International Gothic art in Italy

The style did not spread from a center of irradiation, as had been the case, for example, with Gothic art and the Île-de-France, but was rather the result of a dialogue between European courts, fostered by the numerous mutual exchanges.

Protagonists of this early period were the anonymous miniaturist author of the Guiron le Coutois and the Lancelot du Lac, now in the National Library of France in Paris, and Giovannino de' Grassi, who illuminated the prayer book known as the Hours of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, with representations of great linear elegance, naturalistic accuracy and decorative preciousness.

In the Offiziolo Bodmer he used a flowing line, soft colors and a precious rhythm in the drawing of figures, which indifferently disregarded spatial issues; all were enriched by very fresh naturalistic details, taken from direct observation.

In the secular field, the major pictorial cycles preserved today, with elegant scenes illustrating the pastimes of courtly life, are the fresco cycle of the so-called Borromeo Games in the Borromeo Palace in Milan, the decorations of the Sala degli Svaghi and the Sala dei Vizi e delle Virtù in the Masnago Castle, whose authors have not yet been identified[6] and the dames commissioned by Gian Galeazzo in 1393 to be frescoed in the "ladies' room" of the Visconti Castle, recently attributed to Gentile da Fabriano.

[7]In the first two decades of the 15th century Venice initiated a momentous political shift, concentrating its interests toward the mainland, inserting itself more actively into the Western framework and gradually detaching itself from Byzantine influence.

These palaces are characterized by a ground-floor portico open to the water for docking vessels, while the upper floor is lit by large poliforas, usually at the central hall, which is reached by a grand staircase that also serves the other rooms.

[8]In Istria, Venetian territory, John of Kastav worked in the Holy Trinity Church in Hrastovlje, and Vincenzo di Càstua[10] in the sanctuary of Santa Maria alle Lastre in Beram.

In the Adoration of the Magi (signed and dated 1435), he constructed with soft strokes and sinuous lines one of the finest works of international Gothic art, paying great attention to detail, to the rendering of precious materials and fabrics, and to the calibration of the crowded composition, with a mostly linear style.

In the Pellegrini Chapel of the church of Santa Anastasia is located his best-known work, Saint George and the Princess, wherein a wholly personal manner he mixed elegance of detail and tension of narrative, reaching heights of "idealized realism."

Pisanello later moved to other Italian courts (Pavia, Ferrara, Mantua, Rome), where he spread his artistic accomplishments, being in turn influenced by local schools, with particular regard to the rediscovery of the ancient world already promoted by Petrarch, to which he devoted himself by copying numerous Roman reliefs into drawings that have partly come down to us.

[13] He took Burgundian sculpture as his model, but soon developed a more personal style, where the finest stylistic sweetnesses and the sharpest expressive depictions coexisted, as in the moving Ascent to Calvary frescoed in the former sacristy of the church of St. Anthony in Ranverso (c. 1430).

In the great variety of human types in the procession around Christ, a linear sense prevails due to the pronounced black line of the borders, yet each subject detaches expressively from the neutral background and group, creating a dramatic vision devoid of sentimentality.

[13] The Master of the Castello della Manta, formerly identified as Jaquerio and now regarded as a separate individual,[15] painted around 1420 a cycle of fine frescoes in the castle near Saluzzo, very rich in courtly elements on a bright, yet flat, white background.

This economic and cultural openness is reflected in works such as Lorenzo Salimbeni's Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine (1400, Pinacoteca comunale di San Severino), characterized by a swirling movement of the lines of the drapery, unreal colors and detailed realism, following the most up-to-date Lombard-Emilian and French models.

Nourished by an Umbrian-Marche background with Lombard influences, taken on as a result of frequent travels, he fostered the flourishing of the Late Gothic style at first not far from his hinterland (the frescoes of humanistic inspiration inside the Palazzo Trinci in Foligno are illustrative), later gaining prominence even farther afield: to this day in Florence, the Adoration of the Magi, his greatest work, is on display in the Uffizi Gallery.

[20] Toward the end of the 14th century, people began to tire of the old models and two main paths to renewal appeared: embrace the International Style or develop classical roots with even greater rigor.

An extraordinary synthesis of the two schools of thought is offered by the two surviving panels from the 1401 competition for the north door of the Baptistery of Florence, cast in bronze by Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi respectively and now in the Bargello National Museum.

[20] Ghiberti divided the scene into two vertical bands harmonized by a rocky spur of archaic flavor, with a balanced narrative, proportionate figures and updated to Gothic cadences.

This style derives from a meditation on the work of Giovanni Pisano (as in the Slaughter of the Innocents in the pulpit of St. Andrew) and on ancient art, as evidenced also by the mention of the spinario in the left corner.

In 1414, while working on the bronze gate, he produced a St. John the Baptist with a falling cloak with a large rhythmic stride, canceling out the forms of the body, just as was done by contemporary Bohemian masters.

[21] In painting, Gherardo Starnina's trip to Valencia in 1380 was of considerable importance; having brought himself up to date with international innovations, when he returned to Florence he had a strong influence on the new generation of painters such as Lorenzo Monaco and Masolino da Panicale.

[23] In Siena, artists of the first half of the 15th century elaborated on the prestigious local tradition, which had been among the founding contributions of the late Gothic style at the papal court in Avignon, while grafting some Florentine elements and maintaining a composed sense of religiosity.

[27] There were two important artists in the province of Teramo: Jacobello del Fiore (of Venetian origin) and Antonio Martini of Atri, who, formed in Siena and the Emilian area, is documented throughout the whole of Abruzzo.

For a spread of the Renaissance style one had to wait until the 1570s and 1580s.In Sicily, with the settlement of Ferdinand I (1412) and Alfonso V of Aragon (who in 1416 made it his base for the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples), there was a rapid artistic flowering favored first and foremost by the rich and demanding royal patronage and the system of trade and cultural exchanges with Catalonia, Valencia, Provence, northern France and the Netherlands.

[17] The finest work of this era was the fresco of the Triumph of Death for the courtyard of the Sclafani Palace (now detached and preserved in the Regional Gallery of Palermo), probably commissioned directly by the sovereign and characterized by a lofty quality unprecedented in the area.