Renaissance Notes Essay Example for Free

metempsychosis Notes EssayThe 15th coke tasteful developments in Italy matured during the 16th century. The 15th century is thus designated the Early Renaissance and the 16th century the spirited Renaissance. Although at that place is no single style that defines the period, there is a distinct level of technical and tasty mastery that does. This is the age of da Vinci da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Titian, mechanics whose works exhibit such authority, that posterior generations of artists relied on these works for instruction.These exemplary artistic creations get a monolithic elevated the prestige of artists. Artists could claim divine inspiration, thereby raising visual art to a status prepareerly merely given to poetry. Painters, cutters, and architects were elevated to a new level and they claimed for their work a high position among the fine arts.da Vinci da Vinci (1452 1519) was innate(p) in the small town of Vinci, near Florence. He trained in the stud io of Andrea del Verrocchio. He was superior man with many spare-time activitys. His directions foreshadowed those that art and science would take in the future. A discussion of his many interests enhances our discernment of his artistic production. Those interests are seen in his Romulus sketchbooks filled with drawings and nones from his studies of the human body and natural world. He explored optics in-depth, allowing him to infrastand survey, gentle, and color. His scientific drawings are ar bothrks themselves.da Vincis ambition in word picture, as well as science, was to discover the laws profound the processes and flux of nature. da Vinci believed that reality in its absolute sense is inaccessible, and that humans can only sack out it through its changing symbols. He con grimacered the center of attentions the most vital organs and sight the most subjective function. In his notes, he repeatedly stated that all his scientific investigations made him a better painte r. near 1481, Leonardo left Florence, offering his services to Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan. In his offer he highlighted his competence as a military engineer, mentioning his artistic abilities only at the end. This provided Leonardo with increased financial security and highlights the periods instability.During his branch trip to Milan Leonardo painted Virgin on the Rocks as a central check board of an altarpiece for the chapel of the confraternity of the Immacu posthumous Conception in San Francesco Grande. The painting builds on Masaccios understanding and utilization of Chiaroscuro. Modeling with light and shadow and expressing emotional states were, for Leonardo, the heart of painting.A good painting has dickens principal objects to paint man and the intention of his soul. The former is easy, the latter hard, for it must be expressed by gestures and the reason of the limbs A painting will only be wonderful for the beholder by making that which is not so appear bear witnessd and detached from the wall.Leonardo presented the foresees in Virgin of the Rocks in a pointed collectioning and more notably, as sharing the same environment. This g nearlybreaking achievement the unified representation of objects in an atmospheric cross offting was a manifestation of scientific curiosity about the invisible substance meet things.The Madonna, Christ Child, infant John the Baptist, and angel emerge through nuances of light and shade from the half light of the cavernous visionary landscape. Light veils and reveals the forms, immersing them in a layer of atmosphere that exists between them and the informant. Atmospheric perspective is in full view. The figures actions unite them prayer, pointing, and b slighting. The angel points to the infant John. His outward glance involves spectators out of view, perhaps the viewers of the painting. John prays to the Christ Child and is blessed in slip away. The Virgin herself completes the series of interlockin g gestures, her left fall resting protectively on Johns shoulder. The mood of tenderness, enhanced by caressing light, suffuses the entire composition. Leonardo succeeded in expressing the intention of his soul.For the refectory of the church edifice of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Leonardo painted Last Supper. Despite its washed-up state (in part from Leonardos unfortunate experiments with his materials) and although it has often been restored ineptly, the painting is Leonardos most formally and emotionally impressive work. Christ and his twelve followers are seated at a broad table set parallel to the picture purposee in a simple, spacious room. Leonardo amplified the gambling by placing it in an austere room. Christ with outstretched chip ins, has just say, one of you is about to betray me savorless 2621. A wave of intense excitement passes through the group as each disciple asks himself or his neighbor, Is it I?In the center, Christ appears isolated from the disci ples and in perfect repose, magic spell emotion swirls or so him. The central window in the back frames Christ and has a curving pediment above it. The arc serves as a diffused halo. Christs interrogative is the view of the single vanishing point on which the orthogonals converge, further