Everyone has heard of Michelangelo’s David, his Sistine Chapel frescoes, or his touching Pietà. However, his artistic repertoire is much more complex than what we can see only in those showstoppers. A painter, sculptor, and architect, Michelangelo had preoccupations and beliefs that are reflected in unexpected ways in some of the more incognito works. Dive into the works that reveal Michelangelo’s true character.

1. The Torment of Saint Anthony

The first artwork on the list is a divisive one. Art historians are split over its attribution to Michelangelo. If it is indeed a work made by Michelangelo, then this painting is the first piece ever produced by him.

It was possibly done under the supervision of Domenico Ghirlandaio in his very first year of apprenticeship when Michelangelo showed immense promise. The young artist drew his inspiration from a print by Martin Schongauer.

The theme of St. Anthony caught in the air by a flock of demons was very popular in the Middle Ages, but it is certainly a strange image to reproduce as a novice and newcomer apprentice. Historians argue that The Torment was produced by Michelangelo as a child based on Ascanio Condivi’s The Life of Michelangelo. In this biography, we find a mention of a St. Anthony painting made by Michelangelo while he was being trained by Ghirlandaio.

This tempera and oil painting leans on Ghirlandaio’s manner, especially when it comes to the backdrop. The style of the landscape has led scholars to believe this is the work Condivi documented. Discussions will remain about attribution, but it is certainly appealing to argue that Michelangelo was a child prodigy who could emulate his master’s hand just moments after joining his workshop. And who knows what led to the choice of subject?

2. The Lost Sleeping Cupid Forgery

Another work from Michelangelo’s youth, the well-documented Sleeping Cupid, now lost, reveals plenty about the artist’s immense ambitions and skill, and it also shows how obsessed the Renaissance artists were with antiquity.

Michelangelo started to carve this Cupid trying to better his skills in working marble. He began working on the sleeping Cupid in 1495, perhaps inspired by a Hellenistic Eros sculpture he had studied in the Medici Gardens of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Upon finishing it, Michelangelo gave it to an art dealer, Baldassare del Milanese. This is where it gets interesting. The marble was then sold as an antique to Cardinal Riario, who soon discovered the statue was falsely aged and asked for his money back.

Who was the forger, though? Historical accounts offer two alternative answers. One is that young Michelangelo, a struggling young artist, wanted to exhibit his capacity to emulate antiquity in a most persuasive way: by creating a sculpture that could be taken as an antique.

The other scenario, equally enthralling, cites that Baldassare purposefully buried the statue in his vineyard, left it to age, and then debuted it as a just-found antique.

Whoever staged the farce, this anecdote is significant for Michelangelo’s early career because it created a scandal that propelled his talent far and wide. It also earned him an invitation to Rome, where Michelangelo could study newly unearthed ancient sculptures all over town.

The Cupid was later in the possession of Cesare Borgia, who offered it as a gift to Isabella d’Este, who was obsessed with collecting both her contemporary artists and ancient artifacts. The sculpture was sadly lost in a fire in 1698. The Palace of Whitehall, London, burned to the ground, along with many great artworks. The statue only survives in reiterations, among which Giulio Romano and Jacopo Tintoretto’s citations of Michelangelo’s Sleeping Cupid.

3. The Bruges Madonna

Executed around 1504, the Madonna of Bruges is the only sculpture by Michelangelo to have left Italy during his lifetime. Its patrons were Giovanni and Alessandro Mouscron, rich cloth merchants who were deeply connected to the international Medici network. The statue can now be enjoyed in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, which was chosen by the Mouscron family.

This Madonna and Child abounds in artistic license. Made around the same time as David, this depiction of Mary and Jesus breaks away from tradition in numerous ways. Typically, Mary was depicted holding baby Jesus in her arms and looking at him piously. The structure of such a composition was usually pyramidal, something Michelangelo had done in his earlier Pietà. But not here.

In this marble, the Virgin barely holds Jesus, who is not as young as we’d expect. He looks rather older. Mary gazes away in a meditative state, while Jesus seems to almost step away from his mother. This theme will become a mainstay in the centuries that follow. This highly unusual iconography demonstrates that Michelangelo wanted to break away from the imagery constructed in the Early Renaissance. His innovation in such a typical religious motif is a speaking example of his cutting-edge vision.

4. The Prisoners

The group of four Slaves or Prisoners was meant to adorn the monumental, three-story free-standing tomb for Pope Julius II della Rovere, designed to contain more than 40 figures. The commission from the Pope was one of the first major projects that Michelangelo was hired to make in Rome. The project, started in 1505, was first delayed, with the Pope getting distracted by his ambitious decoration plans for the new St. Peter Basilica, and then eventually abandoned.

Michelangelo did not carve these four specific unfinished figures until the 1520s–1530s.

The four figures were meant to decorate the first level of the tomb, holding it on their shoulders. Even unfinished, the sculptures are fine examples of Michelangelo’s newfound understanding of anatomy, which he attained by studying Hellenistic monuments.

This project is very revealing for another reason, too. Its problematic patronage demonstrates how much self-respect the young artist possessed. After spending months picking up great quality marble in Carrara, Michelangelo and the Pope get into an argument that led him to return in haste to Florence in 1506. He was so adamant about his grievances that Julius II was forced to issue an order coercing him to go back.

After the Government of Florence got involved and pushed Michelangelo to return to Rome, he was welcomed by the litigious Pope, who then commissioned him to paint the Sistine Chapel. The series of the prisoners thus remained a masterpiece in nonfinito, the unfinished manner which would become fundamental to Michelangelo’s sculpted oeuvre. The four figures thus strikingly reflect the artist’s belief that sculptures liberated forms already embedded in the marble.

5. The Staircase of the Biblioteca Laurenziana

Michelangelo was also an eloquent architect. He revolutionized Renaissance architecture by bringing in Mannerist elements, going against the grain of classical rules. His architectural repertoire can be enjoyed in both Rome and Florence, and it abounds in tension, theatricality, and a new way of symmetry.

A favorite of the Medici family, he was employed to design the staircase and vestibule of the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana) in Florence. Art historians consider this to be Michelangelo’s most radical architectural project. Michelangelo was commissioned in 1524 by Pope Clement VII de Medici. The library was constructed on top of the San Lorenzo monastery’s cloisters, and it was intended to put together the immense collections of manuscripts owned by the Medici.

The staircase is the piece de resistance of the ensemble, dominating the vestibule and coalescing as the focal point of the building, a masterclass in Mannerist perspective. The steps have an oval outline, creating the visual impression of a flow. This cascading effect makes the stairs look like a solid waterfall. Another revolutionary element is the design of three parallel flights, which creates a psychological tension. The central steps seem to roll toward the visitor, provoking resistance in their mind. Michelangelo, the architect.

6. Pietà Rondanini: Michelangelo’s Last Work

The so-called Pietà Rondanini is the last work of Michelangelo. He started this sculpture in 1552 and worked on it until the last days of his life, in 1564. The last marble of Michelangelo reveals plenty about the philosophy he developed in his mature years, shifting away from humanism and becoming sympathetic to a form of mystical Neoplatonism. Working on it for so many years, Michelangelo made this sculpture a testament to his intimate reasoning as an artist and as a man.

The unfinished statue shows the upright, withered nude male body of Jesus. A severed, muscular arm, witness to the previous versions of the Pietà, rests on the side, giving us a glimpse into Michelangelo’s initial vision of Christ.

Most debates on this statue are, in fact, focused on the attempt to distinguish between the several campaigns of chiseling. Art historians discuss the fascinating contrast between Michelangelo’s starting conception of Christ as a potent, monumental figure and the last vision, portraying him as a nearly decaying body.

The Pietà Rondanini remains an unparalleled record of Michelangelo’s creative process, his faith and his beliefs. Its unusually long gestation turns it into one of the Renaissance’s most endearing masterpieces, which puzzles us as much as it fascinates.

Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) worked on his Perseus with the Head of Medusa for almost 10 years at the wish of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici. In the end, he created one of the seminal Mannerist monuments. His fame was mostly built on this bronze. In this article, we will discuss what makes this sculpture a contentious masterpiece of Renaissance Florence.

1. It Was Cast in Bronze Under Extreme Conditions

The sculpture is a notable artistic and metallurgical triumph. At the time when Cellini started working on this statue, bronze was a technique that was almost extinct, particularly when it came to building monumental sculptures. With marble becoming the dominant medium for statues after the stellar success of Michelangelo, picking bronze for a work of ambitious size was a daft choice for Cellini. He wanted to impress Cosimo I not only with his artistry and vision, but with his technical skill as well.

The Loggia dei Lanzi was already decorated by Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes, also made in bronze, and out of several pieces joined together. Cellini’s attempt to cast the figure in only four pours was an extremely difficult task, but it promised structural unity and certain fame.

The story of this rule-breaking process was provided by Cellini himself. In his autobiography, he relates how this workshop almost collapsed in a fire, his furnace broke down, and ruffled the feathers of his many assistants.

2. Kitchen Pans Saved the Risky Casting

Despite the intensive preparations, during the critical hours of the bronze pour, the temperature of the furnace dropped too low. The molten bronze started to coagulate prematurely, announcing the failure of the single pour attempt.

If the bronze thickened too fast, it would have left Perseus’ legs empty. Frantically, Cellini found a radical and agile solution: he instructed his assistants to find all the copper and metal in the household and throw it in the fire. Under immense pressure, they managed to put together around 200 pieces of household items such as copper pans and pewter dishware and threw them in the furnace.

The sacrifice of all of Cellini’s metal belongings was a brilliant solution. By adding alloys to the bronze, he managed to change its chemical composition to the point where it lowered the melting point. This metallurgical maneuver, improvised thanks to his solid goldsmith training, saved the molding process.

