The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1500 to 1599 are collectively referred to as the Cinquecento (/ˌtʃɪŋkwɪˈtʃɛntoʊ/ CHING-kwih-CHEN-toh, Italian: [ˌtʃiŋkweˈtʃɛnto]), from the Italian for the number '500', in turn from millecinquecento, '1500'. Cinquecento encompasses the styles and events of the High Italian Renaissance, and Mannerism.
Paolo Caliari (1528 – 19 April 1588), known as Paolo Veronese (/ˌvɛrəˈneɪzeɪ, -zi/ VERR-ə-NAY-zay, -zee, US also /-eɪsi/ -see; Italian: [ˈpaːolo veroˈneːze, -eːse]), was an Italian Renaissance painter based in Venice, known for extremely large history paintings of religion and mythology, such as The Wedding at Cana (1563) and The Feast in the House of Levi (1573). Included with Titian, a generation older, and Tintoretto, a decade senior, Veronese is one of the "great trio that dominated Venetian painting of the cinquecento" and the Late Renaissance in the 16th century. Known as a supreme colorist, and after an early period with Mannerism, Paolo Veronese developed a naturalist style of painting, influenced by Titian.
His most famous works are elaborate narrative cycles, executed in a dramatic and colorful style, full of majestic architectural settings and glittering pageantry. His large paintings of biblical feasts, crowded with figures, painted for the refectories of monasteries in Venice and Verona are especially famous, and he was also the leading Venetian painter of ceilings. Most of these works remain in situ, or at least in Venice, and his representation in most museums is mainly composed of smaller works such as portraits that do not always show him at his best or most typical.
The Renaissance in Rome occupied a period from the mid-15th to the mid-16th centuries, a period which spawned such masters as Michelangelo and Raphael, who left an indelible mark on Western figurative art. The city had been a magnet for artists wishing to study its classical ruins since the early 15th century. A revived interest in the Classics brought about the first archaeological study of Roman remains by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi and the sculptor Donatello, both Florentines. This inspired a corresponding classicism in painting and sculpture, which manifested itself in the paintings of Masaccio and Uccello. Pisanello and his assistants also frequently took inspiration from ancient remains, but their approach was essentially cataloguing, acquiring a repertoire of models to be exploited later.
In the year 1420, Pope Martin V moved the papal seat back to Rome, ending its long Avignon Papacy or "Babylonian captivity", and the Papal Schism, when several "popes" simultaneously claimed the office. He at once set to work, establishing order and restoring the dilapidated churches, palaces, bridges, and other public structures. For this reconstruction he engaged some famous masters of the Tuscan school, and thus laid the foundation for the Roman Renaissance.
Pietro Bembo, O.S.I.H. (Latin: Petrus Bembus; 20 May 1470 – 18 January 1547) was a Venetian scholar, poet, and literary theorist who also was a member of the Knights Hospitaller and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. As an intellectual of the Italian Renaissance (15th–16th c.), Pietro Bembo greatly influenced the development of the Tuscan dialect as a literary language for poetry and prose, which, by later codification into a standard language, became the modern Italian language. In the 16th century, Bembo's poetry, essays and books proved basic to reviving interest in the literary works of Petrarch. In the field of music, Bembo's literary writing techniques helped composers develop the techniques of musical composition that made the madrigal the most important secular music of 16th-century Italy.
Lioni Leoni (c. 1509 – 22 July 1590) was an Italian sculptor of international outlook who travelled in Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Spain and the Netherlands. Leoni is regarded as the finest of the Cinquecento medallists. He made his reputation in commissions he received from the Habsburg monarchs Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Philip II of Spain. His usual medium was bronze, although he also worked in marble and alabaster, carved gemstones and probably left some finished work in wax (in which many of his sculptures were modelled), as well as designing coins. He mainly produced portraits, and was repeatedly used by the Spanish, and also the Austrian, Habsburgs.