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Course: Ancient Mediterranean + Europe > Unit 9
Lesson 2: Beginner guides to Roman architecture- Roman architecture
- Italo-Roman building techniques
- Roman domestic architecture (domus)
- Roman domestic architecture: the villa
- Roman domestic architecture (insula)
- Forum Romanum (The Roman Forum)
- The Roman Forum: part 1 of Ruins in Modern Imagination
- The Roman Forum, part II
- The Roman Forum, part III
- Views of past and present: the Forum Romanum and archaeological context
- Imperial fora
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The Roman Forum, part II
Donatello and Brunelleschi, two Florentine artists, studied ancient Greek and Roman culture, influencing their art and architecture. This interest in antiquity, known as humanism, defined the Renaissance. Artists like Mantegna incorporated ruins into their work, symbolizing Christianity's triumph over ancient religions. This fascination with ruins extended to the 17th and 18th centuries, popularizing the Grand Tour. Ruins in Modern Imagination: The Roman Forum (part 2, the Renaissance and after), an ARCHES video, speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker Part 1: https://youtu.be/Q1hFeCS0Y3Y Part 3:https://youtu.be/sUS3sh3MjuM. Created by Beth Harris and Shreena Desai.
Want to join the conversation?
- why is Rome ruined?(2 votes)
- I can understand that quite well. Those old parts of Rome have been around for a long time, some for more than 2,000 years. As a city, Rome has been important for some reasons, but parts of it have been ignored for other reasons. I understand this, because I am similarly old (though only 71) and parts of me have broken or have been ignored.(4 votes)
- what is Humanism?(1 vote)
- From the author:Smarthistory has added an essay on Humanism to Khan Academy, search the title, "Humanism in renaissance Italy"(4 votes)
Video transcript
(light piano music) - [Steve] In the early 15th century, two important Florentine
artists, Donatello, the sculptor, and Brunelleschi, the engineer
and architect came to Rome. And they came to study and
to understand antiquity. - [Beth] And this was a new appreciation for the ruins, for the culture
of Ancient Greece and Rome. Not just in visual culture,
but in literature, in history. There's a revival, at least among some, of Ancient Greece and Roman culture. And so Brunelleschi and Donatello are looking and measuring
and studying and drawing. And the idea was for them to incorporate what they had learned
into their own sculpture and architecture respectively. - [Steve] So for example,
we see the direct impact of classical sculpture on Donatello's art. If we look at his sculpture, "David," we see a figure in bronze
standing in a beautiful pose that we know as contrapposto. This is where the weight
is shifted on to one leg, and the entire body is responding to that. This is a kind of observation that had been developed
first by the Ancient Greeks and then borrowed by the Ancient Romans. - [Beth] And similarly,
Brunelleschi is utilizing the forms of Ancient Rome
in his own architecture, in the churches, for example,
Santo Spirito in Florence. And then they're talking to Masaccio. And Masaccio and his fresco
of "The Holy Trinity" in Santa Maria Novella is incorporating the forms of Ancient Greek
and Roman architecture. They're using their study of ancient ruins to renew the arts of painting, of sculpture, and architecture. - [Steve] And this interest
in the fragments of antiquity is part of a larger movement
that we know as humanism, that is one of the defining
features of the Renaissance. But when we look at the
paintings of Masaccio, or the sculptures of Donatello, or the architecture of Brunelleschi, they're studying fragments, but their interest is not
in the fragment itself. And so it's interesting
to look ahead a generation at the painting of somebody like Mantegna who's interested in the fragment. - [Beth] Mantegna
clearly shows us his love for the Ancient Roman ruin itself. Mantegna is creating
paintings of Christian saints, of the Madonna and Child,
for a Christian audience. But of course, Christianity
grew up in Ancient Rome. So Mantegna uses those ruins to suggest how Christianity's superior
to ancient pagan religions. - [Steve] And a wonderful example of that is the small paintings "Saint Sebastian" where we see the martyred Christian saint filled with arrows, but he
remains miraculously alive, looking up to God, tied to the fragments of an Ancient Roman arch, suggesting the Christian spiritual faith is stronger even than
the great Roman Empire, that Christianity outlasted Rome. And so the fragment
takes on symbolic value. - [Beth] This Renaissance interest in the culture of Ancient Greece and Rome reaches the highest levels of the church. Various popes are funding excavations around the City of Rome to discover the ruins of Classical civilization. And in a way, the city becomes a place where treasure can be
founded nearly everywhere, so that if someone is building a villa, they're discovering fragments
of Ancient Roman sculptures. They're discovering portions of buildings. And we begin to get this
interest in reconstructing. How can we take the fragments
that we've discovered buried deep within the ground
and put them back together? And were they putting them back together the way they were supposed
to be put back together? And what pieces were missing? And what should be done about
the pieces that were missing? Should artists create a foot or an arm to help to reconstruct an
Ancient Greek or Roman sculpture? Michelangelo was present
for the excavation, the uncovering of the
great sculpture "Laocoon." We know that fragments
like the "Belvedere Torso," these things now in the Vatican Museums, were enormously influential on Michelangelo, on Raphael, on Leonardo. In fact, Leonardo advised artists to include ruins in their paintings. - [Steve] And he does that in
his great unfinished painting, "The Adoration of the Magi." If you look at the upper left, you see a wonderful set of stairs that rise up to a broken
arch and to a ruined column. - [Beth] So many of the ancient sculptures that we study today have
names that are derived from the gorgeous villas of
wealthy families of Rome. - [Steve] In the 17th and 18th century, a new phenomena arises, something
we call "The Grand Tour," where young men, as
part of their education, men from wealthy families, would travel throughout Europe
to important ancient sites. And Rome was an absolutely required stop. - [Beth] In fact, there
are, just like today, souvenirs that could be purchased by those on the Grand Tour
and taken back to their houses in France or England or wherever to show that they'd done the Grand Tour and were learned and well-traveled. And so we begin to have
this increasing interest in isolation of the ruin itself. Now, we should say that interest in ruins is not unique to this
period of the Renaissance. And after, it's something that we see in many cultures throughout history. But it gains particular
traction in popularity in the 17th and 18th and
early 19th centuries. (light piano music)