Advertise on podcast: The Italian Renaissance Podcast

Among the many artists employed by Agostino Chigi, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, better known as Il Sodoma, painted a remarkable fresco cycle of Alexander the Great in Rome's Villa Farnesina. At the center of the discussion is a question: what happens when an ancient story of Alexander, Hephaestion, and Roxana is filtered through the erotic and social culture of Renaissance Rome? Alexander the Great's relationship to his childhood friend and general Hephaestion has long been a subject of debate. Were they lovers, or simply life partners? Here, in the Villa Farnesina, close observation tells us that Renaissance artists and patrons were asking the same questions, and creating visual answers.  Ultimately, how these frescos are read informs us about the social construction around Sodoma, his patron Agostino Chigi, and the world they inhabited in the early 16th century.  Watch/Follow/Support: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast Works Discussed:  Il Sodoma, Marriage of Alexander and Roxane, ca. 1519 https://www.villafarnesina.it/en/percorso-di-visita/the-wedding-hall/  The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

At the height of his career in Rome, Raphael was commissioned by the wealthy banker Agostino Chigi to join a large workforce of artists decorating his villa on the outskirts of central Rome, known today as the Villa Farnesina. The decoration is entirely secular, depicting a wide range of pagan mythologies all throughout what can be considered a pleasure palace.  Raphael's major contributions were his Galatea and his decoration of the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche. This episode explores the history of these works, particularly how they relate to their function and to their patron, Agostino Chigi. Raphael did not paint very many mythological works, so this villa serves as a stunning example of Raphael's work beyond the typical conventions of High Renaissance Rome.  Watch/Support/Learn: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast Works Discussed:  Sebastiano del Piombo, Polyphemus & Raphael, Galatea, ca. 1512 https://www.wga.hu/html_m/s/sebastia/polyphe.html Raphael and workshop, Loggia of Cupid and Psyche, 1518 https://www.wga.hu/html_m/r/raphael/5roma/4a/ The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

In this episode, we explore Raphael’s extraordinary decoration of the Vatican’s Stanza della Segnatura, one of the defining achievements of the High Renaissance. At the center is the famous School of Athens, but the true masterpiece is the whole of the room’s larger intellectual and theological program. We examine how Raphael brings together classical philosophy, poetry, law, and Christian theology into a unified vision of knowledge itself. Along the way, we consider the remarkable portraits, ancient influences, and artistic personalities embedded within these frescoes. The episode ultimately reveals how the School of Athens leads toward the theological vision, unifying the glorified pagan past with his Christian present.  Support/Follow/Learn: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast Works Discussed:  Raphael, Stanza della Segnatura, 1508-1511 https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/stanze-di-raffaello/stanza-della-segnatura/stanza-della-segnatura.html The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

In 1534, Michelangelo was called back to Rome to complete his final work inside the Sistine Chapel for the altar wall, his Last Judgement. In the decades between his painting of the ceiling and his return, Rome was subject to two major historical events: the start of the Protestant Reformation and the 1527 Sack of Rome.  This episode looks at the Last Judgement as a product of this new historical shift in Renaissance Rome. We also look at the critics of the work, both locally from Biagio da Cesena, and from far off Venice from the infamous Scourge of Princes, Pietro Aretino, in order to understand how society responded to Michelangelo's work in the most holy chapel in all of Catholicism.  Follow/Support/Learn: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast Works Discussed:  Michelangelo, Last Judgement, 1535-41 https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/cappella-sistina/giudizio-universale.html The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling is one of the defining masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance, but its creation was equally defined by friction as much as genius. This episode follows Michelangelo's turbulent relationship with Pope Julius II, from the abrupt cancellation of the pope's monumental tomb commission to the unlikely assignment of painting the chapel's vast ceiling. We explore how Michelangelo transformed the project into an ambitious visual narrative and testament of divinely inspired artistic genius. We examine how his revolutionary approach to anatomy, composition, and artistic invention, exemplified in The Creation of Adam, forever changed the course of Renaissance painting.  Follow/Watch/Learn: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast Works Discussed:  Michelangelo, Pietà, 1499 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet%C3%A0_(Michelangelo) Michelangelo, Tomb of Pope Julius II (unfinished), 1505-1545 https://www.wga.hu/html_m/m/michelan/1sculptu/giulio_2/giulio2.html Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel Ceiling, 1508-1512 https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/cappella-sistina/volta.html The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

