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Brera Madonna
The ''Brera Madonna'' (also known as the ''Pala di Brera'', the Montefeltro Altarpiece or Brera Altarpiece) is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca, executed in 1472–1474. It is housed in the Pinacoteca di Brera of Milan, where it was deposited by Napoleon. The work, of a type known as a ''sacra conversazione'', was commissioned by Federico III da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, to celebrate the birth of Federico's son, Guidobaldo. According to other sources, it would celebrate his conquest of several castles in the Maremma. Dating The painting was executed between 1472 and 1474; the ''terminus ante quem'' is established by the absence from Federico's figure of the insignia of the Order of the Garter, which he received in the later year. When it was rediscovered at the Brera at the end of the 19th century, the painting was so disfigured by darkened varnish it was attributed to Fra Carnevale (Bartolomeo di Giovanni Corradini), as Piero's use of oi ...
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Piero Della Francesca
Piero della Francesca ( , ; ; ; – 12 October 1492) was an Italian Renaissance painter, Italian painter, mathematician and List of geometers, geometer of the Early Renaissance, nowadays chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting is characterized by its serene humanism, its use of geometric forms and Perspective (graphical), perspective. His most famous work is the cycle of frescoes ''The History of the True Cross'' in the Basilica of San Francesco, Arezzo, Basilica of San Francesco in the Tuscany, Tuscan town of Arezzo. Biography Early years Piero was born Piero di Benedetto in the town of Sansepolcro, Borgo Santo Sepolcro, modern-day Tuscany, to Benedetto de' Franceschi, a tradesman, and Romana di Perino da Monterchi, members of the Florentine and Tuscan Franceschi noble family. His father died before his birth, and he was called Piero della Francesca after his mother, who was referred to as "la Francesca" due to her marriage into the Franceschi family (similar to Lisa d ...
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John The Baptist
John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist Christianity, Christian traditions, and as the prophet Yahya ibn Zakariya in Islam. He is sometimes referred to as John the Baptiser. John is mentioned by the History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish historian Josephus, and he is revered as a major religious figure in Christianity, Islam, the Baháʼí Faith, the Druze faith, and Mandaeism; in the last of these he is considered to be the final and most vital prophet. He is considered to be a prophet of God in Abrahamic religions, God by all of the aforementioned faiths, and is honoured as a saint in many Christian denominations. According to the New Testament, John anticipated a messianic figure greater than himself; in the Gospels, he is portrayed as the precursor or forerunn ...
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Ostrich Egg
The egg of the ostrich (genus ''Struthio'') is the largest of any living bird (being exceeded in size by those of the extinct elephant bird genus '' Aepyornis''). The shell has a long history of use by humans as a container and for decorative artwork, including beads. The eggs are not commonly eaten. Biology The female common ostrich lays her fertilized eggs in a single communal nest, a simple pit, deep and wide, scraped in the ground by the male. The dominant female lays her eggs first, and when it is time to cover them for incubation she discards extra eggs from the weaker females, leaving about 20 in most cases. A female common ostrich can distinguish her own eggs from the others in a communal nest. Ostrich eggs are the largest of all eggs, though they are actually the smallest eggs relative to the size of the adult bird — on average they are long, wide, and weigh , over 20 times the weight of a chicken's egg and only 1 to 4% the size of the female. They are glossy c ...
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Semi-dome
In architecture, a semi-dome (or half-dome) is a half dome that covers a semi-circular area in a building. Architecture Semi-domes are a common feature of apses in Ancient Roman and traditional church architecture, and in mosques and iwans in Islamic architecture. A semi-dome, or the whole apse, may also be called a conch after the scallop shell often carved as decoration of the semi-dome (all shells were conches in Ancient Greek), though this is usually used for subsidiary semi-domes, rather than the one over the main apse. Small semi-domes have been often decorated in a shell shape from ancient times, as in Piero della Francesca's ''Throned Madonna with saints and Federigo da Montefeltro'', and the example in the gallery below. Islamic examples may use muqarnas decorative corbelling, while in Late Antique, Byzantine and medieval church architecture the semi-dome is the classic location for a focal mosaic, or later fresco. Found in many Ancient Greek exedras, the semi-dome bec ...
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Early Netherlandish Painting
Early Netherlandish painting is the body of work by artists active in the Burgundian Netherlands, Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period, once known as the Flemish Primitives. It flourished especially in the cities of Bruges, Ghent, Mechelen, Leuven, Tournai and Brussels, all in present-day Belgium. The period begins approximately with Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the 1420s and lasts at least until the death of Gerard David in 1523,Spronk (1996), 7 although many scholars extend it to the beginning of the Dutch Revolt in 1566 or 1568 – Max J. Friedländer's acclaimed surveys run through Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Early Netherlandish painting coincides with the Early and High Renaissance, High Italian Renaissance, but the early period (until about 1500) is seen as an independent artistic evolution, separate from the Renaissance humanism that characterised developments in Italy. Beginning in the 1490s, as increasing n ...
