates of Paradise. By this he meant that the doors were so extraordinary as to be worthy for use as the gates to heaven.
GENRE. A French term thought to have been coined in the 18th century by the philosopher and writer Denis Diderot to classify the paintings of French masters who depicted scenes from everyday life. This type of art did not rely on written sources, but rather it captured the daily routine of simple folk or the bourgeoisie. Genre scenes were particularly popular in the Netherlands where Protestant iconoclasm eliminated the need for devotional religious imagery. These works usually are filled with symbolic content that offer proper moral examples to viewers.
GENTILESCHI, ARTEMISIA (1593–1652). Artemisia was the daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, who trained her. Unlike other female artists of her era, she did not settle for lower genres but rather insisted on rendering mainstream scenes. Her favored subject was the female heroine, such as Judith and Lucretia. One of her earliest works is the Woman Playing a Lute (c. 1610–1612; Rome, Palazzo Spada), which she painted in Rome while in her teens. It shows her full command of the Caravaggesque vocabulary with a naturalistic figure emerging from the shadows to occupy most of the pictorial space. Her Judith Slaying Holofernes (1612–1613; Naples, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte) presents a tighter composition than Caravaggio’s version (c. 1598; Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica), the subject one Artemisia would tackle on several occasions. In 1612, she was brutally raped by Agostino Tassi, one of Orazio’s pupils. After a seven-month trial, Tassi served a short jail sentence and was ultimately acquitted. Some have viewed the Judith paintings as Artemisia’s imagined revenge against her assailant. After the trial, Artemisia was married off to the Florentine artist Pietro Antonio di Vincenzo Strattesi, the relative of a key witness who testified on her behalf. The marriage did not last and soon Artemisia is documented living alone with her daughter Prudentia.
In Florence, she worked for Grand Duke Cosimo II de’ Medici and, by 1620, she was back in Rome receiving commissions from both local and foreign patrons. She created her Lucretia (c. 1621; Genoa, Palazzo Cataneo-Adorno) for Pietro Gentile, a Genoese nobleman and collector. Like Artemisia, Lucretia was a victim of rape and chose to commit suicide rather than bring shame to her family. While most depictions of her story presented her plunging the knife into her chest, Artemisia preferred to capture her psychological struggle as she chooses between life and death. Artemisia’s Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (1630; Windsor, Royal Collection) is just as innovative. Rendered in Naples where she moved sometime before 1630, the work shows the artist caught in the frenzy of creation, leaning over to see her reflection in a mirror outside the painting.
While in Naples, Artemisia came into contact with the works of Domenichino and Giovanni Lanfranco who had introduced the classical vocabulary of Bologna to the region. This resulted in a change in her style. Her Lot and His Daughters (1640s; Toledo, Museum of Art) and Corsica and the Satyr (1640s; private collection) belong to this phase in her career. In these works, the figures, now slimmer and more graceful, are pushed back to reveal a fully developed background. Artemisia never left Naples, save for a three-year stay in the court of Charles I of England where her father was working. In a letter to one of her patrons she wrote, “And I will show Your Lordship what a woman can do!” This reflects her ambition in wanting to achieve the same fame as some of her male predecessors. Artemisia certainly attained her goal. While living, she became an international celebrity, a status she quickly lost after her death when she fell into a long period of obscurity that lasted until 1989 when interest in her oeuvre was resurrected.
GENTILESCHI, ORAZIO (1563–1639). Italian painter, born in Pisa to a Florentine goldsmith. Orazio’s first known work he executed at the age of 30, a fresco in the nave of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, where he moved in c. 1576–1578. He painted in the Mannerist style until c. 1600 when he was exposed to the art of Caravaggio. His St. Francis Supported by the Angel (c. 1605; Madrid, Prado), Crowning of Thorns (c. 1610; Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum), and St. Cecilia and an Angel (c. 1610; Washington, National Gallery) show mundane figures, pushed so close to the foreground that they occupy most of the pictorial space, with dramatic chiaroscuro—all Caravaggist elements. By the 1620s, Caravaggio’s popularity in Rome had waned, and the Bolognese painters had taken the forefront. As a result, Orazio changed his style to conform to the taste of his patrons. He relocated to Genoa where he painted his famed Annunciation (c. 1623; Turin, Galleria Sabauda) that takes place in a fully developed domestic interior and grants greater delicacy and elegance to the figures. In 1624, Orazio worked in the French court of Marie de’ Medici and, in 1625, he went to England to serve as court painter to Charles I. There he created for Queen Henrietta Maria, Charles’ consort, an Allegory of Peace on the ceiling of the Great Hall in the Queen’s House at Greenwich (1638–1639). Gentileschi died in England in 1639. See also GENTILESCHI, ARTEMISIA.
GEORGE, SAINT. A Christian knight who went to Libya to liberate its people from the dragon that terrorized them. To appease the dragon, the Libyans offered the daughter of King Servius as sacrifice. Saint George saved the princess, killed the dragon, and, in exchange, the Libyans agreed to be baptized. Donatello’s St. George Killing the Dragon (1415–1417; Florence, Orsanmichele), Giovanni Bellini’s scene of the same subject on the predella of the Pesaro Altarpiece (1470s; Pesaro, Museo Civico), and Antonio Pisanello’s St. George and the Princess (c. 1437–1438; Church of Sant’ Anastasia, Verona) depict the moment when the saint rescues the woman from the beast. St. George endured a number of tortures for refusing to renounce his Christian faith. Each time, he miraculously emerged unscathed, until his final martyrdom when he was dragged and beheaded. Altichiero’s frescoes in the Oratory of St. George in Padua (1377) depict the life of the saint, including his baptizing King Servius and torture on the wheel.
GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. Epic poem written by Torquato Tasso between 1559 and 1575 while in the service of Duke Alfonso II d’Este of Ferrara; first published in 1581. It relates the recovery of Jerusalem by Christian knights from the Turks in 1099 during the First Crusade. Its main characters are the heroes Rinaldo and Tancredi, who are torn between fulfilling their duties and indulging in their love for Armida and Clorinda, respectively. Rinaldo is the son of Bertoldo, who established the d’Este clan; hence, the poem becomes a celebration of the Ferrarese ducal family’s ancestry. The Gerusalemme Liberata enjoyed great success and became a source for artists. Both Anthony van Dyck (1629; Baltimore Art Museum) and Nicolas Poussin (1629; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery) painted a Rinaldo and Armida; Guercino (1618–1619; Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphili) and Poussin (1630; St. Petersburg, Hermitage; second version 1634, Birmingham, Barber Institute of Fine Arts) rendered Tancredi and Erminia, another character from the story who loves Tancredi; and Guercino painted Erminia and the Shepherds (1649; Minneapolis Institute of Arts).
