Francesca Interguglielmi

The spectacle of the Baptistery of Padua: the frescoes of Giusto de' Menabuoi

Inside the Baptistery of Pad ua is preserved one of the masterpieces of Paduan painting from the second half of the 14th century. The realization of the pictorial decoration of the sacred building was entrusted to the Florentine painter Giusto de' Me...
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The doors of the Baptistery of Florence, Lorenzo Ghiberti's masterpiece

On November 23, 1403, Lorenzo Ghiberti (Pelago, 1378 - Florence, 1455) signed the contract for the construction of the North Door of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. This was the final outcome of the competition announced in 1401 by theArt...
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A new painting: Masaccio's Trinity

On the wall of the third arch of the left aisle of the Dominican basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence is a fresco that is considered the programmatic manifesto of the new Renaissance painting. It is the Trinity, the last work created by Masacc...
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Giovanni Pisano's Pistoia pulpit, an innovative masterpiece

At the beginning of the 14th century, the church of Sant'Andrea in Pistoia was provided with new and important liturgical furnishings. By 1301, in fact, the sculptor Giovanni Pisano created a pulpit for this space that marked important novelties with...
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"A gay painting": the Madonna of the Belvedere by Ottaviano Nelli.

During the 19th century, the growing romantic interest in themedieval age drew travelers to a number of Italian centers that had more or less preserved evidence of that bygone era. Among these was Gubbio, an Umbrian town whose historic center...
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Giotto, the Santa Maria Novella Crucifix: the first real Christ on the Cross in Italian painting

In the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella is a work that, at the end of the 13th century, marked a caesura in the history of Italian art. Entering the church, raising our gaze along the nave, we can in fact admire a painted cross belong...
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The Majesty of Duccio di Buoninsegna: a masterpiece of Italian art history

In a document dated June 30, 1311, preserved in theState Archives of Siena, there is evidence of payment to four musicians of the City of Siena for their services during the transport of a table depicting the Virgin Mary. The reference is to a fa...
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The Brancacci Chapel: the new look at painting.

In Florence, in theOltrarno area, among the many magnificent places that can be visited, one was described by the neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as the "true cradle of painting." This is the Brancacci Chapel, which is lo...
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Simone Martini's Orsini Polyptych: a portable masterpiece for private devotion

The Orsini Polyptych is one of the masterpieces of Simone Martini (Siena, 1284 - Avignon, 1344), one of the masters of Sienese painting in the first half of the 14th century. The physical structure of this work and its small size favored its...
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The Classical and Precious Middle Ages by Nicolas de Verdun

Less than half an hour by train from Vienna is Klosterneuburg, a medium-sized center of a renowned wine-growing area on the outskirts of the Austrian capital. Here, in 1114, an abbey was founded by Leopold III of Babenberg, the future patron saint ...
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An incredible visionary world: Botticelli's illustrations for the Divine Comedy

Between the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin and the Vatican Library are 92 drawings illustrating a manuscript text of the Commedia by Dante Alighieri (Florence, 1265 - Ravenna, 1321). These drawings were commissioned from Sandro Botticelli (Florence,...
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An extraordinary episode of Franciscan art in Siena: the cycle of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti

Inside the Basilica of St. Francis in Siena, in two side chapels of the left transept, are three large wall paintings that, together with a few other fragments that are currently in the museum, are the precious evidence of what remains of the cyc...
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The needs of a devotion: the old ark of St. Ubaldo in Gubbio

"Intra Tupino and the water that descends / of the hill elected by blessed Ubaldo, / fertile costa d'alto monte hangs. " In this triplet of Canto XI of Paradise, in which there is a eulogy of St. Francis delivered by the Dominican St. Thomas Aquina...
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A Marble Tale. The floor of the Cathedral of Siena

Upon entering the Cathedral of Siena, dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption, which with its Gothic forms rises majestically over the acropolis of the Tuscan city, one's gaze must be directed three hundred and sixty degrees, for one can observe ma...
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The Baptistery of Albenga, the most important early Christian architecture in Liguria

Albenga, a town on the western Ligurian Riviera, is a settlement of pre-Roman origin. Its first name was Albium Ingaunum, later Latinized into Albingaunum, meaning 'city of the Ingauni,' from the tribe of Ligurians who had it as their capital. It...
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The cycle of the months of Torre Aquila in the Castello del Buonconsiglio: an International Gothic masterpiece in Trento

On the walls of Torre Aquila, located at the southern end of the Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trent, the seat of prince-bishops from the 13th to the 18th century, is one of the most famous secular cycles of international Gothic, that dedicated to th...
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Simone Martini's Majesty in Siena's Palazzo Pubblico: a religious but above all a civic masterpiece

On the northern wall of the Sala del Mappamondo in Siena 's Palazzo Pubblico stretches for 110 square meters one of the masterpieces of Sienese painting, created, presumably starting in 1312, by Simone Martini (Siena, c. 1284 - Avignon, 1344). T...
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