Italian art in the context of "Valle dei Templi"

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⭐ Core Definition: Italian art

Since ancient times, the Italian peninsula has been home to diverse civilizations: the Greeks in the south, the Etruscans in the centre, and the Celts in the north. The numerous Rock Drawings in Valcamonica date back as far as 8,000 BC. Rich artistic remains survive from the Etruscan civilization, including thousands of tombs, as well as from the Greek colonies at Paestum, Agrigento, and other sites. With the rise of Ancient Rome, Italy became the cultural and political centre of a vast empire. Roman ruins across the country are extraordinarily rich, from the grand imperial monuments of Rome to the remarkably preserved everyday architecture of Pompeii and neighbouring sites.

Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Italy remained an important artistic centre throughout the Middle Ages. The country saw significant contributions to Carolingian art, Ottonian art, and Norman art, as well as the flourishing of Byzantine art in cities such as Ravenna.

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Italian art in the context of Galleria Borghese

The Galleria Borghese or Borghese Gallery is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. At the outset, the gallery building was integrated with its gardens, but nowadays the Villa Borghese gardens are considered a separate tourist attraction. The Galleria Borghese houses a substantial part of the Borghese Collection of paintings, sculpture and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (reign 1605–1621). The building was constructed by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese himself, who used it as a villa suburbana, a country villa at the edge of Rome.

The museum displays one of the most prestigious art collections in the world, with masterpieces by artists such as Caravaggio, Bernini, Canova, Raphael and Titian. Scipione Borghese was an early patron of Bernini and an avid collector of works by Caravaggio, who is well represented in the collection by his Boy with a Basket of Fruit, St Jerome Writing, Sick Bacchus and others. Additional paintings of note include Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, Raphael's Entombment of Christ and works by Peter Paul Rubens and Federico Barocci. Considered among the greatest masterpieces of Italian art, some of these works show the evolution of art between the Renaissance, the Baroque and the Neoclassicism, artistic movements born in the Italian peninsula and subsequently spread throughout Europe.

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Italian art in the context of Agnelli family

The Agnelli family (Italian pronunciation: [aɲˈɲɛlli]) is an Italian multi-industry business dynasty family founded by Giovanni Agnelli, one of the original founders of the Fiat motor company which became Italy's largest automobile manufacturer. They are also primarily known for other activities in the automotive industry by investing in Ferrari (1969), Lancia (1969), Alfa Romeo (1986) and Chrysler, the latter acquired by Fiat after it filed for bankruptcy in 2009. The Agnelli family is also known for managing, since 1923, and being majority investors of the conational Serie A football club Juventus FC since the club's conversion to a società a responsabilità limitata (similar to a limited liability company) in 1949, as well as being the first shareholders of Sisport. Most members of the family are stakeholders in privately-owned Giovanni Agnelli BV, which in turn has a controlling stake in the publicly listed holding company Exor.

The family has sometimes been described in American media as "the Kennedys of Italy" for their role in the country's contemporary history and their activity of patronage in modern art and in sports. As of 2020, the extended Agnelli family comprised about two hundred members.

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Italian art in the context of The Apotheosis of Washington

The Apotheosis of Washington is the fresco painted by Greek-Italian artist Constantino Brumidi in 1865 and visible through the oculus of the dome in the rotunda of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

The fresco is suspended 180 feet (55 m) above the rotunda floor and covers an area of 4,664 square feet (433.3 m). The figures painted are up to 15 feet (4.6 m) tall and are visible from the floor below. The dome was completed in 1863, and Brumidi painted it over the course of eleven months at the end of the American Civil War. He was paid $40,000 ($821,652 in today's funds) for the fresco.

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