3. The Statue Was Designed for the Loggia dei Lanzi

Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa was the first sculpture to be made specifically for the Loggia dei Lanzi. It was unveiled to the public on April 27, 1554, and it was the first monument engineered to occupy the arcade. The space was mainly used as a stage for civic ceremonies, but Donatello’s Judith had established a precedent for civic sculpture decades earlier. Cellini had this scenographic element in mind when he built the statue.

By placing it on a high pedestal, he made sure that Florentine citizens would see the triumphant rendition of Perseus whenever they entered the Piazza della Signoria. Cellini initially anchored the sculpture in the forward-left arch of the Loggia. It was designed to downplay Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes, which had come to represent the struggles against tyranny that the suppressed Republic had stood for.

4. The Sculpture Is Very Political

Perseus with the Head of Medusa was commissioned in 1545 by Cosimo I de’ Medici, so it was meant to express that his newly established duchy was a legitimate political regime. The Medici had a longstanding tradition of aligning their political agenda with the narratives of powerful myths.

In this instance, Perseus is a personification of the Duke, and Medusa stands for the chaotic and much too fractured Florentine Republic that the Medici dynasty fought to dismantle.

The squirming snakes erupting from Medusa’s severed neck symbolize the democratic factionalism that led to the civil discord and instability that Cosimo claimed to have eradicated. That is why Cellini picked a telling iconography for Medusa’s contorted corpse. What this propagandistic sculpture equally tries to convey is that whoever tries to meddle with the Duke’s version of peace would be met with swift and radical punishment.

5. The Statue Was Received With Both Approval and Dissent

Cosimo I was an authoritarian ruler with a polarizing and precarious political position among Florence’s citizens. Cellini recalls in his Autobiography that an immense crowd gathered in the square before dawn, chanting their praise over the statue’s realism and virtuosity. Cosimo I was so anxious about the public reception that he watched it being unveiled from a discreet window of the Palazzo Vecchio.

His anxiety stemmed from his dissenting rule. While his court entourage and the elite praised the way he imposed stability (and how that was expressed in this programmatic monument), the majority viewed it with a mix of aesthetic appreciation and political dread. The blood so aptly captured by Cellini was a very explicit reminder of Cosimo’s absolute reign over life and death in the Duchy of Florence. In fact, showing aversion to Perseus and Medusa would have turned Cellini’s spectators into enemies of the state.

6. Cellini Was Himself Blood-Thirsty

This sculpture can also be read as a visceral reflection of the artist’s violent self. Cellini’s criminal record, detailed abundantly in his memoir, dwarfs anecdotes about problematic artists such as Caravaggio.

The explicit take on Medusa’s end mirrors the turbulent and openly blood-thirsty temperament of Benvenuto himself. His record counted three murders: a rival goldsmith, a soldier during the 1527 Sack of Rome, and the revenge he took on his brother’s killer. The uncompromising realism that Cellini opted for in this monument is infused by his real-world criminal acts, which pushed him out of Florence, Rome, and Naples on countless occasions.

7. Cellini Placed a Self-Portrait in the Sculpture

As if trying to encourage such an interpretation, the artist placed a hidden self-portrait in the sculpture. However, it is hard to find it unless you enter the Loggia dei Lanzi and walk around the monument. Once you do, you will see the artist’s likeness on the back of Perseus’s helmet. His frowning gaze seems to look down on whoever is looking. Benvenuto Cellini was most certainly anticipating the awe and appreciation the statue would provoke, and he wanted to leave his trace on it in more than one way.

8. The Hero and His Victim Look Alike

Medusa has been mostly depicted as a repulsive and grotesque figure. Cellini brings something else to the table: an idealized classical face with a beauty hard to contest. Perseus shares many of her features. His facial structure is almost identical, and pertains to a certain highly stylized Mannerist human countenance. Both Medusa and Perseus have the same straight, sharp nose, heavy-lidded eyes, and sullen lips.

Art historians have generally read this similarity in two veins. One camp glosses over the psychological allegory argument, suggesting that the facial mirroring provides a metaphor symbolizing conquering oneself’s dark nature. The other reading proposes that it all has to do with gender subversion. This neutralizing of gender through twinship amplifies the inherent tragedy of the act and blurs the lines between traditional Renaissance standards of what was masculine and what was feminine. Medusa looks like a threat, equal to her conqueror.

9. The Plinth of the Sculpture Is a Masterpiece of Its Own

The most coveted art was the kind that made people stop in their tracks, rather than a work that catches one’s eye from across the piazza. Benvenuto Cellini proved his awareness of such an outlook through the way he constructed Perseus and Medusa’s plinth, or base. Cellini’s functional anchor serves more than that purpose. The four-sided iconography enhanced the political narrative further, placing bronze statuettes of Mercury, Minerva, Jupiter and Danaë with Perseus as a child. These mythological figures place Perseus’s victory in a genealogical and therefore predestined disposition, sanctioned by many gods.

10. The Loggia dei Lanzi and Its Statues Attract Feminist Critique

In light of its many sculptures depicting forms of violence against women, the Loggia dei Lanzi has invited many debates in the last few decades. Art historian Yael Even argued that Cosimo I’s placement of Perseus and Medusa in the loggia was meant to turn the space into an institutional theater of subjugation and silencing of women.

The evidence can be found in the deliberate displacement of Donatello’s Judith, a rare depiction of a woman enacting political justice by executing a tyrant.

This atmosphere was then further enhanced by the addition of Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Women in 1582, placed on the other side of the loggia at Francesco I de Medici’s order. The addition of The Rape of Polyxena further pushed this theme in the loggia.

Christine Corretti, when discussing the androgyny of both Perseus and Medusa, brings another valuable gender debate to the table: she suggests that the physical similarity of the protagonists suggests the hero (the allegorized Cosimo I) rose to power through the female intervention of powerful Medici matriarchs.

Such is the beauty of art historical debate – there will always be countless ways to approach an artwork, and a masterpiece of controversy like Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa will incite even more discussion.

Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (c. 1386-1466), better known as Donatello, produced many splendid works that advanced the principles and aesthetics of the Renaissance. The famous artist revolutionized sculpture by emulating antique models and announced a new era in art. Donatello’s David can be admired today in Florence’s sculpture museum, Museo del Bargello. Let’s explore how he came to develop his vision for this famous work of art.

1. David Was the First Free-Standing Nude Statue Since Ancient Rome

Between Ancient Rome and Donatello’s David (which marked the Renaissance), Europe went through a millennium of very different artistic expressions: the Middle Ages.In fact, the language that we still use today to describe the Dark Ages was coined during the Italian Renaissance. The artistic style that defined the Middle Ages placed emphasis on spiritual aspects of man, choosing to express those over corporeal particularities.

What Donatello achieved in his David was the merging of a Judeo-Christian story with a pagan visual codification. In a way, he attempted the impossible: rendering a foundational story of Christianity, which traditionally shunned physicality, by referencing ancient Classicism, which displays it shamelessly.

Donatello has a defining role in the history of Western art because he was the first to attempt the marriage of these previously disparate elements. Some art historians, perhaps in a bid to humanize the artist, like to point to Donatello’s hesitating handling as he was shifting sculpture’s history from the Gothic Middle Ages to a new era of the Renaissance.

2. Donatello Made Use of a Bronze Casting Technique

Donatello achieved many firsts with this statue. One of them was related to the casting technique that he opted to use: the lost-wax casting method.

The wax was used during the building process and added to the outer shell of the statue’s mold. The cast would then be baked in a kiln, and the wax would melt and then leak out, leaving behind the outer shape of the future bronze. The molten alloy would then be poured in, allowed to cool, and then it would be revealed from under the outer mold.

This technique required massive skill and metallurgical know-how, because any wrong move could lead to the formation of hollow bubbles inside the bronze pour. The losses would not only be the wasted time and effort, but also the spoiling of the bronze, a pricey prime matter. Considering the risks of this method, Donatello’s David was made from several cast components. The other Medici commission, Judith Beheading Holofernes, was made out of no less than 11 separate casts.

3. It Was a Very Costly Artwork

Hiring Donatello to produce a statue for them was a reason for pride for his patrons. What the Medici counted on was also showing off their material fortune, since not many could afford an extravagant bronze statue. The costly casting process that Donatello steered was a lavish display of financial potency on the side of the Medici bankers.

Bronze was deemed to be the most expensive of all sculpting materials during the Renaissance. Producing a life-sized statue required a large amount of bronze alloy, and it also promised more complex connotations. A figure cast in bronze promised eternity and a type of authority. Before the Renaissance, private commissions were rarely executed in bronze. This material was broadly reserved for prominent Church commissions. Picking it for a private project was by any means an extravagant gesture.

4. David Has Political Connotations Connected to the Medici Family

Considering their initial spatial presentation, Donatello’s two bronzes, David and Judith Beheading Holofernes, might have been conceived as pendants, intended to evoke republican themes that the Medici dynasty always tried to project.

Displayed in a coordinated outdoor location in the Medici Palace, the two statues stood in the courtyard from the 1460s until 1494, when the Medici were expelled from Florence by a new regime. A recent discovery offered evidence to both the identification of the figure as David and to the Medici’s interpretation of this myth.

The sculpture once carried the inscription: The victor is whoever defends the fatherland. God crushes the wrath of an enormous foe. Behold! A boy overcame a great tyrant. Conquer, O citizens!

The text, written in Latin, was inscribed on the column or pedestal that once supported Donatello’s bronze. The discovery was made in 1992 on an archival record of Gentile de Becchi, an author and a poet, which described the verse as attached to the plinth in the house of Piero de’ Medici.

5. The Sculpture Was Long Interpreted as Homoerotic

The sensual character of the young David portrayed by Donatello has led some art historians to assume it was meant to be a homoerotic work of art. Up until recently, art history has left this idea unchallenged, and that was largely due to the fact that, indeed, depicting David naked marked a unique iconographical choice.