Before the era of the High Renaissance, Pope Sixtus IV commissioned one of the most ambitious artistic projects of the Roman Quattrocento, the Sistine Chapel. In this episode, we explore the chapel's original decoration and the remarkable group of artists, including Botticelli, Perugino, Ghirlandaio, Signorelli, and Roselli, who transformed its walls into a monumental visual narrative in line with the symbolic force of the papacy.  We begin by examining Pope Sixtus IV, his political ambitions, and his vision of the Sistine Chapel as a new Temple of Solomon and a powerful symbol of papal authority. From there, we analyze some of the cycle's greatest surviving frescoes, including Botticelli's Punishment of Korah, Perugino's Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter, Signorelli's Death and Testament of Moses, and Cosimo Roselli's underrated Last Supper. Together, these masterpieces reveal how art, theology, and politics combined to create one of the defining monuments of the Renaissance and laid the foundation for Michelangelo's later masterpiece upon the chapel ceiling.  Support/Watch/Follow/Learn: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast Works Discussed:  Sandro Botticelli, The Punishment of Korah, 1481-82 https://www.wga.hu/html_m/b/botticel/4sistina/punishme/korah.html Luca Signorelli and Biagio d'Antonio, Testament and Death of Moses, 1481-82 https://www.wga.hu/html_m/s/signorel/sistina/moses.html Pietro Perugino, Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter, 1481-82 https://www.wga.hu/html_m/p/perugino/sistina/keys.html Cosimo Rosselli, Last Supper, 1481-82 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Supper_(Rosselli) The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

Before the triumphs of Michelangelo and Raphael transformed Rome during the High Renaissance, the foundations of the Roman Humanism were laid by remarkable scholars, patrons, and artists whose stories are often overlooked. In this episode, we explore the extraordinary patronage of Cardinal Basilios Bessarion, the Byzantine humanist whose vision helped bridge the intellectual worlds of East and West following the fall of Constantinople. Through the remarkable frescoes of the Bessarion Chapel, painted by the Roman artist Antoniazzo Romano, we uncover how theology, diplomacy, classical learning, and artistic innovation converged in fifteenth-century Rome. From Greek philosophy and manuscript collecting to the visual synthesis of Byzantine and Italian artistic traditions, this episode reveals how one cardinal's ambitious patronage helped shape the cultural landscape that would eventually give rise to the High Renaissance. Works Discussed:  Antoniazzo Romano, Bessarion Chapel, 1463-1467, Santi XII Apostoli, Rome https://www.churches-of-rome.info/CoR_Info/SA-040/ChapBessarion.html Antoniazzo Romano, Madonna of Cardinal Bessarion, 1467  Support/Watch/Learn: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

Raphael’s years in Florence (c. 1504–1508) placed him at the center of one of the most extraordinary moments in Renaissance art, where he encountered both Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo at the height of their powers. Under the Soderini Republic, Florence became a stage for artistic innovation, marked by Michelangelo’s David, Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, and the unrealized battle frescoes commissioned for the Palazzo Vecchio. This episode explores how Raphael absorbed and transformed the lessons of these two rival masters. From Leonardo, he adopted naturalism, portrait composition, and sfumato; from Michelangelo, monumental form, line, and color. Yet Raphael forged a distinctive style defined by harmony, clarity, and balance, culminating in works such as the Maddalena Doni portraits and the Madonna of the Goldfinch before his departure to Rome under the patronage of Pope Julius II. Watch/Support/Learn: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast Works Discussed:  Michelangelo, David, 1501-1504 https://www.galleriaaccademiafirenze.it/opere/david-michelangelo/ Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, 1503-19 https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010062370 Leonardo da Vinci, The Battle of Anghiari, unfinished, lost.  Michelangelo, The Battle of Cascina, unfinished.  Raphael, Portraits of Agnolo and Maddalena Doni, 1504-07 https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/portraits-doni-raffaello Raphael, Madonna of the Goldfinch, 1506 https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/mary-christ-and-the-young-john-the-baptist-known-as-the-madonna-of-the-goldfinch The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

