Lecture 1 - Florence at Century’s Turn

Florence at Century’s Turn, Wednesday, 29 January, will look at the milieu within which Leonardo and Michelangelo received their training and created some of their early masterpieces: Leonardo within the workshop run by Verrocchio, Michelangelo working under Ghirlandaio. Florence at that time was dominated politically by the Medici family whose patronage was all important. It was a dominance ended when after the death of Lorenzo ‘the Magnificent’ in 1492, the family were shortly thereafter expelled and the city returned to the previous form of communal government by a council of citizens. Initially dominated by the doleful influence of Savonarola, once he was executed in 1498 the ‘commune’ began to commission works which celebrated the regained civic independence of the city. Private patrons also stepped into the shoes of the recently departed Medici and this first webinar will look at their role, such as the Doni and Taddei families. It was about this time that the young Raphael arrived in Florence, and we shall see how Michelangelo’s early sculptural masterpiece, The Taddei Tondo, helped shape the new arrival’s work, not least in his early masterpiece, known as The ‘Bridgewater’ Madonna of 1507 – 08.