emphasizing Christ. Leonardo presented the agitated disciples in four groups of three, united among and within themselves by the figures gestures and postures.The artist sacrificed tralatitious iconography to pictorial and dramatic consistency by placing Judas on the same side of the table as deli actually boy and the other disciples. His face in shadow, Judas clutches a money bag in his near hand and reaches his left forward to fulfill the Masters declaration exclusively yeah behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is on the table Luke 2221. The twain disciples on the end contain the action by their quiet composure.Leonardos, Mona Lisa is the worlds most famous portrait. The sitters ide ntity is not certain, but Vasari maintain that she is Lisa di Antonio Maria Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine hence, Mona (an Italian contraction of ma donna, my lady) Lisa. It is notability because it is a convincing representation of an individual, sort of than serving as an icon of status. The ambiguity of the famous grinning is really the consequence of Leonardos fascination and skill with chiaroscuro and atmospheric perspective.Her they serve to disguise quite than reveal a human psyche. The artist subtly adjusted the light and blurred on the nose planes Leonardos famous smokey sfumato (misty haziness) rendering the facial expression hard to determine. The lingering appeal of Mona Lisa derives in giant part from Leonardos decision to set his subject against the backdrop of a mysterious unpopulated landscape. Originally Leonardo represented Mona Lisa in a loggia with columns. The painting was cropped later on (not by Leonardo) and the columns were eliminat ed. The trunk of the column bases may s trough be seen to the left and correct of Monas shoulders.Leonardo completed rattling few paintings his perfectionism, relentless experimentation, and far ranging curiosity diffused his efforts. The drawings in his notebooks preserve an extensive record of his ideas. His interests concentrate increasingly on science in his later years, and he embraced knowledge of all facets of the natural world. adept example is The Fetus and Lining of the Uterus, although not up to 20th century standards for accuracy, it was an astounding achievement in its day. though not the starting scientist, Leonardo certainly originated a method of scientific illustration, particularly cutaway drawing and exploded views. Scholars have long recognized the importance of these drawings for the development of anatomy as a science, especially in an age predating photographic methods such a X rays.Leonardo was well known as an architect and shapeor in his lifetime, but no existing building or sculptures can be attributed to him. From his drawings he was interested in the central style plan of buildings. Leonardo left numerous drawings of monolithic equestrian statues of which one was made into a full scale model for a monument to Francesco Sforza (Ludovicos). The cut used it for a target and shot it to pieces when they occupied Milan in 1499. Due to the French, Leonardo left Milan and served for a while as a military engineer for Caesar Borgia, who, with the support of his father, pope Alexander VI, who tried to earmark the cities of the Romagna region in North cardinal Italy and create a Borgia duchy. At a later date, Leonardo returned to Milan in the service of the French. At the invitation of King Francis I, he then went to France, where he died at the Chateau of Cloux in 1519.Julius II The Warrior popePope Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere (1503 1513), was an individual whose interests and activities effected the course of the mettleso me Renaissance. Julius II was a precise ambitious man who indulged his enthusiasm for battle in a supposed quest to expand the church and the Kingdom of Heaven by worldly means. This earned him a designation as the warrior pope. He selected his name Julius after Julius Caesar, and he ran the papacy using the Roman Empire as his model.Julius IIs papacy was notable for his contributions to the arts. He was an avid art patron and understood well the pro heathendistic time value of visual stunt womanry. After his election as pope, he immediately commissioned artworks that would present an authoritative image of his rule and reinforce the primacy of the Catholic church service. He commissioned a new design for nonesuch slits basilica, the construction of his tomb, the painting of the Sistine chapel ceiling, and the decoration of the papal apartments. These large scale projects clearly needful considerable finances. Because of this need, Julius sanctioned the commodious increase in the selling of indulgences as a way to raise the revenue needed to fund the art, architecture, and the lavish papal lifestyle. This perception prompted disgruntlement among the faithful. Despite his exceptional artistic legacy, Julius IIs patronage contributed to the rise of the Reformation.Saint PetersOld Saint Peters had fallen into considerable disrepair and did not fit Julius IIs taste for the large, colossal, and glorious. He wanted control over all Italy and make the Rome of the Popes as glorious as or big(p)er than that of the Caesars. This important commission was awarded to Donato DAngelo