arola until he was overthrown and pub-
licly executed in 1498.
At the prompting of brilliant writers,
including Petrarch and Giovanni Boccac-
cio, Florentine scholars were rediscovering
classical authors and adopted the prin-
ciples of humanism, a view of the world
that ignored religious doctrines and medi-
eval metaphysics, and advocated a scien-
tific and realistic investigation of the
world. Cosimo de’ Medici provided a gath-
ering place for humanists who held dis-
cussions and debate in the Medici palaces
and country villas, often subjecting their
patron to criticism of his antidemocratic
methods of rule. Florence was home to
Poggio Bracciolini, Marsilio Ficino, Angelo
Poliziano, and Giovanni Pico della Miran-
dola, the leading humanist scholars of the
fifteenth century. The city also established
itself as a leader in public education,
with schooling available to most of the
city’s families and literacy reaching a high
rate.
Florentine painters and sculptors, in-
cluding Fra Angelico, Donatello, Lorenzo
Ghiberti, Alessandro Botticelli, Fra Filippo
Lippi, and Masaccio, developed a new style
that more realistically depicted human
form and emotion, while its architects
adapted classical motifs in the design of
churches, palaces, and civic buildings. The
most important monument to this new
era was the Duomo, the city’s cathedral,
which was surmounted by the largest
dome raised since antiquity. The dome was
designed by Brunelleschi and endures to
this day as a symbol of the capabilities of
Renaissance science and art. Other impor-
tant architectural landmarks, including the
Medici palace, the Pitti palace, the church
of San Lorenzo, the Strozzi palace, and the
baptistry, were raised as monuments to
the city’s wealth and culture.
The Medici returned to Florence in
1512, were exiled again in 1527, and fi-
nally returned in 1530 after a long siege of
the city. In 1532 they named themselves as
the dukes of the city. Under the rule of
Cosimo de’ Medici Florence regained its
position as the wealthiest and most influ-
ential city-state of northern Italy. In 1557
the Florentine army conquered the rival
town of Siena and in 1569, Cosimo de’
Medici named himself the Grand Duke of
Tuscany. By the late sixteenth century, pa-
tronage of major artists had passed to
Rome and the popes, who engaged Mich-
elangelo and other former Florentines to
work in their city and create works of art
that would reinforce the ongoing Catholic
Counter-Reformation.
SEEALSO: Brunelleschi, Filippo; Ghiberti,
Lorenzo; Masaccio; Medici, Cosimo de’;
Michelangelo Buonarroti; Pazzi Con-
spiracyFontana, Lavinia ..............................
(1552–1614)
Italian painter of the late Renaissance.
Born in Bologna, Lavinia was the daughter
of Prospero Fontana, a Bolognese artist
who trained her in the Mannerist style.
She was renowned in Italy as a portrait
painter, with her famous works being a
Portrait of a WomanandThe Gozzadini
Family. She is also known for a famous
Self-Portrait at the Harpsichord. She was
skilled at depicting clothing, jewelry, and
interiors in fine detail and vivid colors.
Her largest and most famous work was an
altarpiece,The Martyrdom of St. Stephen,
which she painted in 1604 for the Church
of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
This work was destroyed in a fire in 1823.
Fontana was one of a very few female art-
ists to be elected to the Academy of Rome.
SEEALSO: Anguissola, SofonisbaFontana, Lavinia