Previous renderings of the Old Testament hero show him clothed, and so does a previous version produced by Donatello himself.

Starting from the observation that David’s adolescent body displays his nudity in a suggestive way, the arguments connecting it to homoeroticism are mostly connected to two aspects. One is in relation to the hat David is wearing, described by a historian as linked to the hat game, a ritual of homosexual solicitation in Renaissance Florence.

The other element that bears a certain charge is the feather of Goliath’s helmet, which seems to caress the young boy’s thigh, as if pointing to his buttocks.

The counterargument rests on the indecorousness of addressing a religious subject in parallel with homoerotic elements. Another contention is that this would have been incompatible with the political messaging the sculpture was meant to transmit in its intended spatial presentation in the Medici Palace.

6. David Is Wearing Boots and Barely Anything Else

Commissioned by either Cosimo de’ Medici the Elder or his son, Piero, the sculpture, which was displayed in a place full of public scrutiny, bore strong political propaganda. When seen from a distance, as was originally intended, the stance of the adolescent David starts looking like a confidence strut.

1 Samuel 17 notes that David tried on Saul’s armor but removed it prior to battle, finding it too cumbersome. Donatello’s choice to depict David unarmored aligns with scripture, though rendering him completely nude reflects classical artistic influences.

7. The Pose Transformed the History of Art

David’s laid-back standing pose that makes his body look like an S was inspired by ancient sculptures. The stance, defined as contrapposto, refers to a human figure standing with most of its body weight on one leg. This pose was a naturalistic artifice that conveyed a relaxed and anatomical dimension to any human figure. Donatello’s decision to render David as such was part of his divorce from Gothic anatomy, which was characterized by stiff and column-like depictions of human figures.

Choosing contrapposto was not just a wink to classical antiquity; it was equally a means of adding drama and a new layer of narrative tension to the representation of David’s slaying of Goliath. The immense innovation of Donatello’s bronze is intimately connected to his use of the contrapposto stance. This bronze is free-standing and unsupported thanks to the masterful crafting of the anatomy, which gives the sculpture balance without adding counterbalance elements.

The technical and narrative revolution that Donatello introduced through David, as well as other sculptures, led to further experiments during the Renaissance period. Contrapposto became a staple of anatomical grammar not only in sculpture but also in painting.

8. Donatello’s “David” Served as Inspiration to Michelangelo

Once Donatello broke the taboos regarding David’s portrayal as a nude boy, Michelangelo could build on the legacy that his predecessor started more than half a century prior.

Though Donatello died before Michelangelo was born, his sculptures served as a vital masterclass. Decades later, the young Michelangelo studied under the patronage of Lorenzo the Magnificent in the Medici sculpture garden. The access to the Medici collection paved the way for his development as a sculptor, schooling him in the visual language of ancient and early Renaissance sculpture.

Lorenzo’s sculpture garden, known as Giardino di San Marco, was an open-air academy. Having access to it was a stepping stone for Michelangelo, since it illustrated both the lost ancient art and a modern reinterpretation of it, offered by Donatello.

Michelangelo built his understanding of classical proportions and the expression of the human body by observing Donatello’s all’antica reliefs and bronzes. The most explicit influence can be noted in Michelangelo’s citation of the same contrapposto pose.

We all know the highlights of the Sistine Chapel. The Creation of Adam competes with perhaps only the Mona Lisa as the most recognizable Renaissance masterpiece. In this article, we will take a closer look and see what other characters stand out upon a second glance. Let’s analyze both sections of the fresco: the ceiling, painted between 1508 and 1512, and the altar showing the Last Judgment, executed between 1536 and 1541.

1. Which Figure Is a Cryptic Self-Portrait of the Artist?

Michelangelo had an immensely difficult time working on the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, especially the ceiling paintings. He did not take on Julius II’s commission that easily, because he found a fresco project ill-suited for a sculptor.

In spite of that, he became fully committed and applied himself to the task with absolute diligence, hard work, and all the artistry he could demonstrate. It was, nonetheless, a truly exhausting project.

It is no wonder that the only self-portrait that Michelangelo slipped into the Sistine Chapel expresses exactly the dreadful work process he went through in both painting campaigns. In the Last Judgment, on the right side, beneath Christ the Judge, St. Bartholomew, glancing at him, holds a flayed human skin: that is Michelangelo. A telling visual expression of how taxing the process of decorating the Sistine Chapel was for him.

2. Which Prophet Resembles the Pope Who Commissioned the Fresco?

That placement has a clear iconographical purpose: by placing the prophet Zacharias just above the entrance, Michelangelo references the very beginning of the prophetic timeline that leads up to Christ’s birth.

Having that in mind, it is also interesting to note that Prophet Zacharias is thought to be a portrait of the originator of the entire painting cycle, namely the temperamental Pope Julius II della Rovere. The physical resemblance to Julius and the inclusion of the coat of arms of the Della Rovere family just next to the lunette containing the Prophet is striking evidence. The frame of the lunette itself is decorated with acorns and oak leaves. Della Rovere literally translates to “of the oak tree.”

3. Which Biblical Woman Occupies the True Center of the Ceiling Decoration?

The Creation of Adam dominates our imaginations so avidly that we tend to think it must be the centerpiece of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo’s visual conception places another image in the geometric center of the program: The Creation of Eve. While the cosmos is brought into being in earlier panels, Michelangelo places Eve at the geometric midpoint of the vault sequence—marking the emergence of human life as a pivotal hinge between creation and the Fall. The exact moment Michelangelo renders is her emergence from the side of Adam, who is slumped in a vulnerable sleep on a rock. This contrast between Eve’s dynamic interaction with the Creator and Adam’s helplessness emphasizes his passive role in the crucial moment of creation.

4. Which Figure Became Michelangelo’s Most Famous Act of Artistic Revenge?

One of the most comical portrayals in the Sistine Chapel is that of Minos, even if we don’t have all the context. Diving deeper into the anecdotal dimension of the image, it becomes outright hilarious. The man with donkey ears and draped in a snake that bites his penis is Biagio da Cesena, the papal Master of Ceremonies. He was part of a Vatican faction that badmouthed Michelangelo’s extensive display of nudity, arguing that nakedness belonged in a tavern or a bathhouse, not in a holy chapel.

Judgy as he was, Michelangelo impersonated Biagio as Minos, the mythical judge of the underworld. To comment on his prudishness, he covered his body with a massive serpent. The story goes that Cesena complained to Pope Paul III about this shameful caricature, to which the Pontiff replied that his jurisdiction did not go as far as Hell, so altering the image of the Last Judgment on the altar was out of the question.

5. Which Saint Is Easiest to Overlook?

Partially obscured, brandishing striking blonde hair and dressed in a yellow cloth, Mary Magdalene is one of the most recent identifications art historians have proposed. The identification came, in fact, from an art restorer. Sara Penco published a book in 2024 arguing that Mary Magdalene, the first person to see Jesus Christ after his resurrection, was not left out of the Last Judgment depiction, as was previously argued.

Her argument is based on Mary Magdalene’s proximity to Christ and her gesture of kissing the cross. Such a display of intimacy with Christ and his sacrifice has led Penco to be convinced we can identify the blond lady as Magdalene.

In the book’s foreword, Professor Yvonne Dohna Schlobitten states:

“She is a sinner, who is welcomed by Christ the cross-bearer and directed toward the path of salvation. In the chaotic and anguished vision Michelangelo stages in the Sistine Chapel, the detail of Mary Magdalene alongside Christ the Redeemer is the key to understanding a message that Michelangelo addresses to himself and passes on as a legacy to humanity.”

6. Which Figure Shows Michelangelo Pushing Anatomy Beyond Nature?

Michelangelo decorated the Sistine Chapel, the place where cardinals elect a new Pope, with much of Old Testament imagery. Other than showing the seven Prophets, the artist also included five sibyls in a very prominent part of the ceiling. The twelve Old Testament characters are, in fact, the largest figures on the vault, and they are placed alternately. The scope of representing the pagan Sibyls of the Classical World was to emphasize that Christ was the Messiah of all people, not just Christians or the Jews. The Libyan Sibyl showcases particular bravura in the command of complex human anatomy. This female figure, in fact designed on a male model, is one of the most archetypal illustrations of figura serpentinata.

Michelangelo was one of the artists who instrumentalized such artificially constructed serpentine figures, paving the way for the contortions that would define the Mannerist period. This corkscrew-like position of the Libyan Sibyl is one of the first depictions of human anatomy pushed to extremes in the history of Renaissance art. Michelangelo learned from closely studying Hellenistic statuary, such as the Laocoön group.

7. Which Old Testament Hero Seems to Defy Gravity?

Michelangelo boasted another skill in the figure of Jonah. His importance from a religious standpoint motivated Michelangelo to exhibit maximum skill in the foreshortening of Jonah’s body. This image is a masterclass in perspective.

Jonah is painted with his head thrown back, legs floating outward and creating the sensation that he’s falling backward into space, all while the ceiling’s curves seem to fall toward the viewer. His body seems weightless. This visually tense illusionistic depiction of Jonah has both a practical and an allegorical purpose. His glance leads the viewers to look at the story of Creation and the life of Noah. The eye then does a full circle, rounding back to Jonah and the promise of Resurrection, infused by his own story: swallowed by a fish, he came out of it after days, just like Christ being resurrected after three days in his tomb.

8. Which Villain Is Depicted as a False Christ?

Haman is the chief anti-hero in the Book of Esther. He plotted to persecute Jews across the Persian Empire. The plan was ultimately sabotaged by Queen Esther and Mordecai. Michelangelo portrays his punishment: he is taken to the gallows he arranged for mass executions.

