and the city of Rome.
SEEALSO: architecture; Julius II; Michelan-
gelo Buonarroti
Brenz, Johannes ................................
(1499–1570)
A German theologian and reformer, Brenz
was born in the town of Weil and edu-
cated at Heidelberg. He became at magis-
ter, or master teacher, in 1518, and was
known far and wide for his lectures on the
Bible and on Christian theology. He was
ordained as a priest in 1520 but by 1523
was no longer celebrating traditional Mass.
Brenz supported the reform efforts of
Protestant Church founder Martin Luther,
whom he accompanied at Luther’s famous
disputation at Heidelberg in 1518. In 1525
Brenz published theSyngramma Suevicum,
in which he supported the idea that Christ
was physically present in the Christian sac-
ramental offerings of bread and wine. In
1530 he attended the Diet of Augsburg.
When the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles
V took up arms against the Protestant
Schmalkaldic League, Brenz was forced to
flee for his life from the city of Hall. He
took refuge in the castle of Hohenwittlin-
gen, under the protection of Duke Ulrich
of Württemberg, where he became a lead-
ing supporter of the Protestant Reforma-
tion. In 1552 he attended the Council of
Trent, and in 1554 became provost of the
cathedral of Stuttgart.
SEEALSO: Luther, Martin; Reformation,
Protestant
Bronzino, Agnolo ..............................
(1503–1572)
A painter of Florence, Agnolo di Cosimo
earned his nickname of Bronzino from his
dark, “bronzed” complexion. He was the
adopted son of the painter Jacopo Pon-
tormo, whose pupil he became and who
had a strong effect on his style. He became
the official court painter to Cosimo de’
Medici, creating portraits of the duke and
his family that were imitated throughout
Europe long after the close of the Renais-
sance. He lived for two years in Rome,
where he created religious paintings in the
emotionally cold, brightly colored and pre-
cisely drawn “mannerist” style that was
then in vogue. His famous works include
Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time,anallegori-
cal account of love that Cosimo de’ Medici
presented as a gift to King Francis I, and
Eleanora Toledo and Her Son, a portrait of
de’ Medici’s wife and son. He helped to
found the Academy of Design in Florence
in 1563.Brueghel family .................................
A family of Flemish painters who pro-
duced paintings and drawings largely in-
spired by the work of its patriarch, Pieter
Brueghel the Elder. This artist is best
known for his new way of rendering natu-
ral landscapes and his bucolic scenes of
peasant life. Born in the town of Breda,
Brueghel apprenticed with the painter Pi-
eter Coecke van Aelst and joined the
Antwerp painters’ guild in 1551. Like many
northern European artists, he traveled to
Italy to study the new styles pioneered by
southern painters. In Italy Breughel pro-
duced his first signed painting,Landscape
with Christ and the Apostles at the Sea of
Tiberius. On his way home to Antwerp, he
crossed the Alps, where the dramatic
mountain landscape inspired him to make
studies of natural forms that he later in-
corporated into his works.
On his return to the Low Countries,
Brueghel worked as an engraver for an
Antwerp publisher, Hieronymus Cock. TheBrenz, Johannes