In 2004 the Metropolitan Museum acquired an extremely rare and beautiful "Madonna and Child" by the great painter Duccio di Buoninsegna. Duccio, who died in 1318, has long been recognized as the father of Sienese painting, and he fostered a new generation of talented and innovative painters. In art [...]
In the words of the historian Jacob Burkhardt, 15th-century Italy was 'the place where the notion of the individual was born'. In keeping with this notion, early Renaissance Italy also hosted the first great age of portraiture in Europe. Artists working in Florence, Venice, and the courts of Italy c[...]