Historians have noticed how Michelangelo rendered Haman’s punishment in a very similar way to Christ’s crucifixion, in a false Christ vein. This resemblance generates a theological tension. Renaissance theology loved comparisons between Old and New Testament stories. If Jonah’s story foreshadowed Christ’s resurrection, Haman shows a negative analogy. He may look crucified like the Messiah, but his punishment was much deserved.

9. Which Biblical Creature Has a Surprisingly Human Face?

The story of Adam and Eve’s temptation contains a gender twist: the serpent is half woman. She has blonde hair, a muscular torso, and she looks strikingly similar to Eve, pointing out that the original sin had to do with vanity and self-temptation.

Why did Michelangelo opt for this iconography? Considering that his iconographical program abounds in parallels to the Old Testament, this visual codification references the myth of Lilith, Adam’s rebellious first wife who ended up turning into a demon.

Another striking element of the Fall of Man episode is that Michelangelo turned the apple tree into a fig. This option reflects his close reading of the Genesis book, where Adam and Eve must start covering their intimate parts with fig leaves.

If you thought Michelangelo’s choice of woman-serpent has misogynistic undertones, the fact that Adam eagerly reaches for the tree might make you change your mind. Michelangelo wanted to stress that both original people shared equal blame.

10. What Figures Remain Undecipherable?

There is always room for debate when it comes to interpreting an artist’s iconography. However, most images in the Sistine Chapel can be safely attached to a biblical story or have their attributes indicate their identity. The ignudi, the naked figures populating the architectural elements of the fresco, remain impenetrable. Art historians mostly agree that the naked figures seem to lack a clear biblical or historical identity. Thus, the ignudi seem to be placed in a non-narrative, purely decorative space.

The 20 figures have very distinct forms and emotional expressions, making it harder to attach a psychological reading to their appearance. Are they Neo-Platonic ideals of human perfection, since Michelangelo was infused with this philosophy? Or are they angels? We can only speculate.

During the Renaissance, artists, humanists, and patrons were trying to revive the culture of classical antiquity. In this attempt, they reinterpreted many myths. Sometimes they even ascribed religious meaning to the myths. Renaissance mythological painting is a visual testament to how early modern societies reinterpreted the past, and most of all classical antiquity. This reinterpretation was sometimes a dialogue, other times an emulation. Let’s explore who did it the best.

1. Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” — c. 1484–1486

Without a doubt, the most recognizable and quintessential Renaissance mythological painting is The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (c. 1445–1510). Produced around 1485 in Florence, it can still be admired today at the Uffizi Galleries.

The painting depicts Venus emerging on the shore after her birth. The celebratory portrayal of Venus as a symbol of love, beauty, and fertility was potentially conceived by the poet Agnolo Poliziano (1454–1494). Botticelli represents the goddess fully grown and floating in a giant scallop shell. This type of portrayal, Venus Anadyomene (‘rising from the sea’), was associated with Apelles, the most famous ancient Greek painter. Botticelli was equally inspired by the iconography of Venus pudica.

The canvas is thought to have been commissioned by the Medici family, largely because of the orange trees prominently rendered in the composition. Called mala medica during the Renaissance, the orange tree was associated with the Medici dynasty because of its rarity, resilience, and similarly sounding name. The orange tree also appears in Botticelli’s other mythological masterpiece, Primavera.

2. Mantegna’s “Minerva” — 1502

While The Birth of Venus became an icon of Renaissance beauty, Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue demonstrates what the allegorical trajectory of Renaissance mythological painting looked like. The artwork by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) shows how intellectually ambitious this genre could become. Both the artist and his patron, Isabella D’Este (1474-1539), had a solid classical education and could read Latin. The painting was commissioned by Isabella for her studiolo, following Mantegna’s Parnassus.

Although the iconography is difficult to decode, the message is clear: virtue defeats vice. The marsh inhabited by vices,  each identified by Latin inscriptions, is violently purified by Minerva. She intervenes just before Diana, goddess of chastity, is assaulted by a Centaur, the archetype of lust.

The painting is a cornerstone of Renaissance mythological art because mythology becomes a vehicle for Christian moral philosophy, humanism, and courtly culture.

Its audience was equally exclusive and intellectual, as visitors to Isabella’s studiolo were invited to decipher the visual puzzles she designed in collaboration with her court artists.

3. Raphael’s “The Triumph of Galatea” — c. 1512

The Triumph of Galatea is the most seminal depiction of the Nereid Galatea and stands out on this list for being a fresco. Raphael (1483-1520) completed it around 1512 for the Villa Farnesina in Rome. The villa originally belonged to the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi (1466-1520), one of the Renaissance’s great patrons of the arts. Raphael’s frescoes in the Loggia di Galatea and Loggia di Psyche remain its main attractions.

The fresco decorates the villa’s open gallery. The original decorative program focused exclusively on Galatea, which explains why the frescoes present only her apotheosis rather than the full narrative. In the Triumph, Galatea escapes the jealous Cyclops Polyphemus, who desires her despite her love for the shepherd Acis. Raphael captures the precise moment she glides past him, evading his unwanted affection. Another myth surrounding the fresco claims that Galatea was modeled after Imperia Cognati, Chigi’s lover, known during the Renaissance as the queen of courtesans.

4. Correggio’s “Jupiter and Io” — c. 1530–1533

Jupiter and Io is considered the masterpiece of Antonio da Correggio (1489–1534). Painted around 1530, it formed part of a series depicting Jupiter’s loves as narrated in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It was commissioned by Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, possibly as a gift for Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

The painting depicts Jupiter embracing the river nymph Io while disguised as a cloud, designed to escape the jealousy of Juno. Other disguises adopted by Jupiter, the swan for Leda and the eagle for Ganymede, were also painted by Correggio.

Jupiter and Io is among the most erotically charged paintings of the Renaissance. Jupiter surrounds Io in a thick cloud, yet his hand and face remain visible as he embraces and kisses her.

5. Titian’s “Diana and Actaeon” — ca. 1556–1559

This canvas by Titian (1488/90-1576), depicting Diana and Actaeon, is part of the painter’s series of Poesie. Titian used this term for his mythological paintings because he considered them to be the visual correspondents of poems or poesie. Ovid wrote about how Actaeon, a noble young hunter, lost the trail of his hunting companions and ended up stumbling upon the goddess Diana. The goddess of the hunt, wild animals, and chastity was thus interrupted from her bath.

The nymphs accompanying Diana rushed to cover their furious chief. It is notable that the nymphs have different reactions upon seeing Actaeon burst in. Some are upset, some curious, some even intrigued.

The immense dramatism of the captured moment can be noticed in all visual elements of the painting. Titian’s work is brimming with the apprehension of this incident’s consequences.

We can see that Diana is already plotting her revenge against the young man, and Actaeon’s disarmed stance foreshadows his impending tragic end. Diana will hunt him as prey after turning him into a stag.

Visitors to the National Gallery can also admire the other masterpiece by Titian, which narrates the very death of Actaeon, as well as other mythological poesies made by his hand.

6. Bronzino’s “An Allegory with Venus and Cupid” — c. 1545

Agnolo Bronzino’s painting of Venus and Cupid, which can be enjoyed in the same National Gallery in London, stands in stark contrast to the theatrical masterpiece of Titian. This work boasts a brash eroticism and complex intellectual messaging at the same time. This clever and provocative image was fully tailored to the personality and fancy of the French King, Francis I.

Rumor has it that Francis was famously perverted, and Duke Cosimo I of Florence winked his way as he sent him this prized work by Bronzino, his most cherished court painter and portraitist. Bronzino composed a painting with contrasting connotations: while imagining a sexually explicit depiction of Venus and Cupid kissing, flanked by Pleasure and Play, there is also a moralizing double entendre at work, reminding ethically inclined viewers to ponder the less enticing faces of Love as well. Fraud, Jealousy, and Deceit are there to keep us morally on guard. While rendering all this with cheeky gusto, Bronzino is still a devout Christian who warns us that pleasure is often followed by pain.

7. Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s “Fall of Icarus” — c. 1555-1558

This work was either painted by Pieter Brueghel (c. 1525/1530-1569) or a close follower of his. This historiated landscape is a Northern Renaissance masterpiece that blurs the line between two genres of painting: landscape and mythological depictions. The work was inspired by the Greek myth of Icarus. In this tale, Icarus attempts to fly with the wax and feather wings his father Daedalus had built, but he flies too close to the sun. His wings melt, and he ends up being swallowed by the sea.

Following the principles of Mannerist inversion, the painting does not make this story the centerpiece. Instead, the viewers first witness a landscape filled with images of ordinary life: a farmer, a shepherd, and ships sailing peacefully.

This inversion gives pride of place to low topics over intellectual ones, such as mythical or biblical stories. The moral lesson behind this intentional overlooking of Icarus’ tragedy is meant to remind us that the world does not stop for any individual hardship. This simple and worldly figuration is what makes Landscape with the Fall of Icarus a much beloved Renaissance mythological masterpiece.

Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors is an imposing double portrait from the Tudor period. It doesn’t take long before the viewer catches on to the presence of hidden symbolism. The numerous objects on the shelf between the two figures, like scattered books and instruments, and a prominent, distorted object in the foreground, imbue this painting with a sense of mystery. What do these symbols mean?

Holbein’s The Ambassadors: Who Painted It and When?

Hans Holbein was born in Augsburg, Germany, in 1497 or 1498. His father was Hans Holbein the Elder, a distinguished painter, known for his colorful religious paintings. Hans Holbein the Younger followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a painter in his own right. He and his brother, Ambrosius, worked in Basel, Switzerland. Together with his father, Holbein also painted in Lucerne.

