The Italian artistic tradition is perhaps the richest of any single Western nation. For centuries Italy was an influential center of artistic production, setting the standards that European and American art tended to follow and exporting artists to work for enlightened and powerful patrons abroad. Many styles that characterize epochs in the history of Western art first arose in Italy, and through its inexhaustible inventiveness, Italian art has helped stimulate other countries to develop national art forms responsive to their own particular institutions, customs, and tastes. The character of Italian art was profoundly affected by the church and ruling families and by classical antiquity, which often provided inspiration for new styles through surviving architecture, sculpture, and painting. Italian art comprises many distinct regional schools; its diversity reflects temperamental and cultural differences within a country historically divided in many separate states. Florence, Pisa, Siena, Rome, Venice, Bologna, Naples, Urbino, and Milan were artistic centers that frequently engaged in spirited rivalry and had individual influence that waxed and waned with the passage of time. A decline in the unrivaled position and prestige that Italian art had enjoyed since the Renaissance began to take place in the later part of the 18th century, brought about by the flowering of artistic centers in France, England, and Germany. Nonetheless, Italy has sustained a rich continuity in the visual arts to the present day. ARCHITECTURE Romanesque Churches Monumental building in Italy all but ceased for several centuries following the Lombard invasion and the fall (751) of the Byzantine capital at Ravenna (see \TByzantine art and architecture\t). Large-scale projects, especially ecclesiastical building, were resumed in the 11th century in a style that came to be known as Romanesque (see \TRomanesque art and architecture\t) because of its dependence on the architecture of ancient Rome. The church of Sant' Ambrogio in Milan (begun c.1130), which incorporates an Early Christian basilical plan, contains the earliest example of ribbed-groin roof vaulting (see \Tarch and vault\t). Tuscan Romanesque is exemplified by Pisa's Cathedral (begun 1063) with its octagonal baptistery (begun 1153) and cylindrical \Tcampanile\t, bell tower (1174-1372), or Leaning Tower--a group of buildings remarkable for their height and rich exterior decoration of white and polychromed marble and multitiered colonnades. In Florence the church of San Miniato al Monte (c.1018-1207) and the domed octagonal Baptistery (consecrated 1059) are simple geometric structures elaborately patterned with framed panels of multicolored marble (see \Tbaptistery\t). The major seaport of Venice, like parts of southern Italy and Sicily, which also maintained strong connections with the eastern Mediterranean, continued to build churches in a Byzantine style, with a central plan and domed interior richly decorated with gold mosaic, as in \TSaint Mark\t's \Tbasilica\t (begun 1063). The Gothic Period The persistence of strong classical traditions prevented complete acceptance of Gothic architecture in Italy (see \TGothic art and architecture\t). Monastic buildings such as the Cistercian Abbey of Fossanova (consecrated 1208) introduced the style, which later assumed distinct local forms, exemplified by the facade of the Cathedral of Orvieto (begun 1290) and by the nearly contemporary but utterly different Duomo or cathedral and church of Santa Croce, Florence (begun 1295). The largest of the Italian Gothic cathedrals, Milan (begun c.1386), most closely resembles later northern examples, but in general Italian Gothic architecture retained a clarity and simplicity of horizontal space, avoiding the soaring vertical scale and ornamental complexity of French and English cathedrals. Throughout central and northern Italy a unique secular Gothic style appeared in town halls and palaces; their fortresslike purpose was emphasized by massive rusticated masonry and tall crenellated defensive towers as in the Palazzo Vecchio (1298-1313), Florence. An extremely light and elegant secular architecture--tinged with Oriental influences--flourished in Venice in such palaces as the Ca'd'Oro (begun 1421) and the \Tdoge\t's PALACE (begun c.1345). The Renaissance A major turning point in Italian architecture--and indeed in all Western architecture--occurred in Florence in the early 15th century, when the architect Filippo \TBrunelleschi\t applied classical principles to contemporary building forms (see \TRenaissance art and architecture\t). Through his designs for the Pazzi Chapel (begun c.1429) and the churches of San Lorenzo (begun 1421) and San Spirito (completed 1428), he brought a sense of measured proportion to both the dimensions of architectural members and the space they enclosed. An even more thorough realization of the three-dimensional unity of ancient Roman construction was achieved in the churches of San Francesco, Rimini (begun c.1450), and San Andrea, Mantua (begun 1470), by Leon Battista \TAlberti\t. Alberti's Treatise on Architecture was to remain a