View source for Cinquecento

{{Short description|Italian culture and art from 1500 to 1599}}
{{other uses}}
{{For|the Fiat car|Fiat Cinquecento}}
{{Art of Italy}}
The cultural and artistic events of [[Italy]] during the period 1500 to 1599 are collectively referred to as the '''Cinquecento''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|tʃ|ɪ|ŋ|k|w|ɪ|ˈ|tʃ|ɛ|n|t|oʊ}},<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20190601164759/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/cinquecento "cinquecento"] (US) and {{Cite dictionary |url=http://www.lexico.com/definition/cinquecento |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201202040155/https://www.lexico.com/definition/cinquecento |url-status=dead |archive-date=2020-12-02 |title=cinquecento |dictionary=[[Lexico]] UK English Dictionary |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite American Heritage Dictionary|cinquecento|access-date=1 June 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite Merriam-Webster|cinquecento|access-date=1 June 2019}}</ref> {{IPA|it|ˌtʃiŋkweˈtʃɛnto|lang}}), from the Italian for the number 500, in turn from {{lang|it|millecinquecento}}, which is Italian for the year 1500. Cinquecento encompasses the styles and events of the High [[Italian Renaissance]], and [[Mannerism]].

==Art==
{{Main|High Renaissance|Mannerism}}
Especially in Northern Italy, artists began to use new techniques in the manipulation of light and darkness, such as the tone contrast evident in many of [[Titian]]'s portraits and the development of [[sfumato]] and [[chiaroscuro]] by [[Leonardo da Vinci]] and [[Giorgione]].<ref>{{cite web|url=
https://re.public.polimi.it/retrieve/e0c31c0e-8703-4599-e053-1705fe0aef77/Gli%20echi%20di%20Leonardo%20e%20Giorgione%20nel%20paesaggio%20idealista%20e%20simbolista%20in%20Italia_11311-976574_Mazzanti.pdf|title=GLI ECHI DI LEONARDO E GIORGIONE NEL PAESAGGIO IDEALISTA E SIMBOLISTA IN ITALIA. DALLA TRADIZIONE ALL'ASTRAZIONE|access-date=30 December 2023|language=it}}</ref> The period also saw the first secular (non-religious) themes. Debate has ensued as to the secularism of the [[Renaissance]] emphasized by early 20th-century writers like [[Jacob Burkhardt]] due to the presence of these – actually few – mythological paintings. [[Botticelli]] was one of the main painters whose secular work comes down to us today, though he was deeply religious (a follower of [[Savonarola]]) and painted plenty of traditional religious paintings as well.<ref>{{cite web|url=
https://www.finestresullarte.info/arte-base/sandro-botticelli-rinascimento-vita-opere-stile|title=Sandro Botticelli, vita e opere dell'artista simbolo del Rinascimento|access-date=30 December 2023|language=it}}</ref>

The period known as the [[High Renaissance]] represents the culmination of the goals of the earlier period, namely the accurate representation of figures in space rendered with credible motion and an appropriately decorous style. The most famous painters from this time period are [[Leonardo da Vinci]], [[Raphael]], and [[Michelangelo Buonarroti]].<ref>{{cite web|url=
https://www.finestresullarte.info/arte-base/il-rinascimento-maturo-a-firenze-stili-temi-sviluppi|title=Il Rinascimento maturo a Firenze. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raffaello, stili, temi|access-date=30 December 2023|language=it}}</ref> Their images are among the most widely known works of art in the world. Leonardo's ''[[The Last Supper (Leonardo)|The Last Supper]]'', Raphael's ''[[The School of Athens]]'' and Michelangelo's [[Sistine Chapel ceiling]] are the textbook examples of this period.

High Renaissance painting evolved into [[Mannerism]] (c.&nbsp;1520–1580), especially in Florence. Mannerist artists, who consciously rebelled against the principles of High Renaissance, tend to represent elongated figures in illogical spaces.<ref>{{cite web|url=
https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/manierismo_(Enciclopedia-dei-ragazzi)/|title=Manierismo|access-date=30 December 2023|language=it}}</ref> Contemporaries criticized this period as seeming artificial. Modern scholarship has recognized the capacity of Mannerist art to convey strong (often religious) emotion where the High Renaissance failed to do so. Some of the main artists of this period are [[Pontormo]], [[Rosso Fiorentino]], [[Parmigianino]] and [[Giulio Romano]].