GHENT ALTARPIECE (c. 1425–1432; Ghent, Cathedral of St-Bavon). The Ghent Altarpiece bears an inscription that states that Hubert van Eyck, “greater than whom none was found,” began the work, and his brother Jan, “second in art,” completed it on 6 May 1432. It also identifies the donor, Jodocus Vijd, the burgomaster of Ghent who is shown with his wife, Isabella Borluut, kneeling on the altarpiece’s cover. They adore Sts. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, both painted in grisaille. Above is the Annunciation, with prophets and sibyls on the lunettes, proper inclusions as these individuals foretold the coming of Christ. Mary and the angel wear white robes set against the natural flesh tones of their hands and faces, as if to denote that a slow transformation from sculpture to real flesh and blood is unfolding before our eyes. In its opened state, the altarpiece presents a rendering in brilliant colors that contrast with the subdued tones of the exterior. The apocalyptic Adoration of the Lamb is featured below, and above are the enthroned God the Father, who wears the papal tiara; the Virgin; and St. John the Baptist, who are flanked by angels and the nude Adam and Eve, whose sin caused the need for Christ’s incarnation. Inscriptions above Mary and John extol their virtues respectively as mother and forerunner of Christ, while God’s benevolence toward humanity is communicated through the inclusion of pelicans in the cloth of honor behind him that tear their chests open to feed their young—a parallel to God giving up his own son for sacrifice to grant humans salvation. Above these figures are the Offering of Cain and Abel and Cain Killing Abel in grisaille, further references to sacrifice and the sin of mankind. The obsession with rendering every strand of hair, jewel, and other details point to the van Eycks’ close tie to the miniaturist tradition. The discrepancy in the scale of the figures suggests the involvement of two different hands in the rendering of the work. Laboratory analysis has revealed that the panels were reworked (by Jan, if we take the inscription at face value) to provide visual unity.
GHENT, JOOS VAN (JOOS VAN WASSENHOVE; c. 1430–c. 1480). Netherlandish painter active in Italy. It is not clear where Joos was born or trained. He is known to have entered the painters’ guild of Antwerp in 1460, to have moved to Ghent in 1464, where in 1467 he sponsored Hugo van der Goes’ entry into the guild, and to have left for Italy sometime after 1468, where he remained for the rest of his life. In Italy, he worked as Giusto da Guanto, an Italian translation of his name. Joos’ Communion of the Apostles (1472–1474; Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche) is a work he painted in Urbino that is documented as having been commissioned by the Confraternity of Corpus Domini for the Church of St. Agatha and financed by Duke Federico da Montefeltro, the city’s ruler. In fact, the duke and his son are included in the painting, in the right background. Based on this documented painting and its visual qualities, others have been attributed to Joos, including the Adoration of the Magi (c. 1460–1465; New York, Metropolitan Museum) and the Crucifixion Triptych (Ghent, Cathedral of St. Bavon).
GHIBELLINES. See GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES.
GHIBERTI, LORENZO (1378–1455). One of the leading sculptors of the Early Renaissance. Trained as a goldsmith, Ghiberti was also a writer. His Commentarii of c. 1447–1448 is an autobiography, the first written by an artist, that also includes analysis of earlier artwork. Ghiberti’s career was launched when he entered the competition in 1401 for the execution of the east doors of the Baptistery of Florence (1403–1424) meant to harmonize with the south doors created earlier by Andrea Pisano. Ghiberti’s Sacrifice of Isaac won him the competition as its classicized visual vocabulary was well suited for current tastes. Ghiberti spent two decades executing the east doors, now the north portals of the Baptistery.
From c. 1412 to 1416, Ghiberti was occupied with the statue of St. John the Baptist for one of the niches of Orsanmichele, Florence, a commission he received from the Arte della Calimala, the Guild of Refiners of Imported Woolen Cloth. Then the largest statue to be cast in bronze in Florence, the figure combines classical and Gothic elements. Here, Ghiberti depicted the saint to look like a living, breathing individual who stands in contrapposto, his intense gaze adding an aura of spiritual strength. While its verism was inspired by Greco-Roman prototypes, the sway in the saint’s pose, the massive, undulating folds of his drapery, and the large clumps of hair and beard, all point to Gothic precedents. Not to be outdone by the Calimala, the Arte di Cambio (the Florentine Guild of Bankers) commissioned Ghiberti to execute for them the statue of St. Matthew also at Orsanmichele (1419–1421), stipulating that its size should equal that of the St. John the Baptist. Like Ghiberti’s earlier statue, St. Matthew stands in elegant contrapposto, wears classical garb, and features an intense gaze, his Gospel book opened and turned to the viewer.
From 1417 to 1427, Ghiberti was also working on relief panels for the baptismal font in the Cathedral of Siena to which Donatello and Jacopo della Quercia also contributed scenes from the story of the Baptist. Ghiberti’s Baptism of Christ for the font presents an all’ antica rendition of the subject. All vestiges of Gothicism have been shed, including the heavy, undulating folds of the drapery. Instead, the figures are idealized, their draperies clinging to reveal the details of their anatomy. The extended arm of the Baptist, the clouds above the figures, and the angels who witness the event form an arched canopy above Christ to denote the religious significance of the event depicted that resulted in the establishment of baptism as a sacrament. The depth of carving in this work diminishes as the compositional elements move away from the foreground, as they do in the ancient Greco-Roman reliefs Ghiberti evidently studied.
In 1425, Ghiberti received the commission for the final set of doors for the Baptistery of Florence. These are usually referred to as the Gates of Paradise (1425–1452) as they face the walkway leading to the cathedral, called the paradiso in Italian. The term was coined by Michelangelo who felt that Ghiberti’s work was worthy of such an appellation. Ghiberti was responsible for inaugurating a new phase in Renaissance sculpture, one that depended on classical precedents and that established the visual language of the era.
GHIRLANDAIO, DOMENICO DEL (DOMENICO DI TOMMASO BIGORDI; 1449–1494). Ghirlandaio was the son of a goldsmith who was noted for his ability to create gold garlands (ghirlande) worn by wealthy women, hence the nickname. Little is known of his training, though it is supposed that he learned metalwork from his father. By the 1480s his own workshop included the young Michelangelo. Ghirlandaio catered mainly to the Florentine merchant community. Early in his career, his protectors were the Vespucci, who in 1471 commissioned him to decorate their funerary chapel in the Church of Ognissanti, Florence. Among the frescoes in this chapel is the Madonna della Misericordia who shelters in her mantle members of the patron family, including the explorer Amerigo Vespucci. In 1480, the Vespucci again approached Ghirlandaio to paint a St. Jerome in the Ognissanti to compete with Sandro Botticelli’s St. Augustine (1480) in the same location. At the same time, Ghirlandaio painted a Last Supper in the church’s refectory, a subject he was to repeat on a number of occasions, including in 1486 in the refectory at the hostel of the San Marco Monastery.