cornerstone for the continued development of rational architecture based on classical theory. The culmination of Early Renaissance innovation took place in Rome, where Donato \TBramante\t succeeded in balancing the massive shapes and voids of his Tempietto for the courtyard of San Pietro in Montorio (1502) and of \TSaint Peter's Basilica\t, Rome (begun 1506), thus creating the phase known as High Renaissance. \TMichelangelo\t crowned Saint Peter's with a graceful cupola, completed in 1590 after his death, one of his many architectural designs of colossal grandeur that announced both the fulfillment and the eventual decline of the monumental harmony of the High Renaissance. Some fine buildings of the second half of the 16th century were based in part on Michelangelo's inventions. In Rome, Giacomo Barozzida \TVignola\t's Church of the Gesu (begun 1568) anticipated baroque architecture, while in Florence architects such as Giorgio \TVasari\t and Bartolommeo \TAmmanati\t experimented with unorthodox and theatrical arrangements related to the Mannerist style of painting and sculpture (see \TMannerism\t). In numerous churches, palaces, and villas built in and near Venice, Andrea \TPalladio\t strictly interpreted ancient Greek and Roman modes of building, and through his immensely influential writings on architecture, codified classical principles for later generations in Italy and throughout Europe and North America. The Baroque Period In baroque architecture the earlier search for harmonious arrangement within a given repertoire of forms was replaced by a desire for energetic movement, richness of effect, and bold contrasts. Baroque architects animated exterior walls and interior space, preferring rounded, oval, or curving forms to the rectilinear stability of their predecessors. Colored marbles and gilded ornament, often used in combination with elaborate, illusionistic ceiling paintings and sculpture, gave startling new life to the treatment of interiors (see \Tbaroque art and architecture\t). In the Roman churches of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (1638-1667), Sant' Ivo (1642-50), and Sant' Agnese (begun 1653), Francesco \TBorromini\t developed an extravagant style notable for the surprising juxtaposition of unorthodox forms. In Piedmont this imaginative style was carried on by Guarino \TGuarini\t and Filippo \TJuvarra\t. Two of the most famous landmarks of late baroque architecture, reflecting a concern for the design of public monuments, fountains, and squares, are Nicola \TSalvi\t's Trevi Fountain (1732-62) and the Spanish Steps (1723-25) in Rome by Francesco De SANCTIS. Neoclassicism and the 19th Century The neoclassical style (see \Tneoclassicism\t, art) was represented in Naples by Pietro Bianchi (1787-1849) and in Rome by Giuseppe Valadier (1762-1839), who redesigned the Piazza del Popolo (1813-31). Although the authority of the classical order persisted throughout the 19th century, it competed with architectural styles derived from other cultures and periods. The result was a historical or eclectic style of architecture, usually characterized by elaboration of sculpted detail and strong contrasts of light and shadow, which may be seen in Guiseppe Calderini's (1837-1916) Palace of Justice, Rome (1888-1910), and the Victor Emmanuel Gallery (1865-77) in Milan by Guiseppe Mengoni (1829-77). With the creation of Guiseppe Sacconi's (1854-1905) superbly bombastic Monument of Victor Emmanuel II in Rome (1884-1911), an elaborate confection of gleaming white marble and gilt bronze statuary, the grandiose traditions of 19th-century historical architecture were extended into the 20th century. The 20th Century Italian architecture of the 20th century has tended to parallel the development of the international \TBauhaus\t style, particularly in industrial northern Italy, where architectural principles were reappraised in the light of modern needs and new materials and techniques of construction. The "Group of Seven," formed in 1926 under the leadership of Giuseppe Terragni (1904-43) in Milan, produced buildings that are notable for their austere and functional style. The Florence railway station (1934-36) by Giovanni Michelucci and the stadium (1930-32) in Florence by Pier Luigi \TNervi\t were examples of successes achieved before the advent of the swollen, pseudo-Roman style of Fascist architecture. Postwar Italian architecture continued to flourish in response to the country's changing social and economic requirements. Despite the proliferation of undistinguished urban buildings, excellent works have been produced by Gio \TPonti\t and as a result of the engineering innovations of Nervi, for example, the Pirelli Building in Milan (1955-58). SCULPTURE Romanesque and Gothic Periods Church construction provided Romanesque sculptors with opportunities to ornament doorways, capitals, and church furniture with scenes from sacred legends and the Bible. In Lombardy the primitive and rustic vigor of the sculpture executed by Guglielmo for Modena Cathedral (early 12th century) echoes the massiveness of Romanesque architecture. Benedetto \TAntelami\t, whose mature work adorns