In the 1520s, the Protestant Reformation was rapidly overtaking Switzerland and Germany, resulting in a decreasing demand for religious paintings. It’s unclear how involved Holbein had been in the new religious movement. What is certain, however, is that Holbein had to eventually move to England, seeking new patrons.

Hans Holbein is famous for his portraits of the leading Humanists of the day, like Erasmus of Rotterdam and Sir Thomas More, of German merchants working in England, as well as for his depictions of the most important people at the Tudor court in England. In 1536, Holbein became the court painter of King Henry VIII, who is best remembered for his six wives.

The Double Portrait: Friends or Successful Professionals?

The full-length double portrait is nearly square in format and shows two figures standing to the left and right of a shelf littered with musical and astronomical instruments and books. The man on the left is Jean de Dinteville (1504-1555), and the one on the right is Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur (1508-1541).

The two young men are portrayed in their finest official attire. Holbein’s portrait records the ages of the sitters. Jean de Dinteville is 29, as it says on his dagger, whereas his friend, Georges de Selve, is 25 (his age is noted on the book under his elbow).

Both look directly at the viewer, conscious of their high positions at court, one holding a dagger and the other a pair of gloves. The two friends are shown as members of the nobility (Dinteville) and the clergy (de Selve).

Both young sitters were diplomats. Jean de Dinteville was the French ambassador in England, while Georges de Selve was a diplomat to Rome and Venice. In 1533, Georges visited his friend in London, where Jean commissioned this portrait from Holbein.

The double portrait’s meaning remains unclear. Because of its rich symbolism, it is likely to have been a form of visual message, clear to both friends. However, the exact nature of the message is steeped in mystery.

On one hand, the scientific instruments and symbols of knowledge highlight the cultural level and sophistication of the two friends, hinting at a status portrait. On the other hand, double portraits were often used to commemorate a friendship or bond of some kind. The two young diplomats could have intended to immortalize a moment of personal triumph, as both had attained prestigious positions at the French court quite early in life. Last but not least, there are elements that hint at a religious or political interpretation.

Symbolism in Holbein’s The Ambassadors

The most obvious symbol is found in the painting’s foreground: a mysterious object that crosses the lower part of the painting at a diagonal. If seen from the right angle, it can be recognized as a human skull, a universal symbol of death and the frailty of human life.

Jean de Dinteville’s personal motto was Memento mori, which roughly translates as “Remember death.” A skull emblem appears on the badge on Dinteville’s hat, echoing the message of the skull in the foreground. In this sense, the painting takes on the significance of a vanitas painting. Vanitas paintings reminded viewers of death and of the need to be prepared for it, emphasizing the fleeting nature of life’s pleasures, wealth, and victories.

It wasn’t the first depiction of skulls in Holbein’s art. There’s an early work by Holbein, depicting two skulls in a window niche, currently in the museum in Basel. The skull in The Ambassadors, however, is different because it cannot be deciphered when looking at the painting frontally.

This kind of anamorphic painting, a distorted image that assumes its shape only when viewed from the right perspective, was a device found in Northern Renaissance art. A variety of puzzle pictures (Vexierbilder) were popular in Germany and the Netherlands, becoming famous in the works of artists like Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who is best known for his portraits composed of fruit, vegetables, and other objects.

The other set of symbols shows scientific tools, books, and musical instruments grouped in the center of the painting. The objects shown are instruments used in music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, symbolizing worldly knowledge. Similar instruments appear in several of Holbein’s drawings and portraits.

There’s a terrestrial globe positioned to show France and England. One of the places marked on the globe is Polisy, France: the chateau of the Dinteville family and the place where the painting was meant to hang once completed.

The other spherical instrument is a celestial globe, which shows a variety of constellations, including Pegasus, Cassiopeia, and Andromeda. It resembles a celestial globe by Schöner, a famous German Renaissance maker of scientific instruments. Other instruments include a cylindrical sundial (or shepherd’s dial), a quadrant, and a device called a torquetum, which was used for calculating the positions of the heavenly bodies.

The symbolic objects around the two ambassadors seem to fall into three different categories: there’s a heavenly sphere symbolized by the astrolabe and celestial globe, another sphere connected to the earthly sphere, where both men currently stand, surrounded by symbols of power, education, and possessions, and a third sphere, representing death, which is symbolized by the skull.

The Message Behind Holbein’s The Ambassadors

Double portraits or friendship portraits were a subgenre of portrait paintings during the Renaissance, with quite a few surviving examples by the most famous Renaissance artists like Raphael and Pontormo. One notable example is Raphael’s Self-portrait with a Friend.

Because of the format, it’s possible that the two young diplomats were paying tribute to their friendship. Both were serving France, occupying distinguished diplomatic positions. The two friends may have wanted to acknowledge the honor and responsibility of their missions or to highlight their extraordinary achievements.

Jean de Dinteville was sent to England in connection with the English king’s scandalous divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marriage to the former queen’s lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn. The European world of monarchic alliances and refined diplomacy was poised on the threshold of a massive scandal.

By the time of Dinteville’s embassy, the Pope had refused to annul the English king’s marriage to Catherine. In response, Henry VIII was contemplating an unprecedented solution: a break with the Catholic Church. This was particularly worrisome to the rest of the European monarchs because it coincided with the Protestant Reformation. Led by Martin Luther, the new religious movement challenged the power of the Pope. Among other things, Protestantism questioned the need for Rome’s intercession between men and God, as well as the Pope’s right to get involved in political conflicts.

The uncertainty and upheaval of a rapidly changing world are reflected in the symbolism of Holbein’s painting. The objects on the shelf between the two diplomats contain elements of discord and conflict: the lute has a broken string, the looming skull is a reminder of death, and there are several probable direct references to Martin Luther. The lute may be a pun on Luther’s surname, with the broken string symbolizing discord. There’s also a Protestant hymnal among the books. It seems that the portrait was taking stock of the situation in the Christian world at the moment of its painting, with all its conflicts and uncertainties.

Another, more positive interpretation could be that the portrait was meant not only to reveal the turbulence and shifting beliefs of the Christian world but also to offer hope. The date of this double portrait gives a clue to its possible message. The year 1533 marked 1,500 years after the Resurrection. And many scholars agree that the markings on the scientific instruments point to Good Friday in 1533. It’s possible that the portrait with its intricate message was inspired by this important anniversary, especially considering that one of the sitters was a clergyman.

There’s a small crucifix, barely visible but obviously important once seen, behind the green curtain on the left. The crucifix is a direct reference to Christ’s death and resurrection, which provides hope in an otherwise bleak message of worldwide confusion and division.

While The Ambassadors is unanimously considered one of Holbein’s most important works, scholars’ opinions still vary on the meaning behind this masterful double portrait. In addition to his skilled portrayal of the two young diplomats, the highly detailed depictions of the rich materials, and the precise rendering of scientific instruments, Holbein managed to create a mysterious and powerful image that unites all the knowledge spheres of the Renaissance and contrasts it with the hidden symbolism of the skull, the ultimate symbol of life’s brevity.

The longstanding popularity of The Ambassadors is probably owing to its mysterious character. The double portrait raises more questions than it answers. At first glance, Holbein presents a dazzling display of wealth, diplomacy, humanistic knowledge, and artistic bravado. Yet the painting constantly undermines its own confidence. The monumental double portrait juggles themes of worldly achievement against ideas about mortality and spiritual uncertainty. Nearly five centuries later, historians still debate the meaning of its objects, the intended viewing angle of the skull, and even the effects of its modern restoration.

1. Hans Holbein’s “The Ambassadors” Is Quite Big

If you visit the National Gallery in London today, one of the most eye-catching paintings is certainly Hans Holbein the Younger’s (1497/98-1543) The Ambassadors. That’s not only because of its allure, but also because of the sheer size of the portrait. Making viewers feel like they were in the same room as the depicted figures was not yet a common feature of Renaissance portraiture. Holbein himself painted very few full-length portraits.

Painted on an oak panel, the double portrait is 81 inches wide and 82 inches tall. Size-wise, it’s Holbein’s largest production. Advanced technical reports show that despite its size, the painting was executed faster than previously believed.

The project itself appears to have started in mid-April and was completed by June 4, 1533. For a Renaissance portrait with the complexity and stylistic prowess of The Ambassadors, both the scale and iconographical detail are highly unusual.

2. The Sitters Were Some 20-Something Friends

It is widely accepted by art historians that the identities of the sitters are Jean de Dinteville, Francis I’s ambassador to England, and his fellow diplomat and close friend, Georges de Selve, the French ambassador to the Venetian Republic. In 1533, when the portrait was executed, Henry VIII married his second wife, Anne Boleyn. In order to do so, he went against Papal authority, which would not grant him a divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

This led to a dramatic break in political and religious ties with Catholic Europe and established the independence of the Church of England. Considering this political rupture, the King of France wanted one of his closest courtiers to serve as ambassador in London. Dinteville was sent to attend Henry VIII’s wedding on Francis I’s behalf. His visit extended long after the ceremony, and his emotional state in London was dreadful. In his letters, he described himself as the most melancholy, weary, and wearisome ambassador that was ever seen. That’s when the other sitter comes in: Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur and close friend of Dinteville. Georges visited London for several weeks, which comforted the weary ambassador. To celebrate their reunion, the two friends commissioned Hans Holbein to capture their time together. In 1533, Dinteville was 29 and Georges only 25.

3. It Was Painted Fast, but With Netherlandish Precision

Hans Holbein was a German-born artist who later developed his career in England. Yet stylistically, he remained deeply rooted in the Netherlandish painting tradition. Holbein used oil paint, and his attention to detail borders on hyperrealism; his depiction of textures such as fur, satin, metal, and carpet brings him close to artists like Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden. Moreover, the jewel tones and heightened color contrasts that lend the painting a photographic clarity bring it close to fifteenth-century Netherlandish painting.

