Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Renaissance art

  • Faustina Maratti’s poem and altarpiece on losing her infant son

    Stephen MartinThailand A most unusual altarpiece panel of the Virgin with the infants Christ and John the Baptist came to light recently. (Fig 1) The heavily-sawn pitch pine had an inscription on the back which was difficult to read. Studying the ink writing under violet light, however, it was not hard to make out: Pinxit…

  • Ghirlandaio, humanism, and truth: The portrait of an elderly man and young boy

    Vincent P. de LuiseNew Haven, Connecticut, United States “. . . There is no more human a picture in the entire rangeof Quattrocento painting, whether in or out of Italy . . .”– Bernard Berenson Among the defining characteristics of the Renaissance were humanism and naturalism. While many Renaissance paintings and sculptures were depictions of…