This episode explores the courtly culture of Renaissance Urbino through Baldassare Castiglione’s landmark Book of the Courtier (1528), one of the most influential literary works of the Renaissance. After considering Giovanni Santi’s Cronaca rimata and its celebration of Urbino’s artistic world, the discussion turns to Castiglione’s vision of the ideal courtier, shaped by his experiences in the courts of Milan, Mantua, and Urbino under Guidobaldo da Montefeltro. Through a series of lively dialogues set in the Ducal Palace, Castiglione examines the qualities expected of the perfect courtier: elegance, wit, athleticism, eloquence, moral virtue, and the effortless display of mastery. Through this text, the episode also explores Renaissance attitudes toward humor, language, and the ideals around women of the court. Support/Watch/Follow/Learn: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

Art Historian Linda Reynolds joins me to discuss the history of the court of Duke Federico da Montefeltro. Ruling over Urbino, the Montefeltro court was among the most important centers in Renaissance Italy. Professor Reynolds first explains how a simple mercenary like Federico was able to rise to the status of Duke. From there, she dives into the Duke's patronage of the arts, looking primary at the architecture of his palace in Urbino and his painters, Piero della Francesca and Justus van Ghent.  Works Discussed:  Luciano Laurana, Palazzo Ducale, Urbino, second phase 1464-72 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Palazzo_ducale_di_Urbino The Ideal City, 1480's https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ideal_City_-_formerly_attributed_to_Luciano_Laurana_-_Galleria_Nazionale_delle_Marche,_Urbino Piero della Francesca, Double Portrait of Duke Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza, 1473-75 https://www.uffizi.it/opere/i-duchi-di-urbino-federico-da-montefeltro-e-battista-sforza Justus van Ghent, Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro with His Son Guidobaldo, ca. 1475 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Federico_da_Montefeltro_with_His_Son_Guidobaldo Support/Watch/Follow: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

This episode examines how artistic influence and innovation intersect in the work of Perugino and Raphael, using their two Marriage of the Virgin paintings as a lens. It explores the defining qualities of Perugino’s calm, orderly style alongside Raphael’s more dynamic and spatially refined approach. Set against the cultural importance of the subject in Renaissance Perugia, the comparison reveals how shared compositions can yield very different visual experiences. Ultimately, the discussion highlights a pivotal artistic moment: the transformation of a master’s visual language into something more expressive, marking Raphael’s emergence as one of the most compelling and influential painters of the Renaissance.  Works Discussed:  Perugino, Marriage of the Virgin, 1500-1504 https://mba.caen.fr/en/oeuvre/le-mariage-de-la-vierge Raphael, Marriage of the Virgin, 1504 https://pinacotecabrera.org/en/collezioni/collezione-on-line/the-marriage-of-the-virgin/ More on Perugino and Raphael in our online course: https://www.udemy.com/course/the-florentine-renaissance/?referralCode=FF28E9B6B8BB41DD78AF Support/Follow/Watch: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast Support the show

This episode explores how Perugia functioned as a dynamic center of Renaissance art and how Perugino emerged as its most influential painter. It considers the city’s political, religious, and economic structures as active forces shaping artistic production, while examining how workshop practices, patronage, and regional identity intersected with broader Florentine influences. At the heart of the discussion is Perugino’s distinctive style—marked by clarity, harmony, and compositional balance—and the role his workshop played in spreading that visual language across central Italy. The episode ultimately frames Perugia not as a peripheral center, but as a key contributor to the artistic networks that helped define the transition toward the High Renaissance. Works Discussed:  Perugino, Adoration of the Magi, 1470's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoration_of_the_Magi_(Perugino,_Perugia) Perugino, Apollo and Daphnis, 1475-1500 https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010064934 Perugino, Decemviri Altarpiece, 1495/96 https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/la-pinacoteca/sala-vii---secolo-xv-xvi/perugino--la-madonna-col-bambino-e-i-ss--lorenzo--ludovico-di-to.html Follow/Support/Watch: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