One would imagine that this style entailed a lengthy process of production. Not for Holbein. Upon closer inspection, traces of his rapid execution become visible; some areas are merely sketched out, while other surfaces are painted with only one thin layer of pigment. Holbein even used an innovative technique to accelerate the drying properties of oil paint. By adding heat-bodied linseed oil mixed with pine resin, the artist thickened the paint so he could move on as fast as possible. His talent brought him many patrons, and satisfying commissions with both skill and promptitude ensured a prosperous career in England. Holbein was working on at least four other projects in 1533.

4. It Shows a Renaissance Cabinet of Curiosities

Despite adhering to the genre of portraiture, the painting is also a repository of objects one would often find in a cabinet of curiosities.

Traditionally, objects inside portraits elaborated on the sitter’s personality, hobbies, or intellect. In the case of The Ambassadors, the quantity of objects and their interactions have given art historians plenty of room for debate and interpretation. On the most basic level, the objects may simply represent pieces that Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve owned, or wished to own.

Their allegorical meaning is often read in terms of spiritual versus worldly power and tells us much about the preoccupations of Dinteville and de Selve. Altogether, the painting showcases the many faces of humanist learning. On the top shelf, we see instruments used for timekeeping, measuring altitude, and observing the stars, alongside a celestial globe. Holbein was intimately familiar with such objects because he painted the portrait of the astronomer who designed the sundial depicted here. Nicholas Kratzer was Henry VIII’s royal astronomer, and Holbein was well-connected within this network of patrons.

The lower shelf is mostly dedicated to music, showcasing a lute with one broken string in the foreground. The arithmetic book glosses over mathematical division, while the flutes sit beside a Lutheran hymn book. The carpet embellishing the upper shelf is of Ottoman origin, more precisely a luxurious weave from Anatolia. Ottoman carpets were highly sought-after status objects that demonstrated both wealth and global connections. Holbein depicted this type of carpet so frequently that historians eventually named the style after him. This particular example, decorated with geometric squares and octagons, is known as a Large-Pattern Holbein.

5. There’s a Political Undertone

The variety and positioning of the objects invite interpretation, since no item seems to be placed at random. Together, they are often seen as a visual commentary on the religious and political turmoil of sixteenth-century Europe. Henry VIII’s divorce from both his first wife and the Catholic Church was only one such turbulent event.

The shelf containing the musical instruments, hymn book, globe, and arithmetic text is the central point of speculation over the political undertones hidden in the painting. The objects together form the core of this interpretation: the lute has a broken string; the set of flutes is missing one, signaling disharmony; and the hymn book displays texts promoting Christian unity. The presence of flutes, generally associated with war, points toward conflict between the worlds of the two sitters. The Lutheran hymn book, placed next to two orthodox French Catholics, is equally controversial. It comments on the implosion the Protestant Reformation caused within Christian Europe.

6. There’s a Skull That Only Works From the Side

The most bizarre detail of the portrait is undoubtedly the anamorphic skull situated in the foreground. But what is anamorphosis? This Renaissance technique, popular among intellectuals and humanists, is a sophisticated optical illusion. Viewed head-on, the skull looks like a strange smear of paint. Seen from the right angle, however, it snaps into focus and becomes a proportional human skull.

Nowadays, museum visitors see the painting from the front and at eye level. There are many scholarly debates over the intended angle Holbein had in mind. The most plausible theory is that the portrait was originally placed on a staircase. With such a spatial arrangement in mind, viewers walking up or down the stairs would suddenly witness the optical transformation embedded in the painting.

Seen this way, the portrait becomes a sort of sixteenth-century jump scare that reminds viewers, through sheer visual shock, that life is fleeting. In other words, Holbein transformed the traditional memento mori into a visual trick. By doing so, he showcased his unparalleled skill in perspective distortion while adding another layer of meaning to the painting.

7. The Strange Hollow Glass Tube Experiment

Historically, the painting may have been viewed from the side, as the staircase theory suggests. However, in the 1960s, optical experiments were carried out by Edgar Samuel in collaboration with the Warburg Institute and the British Optical Association. The experiments attempted to determine whether Holbein designed another way of experiencing the anamorphic skull through the use of an optical instrument.

The examination began with intricate devices, but eventually identified a surprisingly simple object that generated the desired visual result: a hollow glass tube. In Samuel’s reading, the composition of the painting is altered for the better, since the skull, globe, and surrounding objects become optically aligned. If held at the correct angle, the tube restores the skull to its natural proportions and visually points toward Dinteville, making him the center of the composition.

8. Hans Holbein’s “The Ambassadors” Restoration Controversy of 1997

In 1997, the National Gallery performed an ambitious restoration. The area around the skull had undergone significant damage and therefore required a more interventionist treatment. Many critics considered the result a case of over-restoration that altered both the color balance and details of the optical illusion. This dilemma happens every time a painting has sizable damage. The controversy remains one of the most significant debates in the history of modern conservation ethics.

St. Peter’s Basilica, with its huge dome and imposing façade, sits behind hundreds of statued colonnades in the Piazza San Pietro, welcoming all into Vatican City. Today, it’s one of the most recognizable buildings in the world, drawing millions of tourists and pilgrims every year.

However, its design and construction were constantly threatened by the sack of Rome, a rapid succession of popes (21, to be exact), and a constantly shifting artistic vision brought by the several major architects who headed the 120-year project.

What Is St. Peter’s Basilica?

St. Peter’s Basilica is a Catholic Basilica that stands directly over St. Peter’s tomb in Vatican City. During Pope Julius II’s reign (AD 1503-1513), the original St. Peter’s Basilica, built by Constantine in the 4th century AD, was crumbling. Because of the location’s importance, Julius II desired a replacement basilica. Known for his extraordinary patronage of the arts, Julius II wanted the new St. Peter’s to be an unparalleled monument to the Catholic Church’s Apostolic authority on Earth.

While the project outlasted Pope Julius II (and 20 other pontificates), his desire for a legendary monument was fulfilled. The Basilica dominates Rome’s prodigious skyline. Its dome, the largest in the world upon completion, points towards heaven. When viewing it from the Piazza San Pietro, one almost feels heaven pointing back. St. Peter’s is the product of 120 years of construction and many architects whose visions encapsulate the Renaissance’s humanistic ideals and the Baroque’s liturgical emphasis.

1. Donato Bramante (AD 1506-1514)

Donato Bramante was the architect Pope Julius II selected to begin the new St. Peter’s. Born in Urbino to farmers, Bramante trained as a painter at the legendary Umbrian school before going to Milan, then Rome, later becoming the papal architect. By the time Julius II tasked Bramante with designing St. Peter’s, he was one of the foremost names in High Renaissance architecture.

Renaissance ideals emanated from Bramante’s design. Valuing perfect symmetry, Bramante opted for a Greek cross with four arms of equal length, rather than the disproportionate Latin cross with one arm stretched. Inside, the Greek cross’s harmony elevated the human experience of the liturgy; the altar was centralized rather than at the front, allowing all to participate equally. A small dome sat atop each of the cross’s arms, with a giant, Pantheon-like dome crowning the convergence, and it was centralized, with all sides conjoining directly over St. Peter’s tomb. This represented the completeness of Divine harmony and the centrality of the Apostolic Church. Sadly, the aged Bramante died over a century before St. Peter’s completion.

2. Raphael (1514-1520 AD)

Bramante died in 1514, a year after Pope Julius II. The next Pope, Leo X, was more interested in general artistic patronage than in preserving Bramante’s design. He gave St. Peter’s to a team of architects, including a young prodigy, Raphael, another Umbrian-trained artist.

Raphael’s unique voice quickly became the dominant one. He appreciated Bramante’s idealism, but recognized some practical flaws in his design. St. Peter’s was a church, after all, not simply an architectural temple. He stretched the cross’s eastern arm into a long nave, changing Bramante’s Greek cross into a Latin one. The extended nave allowed for longer liturgical processions and more visibility for the lay congregation. It also provided more space for the myriad clergymen who would inevitably pack the Basilica.

Raphael’s practicality did not destroy Bramante’s idealism. He simply realized it into a usable design; the large, central dome still defined the structure, and most of the harmony remained. Unfortunately, Raphael died at 36, only six years into the project.

3. Antonio de Sangallo the Younger (AD 1536-1546)

It wasn’t until 1536 that Antonio De Sangallo the Younger was given full control of St. Peter’s. Political tensions were high. The Reformation roared, culminating in the sack of Rome, which slowed the construction and design of St. Peter’s Basilica to a near stop.

Once the tensions cooled, Pope Paul III wanted the Basilica finished. Sangallo, who trained under Bramante, was a well-known architect at the time of his appointment. His design synchronized Bramante’s centralized core with Raphael’s longer nave, while preserving the giant dome. Concerned with stabilizing such a monumental dome, Sangallo thickened the walls and added massive piers. He added some of his own flair as well, like a more elaborate façade and large corner towers.

While Sangallo attempted to preserve the best of his predecessor’s designs, he ultimately diluted much of the High Renaissance harmony and symmetry for practicality and systematization; Sangallo wanted to complete the Basilica, not ponder it. His design became ornate and heavy, with fortress-like walls, evidenced in his highly detailed wooden model, which still survives today. Sangallo’s laden design drew criticism from artists and architects, and its complexity slowed construction. Ultimately, Sangallo died with his vision unfulfilled and unrealized.

4. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1546-1564)

Michelangelo was one of the loudest and most esteemed critics of Sangallo’s design. He thought St. Peter’s should return to the Renaissance idealism that he had by this time perfected through sculptures like David and paintings like those at the Sistine Chapel. Thus, when Pope Paul III selected Michelangelo to take over the project, he completely overhauled it.