His reputation well established, in 1482 Ghirlandaio was called to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV, along with Botticelli and Pietro Perugino, to work on the wall frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Ghirlandaio contributed the Calling of Sts. Peter and Andrew, when Christ asks the saints to follow him as his apostles. He also contributed a Resurrection, destroyed to make way for Michelangelo’s frescoes on the Sistine ceiling (1508–1512). Upon his return to Florence, Ghirlandaio was asked by Francesco Sassetti, a wealthy banker, to decorate his family chapel at Santa Trinità with scenes from the life of his namesaint, Francis. The altarpiece in the Sassetti Chapel depicts the Annunciation and Adoration of the Shepherds with Francesco and his wife, Nera Corsi, kneeling at either side. In 1485–1490, Ghirlandaio painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni, related by marriage to the Medici, a series of large frescoes in the Cappella Maggiore at Santa Maria Novella, Florence, depicting scenes from the lives of the Virgin and St. John the Baptist that include members of the Tornabuoni family. Among them, the Massacre of the Innocents is somewhat of an anomaly in Ghirlandaio’s oeuvre. While most of his work is subdued and rather dispassionate, this scene is dramatic and full of movement. Inspired by battle scenes on Roman sarcophagi, the work presents an effective contrast between the brutality of the soldiers and the desperation of the victims.
Another work by Ghirlandaio with emotional content, though not as poignant as the Massacre of the Innocents, is his Old Man and Young Boy in the Louvre, Paris (c. 1480). The sitters in this painting have not been identified, though clearly it is a man and his grandson. Though the man’s nose is deformed from rhinophyma, a condition that results in the build-up of excessive tissue, the child accepts him and shows his affection unreservedly. The honest portrayal of the figures, with every imperfection denoted, as well as the crisp landscape behind them, bears the influence of Early Netherlandish art that by now was well represented in Italian collections. See also ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEPHERDS.
GIORGIONE (GIORGIO DA CASTELFRANCO; c. 1477–1510). Leading painter of the Venetian School. Little is known of Giorgione’s career and only a handful of his works have been attributed to him firmly. He is thought to have studied with Giovanni Bellini and to have begun his solo career as a painter of small devotional representations of the Madonna and Child. This information comes from Giorgio Vasari who also related that Giorgione was influenced by Leonardo da Vinci, who had visited Venice in 1500, and that he was an accomplished singer and lute player, as well as a great lover and conversationalist.
The few works known with certainty to have been executed by Giorgione reveal his ability to place figures in poetic landscapes and to grant an ethereal quality through his lush brushwork. In his Allendale Nativity (c. 1505; Washington, National Gallery), the landscape dominates the figures. Pockets of light illuminate the winding road taken by the shepherds who have come to adore the Christ Child, a feature that recalls Andrea Mantegna’s Adoration of the Magi (c. 1464; Florence, Uffizi) painted for Ludovico Gonzaga for his private chapel. As in Mantegna’s example, the Holy Family is shown at the mouth of a dark cave, a reference to the Holy Sepulcher where Christ will be buried after the Crucifixion. Giorgione’s Enthroned Madonna with Sts. Liberalis and Francis, also known as the Castelfranco Altarpiece (c. 1500–1505; Castelfranco, Cathedral), is his only surviving altarpiece. It again shows the influence of Mantegna, as well as that of Giovanni Bellini, in that the Virgin and Child are elevated on a high throne, with a cloth of honor that pushes them forward and separates them from the background landscape. The work also demonstrates Giorgione’s awareness of Pietro Perugino’s art, particularly the serene quality of his scenes, his pyramidal compositions, and the elegant poses of the figures with their exaggerated sway.
Giorgione’s The Tempest (1500–1505; Venice, Galleria dell’ Accademia) is one of his best-known works and also the most enigmatic. Art historians have offered interpretations that vary from mythological to allegorical to political. What is recognized unanimously is that this is the earliest known example of a sensuous nude figure in a landscape, a subject that would be favored by later Venetian masters. Giorgione’s Fête Champetre (c. 1510; Louvre, Paris) and Sleeping Venus (c. 1510; Dresden, Gemäldegalerie) also present examples of the nude in the landscape. These two works are believed by some to have been completed or completely rendered by Titian, Giorgione’s pupil. The Sleeping Venus is the first of many reclining female nudes and would inspire similar compositions not only by Titian but also Lucas Cranach the Elder, Diego Velázquez, Peter Paul Rubens, François Boucher, Francisco Goya, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Edouard Manet, and others.
GIOTTO DI BONDONE (c. 1267–1337). The first Italian painter to attain international fame, Giotto is considered the father of the Renaissance. He was born to a peasant family in the village of Colle di Vespignano in Tuscany. Lorenzo Ghiberti wrote that, as a young shepherd boy, Giotto drew a sheep on a rock when Cimabue, then the most prominent artist of Florence, passed by. Recognizing the boy’s skill, Cimabue asked Giotto’s father permission to take him in as his pupil. The exact dates of Giotto’s apprenticeship with Cimabue are unknown, though it must have ended in c. 1280 when Cimabue was called to Assisi to work on the apse and transept frescoes in the Upper Church of San Francesco.
In the mid-1280s Giotto was in Rome creating the Crucifixion for the Church of Aracoeli (c. 1285–1287), painted in the manner of Cimabue with Christ’s body sagging and bleeding, and, on the apron, the Virgin and St. John grieving. While in Rome, Giotto also painted a fresco in the right transept at Santa Maria Maggiore depicting a floral frieze, medallions showing the busts of prophets holding scrolls, and an arcade with small foreshortened arches. In c. 1287, probably at Cimabue’s recommendation, Giotto went to work at San Francesco, Assisi, where he contributed 28 scenes from the life of St. Francis (some have debated the attribution and chronology of these scenes). Then, in c. 1300, he returned to Rome to work for Boniface VIII, rendering a fresco, now badly damaged, of the pope addressing the crowds. By 1301, he was back in Tuscany, and in 1305 he received the Arena Chapel, Padua, commission from Enrico Scrovegni, his best-known and best-preserved work.
In 1306, the pope moved to Avignon, France, and Giotto lost his papal patronage. The Roman Cardinal Jacopo Stefaneschi, who continued the patronage of works of art destined for Old St. Peter’s in spite of the pope’s absence, provided the artist with further commissions. In c. 1307, Giotto designed for the cardinal a large mosaic for the façade of the courtyard in front of the basilica that depicted the Navicella (only fragments have survived), the scene where Christ walks on water to save St. Peter from drowning. He also rendered the Stefaneschi Altarpiece (c. 1307; Vatican Museum) for the canon’s choir in the basilica. In the 1320s Giotto was back in Florence painting frescoes in four chapels in the Franciscan Church of Santa Croce. Of these, only the Bardi and Peruzzi remain. The Bardi Chapel depicts scenes from the life of St. Francis, arranged along the walls in three levels. The Peruzzi Chapel shows the lives of Sts. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. From 1328 to 1334, Giotto was in Naples in the court of King Robert D’Anjou. Chronicles inform us that his work there centered on the decorations of Castel Nuovo, the king’s residence, that are no longer extant.