the Baptistery of Parma (1196-1260), evolved a highly refined personal style. A particularly vigorous school of sculpture was founded at Pisa by Nicola \TPisano\t. His marble pulpit (1260) in the Baptistery at Pisa reflects a profound knowledge of classical sculpture, which he emulates in his free-standing solid human forms. Italian sculpture was only marginally affected by Gothic style, but some influence of the graceful poses and fine descriptive detail of the northern Gothic can be discerned in the work of Nicolo Pisano's son Giovanni and Lorenzo Maitani (d. 1330). The Renaissance Lorenzo \TGhiberti\t, a pivotal figure in the transition from the elegant Late Gothic International Style, demonstrated in his second pair of bronze doors (1424-52) for the Baptistery of Florence Cathedral a new interest in the classical rendering of human forms and their relationship to existing space. \TDonatello\t's marble statues of Saint Mark (1411-13; Or San Michele, Florence) and Saint George (c.1415; Bargello, Florence) and A Prophet (1423-25; Museum of the Duomo, Florence) for the campanile of Florence Cathedral demonstrate the remarkable evolution of early Renaissance sculpture, which emancipated figures from their architectural surroundings and gained an unprecedented ability to depict human movements and emotions. The sculptural reliefs of Donatello and Ghiberti rationalized pictorial space, using it as a supporting framework for narrative. Luca della Robbia (see \Tdella Robbia\t family) developed popular, brightly glazed terra-cotta sculpture, and other new forms of the period included the portrait bust and small bronzes of the type associated with Antonio del Pollaiuolo (see \TPollaiuolo\t family), which reestablished a taste for individual cabinet-pieces for private collectors. Important contributions were made by Andrea del \TVerrocchio\t and Andrea \TSansovino\t, but it was Michelangelo, working in Florence (\TDavid\t), Rome (Tomb of Julius II), and again in Florence (Medici Tombs), who dominated High Renaissance sculpture. The awesome spiritual and physical power of Michelangelo's mature works seems to have exhausted his personal energies as well as the tradition of humanism that reached its full fruition in the art, literature, and philosophy of his time. Later sculptors such as Benvenuto \TCellini\t and Giovanni da \TBologna\t cultivated the virtuosity and fanciful invention of the Mannerist style, wherein elaborate complexes of architectural, painting, and sculptural elements prefigure an important aspect of baroque style. The Baroque Period The supreme artist of the baroque, Giovanni Lorenzo \TBernini\t, exercised his talent in both architecture and sculpture. His individual figures are charged with movement and emotion, and in larger projects such as the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome (1645-52), and the Baldachino (1624-33) and the Altar of the Throne (1656-66) of Saint Peter's, Rome, he created elaborate spectacles that compel attention. Italian sculpture of the later 17th and much of the 18th century remained conservative, however--devoted to minor variations of established baroque subjects and styles. From Neoclassicism to the Present Day Neoclassicism, which emerged in the mid-18th century, was slower to reveal itself in sculpture than in painting, but with the appearance of Antonio \TCanova\t, sculpture once again became preeminent among the arts. Canova was the last Italian artist to achieve fame and worldwide recognition in his own day comparable to that of Michelangelo and Bernini. The enormous success of such sculptures as the Monument to Clement XIV (1783-87; Santi Apostoli, Rome), Cupid and Psyche (1793; Louvre, Paris), and the Three Graces (1816; Hermitage, Leningrad) was based on an original reformulation of ancient models, to which was added an unrivaled delicacy of execution and finish. Other significant achievements of 19th-century sculpture include the modified classicism of Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850), the naturalistic observation of Vincenzo Gemito's (1852-1922) genre works, and the impressionist technique of Medardo \TRosso\t in his wax sculptures. At the beginning of the 20th century a reaction to traditional forms brought about the powerful but short-lived avant-garde movement known as \Tfuturism\t; whose theoretical inspiration lay in the aesthetic of the machine and the increasingly frenetic pace of 20th-century life. The most famous manifestation of futurism in sculpture was Umberto \TBoccioni\t's bronze figure, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913; Museum of Modern Art, New York City), which evokes a sense of solid masses moving through space. After World War I new personalities appeared, including Giacomo \TManzu\t, noted for portraiture, and Marino \TMarini\t and Alberto \TGiacometti\t, whose works recalled Etruscan sculpture and reaffirmed the importance of Italy's ancient past. PAINTING The Late Middle Ages Responding to strong Byzantine influence during the 13th century, Italian artists turned their attention to painting as a monumental art form. From \TCimabue\t