During the Renaissance the Arts created a break with the traditions, professing a new way of representing reality. Perspective and centrality of the human being become dominant characteristics in all artistic productions. Here is a brief post to learn how to recognize the Florentine Renaissance Style!

A brief overview on the Florentine Renaissance Style

Florence, thanks to a long period of economic and political stability, and thanks to the growth of the power and prestige of some families of merchants and bankers such as the Medici family, becomes the starting point for experimentation with new architectural and artistic languages ​​that find in the personalities of Filippo Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello and Masaccio a real alternative to the style of the international Gothic, which spread in the Tuscan capital between the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century.

Much of Florentine painting of the fifteenth century reflects the changes that transformed the social structure of the city within fifty years.

In painting, some artists aimed at the realistic representation of the characters and the landscape through the search for a new space scan (perspective) and applying a renewed “chiaroscuro” technique.

Masaccio brought to the extreme consequences the realism of Giotto, his predecessor, becoming one of the greatest interpreters of the Florentine Renaissance style.

Now completely unrelated to medieval mysticism and symbolism, his religious subjects have descended into everyday life with street scenes and domestic interiors. His characters have solid and massive forms and obey the laws of perspective.

The Renaissance in Mugello and the Donatello’s Crucifix of Bosco ai Frati

Donatello (1386-1466), Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, refers directly to the realist painting of Masaccio.

Although the attribution of the wooden Christ of Bosco ai Frati (in Mugello) remains controversial, the work is in any case one of the most significant examples of Florentine Renaissance Style.

The figure is ungainly, the face of Christ is contracted, the mouth open, the eyes half-open and suffering is underlined by the drops of sweat, yet bears witness to a profound interior dignity that is manifested even in the moment of agony.

Even more effectively than the better known and sure attribution of the Crucifix of Santa Croce (Florence), here the idea of ​​realism is affirmed according to which the perfection and the greatness of man are not in the outer harmonic balance, but rather in the greatness of the inner mood.

The wooden crucifix of Bosco ai Frati is now preserved in the small Museum of Sacred Art close to the convent, in the town of San Piero a Sieve, just few kilometers from Villa Campestri.

In Mugello, where Villa Campestri stands, the great masters of the Renaissance were born and from here came the most powerful Florentine family, the Medici.

Over the centuries, Mugello has therefore given an incomparable contribution to the Italian historical and artistic heritage, being the home of great personalities such as Giotto, Fra’ Angelico or Andrea del Castagno.

If you want to admire the great works of the Florentine Renaissance, then we are waiting for you at Villa Campestri, an excellent starting point for a tour in Mugello and the nearby Florence!