A late work by Giotto (and assistants) is the Baroncelli Polyptych (c. 1332–1338; Florence, Santa Croce), a five-paneled altarpiece commissioned by the Baroncelli family for their chapel at Santa Croce that features the Coronation of the Virgin in the center and saints and musical angels on the lateral panels. To this same period belongs Giotto’s design for the Campanile of the Cathedral of Florence (1334–1337), recorded in a tinted drawing on parchment in the Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo in Siena. When Giotto returned to Florence from Naples in 1334, he was appointed Director of the Cathedral Works, considered a great honor, and immediately set out to work on the Campanile. Under Giotto’s direction, the foundation was laid and the first story built. The project was temporarily halted in 1337 when Giotto died.
Giotto is buried in the Cathedral of Florence, then an unprecedented honor for an artist. An epitaph written by the poet Angelo Poliziano on his tomb reads: “I am the man who brought painting to life . . . whatever is found in nature may be found in my art.” This epitaph truly expresses the genius of Giotto. In an era when the Maniera Greca was the style of choice, Giotto introduced a new mode of painting that required the empirical observation of nature and its phenomena, and its replication on the pictorial surface. Cennino Cennini in Il libro dell’ arte, written in c. 1400, rightly proclaimed that “Giotto translated the art of painting from Greek to Latin.”
GIUSTINIANI, MARCHESE VINCENZO (1564–1637). Italian art collector and connoisseur, best known as the patron of Caravaggio, a number of whose works he owned. Among these was the rejected version of Caravaggio’s St. Matthew and the Angel (1602; destroyed in 1945) painted for the Contarelli Chapel, Rome, and the Amor Vincit Omnia (1601–1602; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie). Of Genoese descent, Giustiniani’s family were the sovereigns of Chios, a station they lost in 1566 when the island was overtaken by the Turks. In that year, the young Giustiniani and his family moved to Rome where he eventually took up banking and became treasurer to the papacy. By the early decades of the 17th century, he and his brother, Cardinal Benedetto, had amassed a vast art collection that included approximately 600 paintings and 1,200 ancient sculptures. Giustiniani was also a writer whose essays on painting, sculpture, architecture, music, travel, and other topics were quite influential. In his expositions on painting, he was more democratic than Giovan Pietro Bellori when it came to assessing the merits of contemporary masters. While Bellori adulated the classicism of Annibale Carracci and balked at Caravaggio’s naturalism and the Mannerists’ distortions and ambiguities, Giustiniani felt that they all had something important to contribute to the art world.
GLORIFICATION OF THE REIGN OF URBAN VIII, PALAZZO BARBERINI, ROME (1633–1639). Commissioned by the Barberini from Pietro da Cortona, the Glorification of the Reign of Urban VIII shows Divine Providence commanding Immortality to crown the Barberini escutcheon, composed of bees contained in a laurel wreath held by Faith, Charity, and Hope. This main scene is enclosed in an illusionistic quadratura framework, partially concealed by fictive garlands, shells, masks, and other decorative elements. The scenes on the outer parameters of the fresco are mythological representations that refer to the pope’s deeds: Minerva Destroying Insolence and Pride for his courageous fight against heresy, Silenus and the Satyrs for his ability to overcome lust and intemperance, Hercules Driving out the Harpies for his sense of justice, and The Temple of Janus for his prudence. The scene graces the ceiling of the Barberini Palace’s grand salon and was meant to awe visitors and impart upon them its propagandist message. The dynamism of the scene, with its heavy foreshortening and elaborate allegorical content, had not been seen in art before. With this work, Cortona opened a new universe of possibilities in the field of ceiling fresco painting.
GOES, HUGO VAN DER (c. 1440–1482). Considered the most important Flemish master of the second half of the 15th century, Hugo van der Goes is believed to have been born in Ghent where he entered the painters’ guild in 1467, with Joos van Ghent acting as his sponsor. In 1474, van der Goes became dean of the guild, and in 1478 he entered the Monastery of the Red Cloister in Soignes, near Brussels, as a lay brother. It is known that before entering the monastery van der Goes was involved in the designing of processional banners and ephemeral commissions related to such events as the funeral of Philip the Good, the entry into Bruges of Charles the Bold, and Charles’ marriage to Margaret of York.
Only approximately 15 paintings have been attributed to van der Goes and only the Portinari Altarpiece (c. 1474–1476; Florence, Uffizi) is firmly authenticated (by Giorgio Vasari). This work was commissioned by Tommaso Portinari, an Italian representative of the Medici bank in Bruges, who took the work with him upon his return to Florence, placing it in his chapel in the Church of S. Egidio. There, the work provided inspiration for Italian masters and an example of the Northern oil painting technique and vocabulary. It represents an Adoration of the Shepherds witnessed by members of Portinari’s family. Hierarchic in the placement of the figures and their scale and filled with contrasting idealized and crude figures, the work presents an emotional rendition of the event. No less dramatic is the Dormition of the Virgin (c. 1481; Bruges, Groeningemuseum). Surrounded by the apostles, Mary, in the last moments of earthly existence and with eyes half opened, sees a vision of Christ surrounded by angels in a brilliantly lit spherical mandorla. Van der Goes suffered a mental breakdown in 1481, which made him melancholic and lethargic, and he died the following year. A fellow brother at the monastery named Gaspar Ofhuys left a written account of van der Goes’ illness. Some scholars have attributed the emotive power of the master’s paintings to his depression, which must have already manifested itself prior to his attack.
GOLDEN LEGEND BY JACOBUS DA VORAGINE (LEGENDA AUREA). Jacobus da Voragine’s Golden Legend is a collection he compiled in c. 1260 of legends of the saints worshiped during the Middle Ages. Its importance lies in the fact that it provides a glimpse of popular medieval religious thought. That the Golden Legend was read widely is attested by the approximately 900 manuscripts to have survived. With the introduction of the printing press, it became the most often printed book in Europe until the early 16th century. It has been suggested that the Golden Legend may have contributed to the Reformation because it revealed that many of the lives of the saints follow a formulaic narration. This led some to not only question whether these legends are in fact true but also, therefore, the validity of sainthood as taught by the Catholic Church. For artists, the text provided a source for the depiction of saints, their stories, and attributes.
GONÇALVES, NUNO (active 1450–1471). The leading painter of Portugal in the 15th century and possibly the teacher of Bartolomé Bermejo, Gonçalves was appointed court painter to Alfonso V in 1450 and, in 1471, he was made the official painter of Lisbon. The only work known by him is the Retable of St. Vincent (c. 1460–1470; Lisbon, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga), painted for the Convent of St. Vincent in Lisbon and financed by Prince Henry “the Navigator,” son of King John I. The monumentality of the figures, their individualization, the brilliance of color, and the meticulousness in the rendering of details are all elements that influenced painting in Portugal until the 16th century.