on the history of Italian painting can be regarded as a series of rapid advances caused by the initiative of individual genius. A confrontation of local styles and of old and new traditions can be observed in the works of \TDuccio di Buoninsegna\t and \TGiotto di Bondone\t. Duccio's masterpiece, the Maesta Altarpiece (1308-11; Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena), is a lavish example of Italian Gothic altar painting, incorporating in its separate wood panels paintings of the Virgin and saints with narrative scenes from the life of Christ. Its abundant gold-covered backgrounds, detailed narratives, and delicate, graceful style are the mark both of Duccio's personal manner and the northern-derived Gothic style, which continued to flourish among the conservative painters of Siena and elsewhere. It was Giotto who brought about the first major revolution in Italian painting. This great artist's ability to adapt traditional formulas of representation, to dispense with many of the purely ornamental elements of medieval art, and to establish his images on observed reality is best exemplified by his frescoes in the Arena Chapel, Padua (1304-13). He was able to instill his figures with a convincing sense of mass, weight, and movement within an implied space and to motivate their actions by the depiction of human emotions. Although without an immediate successor, Giotto's example inspired later Renaissance innovators, who were to transform the nature of Western pictorial art in their turn. The Renaissance Florence was the cradle of early Italian Renaissance painting, and \TMasaccio\t dominated this field just as Bruneslleschi and Donatello did theirs. His frescoes of the Holy Trinity in Santa Maria Novella (1428) and of New Testament scenes in the Brancacci Chapel (c.1425), Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, acquired a startling unity from their logical rendering of mass, light, and space. Spatial perspective, which was considered an important principle of the new rational style of painting, was developed by Paolo \TUccello\t in Florence, Andrea \TMantegna\t in Padua and Mantua, and at San Francesco, Arezzo, by \TPiero della Francesca\t, whose abstract figure style was founded on a theory of the natural laws of geometry and proportion. A lighter, more decorative trend in Florentine painting was exemplified by the works of Fra \TAngelico\t and later by those of Sandro \TBotticelli\t. The inquiring spirit of the Renaissance was nowhere better demonstrated than in the universal genius of \TLeonardo da Vinci\t. In paintings such as the Madonna of the Rocks (begun 1483; Louvre, Paris), The Last Supper (1495-98; Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan), and the Mona Lisa (begun 1503; Louvre) Leonardo was able to unite form and space by the technique of sfumato, or soft blending. \TRaphael\t's paintings of Madonnas and frescoes in the Vatican, Rome (1509-14), defined the ideal and harmonious beauty of the High Renaissance for all time. In the same period Michelangelo's \TSistine Chapel\t ceiling (1508-12) introduced a new dimension of physical and spiritual power to painting. Venice was also an important center of High Renaissance art, producing a school that included Giovanni Bellini (see \TBellini\t family) and \TGiorgione\t, painters who, although less scientifically inclined than the Florentines, were unrivaled in their sense of color and lyrical feeling. \TTitian\t, a master of psychological insight and the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice, explored the potential of oil painting to the full in portraits, altarpieces, and mythological subjects drenched with light and color. Virtuosity was also the hallmark of \TTintoretto\t, who filled dozens of Venetian churches and palaces with acres of vivid canvases. So great were the accomplishments of these painters of the first half of the 16th century that their classic authority was almost immediately acknowledged. Giorgio \TVasari\t, the first art historian, wrote a famous account of his predecessors and contemporaries, Lives of the Artists (1550; Eng. trans., 1912-14), tracing the development of Italian art from the late Middle Ages. Vasari was also a distinguished artist in the elegant and artificial Mannerist style, which, despite its attractiveness, passed with the advent of baroque painting at the close of the 16th century. The Baroque Period In their grand ceiling fresco (1597-1604)--centered on the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne--for the Gallery of the Farnese Palace, Rome, the brothers Annibale and Agostino Carracci (see \TCarracci\t family) reasserted the figural and compositional values of ancient and High Renaissance art. Their search for ideal beauty was empowered with a new energy and exuberance, manifested by massively proportioned figures, deeply receding spaces, and diagonal, closely framed composition. The private academy founded by the Carracci family in Bologna--where classical theory was established as the basis for study of live models and the art of the ancients and Renaissance masters--was the prototype of many similar