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64 CHAPTER 2 | European Society in the Renaissance 1350–1550

The Madonna of Chancellor
Rolin, ca. 1435 This exquisitely
detailed oil painting by Jan van
Eyck, commissioned by Nicolas
Rolin, the chancellor of the duchy
of Burgundy, shows the Virgin
Mary presenting the infant Jesus to
Rolin, whose portrait in a brocade
fur-lined robe takes up the entire
left side. The foreground is an
Italian-style loggia with an inlaid
floor, while the background shows
Rolin’s hometown of Autun, where
he was a major landowner and
where the painting was displayed
in his parish church. Renaissance
paintings from southern and
northern Europe often show their
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
patrons together with biblical
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
figures and highlight exactly
the qualities the patron wanted:
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.
wealth, learning, piety, and power.
(Josse/Leemage/Corbis Historical/Getty Images) Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample.

and huge sums of money to beautify the city. Pope Venice became another artistic center in the six-
Julius II tore down the old Saint Peter’s Basilica and teenth century. Titian (TIH-shuhn) (1490–1576)
began work on the present structure in 1506. Michel- produced portraits, religious subjects, and myth-
angelo went to Rome from Florence in about 1500 ological scenes; he developed techniques of paint-
and began the series of statues, paintings, and archi- ing in oil without doing elaborate drawings first,
tectural projects from which he gained an interna- which speeded up the process and pleased patrons
tional reputation: the Pietà, Moses, the redesigning of eager to display their acquisitions. Titian and other
the plaza and surrounding palaces on the Capitoline sixteenth-century painters developed an artis-
Hill in central Rome, and, most famously, the dome tic style known in English as “mannerism” (from
for Saint Peter’s and the ceiling and altar wall of the maniera or “style” in Italian) in which artists some-
nearby Sistine Chapel. times distorted figures, exaggerated musculature,
Raphael Sanzio (1483–1520), another Floren- and heightened color to express emotion and drama
tine, got the commission for frescoes in the papal more intently. (See the Titian paintings Laura de
apartments, and in his relatively short life he painted Dianti on page 68 and Philip II on page 104; this
hundreds of portraits and devotional images, is also the style in which Michelangelo painted
becoming the most sought-after artist in Europe. the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, shown on
Raphael also oversaw a large workshop with many page 62.)
collaborators and apprentices — who assisted on
the less difficult sections of some paintings — and The Renaissance Artist
wrote treatises on his philosophy of art in which
he emphasized the importance of imitating nature Some patrons rewarded certain artists very well, and
and developing an orderly sequence of design and some artists gained great public acclaim as, in Vasari’s
proportion. words, “rare men of genius.” This adulation of the

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