GONZAGA FAMILY. The Gonzaga ruled Mantua from 1328, when Luigi Gonzaga was elected Captain General of the People, until 1708, when Mantua was seized by the Austrian Hapsburgs. In 1433, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund gave Gianfrancesco Gonzaga the title of marquis, while in 1530 Emperor Charles V conferred the title of duke to Federigo Gonzaga. In 1531, Federigo married Maria Palaeologo, daughter of the Marquis of Monferrato, a territory Charles V ceded to Federigo in 1536 when the Palaeologo line ended. A branch of the Gonzaga family settled in France where they became the Dukes of Nevers and Rethelois. Upon the extinction of the Italian line in 1627, the French Gonzaga took over the rule of Mantua, but not before the French monarchs and the Hapsburgs contested the succession. The war between the two factions ended in 1631 with the Treaty of Cherasco, and the Dukes of Nevers and Rethelois were able to rule Mantua until their own extinction in 1708. The Gonzaga court was a major center of arts and culture. Among the artists who served the family were Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Mantegna, Correggio, Giulio Romano, and Peter Paul Rubens. Among the literary figures were Pietro Aretino and Torquato Tasso.
GONZAGA, FEDERIGO II (1500–1540). Federigo Gonzaga succeeded his father, Francesco II, as Marquis of Mantua in 1519, and, in 1530, he was conferred the title of duke by Emperor Charles V. In 1531, he married Maria Palaeologo, daughter of the Marquis of Monferrato, which gained Mantua that territory in 1536. Federigo was an able military commander. In 1521, as Captain of the Church, he was involved in the siege of Pavia and, in 1529, was appointed captain to the Imperial troops in Italy. Federigo was also a major patron, his passion for the arts inherited from his mother, Isabella d’Este, who was an avid art collector. As a child, Federigo was kept hostage at the Vatican in the court of Julius II, along with his father whose political inclinations did not accord with those of the pope. This coincided with the time when Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donato Bramante were working at the Vatican, which would have piqued Federigo’s interest in art. Federigo was the patron of Correggio who rendered for him mythologies depicting the loves of Jupiter, including Danaë (c. 1531; Rome, Galleria Borghese), Ganymede, and Io (both early 1530s; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Giulio Romano built for him the Palazzo del Tè (1527–34) and frescoed the Sala dei Giganti with his greatest painted masterpiece, the Fall of the Giants (1530–1532).
GOOD AND BAD GOVERNMENT, PALAZZO PUBBLICO, SIENA (1338–1339). The Allegory of Good and Bad Government is a fresco in the Sala della Pace in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. A fresco of huge proportions—so huge in fact that it cannot be photographed all at once—it was meant as admonition for the members of the Great Council, the Nine, who governed Siena from 1287 until 1355 and who met in this room. The fresco is composed of three scenes: the Allegory of Good Government, the Peaceful City and Peaceful Country, and the Effects of Bad Government. The Allegory of Good Government is on the wall that receives the most light. Here, an allegorical figure with orb and scepter, the Commune of Siena, is dressed in the city’s black and white heraldic colors and enthroned. The Virtues, identified by inscriptions, surround him. Ambrogio utilized the same compositional arrangement as in Last Judgment scenes, with the allegorical Commune of Siena taking the place of the judging Christ and bound criminals to his left and good citizens to his right taking on the role of the blessed and the damned. The figure of Justice, also enthroned and accompanied by Wisdom and Concord, stands out from the rest of the Virtues to stress the importance of governing justly and wisely. The scene leads to the Peaceful City and Peaceful Country where the effects of good government are clearly elucidated. The city, a portrait of Siena, is shown as a prosperous place where commerce, new construction, and education thrive. Men and their loaded mules pass through the city gates to bring produce for sale, houses are built, a school is in session, and citizens dance in the streets. On the city gates is the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, denoting Sienese claim of descent from Remus. A hunting party passes through the gates that lead to the countryside, the first landscape to be rendered since the ancient era. It offers a panoramic view of cultivated, fertile lands filled with grain, olive trees, and grapevines. Above hovers Security with a man who hangs from the gallows for having disturbed the peace in one hand and a scroll that promises safety to those who live under the rule of the law in the other. On the darkest wall in the Sala della Pace is the Effects of Bad Government, now in poor condition. Utilizing the same formula as for the Allegory of Good Government, the demonic figure of Tyranny is enthroned and surrounded by War, Cruelty, Treason, Frenzy, and Discord. The city is shown pillaged, with criminals roaming, and the countryside as barren—the effects of poor rulership. The cycle’s message to the Council of Nine could not have been conveyed more clearly. The Sienese expected their governing body to rule wisely to ensure prosperity in their city.
GOSSART, JAN (MABUSE; c. 1478–1532). Flemish painter from Maubeuge. Gossart may have trained in Antwerp where he is documented in 1503, the year he became an independent master. In 1507, he entered in the service of Philip of Burgundy in Walcheren, near Middleburg. In the following year, he went with Philip on a mission to the Vatican and, in 1517, to Utrecht where Philip was appointed bishop. While in Rome, Gossart sketched the ancient ruins and learned the Italian mode of painting, which was to have an immense impact on his art. This made him the first artist in Flanders to construct his images through the use of one-point linear perspective and to base his figures on ancient statuary and anatomical study.
Gossart’s St. Luke Painting the Virgin (c. 1515; Prague, National Gallery) for the Church of St. Ronbout at Malines shows the protagonists in a fantasy architecture that is visibly classical in form, as are the reliefs and statuary decorating the backdrop. The heavy contrasts of light and dark and crisp outlines are part of the Italian vocabulary, even though the treatment of drapery still retains its Flemish flavor. Gossart’s Neptune and Amphitrite (1516; Berlin, Staatliche Museen) is part of a mythological series he and the Italian Jacopo de’ Barbari painted for Philip’s castle of Suytborg. It represents the first classicized, idealized depiction of nudes in Flemish history. The work betrays the influence not only of Greco-Roman statuary but also of Albrecht Dürer and Philip’s court sculptor, Conrad Meit, both influenced by Italian art and interested in the depiction of the sensuous nude form. Gossart’s Danaë (1527; Munich, Alte Pinakothek) is a seminude figure occupying an apsidal loggia, the shower of gold falling upon her as she watches in amazement.
Gossart was also an accomplished portraitist. His portrait Baudouin de Bourgogne (c. 1525; Berlin, Staatliche Museen) shows the same clarity and plays of light and dark found in Italian portraits of the same period. The figure is set against a dark, undefined background, his form casting a shadow behind. His monumentality, coupled with the details of the costume and richness of textures, speak of the man’s high social position. After Philip’s death in 1524, Gossart entered in the service of Adolph of Burgundy. He died in 1532 in Middleburg where he had become a member of the city’s religious brotherhood in 1509, and where he returned in the last years of his life to set up his own workshop. Gossart was a pioneer of Flemish art. The first to introduce the Italianate style to Flanders, he inaugurated the custom among Flemish masters to travel to Italy and learn from the art the region had to offer.