academic institutions, which were later established throughout Europe and replaced the time-honored system of artistic training through workshop apprenticeship. During this period the volatile genius Michelangelo Merisi da \TCaravaggio\t became celebrated for an unorthodox style of religious painting that included naturalistic depictions of figures and scenes of common life. His paintings The Calling of Saint Mathew (c.1599) and The Conversion of Saint Paul (1600-01) in the Roman churches of San Luigi dei Francesi and Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, incorporated startling effects of foreshortened perspective. Another characteristic feature of Caravaggio's style--the dramatic contrast of deep shade and bright light--was adopted widely throughout Italy and Europe and became the hallmark of a school of 17th-century Neapolitan painters. This tenebrist style was better adapted to easel painting, however, than to the large-scale illusionistic ceiling frescoes produced by such baroque masters as Pietro da \TCortona\t and Giovanni Battista \TGaulli\t (see \Tillusionism\t). The baroque style persisted in the 18th century. In Venice an attractive mode of view painting was practiced by \TCanaletto\t and Francesco \TGuardi\t, and the grand manner of Italian baroque fresco painting attained its final glory in the work of Giovanni Battista \TTiepolo\t (see \TTiepolo\t family), accented by the airiness and elegance of the French \Trococo style\t. Neoclassicism and the 19th Century The Roman neoclassical movement of the mid-18th century was a reaction to the artificiality of the art of the immediate past. Maturing more rapidly in theory than in practice, this movement was inspired by the writings of the German archaeologist Johann \TWinckelmann\t, by discoveries at the ancient cities of \TPompeii\t and \THerculaneum\t, and by the participation of several non-Italian painters, principally Anton Raphael \TMengs\t and Gavin \THamilton\t. The skilled draftsman Pompeo Girolamo \TBatoni\t, an important painter of this period, was only partially allied to the neoclassical movement, and he eventually became a successful portrait painter with numerous foreign patrons. The neoclassicism of Vincenzo Camuccini (1771-1844), Andrea Appiani (1754-1817), and Pietro Benvenuti (1769-1844) was succeeded by a succession of styles, including purism, led by Tommaso Minardi (1787-1871), and the historical romanticism of Francesco Hayez (1791-1892). A realist school was developed at Posilippo under the leadership of Domenico Morelli (1826-1901), and in mid-century a group known as the \TMacchiaioli\t began to paint landscapes and genre scenes (see \Tgenre painting\t) in the manner of the French impressionists. The 20th Century At the beginning of the 20th century experiments in futurist (see \Tfuturism\t) painting were carried out by Boccioni, Gino \TSeverini\t, Giacomo \TBalla\t, and Carlo \TCarra\t. A personal compromise between modern abstract principles and traditional linear representation was evolved by Amedeo \TModigliani\t, and a new phenomenon called metaphysical painting became known through the dreamlike surrealist compositions of Giorgio de \TChirico\t. Modernism continues to challenge tradition, as in the austerely simple and formalistic works of Giorgio Morandi. Influenced by Paris and New York City, painters such as Lucio \TFontana\t, Renato Birolli, Afro, Alberto Burri, and Emilio Vedova developed Italian expressions of postwar abstraction in the 1950s and 1960s. Arte povera (poor art) was the name given in the late 1960s to Italian minimal art and conceptual art, represented by the works of Michelangelo Pistoletto, Luciano Fabro, Piero Manzoni (1933-63), and Mario Merz. During the 1980s the United States, Germany, and Italy became the principal centers for a postmodern avant-garde producing expressionistic figurative compositions with formal and contextual references to the past, as well as apocalyptic visions of the future (see \Tneoexpressionism\t). The international reputations of such post-modernists as Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, and Enzo Cucchi testify to the continuing importance and vitality of Italy's artistic contribution to Western culture. Bibliography: Andres, Glenn, et al., The Art of Florence, 2 vols. 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V., Italian Architecture, 1750-1914 (1966); Meiss, Millard, Painting in Florence and Siena After the Black Death (1951); Murray, Peter, The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance (1985); Pope-Hennessey, John, An Introduction to Italian Sculpture, 5 vols., 2d ed. (1971) and Study and Criticism of Italian Sculpture (1981); Seymour, Charles, Sculpture in Italy: 1400-1500 (1966); Smart, Alistair, The Renaissance and Mannerism in Italy (1971); Venturi, Lionello, Italian Painting, 3 vols., trans. by Stuart Gilbert (1950-52); Waterhouse, Ellis K., Italian Baroque Painting, 2d ed. (1969); White, John, Art and Architecture in Italy, 1250-1400 (1966); Wittkower, Rudolf, Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600-1750 (1980) and Studies in the Italian Baroque (1975).