Michelangelo takes to the stage, and playwright and actor Justin Garascia joins us to discuss his dynamic reimagining of the early life of Michelangelo. Set in Renaissance Italy, MIKEY! unfolds as a gothic, queer fever dream, moving between the sculpting of David and the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. As Michelangelo reflects on the life that brought him to this moment, he wrestles with how he wants to be remembered — as a sculptor, not a painter. Through a reimagined history, the play asks: what if there was a secret relationship at the House of Medici that shaped the artist’s emotional life and propelled the work we still revere over 500 years later? Crowd Fund: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/mikey-a-new-play/campaigns/f6cecfad-a8b2-4ca1-a00f-b50d6d6e053d Show Dates: Tue, May 19 at 7 PM Tue, May 26 at 7 PM Thu, May 28 at 7 PM Sat, May 30 at 3 PM Sun, May 31 at 7 PM Tickets on Sale Now: https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/2026/5/19/mikey Follow along: @mikeytheplay and @justingarascia (Instagram) Support/Watch/Follow The Italian Renaissance Podcast: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast Support the show

The Sforza Altarpiece (Pala Sforzesca) is among the single most important works of art commissioned by Ludovico il Moro. Through this painting, we can trace both the heavy religious history of Milan and the dynastic ambitions of the Sforza court. By investigating this painting, we can further understand the atmosphere leading to the decline of Sforza power.  Additionally, this painting shows the dramatic influence of the convergence of styles in Milan, from Leonardo da Vinci to the Flemish masters. With this comes the complicated attribution of the work, which until very recently, had remained unknown.  Work Discussed:  Giovanni Angelo Mirofoli (Master of the Sforza Altarpiece), Madonna Enthroned with Child, the Doctors of the Church and the Family of Ludovico il Moro (Sforza Altarpiece), 1495  https://pinacotecabrera.org/collezioni/collezione-on-line/madonna-in-trono-con-il-bambino-i-dottori-della-chiesa-e-la-famiglia-di-ludovico-il-moro-pala-sforzesca/ Support/Watch/Follow: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show

There is no better way to explore the art and politics of the Sforza court in Milan than through the eyes of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo spent most of his early career employed by Ludovico il Moro, the regent and eventual Duke of Milan. This episode ties together the drama and intrigue of Sforza court politics with the work Leonardo did during his First Milanese Period (1482-1499).  Some of Leonardo's most innovative painting arrived in this period. Beyond his Last Supper, the Renaissance master also worked on court portraits. Looking at both Lady with an Ermine and La Belle Ferronniere, we unpack the history of the ladies of the Sforza court and the complex social structures in Leonardo's Milan. Additionally, we explore the sophistication of Leonardo's style and ingenuity, especially as precursors to his Mona Lisa.  This conversation ultimately ties the complicated threads that unite art, court culture, politics, gender, and romance in Renaissance Milan.  Support/Watch/Follow: https://linktr.ee/italian_renaissance_podcast Works Discussed:  Leonardo da Vinci, Genevra de' Benci, ca. 1478 https://www.nga.gov/artworks/50724-ginevra-de-benci-obverse Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with an Ermine, ca. 1490 https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/lady-with-an-ermine-leonardo-da-vinci/HwHUpggDy_HxNQ?hl=en-GB Leonardo da Vinci and workshop, La Belle Ferronniere, ca. 1497 https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010062372 Salai, Head of Christ the Redeemer, 1511 https://ambrosiana.it/opere/testa-di-cristo-redentore/ The Florentine Renaissance Course Support the show