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[German Version] (in full Michelagn[i]olo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni; Mar 3, 1474, Caprese – Feb 18, 1564, Rome), Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet, the most important artist of the High Renaissance (III) and pioneer of Mannerism. In 1488 Michelangelo was apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio in Florence. Intensive study of classical sculpture, through access to the collection of the Medici in the garden of San Marco, made possible (according to G. Vasari) since 1489, probably accoun…

[German Version] (Nov 4, 1575, Bologna – Aug 18, 1642, Bologna), one of the most important and influential Italian painters of the Baroque (III). After completing his apprenticeship under Denys Calvaert (1584–1594), Reni joined the Accademia dei Carracci in 1594. He worked in Rome from 1601 to 1614, where he contributed, among other things, to the decoration of the Cappella Paolina in Sta. Maria Maggiore (1610–1612) at the behest of Paul V, and where he also frescoed the Aurora (1614) for Scipione Borghese. After returning to his native city, Reni assumed the direction of the ¶ Bologna sch…

[German Version] ( Lo Spagnoletto; baptized Feb 17, 1591, Játiva, Valencia – Sep 3, 1652, Naples), Spanish painter, graphic artist, and etcher. After periods of residence in Parma (1611) and Rome (1613–1616), Ribera settled permanently in Naples from 1616; he soon came to be the city’s leading painter. Ribera’s realistic chiaroscuro, following Caravaggio, is characteristic ( The Five Senses, c. 1613–1615; The Beggar Philosophers, 1630); from 1632 he modified it by means of a differentiated use of light and color ( The Immaculate Conception, 1635). Ribero caused irritation espe…

[German Version] (Tiziano Vecellio; 1488–1490, Pieve di Cadore – Aug 27, 1576, Venice), Italian painter, outstanding master of the Venetian school of painting. Sent to Venice by his father around 1500, Titian was trained by G. Bellini (among others). After some initial independent works (e.g. Sacred and Profane Love, c. 1515), his Assumption of the Virgin (1516–1518) and the so-called Pesaro Madonna (1519–1526) for Sta. Maria dei Frari and the Death of St. Peter Martyr (1526–1530, destroyed in 1867) were the most innovative altarpieces of his early creative period. After sta…

[German Version] (Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simoe Cassai; Dec 21, 1401, San Giovanni Val d'Arno – Jun, 1428, Rome), Italian painter and founder of the early Renaissance (III). He is known to have been in Florence as early as 1418; he was artistically active there from 1424, mostly in collaboration with Masolino (1383–1447). In Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Masaccio painted the Trinity fresco (probably c. 1427), presenting the holy Trinity with John and Mary, unique in Italian painting, illusioni…

[German Version] ( Jacopo Robusti; 1519, Venice – May 31, 1594, Venice), painter and draughtsman, considered the consummate representative of Venetian Mannerism. He spent almost his entire lifetime in Venice, doing much of his extensive work in the service of the scuole, charitable confraternities (Venice). Following his artistic breakthrough with his Mira…

[German Version] (1430/1431, Isola di Carturo, modern province of Padua – Sep 13, 1506, Mantua), one of the most important Italian painters and copper engravers of the 15th century. After completing his training under Francesco Squarzione (1442–1448), Mantegna worked independently in Padua, where he provided the decoration for the Ovetari Chapel in the Eremitani Church (1448–1457). From 1460 onward, as the court painter of the Gonzagas in Mantua, he not only produced religious paintings but also n…

[German Version] (Caliari; 1528. Verona – Apr 18, 1588, Venice), one of the major representatives of 16th-century Venetian painting. He moved to Venice in 1553; his paintings produced there beginning in 1555 included several cycles for San Sebastiano (Esther cycle, 1555/1556). Impressed by the works of Michelangelo Buonarroti that he studied in Rome in 1560, in 1561 he completed the illusionistic frescoes of the Villa Maser, which opened the pictorial space to views of the countryside and sky. Ver…

[German Version] I. Concept The French term “Renaissance,” which was also borrowed by German and English, belongs to the large group of organic metaphors applied to historical occurrences. Used from the 19th century in sole reference to animal/human life and understood in the sense of “rebirth,” it is assigned in recent research (since Jost Trier) more appropriately to the botanical sphere and explained as “renewed growth,” i.e. as a renewed sprouting of shoots ¶ from felled trees and bushes. Pre-Christian Latin already employed renasci (from nasci, “to be born, to become, to ar…