Known as the best sculptor of the age, Michelangelo—who trained in the Florentine palace of the Magnificent Lorenzo de’ Medici—used his expertise to carve the Basilica as if it were out of a single block of marble. He returned to the harmonious Greek cross design, removing Bramante’s outer domes and stretching the central dome higher and wider than before. This, to the pious Michelangelo, presented the authority of God’s Church reaching towards the heavens from the very tomb of the apostle appointed by Christ himself.

Supporting the titanic dome while retaining its beauty was a puzzle Michelangelo’s predecessors failed to solve. Bramante’s dome was smaller and required less support, and Sangallo’s dome was supported by thick walls and ugly support systems. Michelangelo, combining his engineering expertise and keen aesthetic eye, connected multiple support systems in ways that had not been seen before. He adopted the double-shelled dome structure of fellow Florentine Filippo Brunelleschi’s Florence Cathedral (separating the inner dome from the outer dome) to make St. Peter’s dome lighter and easier to support. Michelangelo thickened support columns while retaining their beauty and used chains as tension rings to ensure the dome did not expand and collapse over time.

Though Michelangelo died before the Basilica’s completion, his vision and design are primarily what we still see today.

5. Giacomo della Porta

After Michelangelo’s death in 1564, the management of St. Peter’s was given to Domenico Fontana and Giacomo Della Porta, with della Porta being the most notable. He was a pupil of Michelangelo and an influential sculptor and architect in his own right. He is responsible for some of the most definitive structures in Rome, such as the Gesù façade and the Villa Aldobrandini. 

Porta oversaw the completion of St. Peter’s dome. He stayed mostly faithful to his mentor’s design, only slightly altering the curvature to improve stability and ease construction. Porta ensured St. Peter’s Basilica retained the harmony and proportion of Michelangelo’s design. It’s thanks to his ability not to force his own ideas onto the Basilica that it retained the form we see today.

6. Carlo Maderno

Pope Paul V assigned St. Peter’s Basilica to Domenico Fontana’s nephew, Carlo Maderno. Maderno trained in Rome as a stucco worker and marble carver under his uncle. At the time of Maderno’s appointment, the Catholic Church had formally recognized beauty as a way to win Protestants back. This Counter-Reformation art formally shifted the zeitgeist from Renaissance humanism to the more liturgically focused Baroque.

Maderno again elongated the eastern nave to be more liturgically focused, shifting Michelangelo’s Greek cross to a Latin cross. His reasoning was similar to Raphael’s when changing Bramante’s cross: to make St. Peter’s not only the artistic and symbolic heart of the Church but a beating one.

The stretched eastern nave allowed for longer, more illustrious processions to the central altar; everything flows in Baroque architecture. It also opened the Basilica to accommodate larger crowds during major feasts like Christmas and Easter. This change emphasizes traveling the narrow path to Christ, rather than Bramante and Michelangelo’s equal pathways, which emphasized human experience.

Maderno widened the façade, placing defining Corinthian columns and pilasters, which added drama and depth, but also made Michelangelo’s dome slightly less prominent. Maderno also added a central balcony, the Loggia of the Blessings, from where the Pope addresses the world. Maderno, to the praise of some and the distaste of others, successfully transformed St. Peter’s into a liturgical drama. His design attitude reflected the Church’s: that perhaps Renaissance ideals placed a profane shroud over the sacred, and that only the liturgy could lift the veil.

Maderno was the final architect for St. Peter’s, overseeing its structural completion and its consecration under Pope Urban VIII.

7. Gian Lorenzo Bernini

While Maderno completed the Basilica, Gian Lorenzo Bernini is responsible for the dramatic way one approaches and experiences St. Peter’s today.

Bernini trained as a sculptor under his father, Pietro Bernini. By his teen years, he was considered a prodigy. His style was of the new Baroque style: theatrical and emotional, with a dramatic immediacy that clashed greatly with Renaissance restraint. He was the artist of the new era and the clear choice to finish St. Peter’s Square (Piazza San Pietro).

Bernini choreographed the experience of St. Peter’s Basilica into liturgical theater. Before Bernini, one would approach Maderno’s imposing eastern façade immediately: no gravitas, nothing uplifting you from the mundane Roman streets. Bernini changed this. He turned Piazza San Pietro into a large oval courtyard encircled by huge Roman columns. Sublime statues of early Christian martyrs, founders, and eminent figures line the top of the colonnades like maternal arms protecting the faithful within and welcoming all without into the epicenter of God’s kingdom on earth.

As one walks through the gates into the Basilica, a towering baldachin (canopy) can be seen in the distance, enshrining the central high altar. The bronze draws one’s eye as it juxtaposes with the bright interior. As one gets closer, details emerge; spiraling columns flanked with angels reach, almost grow, upward. Bernini’s baldachin bridges the heavenly glory of Michelangelo’s dome above and the earthly primacy of the Church in St. Peter’s tomb below. Between sits the high altar, the table where the two become one in Communion when the wafer is consecrated to become Christ Himself. Consecration is the reason for the liturgy and the apotheosis of Bernini’s drama.

Before most Northern Renaissance paintings took shape on the panel, they began as drawings. Most were never meant to survive, but the rare drawings that remain from this period reveal how artists developed their ideas and collaborated inside the workshop.

In conversation with TheCollector, Dr. Olenka Horbatsch, Curator of Dutch, Flemish, and German Prints and Drawings before 1800 at the British Museum, explains how the museum’s Early Netherlandish drawings exhibition and accompanying research project are reshaping our understanding of Renaissance artistic practice. We also discussed how drawing became an art form in its own right, and what scientific analysis can reveal about these fragile works.

What artists from this period find worth drawing tells us a lot about their worlds, ideas, and sources of inspiration, but it’s not the finished result. Unlike a painting, it transports us into their world more readily.

How Northern Renaissance Drawings Transformed

When most of us picture the Northern Renaissance, we imagine oil paintings rich with luminous color and meticulous detail. Masterpieces like Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece or Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Netherlandish Proverbs have come to define artistic achievement in the Low Countries during the 15th and 16th centuries—yet those paintings tell only part of the story.

Between about 1400 and 1600, drawing underwent its own remarkable transformation. What began as a practical workshop tool for training apprentices and developing ideas gradually became an art form valued in its own right. By the mid-16th century, artists were producing fully realized drawings intended to be collected, signed, and preserved.

Because these early drawings were functional objects, very few survived. Those that did offer an unusually intimate look into Renaissance workshops, revealing how artists experimented with materials, developed compositions, collaborated with assistants, and exchanged ideas across Europe. Rather than reinforcing the modern myth of the solitary artistic genius, they reveal a vibrant creative ecosystem that paintings alone don’t fully capture.

About Early Netherlandish drawings at the British Museum

Now on view at the British Museum, Early Netherlandish drawings brings together around 120 rare works by artists including Rogier van der Weyden, Lucas van Leyden, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and Hendrick Goltzius. The exhibition traces the changing role of drawing in the Low Countries between 1400 and 1600, bringing together works that reveal the ambitions, techniques, and experimentation of Northern Renaissance artists.

The exhibition is the result of a five-year research project that combined art history, conservation, and scientific analysis to uncover new insights into artists’ materials, workshop practices, and attribution. Among the discoveries are a reattribution to Bruegel and evidence of surprising materials used by Northern Renaissance artists.

Early Netherlandish drawings is on view at the British Museum in London through September 20. An illustrated catalog is also available via British Museum Press. 

When considering Renaissance artworks about Rome, what we are really investigating is how the artists, writers, and thinkers of the Renaissance did not merely feel influenced by ancient Rome; they felt themselves to be the equals of the Romans. Although they created works reflecting Roman mythology, they understood that, for the Romans, mythology was not just storytelling; it offered guidelines on politics, morality, and religion. Great emphasis was placed on the individual’s responsibility to the state, and heroism frequently served as a reminder to serve the state rather than oneself.

1. Renaissance Version of The Meeting of Dido & Aeneas

Francesco di Giorgio Martini was the archetypal Renaissance man. A renowned engineer and architect, Francesco was among the first painters to attempt to replicate Roman architecture in his work. In The Meeting of Dido and Aeneas, pictured above, he creates a version of Carthage based on Virgil’s 1st-century BC Aeneid, filled with elaborate architecture, rendered in three dimensions. His attention to the detail of the buildings portrayed is impressive. It is, however, not surprising considering that he was responsible for a treatise on architecture, engineering, and the art of war that was important enough to warrant a place on Leonardo’s bookshelves.

Francesco’s approach to his work reflected the influences of the great Humanists of the 14th century, such as Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Alberti. Petrarch, in particular, was seminal in emphasizing the importance of classical antiquity, a return to the purity of thought, and the reinvention of the self and the world around us.

Francesco’s Dido and Aeneas, taken from a cassone (wedding chest), offered the artist and his studio a chance to demonstrate their modern way of thinking. The studio’s artists revert to their Renaissance roots in the cast’s dress. There is no attempt to reflect the costumes of the ancient Romans who inhabited Dido’s Carthage. Instead, we see the richly decorated gowns and tunics of late medieval and early Renaissance fashion, reflecting the best of both worlds.

2. The Birth of the Virgin

In Comparison of Old and New Rome (1411), Manuel Chrysoloras called attention to the fact that ancient Roman sculpture could provide vivid snapshots of antique costumes, customs, and the like:

One can see clearly what kinds of arms the Ancients had, what kind of clothes they wore, and what the devices of their rulers were … these reliefs show how things were in past times.

Renaissance artists were scrutinizing antique relief sculpture for authentic historical details. Before this, they had tended to depict the history and legends of ancient Greece and Rome using costumes and archaeological settings of more recent times, as seen in Fra Carnevale’s work The Birth of the Virgin.

