Art in a Time of Turmoil

The paradox of the Italian Renaissance was that it was a time of extraordinary artistic creativity, yet art of the High Renaissance was created during a period of intense political turmoil.

Around 1481–82 Leonardo da Vinci wrote an extraordinary letter offering his services to the Duke of Milan.

This is the secretarial draft of that letter.

In it the artist describes many types of weapons, siege machinery, portable bridges, hydraulic devices, and other engineering innovations he can create for the Duke of Milan.

Only at the very end of the letter does he mention his painting.

Leonardo’s designs for various inventions in the Atlanticus Codex in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana.

Leonardo was a man of genius, whose life was full of contradictions.

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Castello San Giorgio Mantua

Images of the Marchese Lodovico Gonzaga, his family, and court from Mantegna’s Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua

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Castello San Michele Ferrara

Borso d'Este Bible
Bible of Borso d’Este

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Detail of Francesco Cossa’s Triumph of Venus

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Pedro Berruguete, Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and His Son 

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Palazzo Ducale, Urbino

Intarsia library Urbino

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Titian, Assumption of the Virgin

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Titian, Portrait of a Woman with a Mirror

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Titian, Equestrian Portrait of the Emperor Charles V

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Bacchus, an early work by Michelangelo

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Michelangelo, Pietà

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Michelangelo, David in its present location in the Galleria dell’Accademia

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Raphael, Portrait of Pope Julius II

One of Michelangelo’s preliminary drawings for the tomb

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A smaller version of the Pope’s tomb in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome

Botticelli, The Trials and Calling of Moses

Perugino, Christ Handing the Keys to St Peter

Ghirlandaio, The Calling of the Apostles

Rosselli, Crossing of the Red Sea

Exterior view of the Sistine Chapel

Raphael self portrait

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Raphael, The School of Athens, Sala della Segnatura, Vatican

Raphael Galatea
Raphael, Galatea, Villa Farnesina, Rome

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Pasquino

I modi raimondi
 Fragments of Giulio Romano’s etchings for Marcantonio Raimondi’s I modi

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