After 1580, the Carracci brothers, [[Annibale Carracci|Annibale]] and [[Agostino Carracci|Agostino]], began to develop the [[Baroque art|Baroque]] style of painting focused on greater drama, rich colors and the use of extreme light and darkness. After 1590, [[Caravaggio]] developed a realistic approach to the human figure,<ref>{{cite web|url=
https://www.artmajeur.com/it/magazine/5-storia-dell-arte/caravaggio/333196|title=Caravaggio|access-date=30 December 2023|language=it}}</ref> painted directly from life and dramatically spotlit against a dark background having an even larger impact on painting moving the Baroque style to the forefront after 1600.

==Music==
{{main|Renaissance music}}
The music of [[Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina]] is probably the most archetypical Cinquecento music.<ref>{{cite web|url=
https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-pierluigi-da-palestrina/|title=Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da|access-date=30 December 2023|language=it}}</ref> He simplified some of the complexities of the music of the time, and advocated a more [[Homophony|homophonic]] style. He was partially reacting to the strictures of the [[Council of Trent]], which discouraged excessively complex polyphony as inhibiting understanding the text. He was the foremost member of the [[Roman School]], a group of composers of predominantly church music, in Rome, spanning the late Renaissance into early Baroque eras.  Many of the composers had a direct connection to the Vatican and the papal chapel, though they worked at several churches, stylistically they are often contrasted with the Venetian School of composers, a concurrent movement which was much more progressive.

In [[Venice]], from about 1534 until around 1600, an impressive polychoral style developed,<ref>{{cite web|url=
https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/andrea-e-giovanni-gabrieli_(Storia-della-civilt%C3%A0-europea-a-cura-di-Umberto-Eco)/|title=Andrea e Giovanni Gabrieli|access-date=30 December 2023|language=it}}</ref> which gave Europe some of the grandest, most sonorous music composed up until that time, with multiple choirs of singers, brass and strings in different spatial locations in the Basilica [[San Marco di Venezia]] (see [[Venetian School (music)|Venetian School]]).  These multiple revolutions spread over Europe in the next several decades, beginning in Germany and then moving to Spain, France and England somewhat later, demarcating the beginning of what we now know as the [[Baroque music|Baroque]] musical era.

In the late 16th century, as the Renaissance era closes, an extremely manneristic style develops.  In secular music, especially in the [[madrigal]], there was a trend towards complexity and even extreme [[chromaticism]] (as exemplified in madrigals of [[Luzzasco Luzzaschi|Luzzaschi]], [[Luca Marenzio|Marenzio]], and [[Carlo Gesualdo|Gesualdo]]). The term ''mannerism'' derives from art history.

==Literature==
{{main|Renaissance literature}} 
The most famous works of the [[Italian Renaissance]] by [[Giovanni Boccaccio|Boccaccio]], and [[Petrarch]] were written in the 14th century, but continued to exert influence. [[Ludovico Ariosto]] (''[[Orlando furioso]]''), [[Baldassare Castiglione]] (''[[The Book of the Courtier]]'') and [[Niccolò Machiavelli]] (''[[The Prince]]'') were eminent writers of the Cinquecento.

==Architecture==
{{main|Renaissance architecture}}
It was the result of the revival of classic architecture known as [[Renaissance]], but the change had commenced already a century earlier, in the works of [[Lorenzo Ghiberti|Ghiberti]] and [[Donatello]] in sculpture, and of [[Filippo Brunelleschi|Brunelleschi]] and [[Alberto di Giovanni Alberti|Alberti]] in architecture.<ref>{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Cinque Cento|volume=6|page=377}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Duecento]] – the 13th century in Italian culture
*[[Trecento]] – the 14th century in Italian culture 
*[[Quattrocento]] – the 15th century in Italian culture
*[[Seicento]] – the 17th century in Italian culture
*[[History of Italian culture (1700s)|Settecento]] – the 18th century in Italian culture
*[[Italian Neoclassical and 19th-century art|Ottocento]] – the 19th century in Italian culture
*Novecento - the 20th century in Italian culture

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Wiktionary-inline|cinquecento}}

{{Italy topics|state=collapsed}}

[[Category:Italian Renaissance|.05]]
[[Category:16th century in Italy|.]]
[[Category:Cultural history of Italy]]
[[Category:Renaissance art]]
[[Category:Italian Renaissance painters|.]]
[[Category:Italian Renaissance sculptors|.]]
[[Category:16th-century Italian architects|.]]
[[Category:16th-century Italian literature|.]]
[[Category:16th-century Italian painters|.]]
[[Category:16th-century Italian sculptors|.]]