While the Renaissance artist fully believed in his own skills in design and composition, the humanist revival of the classical spirit provided a ready source of subject matter. Here, Fra Carnevale showed off his knowledge of the architectural and sculptural styles of ancient Rome to great effect. Friezes and tondos adorn the loggia where the Virgin’s birth is taking place. The clothing of the people in the painting bears testament to the humanist exploration of ancient cultures. Some of the women in the background wear distinctly Roman robes, while the group in the foreground is dressed in typical 15th-century Tuscan garb. As if to draw the two periods together, we see a servant girl emerging from the building. She wears the customary Tuscan dress, belted high at the waist but drawn up in the manner of a toga.

3. The Funerary Bust of Andrea Mantegna

As the Renaissance progressed and Humanism reached ever deeper into the psyche of the time, artists like Andrea Mantegna, who had worked for the powerful Gonzaga family for over forty years, drew comparisons to the great creators of antiquity. Mantegna, firmly believing that his genius was equal to that of the ancient Romans, designed a funerary chapel for himself similar to those commissioned by prominent ancient Roman citizens.

The chapel’s most striking feature is the bronze bust, set in a wreath of laurel leaves with his image emerging from the center in the manner of the Roman aristocracy for whom this style of commemorative art had been strictly reserved. An accompanying text places Mantegna side by side with Apelles, the most revered painter in ancient Greece, confirming Mantegna’s high opinion of himself as an artist.

4. Portrait Medal of Sultan Mehmed II

With Humanism’s focus on the importance of the individual rather than the ethereal or supernatural, Renaissance artists and their patrons revived the Roman practice of issuing commemorative medals. These medals, often designed by leading artists of the day, usually celebrated the individual commissioning them.

The above example, Bertoldo di Giovanni’s portrait medal of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, was not just another image akin to a painting. Commissioned by Lorenzo de’ Medici in honor of Mehmed’s victories in war, both men would have been well aware of how the medal would resemble those of the ancients, verifying Mehmed’s rightful descent from the emperors of Byzantium and Rome. The reverse of the medal, depicting a chariot similar to those familiar in Roman imagery, reinforces the point. The Renaissance man took his image and place in the world seriously. Emulating Roman honors seemed a perfect way to signal to the rest of society how influential you were.

5. Apollo Belvedere

As the Renaissance progressed, the collection of antiquities reached a fever pitch. Of course, demand began to outstrip supply. With only a limited number of pieces available and those inevitably ending up in the studiolo of wealthy families such as the Gonzaga or Medici, a Mantuan sculptor named Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi saw an opportunity to recreate some of the most famed Roman-period sculptures in miniature, cast in bronze. Such was the popularity of his work that he became known as Antico in recognition of his ancient subject matter.

Perhaps his most renowned work is the Apollo Belvedere. The original 2nd-century statue of Apollo had been excavated in Rome in 1489 and immediately admitted to the Belvedere at the Vatican. Antico, seeing a demand for copies of the famed statue, set to work. He had perfected a new casting technique that permitted him to recreate numerous identical copies of the same statue. In doing so, he solved the problem of the shortfall in supply of ancient visual art. The avid desire of Renaissance collectors was satisfied by these exquisite small bronzes, aiding the rejuvenation of antiquity’s ideals. Far from being seen as mere copies of the original Roman statues, these Renaissance miniatures were appreciated as their equals. However, this may say more about the self-aggrandizing, competitive nature of the period’s great families than about the artworks themselves.

6. Primavera

Sandro Botticelli, under the tutelage of Fra Filippo Lippi, had learned his trade at a time when art was struggling to assimilate the staid imagery and style of the Middle Ages with the ideals of classical antiquity. It was fortuitous for him that the renewed interest in ancient Rome and Greece permitted him to break free of medieval austerity.

When Botticelli was commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, a relative of Lorenzo de’ Medici, to paint Primavera for his private apartments, the result was a work that was a true product of its times. The Medici and their associates were the most powerful people in Florence, wealthy enough to commission the finest artists and to obtain the best education for their children. Indeed, it was Angelo Poliziano, a Humanist and tutor to the Medici offspring, who may have influenced the painting’s subject matter, as suggested by a line in one of his poems about Chloris, Venus, and Zephyr. The painting depicts how Chloris is kidnapped and transformed by the March wind, Zephyr, who becomes the symbol of rebirth, Primavera, or Spring. Other aspects of the painting reflect the Roman poet Ovid’s work Fasti.

Not only does the painting reflect the core beliefs of the Renaissance, such as the rebirth of classical ideas (in this case, Rome), but it is also a veritable riot of fertility and renewal. From its incredibly detailed horticultural references to the classical literature that inspired it, Primavera justly deserves its place in the pantheon of Humanist Renaissance art.

7. The Fall of the Giants

Just as Ovid’s writings had influenced Botticelli’s Primavera decades earlier, so his Metamorphoses formed the basis of Giulio Romano’s epic paintings on the walls of the Room of the Giants at Federico II Gonzaga’s Roman-influenced Palazzo dei Te in Mantua. Completed in 1535, the Fall of the Giants cycle of frescoes covers almost every surface of the room. Giulio provided the Duke with one of the most comprehensive examples of the dramatic Mannerist style ever painted in northern Italy during the High Renaissance.

The influence of classical Rome is evident throughout the palace. The architecture is that of a typical single-story Roman villa, although it seems impossible to imagine that anyone would have foreseen Giulio’s intentions for the Sala dei Giganti.

Ovid’s epic poem spans an expansive period, from the creation of the world to the death and deification of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, one year before Ovid’s birth in 43 BC. In this room, Romano depicts the battle between the earthly giants and the divine Jupiter, who hurls thunderbolts from the heavens. Although the frescoes are considered to be based on a Roman text, the poem’s overall themes are drawn from both Greek and Roman mythology.

Federico II Gonzaga seemed to have several ideas in mind when he commissioned the room. He wanted Romano to make those who entered feel overwhelmed and bewildered by the gargantuan battle scenes and the exaggerated facial expressions of the gods and giants. He also, privately, wanted visitors to understand the influence he could wield over them, emphasizing his authority over Mantua. With its pseudo-Roman architecture and spectacular artwork, Federico was flexing his Renaissance muscles. He was an important man and, like many others in his position throughout Europe, he showed this in his choice of art and architecture.

8. Paolo Uccello

Virgil’s epic Latin poem, The Aeneid, published in 19 BC, told the story of Aeneas, who fled to Italy after the fall of Troy and eventually became a central figure in the founding of Rome. Although the tale crafted by Virgil is associated mainly with Roman history, like many ancient writings, The Aeneid was a palimpsest of Greco-Roman myth and legend, laced with Etruscan and Latin.

To look at Uccello’s Episodes from The Aeneid, it would be almost impossible to detect the original period of Virgil’s poem if you were unfamiliar with it. Uccello paints a scene straight out of late Gothic Florence. Crenelated castles and the courtly dress of the cast tell us nothing of the ancient period. The painting formed part of a cassone, a wedding chest, and, as such, references to ancient Roman legend, even when portrayed in a chivalric manner, speak to the romantic and heroic themes necessary for such a piece.

9. The Medici Tombs

The fact that the Medici chose Michelangelo to create the New Sacristy in the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Florence to house the tombs of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Giuliano de’ Medici, Duke of Nemours, says much about how highly the family thought of themselves. Michelangelo had a long association with the Medici, but this mausoleum had to rival, if not outshine, the Old Sacristy, solemn and unadorned, designed by Brunelleschi and Donatello, finished in 1440.

The Medici viewed ancient Rome as the pinnacle of political power and cultural excellence. The Villa Medici in Rome served as a prestigious private garden gallery for displaying the dynasty’s extensive collection of Roman sculptures. When it came to the design of the New Sacristy statues for Lorenzo and Giuliano, there could be only one reference point, ancient Rome.

To reinforce the alliance between the Medici and the grandeur of ancient Rome, Michelangelo clothed the two dukes in the style of Roman leaders. Never intending that the statues bear a physical resemblance to the men themselves, Michelangelo focused on an idealized portrayal of ultimate power. The Medici got what they wanted: an unflinchingly prestigious and sophisticated vision of the most influential dynasty Florence has ever seen.

10. The Pantheon

The Pantheon, or the temple of all gods, in Rome, has endured from the construction of the original temple in the 2nd century to the present day, while remaining in constant use. The current structure, built by Emperor Hadrian, was built on the site of an earlier one by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, although the date of construction is unclear. Undergoing structural and decorative changes over the centuries, the Pantheon stands as an example of Roman ingenuity, engineering expertise, and adaptability to ever-changing rulers and religious uses without losing its identity.

During the Renaissance, with its increased interest in humanism and the achievements of the ancient Romans, the Pantheon was viewed as a place of reverence fit for its most venerable artists, composers, and architects. Among them, Raphael’s tomb stands out beneath the glorious rotunda. Sculpted by one of Raphael’s pupils, Il Lorenzetto, the Madonna del Sasso, in its Roman-style setting (changed and enlarged over the centuries), dominates the Pantheon. As if to reinforce Raphael’s standing as an equal to the greats of antiquity, the sarcophagus that holds his remains dates to the 1st century and was donated by Pope Gregory XVI in 1833.

Ancient Rome: The Pinnacle of Civilization

From what we see of the importance Renaissance leaders and patrons placed on the achievements of the ancient Romans, it seems clear that they viewed antiquity as the pinnacle of learning, society, and the arts. Not only were Renaissance families like the Medici keen collectors of Roman artifacts, but they also modeled their lives and deaths on the Romans too. From paintings illustrating the myths and legends of antiquity to being dressed as Roman leaders for their tombs, Renaissance potentates recognized that, in order to bring Europe out of the dark years of the medieval period and into the enlightenment they so desired, only alliances forged with the rulers of antiquity would get the job done.