“We build sumptuously in order to demonstrate our

greatness to posterity [and] to do honor to our fatherland

and family.”

-- Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building, 1443-52

“Men do two important things in this life: the first is to

procreate; the second is to build.”

-- Giovanni Rucellai, Zibaldone, 1473

Map of Florence, 1471-1482

Palazzi on the Via de’ Benci

Palazzo Ginori, Via de’ Ginori, Florence

Palazzo Ginori stemma

Palazzo Spinelli

Palazzo Rucellai

(designed by L. B.

Alberti), Florence,

1446-1452

Loggia Rucellai

Michelozzo, Medici Palace, 1444-1460

Botticelli, The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti (fourth episode), ca. 1483

Palazzo Spinelli

Loggia Rucellai

Adimari Panel, ca. 1443-1450

Tuscan cassone (marriage chest)

Detail of a panel showing wedding gifts (including a cassone) being carried through the streets

Desco da parto (birth tray), 1428

Birth bowl showing a mother nursing her newborn while entertaining visitors, c. 1550-70

Giovanni Toscani,

La Festa di

San Giovanni,

early 15th c. (cassone)

Festa di San Giovanni, Florence, 24 June

The palio in Siena, 18th-century painting

Palio di Fucecchio, Tuscany

Sano di Pietro,

Saint Bernardino of Siena

Preaching in the Campo,

1445

Savonarola Preaching in the Duomo, Florence,1495

Leon Battista Alberti, Self-portrait medal

Titian, Portrait of

Pietro Aretino, 1545

Cosimo I de’ Medici Federico II Gonzaga

Vecellio, De Gli Habiti

Antichi…: Public prostitute

Ghirlandaio, Francesco

Sassetti and his Son

Teodoro (?), ca. 1485

(MMA)

Childbirth Tray with Youths

Playing Civettino, ca. 1450

Titian, Portrait of

Pietro Aretino, 1545

Titian, Venus, Mars and Amor, c. 1540

Courtesan and Blind Cupid (Flap print with liftable skirt),ca. 1588

Marcantonio Raimondi, I Modi, 1524 (after drawings

by Giulio Romano)

I Modi, ca. 1550-60

Attributed to

Desiderio da Firenze,

Satyr and Satyress,

after 1524

Triumph of the Phallus, 17th century French engraving after an Italian drawing of 1540s