Renaissance Photo

Marchesa of Mantua

Portrait of: Isabella d'Este

Artist: Titain

Date: 1534-1536

The Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural and scholarly movement which stressed the rediscovery and application of texts and thought from classical antiquity, occurring in Europe c. 1400 – c. 1600. The Renaissance can also refer to the period of European history spanning roughly the same dates. The Renaissance was a movement dedicated to the rediscovery and use of classical learning, that is to say knowledge and attitudes from the Ancient Greek and Roman eras.

Titain, The Artist

Tiziano Vecellio, Titian, was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, in the Republic of Venice. During his lifetime he was often called da Cadore, taken from the place of his birth.

The Painting

Isabella d'Este was shown as a young woman, Isabella was 62 by the time the work was painted. Titian had originally painted a more aged Isabella, but she was so displeased with the picture that she made him repaint it in an idealised form, so that she looked forty years younger.