Displayed on a wedding chest, Bonifazio de’ Pitati’s painting of Perseus freeing Andromeda offers a timeless message: that love, like myth, is a journey from danger to harmony.
Fra Angelico’s story of the Passion
He would never take up his brushes without prayer; and in his Crucifixions, the devotion he felt is seen in the tender, pious expression of every figure.
Giovanni Bellini’s God the Father
Bellini’s God the Father presents a serene divine figure emerging from clouds, where light, color, and stillness convey spiritual depth, inviting quiet contemplation and an intimate connection between heaven and viewer.
Antonio Badile’s Madonna and Child
Badile’s Madonna and Child presents a tender, intimate devotional scene, where maternal affection, symbolic detail, and serene composition reflect Renaissance spirituality and private acts of contemplation and faith.
Madonna of the Goldfinch
Vasari recounts Raphael gifting the Madonna of the Goldfinch to Lorenzo Nasi, portraying tender childhood interaction, serene grace, and harmonious beauty, blending personal friendship with spiritual symbolism and luminous naturalism.
IVLIA BELLA
The IVLIA BELLA plate from Faenza exemplifies early Renaissance maiolica, celebrating idealized feminine beauty through refined portraiture, elegant inscription, and humanist aesthetics that reflect the period’s growing fascination with individuality, love, and artistic refinement.
Andrea della Robbia’s tender Portrait of a Child
Andrea della Robbia’s glazed terracotta Portrait of a Child embodies Renaissance ideals of innocence and care, using luminous color and tender naturalism to celebrate childhood and reflect enduring values of compassion and human dignity.
Guido Mazzoni’s Portrait of an Old Man
Guido Mazzoni’s terracotta portrait of an elderly man confronts viewers with unidealised age and psychological realism, transforming clay into a profound Renaissance meditation on human dignity, mortality, and individual identity.
Michelangelo’s Bacchus with Satyr
Michelangelo’s Bacchus transforms Horatian visions of Dionysian ecstasy into marble, depicting the god’s intoxicating instability, sensuality, and mythic ambiguity through a dynamic fusion of classical form and emotional excess.
Cimabue’s Maestà di Assisi
Cimabue’s Maestà di Assisi marks a pivotal shift from Byzantine abstraction toward early naturalism, portraying the Virgin and Child with emerging spatial depth and human presence within a profoundly devotional medieval context.