GOUJON, JEAN (c. 1510–c. 1565). Sculptor who dominated the field in 16th-century France. Goujon was deeply influenced by the Fontainebleau School established by Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primaticcio, as well as the art of Benvenuto Cellini, who was active in France from 1540 until 1545. Goujon arrived in Paris in 1544, and there he worked in collaboration with the architect Pierre Lescot. His Pietà (1544–1545; Paris, Louvre), originally part of the rood screen in the Church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois, belongs to this period. The Fontainebleau Mannerist vocabulary is clearly seen in this work, particularly in the use of elegant elongated forms. The deep emotional content of the work is typical of Rosso’s art, and the thin, closely arranged folds stem from Cellini. Goujon would again collaborate with Lescot at the Louvre in the 1550s, rendering the caryatids in the Salle des Cariatides and the sculptural decoration on the palace’s west façade. Among Goujon’s most celebrated works are the nymphs from the Fountain of the Innocents (1547–1549; Paris, Louvre), no longer in situ. The fluid lines and classicized forms in these reliefs again recall the art of the Fontainebleau artists. By the early 1560s, nothing else is heard of Goujon. He is believed to have traveled to Bologna and to have died there in c. 1565.
GOZZOLI, BENOZZO (1420–1497). A pupil of Fra Angelico whom he assisted in the Chapel of Nicholas V (1448) at the Vatican. Gozzoli was born in Florence to a tailor. In the 1450s, he worked in Montefalco, near Perugia, where he painted a cycle in the Church of San Fortunato, now in fragments. The altarpiece for the church’s main apse, the Madonna della Cintola is now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana. Gozzoli also rendered frescoes at San Francesco di Montefalco that depicted the life of St. Francis, the church’s patron saint. In 1456, he was in Perugia creating the Madonna and Child with Saints (Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell’ Umbria), and two years later in Rome rendering the frescoes in the Albertoni Chapel at Santa Maria d’Aracoeli (late 1450s), of which only a damaged St. Anthony of Padua has survived.
Gozzoli’s most important commission is the fresco of the Procession of the Magi in the chapel at the Palazzo Medici, Florence (c. 1459). It reenacts a procession that took place once a year through the streets of Florence carried out by members of the city’s most aristocratic confraternity, the Compagnia de’ Re Magi, of which the Medici were members. In the work, the young Lorenzo de’ Medici and his father, Piero de Gouty, are shown on horseback, and Gozzoli himself is included. He is the man with an inscription on his hat that reads Opus Benotti (the work of Benozzo). After this, Gozzoli went to Pisa and there he rendered a series of frescoes from the Old Testament in the Campo Santo (beg. 1469), damaged by bombing in 1944. Gozzoli’s works show his full command of perspective and his interest in rendering courtly scenes and in describing all the fine details of figures, objects, and backdrops. Also, the emphasis is on brilliant colorism and heavy gilding. Gozzoli died in 1497 while working in Pistoia, perhaps from the plague.
GRANDE MANIERA. The grande maniera (grand manner) was a term used by Nicolas Poussin to refer to the painting method he created based on his use of the classical Greek modes of music to express different moods. He developed this Theory of Modes in the 1640s, known from a letter he wrote to Paul Fréart de Chantelou explaining it. For him, the Phrygian mode was well suited for violent scenes such as battles, the Lydian for tragedies, the Ionic for joyous renditions such as festivals and bacchanals, and the Hypolidian for religious subjects. With this, Poussin systematized the depiction of emotions through facial expressions and body movement, resulting in well-planned and, at times, formulaic representations that, contrary to his intentions, lacked the expressiveness of his earlier paintings.
GREEK CROSS PLAN. This is a type of central plan shaped like a cross with four arms of equal length. The first Greek cross building of the Renaissance was Leon Battista Alberti’s San Sebastiano in Mantua (1460), built for Duke Ludovico Gonzaga. It was followed by Giuliano da Sangallo’s Santa Maria delle Carceri, Prato (1484–1492), and Antonio da Sangallo the Elder’s Church of the Madonna di San Biagio, Montepulciano (1518–1534). The ultimate Greek cross structure of the Renaissance was New St. Peter’s, Rome, completed by Michelangelo in 1564 and inspired by Donato Bramante’s plan of 1506.
GREGORY XV (ALESSANDRO LUDOVISI; r. 1621–1623). Gregory XV was from a noble family from Bologna, where he was born in 1554. He received his doctorate in law from the University of Bologna in 1575. In 1612, he was appointed the city’s archbishop and, in this capacity, he negotiated peace between Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy and Philip III of Spain, for which he was rewarded with the cardinalate in 1616. When he ascended the papal throne in 1621, he appointed his nephew, Ludovico Ludovisi, to the cardinalate, increasing the family’s income in great measure. It was Gregory who decreed that voting during papal elections be kept secret by using written ballots in an effort to eliminate external political pressures. He also was the founder of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda Fide, responsible for propagating the faith through missionary work, and for carrying out the Counter-Reformation. Gregory canonized St. Theresa of Avila, who had founded the Order of the Discalced Carmelites; Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order; Philip Neri of the Oratorians; and Francis Xavier, the disciple of Ignatius and an ardent Christian missionary.
Gregory did much to change the course of art in the 17th century. He favored the masters of the Bolognese School, which resulted in the popularization of their style at the expense of Caravaggism. Among the works created for Gregory and the Ludovisi are Guercino’s Aurora in the Casino Ludovisi, Rome (1621), a painting that symbolizes the dawn of a new era under the new pope’s rulership. Domenichino’s portrait Pope Gregory XV and Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi of 1621–1623 (Béziers, Musée des Beaux-Arts) he commissioned to commemorate the family’s good fortune effected by his ascent to the throne.
GREGORY, SAINT (GREGORY THE GREAT; c. 540–604). St. Gregory was the son of a wealthy Roman patrician. He acted as prefect of Rome until 574 when he converted his home into a monastery (St. Andrew) and became a monk. In 578, Pope Pelagius II appointed him one of the seven papal deacons. Pelagius died of the plague in 590 and Gregory was elected in his place. Well known for his charitable acts, Gregory negotiated peace with the Lombards and persuaded them to spare Rome from invasion. He effected the conversion of England to Christianity and was among the first to assert the supreme authority of the papacy. Gregory was the author of various treatises, most notably the Dialogues, which relates the lives of Italian saints as well as visions and miracles. The Gregorian chant is a product of his additions to church liturgy. Considered one of the Latin Doctors of the Church, Gregory was canonized by public demand immediately upon his death. He is included among the Doctors of the Church in the lower panels of the east doors of the Baptistery of Florence, executed by Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1403–1424. He is also the subject of Andrea Sacchi’s St. Gregory and the Miracle of the Corporal (1625–1626; Vatican, Pinacoteca) where the cloth used to wipe the chalice bleeds when he pierces it with a dagger and a bewildered nonbeliever sinks to his knees as he witnesses the miraculous event. Francisco de Zurbarán rendered Gregory (1626–1627; Seville, Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes) standing against a dark background wearing his ecclesiastic vestments and reading from an illuminated manuscript, the ideal picture of the scholar saint.