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Oriental Carpets In Renaissance Painting
Carpets of Middle-Eastern origin, either from Anatolia, Persia, Armenia, Levant, the Mamluk state of Egypt or Northern Africa, were used as decorative features in Western European paintings from the 14th century onwards. More depictions of Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting survive than actual carpets contemporary with these paintings. Few Middle-Eastern carpets produced before the 17th century remain, though the number of these known has increased in recent decades. Therefore, comparative art-historical research has from its onset in the late 19th century relied on carpets represented in datable European paintings. Art historical background Activities of scientists and collectors beginning in the late 19th century have substantially increased the corpus of surviving Oriental carpets, allowing for more detailed comparison of existing carpets with their painted counterparts. Western comparative research resulted in an ever more detailed cultural history of the Oriental ...
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Humanism
Humanism is a philosophy, philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and Agency (philosophy), agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" has changed according to successive intellectual movements that have identified with it. During the Italian Renaissance, Italian scholars inspired by Greek classical scholarship gave rise to the Renaissance humanism movement. During the Age of Enlightenment, humanistic values were reinforced by advances in science and technology, giving confidence to humans in their exploration of the world. By the early 20th century, organizations dedicated to humanism flourished in Europe and the United States, and have since expanded worldwide. In the early 21st century, the term generally denotes a focus on human well-being and advocates for human freedom, autonomy, and progress. It views humanity as responsible for the prom ...
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Sansepolcro
Sansepolcro, formerly Borgo Santo Sepolcro, is a town and ''comune'' founded in the 11th century, located in the Italian Province of Arezzo in the eastern part of the region of Tuscany. Situated on the upper reaches of the Tiber river, the town is the birthplace of the painters Piero della Francesca, Raffaellino del Colle (a pupil of Raphael), Matteo di Giovanni, Santi di Tito, and Angiolo Tricca. It was also the birthplace of the Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli, and of Matteo Cioni, who translated Piero della Francesca's treatise about perspective in painting ('' De prospectiva pingendi'') into Latin. Today, the economy of the town is based on agriculture, industrial manufacturing, food processing and pharmaceuticals. It is the home of Buitoni pasta, founded by Giulia Buitoni in 1827. History According to tradition the founding of the town came about through two 9th-century pilgrims to the Holy Land, Arcanus and Giles. They returned to the region and built a chapel de ...
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Luca Pacioli
Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli, O.F.M. (sometimes ''Paccioli'' or ''Paciolo''; 1447 – 19 June 1517) was an Italian mathematician, Franciscan friar, collaborator with Leonardo da Vinci, and an early contributor to the field now known as accounting. He is referred to as the father of accounting and bookkeeping and he was the first person to publish a work on the double-entry system of book-keeping on the continent. He was also called Luca di Borgo after his birthplace, Borgo Sansepolcro, Tuscany. Life Luca Pacioli was born between 1446 and 1448 in the Tuscan town of Sansepolcro where he received an abbaco education. This was education in the vernacular (''i.e.'', the local tongue) rather than Latin and focused on the knowledge required of merchants. His father was Bartolomeo Pacioli; however, Luca Pacioli was said to have lived with the Befolci family as a child in his birth town Sansepolcro. He moved to Venice around 1464, where he continued his own education while working ...
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John The Evangelist
John the Evangelist ( – ) is the name traditionally given to the author of the Gospel of John. Christians have traditionally identified him with John the Apostle, John of Patmos, and John the Presbyter, although there is no consensus on how many of these may actually be the same individual. Identity The exact identity of John – and the extent to which his identification with John the Apostle, John of Patmos and John the Presbyter is historical – is disputed between Christian tradition and scholars. The Gospel of John refers to an otherwise unnamed "disciple whom Jesus loved", who "bore witness to and wrote" the Gospel's message.Theissen, Gerd and Annette Merz. The historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide. Fortress Press. 1998. translated from German (1996 edition). Chapter 2. Christian sources about Jesus. The author of the Gospel of John seemed interested in maintaining the internal anonymity of the author's identity, although interpreting the Gospel in the light o ...
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Saint Andrew
Andrew the Apostle ( ; ; ; ) was an apostle of Jesus. According to the New Testament, he was a fisherman and one of the Twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus. The title First-Called () used by the Eastern Orthodox Church stems from the Gospel of John, where Andrew, initially a disciple of John the Baptist, follows Jesus and, recognising him as the Messiah, introduces his brother Simon Peter to him. According to Eastern Orthodox tradition, the apostolic successor to Andrew is the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Life Early life The name "Andrew" (meaning ''manly, brave'', from ), like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews and other Hellenised people since the second or third century B.C.MacRory, Joseph; "Saint Andrew", The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 1, New York, ...
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