aissance did not surface again until the 15th century.In 1401 a competition was held at Florence to award the commission for bronze doors to be placed on the baptistery of San Giovanni. Defeated by the goldsmith and painter Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi and Donatello left for Rome, where they immersed themselves in the study of ancient architecture and sculpture. When they returned to Florence and began to put their knowledge into practice, the rationalized art of the ancient world was reborn. The founder of Renaissance painting was Masaccio (1401-28). The intellectuality of his conceptions, the monumentality of his compositions, and the high degree of naturalism in his works mark Masaccio as a pivotal figure in Renaissance painting. The succeeding generation of artists--Piero della Francesca, Pollaiuolo, and Verrochio--pressed forward with researches into linear and aerial perspective and anatomy, developing a style of scientific naturalism.The situation in Florence was uniquely favorable to the arts. The civic pride of Florentines found expression in statues of the patron saints commissioned from Ghiberti and Donatello for niches in the grain-market guildhall known as Or San Michele, and in the largest dome built since antiquity, placed by Brunelleschi on the Florence cathedral. The cost of construction and decoration of palaces, churches, and monasteries was underwritten by wealthy merchant families, chief among whom were the Medici family.The Medici traded in all of the major cities in Europe, and one of the most famous masterpieces of Northern Renaissance art, The Portinari Altarpiece, by Hugo van der Goes (c. 1476; Uffizi, Florence), was commissioned by their agent, Tommaso Portinari. Instead of being painted with the customary tempera of the period, the work is painted with translucent oil glazes that produce brilliant jewel-like color and a glossy surface. Early Northern Renaissance painters were more concerned with the...