GRIEN, HANS BALDUNG (c. 1484/1485–1545). German painter who received his training in Nuremberg from Albrecht Dürer. Grien was born into a family of academics from Schwäbisch-Gmünd. By 1500, he is documented in a workshop in Strasbourg, and in Nuremberg by 1503. He is known to have completed two altarpieces for the Cathedral of Halle (1507), specifically the Three Kings Altarpiece (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie) and St. Sebastian (Nuremberg Museum), as well as stained glass and book illustrations in Freiburg, where he spent five years. In Freiburg, he also was charged with the cathedral’s altarpiece (1512), a polyptych with scenes from the infancy of Christ and his Passion. The macabre figures prominently in Grien’s art, as exemplified by his Three Ages of Woman and Death (1509–1511; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) and Death and the Woman (c. 1517; Basel, Kunstmuseum). Grien’s interest in the supernatural is best revealed in his woodcuts, including his Witches of 1510, one of many representations of these characters of the occult.
GRISAILLE. A painting executed in monochrome (usually gray) to replicate the appearance of stone sculpture. In Netherlandish altarpieces, saints painted in grisaille usually figure on the shutters. When the altarpiece is opened, these exterior panels provide a contrast to the brilliantly colored interior scenes. An example is the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck and his brother Hubert (c. 1425–1432; Ghent, Cathedral of St.-Bavon) where Sts. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist are painted in grisaille and therefore made to look like statues occupying Gothic niches. Similarly, Hans Memlinc’s Last Judgment Triptych (1473; Danzig, Muzeum Pomorskie) shows the donors on the outer panels kneeling in front of grisaille figures of the Virgin, Child, and St. Michael. In Italy, quadratura ceilings often include figures in grisaille to imitate the sculpture that then adorned contemporary architecture. In Annibale Carracci’s Farnese ceiling (c. 1597–1600; Rome, Palazzo Farnese), for example, herms painted in grisaille support fictive lintels adorned with shelled motifs to give the appearance of real architectural elements separating the various scenes.
GROTESQUES. Sculptural or painted decorations based on antique Roman prototypes used for the ornamentation of grottoes, hence their name. They are usually composed of human, plant, or animal forms that can be either fantastic, playful, or ominous. This type of decoration was reintroduced in the 1490s when Emperor Nero’s Domus Aurea [Golden House] in Rome, decorated with fantastic grotesques rendered in brilliant colors and gilded, was rediscovered. Several artists, including Pinturicchio, Alexander VI’s favorite painter, lowered themselves with ropes to view the Neronian decorations. Pinturicchio then decorated Alexander’s apartments in the Vatican Palace with grotesque ornamentations (1492–1494).
GROTTO. Fantasy-type structure used to decorate a garden, as exemplified by the grotto in the Boboli Gardens, Florence, created for the Medici by Giorgio Vasari and Bernardo Buontalenti (1556–1560; façade 1583–1593). This Mannerist edifice presents a fusion of art and nature. Pumice stalactites mingle with classical motifs to create a structure that seems to have grown on the site rather than having been constructed. The interior is dark and cavelike. Again, pumice stone formations appear throughout. To enhance the effect of natural and man-made forms, outdoor scenes were frescoed on the walls while Michelangelo’s caryatid-like figures support the weight of the vault. In the deepest portion of the interior is a fountain with a statue of a nude Venus by Giovanni da Bologna that seeks to recreate the birth of the goddess from the sea foam. The bizarre forms of Renaissance grottoes have earned them the appellation in Italian of bizzarrie.
GRÜNEWALD, MATTHIAS (MATHIS GOTHART NEITHART; c. 1470/1475–1528). Along with Albrecht Dürer, Grünewald was the greatest artistic genius of Renaissance Germany. He was practically unknown until the 20th century when his identity and works were finally rediscovered. Of his paintings, only approximately a dozen have survived. Grünewald was court painter to Uriel von Gemmingen, the archbishop of Mainz, and his successor, Albrecht von Brandenburg. A document of 1510, the earliest relating to the artist, refers to him as a designer of waterworks. In the following year, Grünewald was supervising the building of Aschaffenburg Castle for Archbishop Uriel, and, in 1517, he was painting an altarpiece for Heinrich Reitzmann, canon of the Church of Aschaffenburg. Other known documents on Grünewald are records of payment for three altarpieces he painted in Mainz in 1524–1525, lost in a storm when the Swedes carried them off by boat after their conquests in Germany. In 1525, Grünewald left von Brandenburg’s service and went to Halle where he died in 1528.
The Mocking of Christ (1503; Munich, Alte Pinakothek) is Grünewald’s earliest dated work. Rendered for the Church of Aschaffenburg, it already features what will become one of the main characteristics of the master’s style—deep emotionalism that evokes pity toward the victimized Christ, here achieved through the crowding of figures and the scornful expressions of the tormentors. Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece (fin. 1515; Colmar, Musée d’Unterlinden) epitomizes his ability to evoke emotive responses from viewers. In its closed state, the work presents the crucified, broken, and bloodied body of Christ with St. Mary Magdalen kneeling at his feet in desperate agony. In its open state, the altarpiece includes the Resurrection, where Christ is shown as having recovered from his wounds, now a handsome, healthy figure rising to heaven while surrounded by a magnificent halo of yellow and red. The image clearly provides a ray of hope to those who suffer, a fitting subject as the altarpiece originally stood in the chapel of the commandery of the Hospital Order of St. Anthony in Isenheim. Grünewald’s Stuppach Madonna (c. 1517–1520; Stuppach, Parish Church) may be the central panel for Reitzmann’s altarpiece. It presents the Virgin and Child in a playful moment, their faces lit by the joy they experience. Next to them are prominently displayed lilies, symbols of the Virgin’s purity. Behind are a garden, rainbow, and cathedral, this last denoting that Mary is here depicted as Ecclesia, the Church.
Grünewald’s works convey meaning through gestures, distortions, grimaces, and resplendent colorism and light. His backgrounds are there not to locate the work in a certain specific setting but rather to add to the spiritual drama of his scenes. His works are either full of tragedy or full of joy. He was among those few masters who was able to communicate through visual language the complexities of human emotion and hope for an afterlife that offers succor from the pain of living.
GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES. The names of Italian political factions deriving from the German Welf, the family name of the Dukes of Bavaria, and Waiblingen, the name of the castle of the Hohenstaufen Dukes of Swabia. The terms were first used in 1235 during the conflict between Pope Gregory IX and Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen. The Guelfs were supporters of the papacy and belonged to the merchant class, while the Ghibellines, feudal land owners, sided with the emperor. The rivalry of these two factions is of particular significance to the history of Florence where the Guelfs succeeded in removing the Ghibellines from power in the 1260s. The Guelfs destroyed the palace of the Ghibelline Uberti family and built on its site the Palazzo Vecchio (1299–1310) as their seat of government.
GUERCINO (GIOVANNI FRANCESCO BARBIERI; 1591–1666). The youngest member of the Carracci School. Guercino’s appellation (in English, squinter) stems from the fact that he was slightly cross-eyed, which caused him to squint. He was born in Cento, not far from Bologna, and was essentially self-taught. In fact, contemporary sources indicate that Guercino had an academy of his own. In his formative years, he had the opportunity to study Ludovico Carracci’s Cento Madonna (1591; Cento, Museo Civico) and he also may have traveled to Bologna where he would have seen other works by the members of the Carracci School. Surprisingly, however, Guercino’s early works show interest in Caravaggist naturalism, as his Et in Arcadia Ego (c. 1618; Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’ Arte Antica) and Samson Arrested by the Philistines (1619; New York, Metropolitan Museum) exemplify.
In 1621, Guercino went to Rome, where he remained until 1623, working for the Ludovisi, Pope Gregory XV’s family. For them he painted his famed Aurora in the Casino Ludovisi (1621), a vault fresco in a di sotto in sù technique and quadratura framework inspired by Annibale Carracci’s Triumph of Bacchus in the center of the Farnese ceiling (c. 1597–1600; Palazzo Farnese). Completely dependent on the Iconologia by Cesare Ripa for the attributes of its allegorical figures, the work speaks of the dawn of a new era in the papacy under Gregory XV’s rule. In 1623, Guercino also received the commission from the pope to paint one of his most important altarpieces, the Burial of St. Petronilla (1623; Rome, Capitoline Museum). A few months after its completion, the pope died and, having lost his patronage, Guercino returned to Cento.
Guercino’s return to his hometown coincided with an abrupt change in his style. He abandoned all vestiges of the Caravaggesque mode and began utilizing a more classicizing vocabulary. His application of paint became less spontaneous, his blues and reds more intense, and his figures more idealized. His Presentation in the Temple (1623; London, National Gallery) and Christ Appearing to the Virgin (1628–1630; Cento, Pinacoteca Comunale) belong to this phase in his career. When Guido Reni died in 1642, Guercino, hopeful to take his place, moved to Bologna, where he did in fact become the leading master of the city. In Bologna, Guercino’s art became even more idealized and permeated with a stillness that evokes meditation and devotion from the viewer, his Circumcision (1646; Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts) and Marriage of the Virgin (1649; Fano, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio) providing two of the most outstanding examples. Guercino died in Bologna in 1666 after a long and fruitful career.
GUIDALOTTI CHAPEL, SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE (SPANISH CHAPEL; 1348–1355). Used by the Dominican monks who lived in the monastery adjacent to the Church of Santa Maria Novella as their chapter house, this chapel was the burial site for members of the merchant Guidalotti family who charged Andrea da Firenze with its decoration. As they shared it with the monks, the frescoes depict scenes of significance to their order. In the center of the altar wall is a large Crucifixion flanked by the Road to Calvary and Christ in Limbo, while on the opposite entrance wall are scenes from the life of St. Peter Martyr, a 13th-century Dominican from Florence particularly venerated by the locals. One of these scenes presents the saint preaching in front of Santa Maria Novella. On the left wall is the Apotheosis of St. Thomas, also a Dominican, with the saint shown enthroned and flanked by prophets and apostles. At his feet are trampled heretics; below them are learned men from history, including Pythagoras and Euclid; above are the Virtues. On the right wall is the Way to Salvation, a fresco depicting Dominican doctrine and the activities its monks normally engage in, including preaching and converting nonbelievers. The Cathedral of Florence is prominently displayed within the composition with Pope Innocent VI, Emperor Charles IV, and Cardinal Giles Albornoz, a papal diplomat and Dominican, in front of it. Also included are black-and-white dogs, the Domini canes (God’s dogs) who chase the wolves of heresy, a reference to the derivation of the name of the Dominican order. With these frescoes, the monks of Santa Maria Novella were reminded of their duties and provided with proper models to emulate.
GUILDS. Associations of individuals who practice specific trades, their purpose to control standards and maintain the monopoly of their activities. Although the concept of forming associations with members who share a particular interest had existed since antiquity, it was not until the late Middle Ages that guilds came to play a key role in the urban economy. In England, France, the Low Countries, Germany, and Italy the earliest medieval guilds were related to the textile industry. By the 13th century, France was completely dominated by the guild system, with every trade, including prostitution, well represented. In Florence, guilds were ranked according to the occupations of its members. The 7 Greater Guilds were those in prestigious professions, such as banking, law, and wool merchantry, while the 14 Lesser Guilds represented the smaller craftsmen and businessmen. In processions, the order in which these guilds participated depended on this hierarchy. In some cases, members of guilds took part in government. In 14th-century Florence, for instance, only guild members were eligible for civic office and, in Venice in 1310, members of the painter’s guild were involved in the crushing of a rebellion against their government.
Guilds often generated art commissions. The Florentine Guild of Refiners of Imported Woolen Cloth, the Arte della Calimala, for example, asked Lorenzo Ghiberti to render the statue of St. John the Baptist (1412–1416) for one of the exterior niches at Orsanmichele. The Guild of Linen Drapers and Peddlers, the Arte dei Linaiuoli e Rigattieri, commissioned from Donatello the St. Mark (1411–1413), and the Guild of Armorers and Swordmakers, the Arte dei Corazzai e Spadai, paid for his St. George (1415–1417), both in the same location. In the North, Frans Floris painted the Fall of the Rebel Angels (1554; Antwerp, Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts) for the Fencer’s Guild of Antwerp and Rembrandt the Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (1632; The Hague, Mauritshuis) for the Surgeon’s Guild of Amsterdam.
GUILLAIN, SIMON (1589–1658). The French sculptor Simon Guillain was born in Paris and trained with his father, Nicolas Guillain. He is known to have visited Italy where he remained for a while, returning to Paris in 1612. Very few works by Simon have survived. Of these, the most important is the royal monument he erected on the Pont-au-Change, Paris, in 1647 to serve as statement of French monarchic succession. Now dismantled, its principal figures housed in the Paris Louvre, the monument depicted the deceased Louis XIII of France ceding the regency to his wife, Anne of Austria, their young son Louis XIV standing between them and being crowned by Fame. The heavy draperies worn by the figures and the varying textures that add richness to the work are characteristic of Guillain’s style.