At the turn of the 13th and 14th Centuries, a man named Francis from Assisi changed the world. Not only did he begin to reform the Catholic Church by living the example of Christ in taking a vow of poverty, but he also changed the way that medieval Christians saw the natural world. Francis claimed that nature was given to us as a gift from God and therefore was not only good but imbued with God himself. Nature should not be shunned and ignored, but celebrated and revered. Not surprisingly, within a half century of his death in 1226, artists like Cimabue, Dante and Giotto appeared, and each reflected the little giant’s philosophy in his respective art. To honor St. Francis, a basilica was built in his honor and the greatest artists of Europe converged on Assisi to decorate the church, much as they would centuries later at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. 

Florence, Italy, was the cradle of the Renaissance and the birthplace of the modern world. From Dante to Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo, this central Italian town produced the greatest concentration of artistic genius in history.  The legacy of this creative explosion is still very much present in the city. Whether it is Brunelleschi’s crowning dome above the titanic cathedral, Ghiberti’s stunning golden doors known as The Gates of Paradise, Botticelli’s beautiful painting of the Birth of Venus or Michelangelo’s unrivaled statue of David, beauty and inspiration are found in every corner of this open-air museum that is Florence. This lecture will tell the story of Florence through its art, architecture and history – a story that is simply magnificent!

Giotto’s 14th-century fresco cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, is perhaps the seminal motion picture in Western Art. The artist transformed the iconic, sacred subjects of his contemporary painting world into a very human story- or what I like to call the “visual vernacular”. This lecture will examine a surprisingly modern aspect of Giotto’s work, that is the cinematic quality. To put it simply, the paintings in the chapel read like a motion picture or a film, in which humanity is the star. Giotto’s mise en scène is full of expressive character types, landscapes, colour and visual arrangements. The sequential arrangement and juxtaposition of scenes, instead, produce a visual narrative of which most modern film directors would be envious. In a purely visual medium, Giotto is able to evoke sounds and smells, emotions and expectations, humor and terror.

In the first half of the 14th century, the city of Siena was Florence’s main political, economic and artistic rival. Artists such as Duccio, Simone Martini and Ambrogio Lorenzetti were members of one of Europe’s most important school of painting. The striking Gothic cathedral of Siena clearly expresses the city’s devotion to the Virgin Mary; while, the civic architecture of the city is embodied in the city’s most important civic structure known as the Palazzo Pubblico. This late 13th-century building still serves as Siena’s town hall and preserves some of the most important murals of the 14th Century such as Simone Martini’s Maestà in the former room of the “Great Council” and the Allegory of Good and Bad Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the “Room of the Nine”, which was Siena’s medieval Oval Office.

Venice was the longest lasting Republic in history. The city’s privileged position as cultural and economic bridge between the Eastern and Western Christian world contribute to the uniqueness of Venice. The art and architecture in Venice clearly display this combination of Islamic, Byzantine, and Classical influences. Artists such as Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and Tintoretto would make Venetian painting perhaps the only school to rival that of the Central Italian Renaissance. We will not only examine the buildings and paintings of Venice, but also the history of perhaps the most singular city in the world.