Bramante (1444 1514). Bramante was trained as a painter. He went to Milan in 1481 and stayed till the French arrived in 1499. In Milan he abandoned painting and went on to become the most renowned architect of his generation. Influenced by Brunelleschi, Alberti, and perhaps Leonardo, who favored antiquity, Bramante developed the High Renaissance form of the central plan church.Bram ante originally conceived the new Saint Peters to consist of a cross with arms of mates length, each terminated by an apse. Julius II mean the new building to serve as a martyrium to mark Saint Peters grave and to a fault hoped to have his own tomb in it. A large dome would have cover the crossing, and smaller domes over the subsidiary chapels would have cover the diagonal axes of the roughly squared plan. The ambitious plan called for a boldly graven treatment of the walls and piers under the dome. His design for the interior plaza was complex in the extreme, with the intricate symmetries of a crystal. It is possible to detect in the plan nine interlocking crosses, five of them supporting domes. The scale was so titanic that, according to sources, Bramante boasted he would place the dome of the Pantheon over the Basilica Nova.During Bramantes lifetime, the actual construction on the new Saint Peters basilica did not advance beyond the building of the crossing piers and the lowe r choir walls. After his death, the work passed on to other architects and finally to Michelangelo, whom Pope capital of Minnesota third appointed in 1546 to complete the building. Not until the 17th century did the Church oversee the completion.An earlier building completed by Bramante is considered the perfect prototype of classical domed architecture for the Renaissance and after. The building is called Tempietto Little Temple because to propagation it had the look of a Roman pagan temple. The lower story was directly inspired by the round temples of Roman Italy that Bramante would have know in Rome.King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain commissioned the Tempietto to mark the conjectural location of Saint Peters crucifixion. Available information suggests the project was commissioned in 1502, but there is dis localisee over the date.Bramante relied on the composition of volumes and masses and on a sculptural handling of solids and voids to set apart this building, all but devoid of ornament, from the structures built in the preceding century. Standing inside the cloister along side the church of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, and the Tempietto resembles a sculptured reliquary and would have looked even more ilk one inside the circular colonnaded courtyard Bramante plotted for it but n forever executed.At first glance, the structure bes severely rational with its circular stylobate and Tuscan style colonnade. Wonderful harmony is achieved in the kin of the parts (dome, drum, and base) to one another and to the whole. Conceived as a tall domed cylinder projecting from a wider lower cylinder of the colonnade, this building incorporates all the qualities of a sculpted monument. There is a wonderful metric play of light and shadow on the form. Although the Tempietto may superficially resemble a Greek tholos, the combination of parts and details was new and original.If one of the main differences between Early and High Renaissance styles of architect ure was the formers emphasis on detailing flat wall surfaces versus the latters sculptural handling of architectural masses, then Tempietto certainly broke new ground and stood at the beginning of the High Renaissance. The architect Andrea Palladio credited Bramante as the first to bring back to light the good and beautiful architecture from antiquity to that time had been hidden. Round in plan, it is elevated on a base that isolates it from its surroundings.MichelangeloThe artist whom Pope Julius II deemed scoop able to convey his message was Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 1564), who received some of the most coveted commissions. Though a man of many talents, architect, sculptor, painter, poet, and engineer, he thought of himself first as a sculptor. He regarded sculptor as a superior calling to painter because the sculptor shares in something like the divine cater to make man. Drawing a conceptual parallel to Platos ideas, Michelangelo believed that the image produced by the art ists hand must come from the idea in the artists mind. The idea, then, is the reality that the artists genius has brought forth. But artists are not the creators of the ideas they conceive. Rather they find their ideas in the natural world, reflecting the absolute idea, which, for the artist, is beauty.One of Michelangelos best known observations about sculpture is that the artist must proceed by finding the idea the image locked in the stone, as it were. Thus, by removing the excess stone, the artist extricates the ideas, like Pygmalion bringing forth the living form. Michelangelo mat that the artist works through many years at this unceasing process of revelation and arrives late at novel and lofty things.Michelangelo sharply broke from his predecessors in a very important respect. He mistrusted the application of mathematical methods as guarantees of beauty in proportion. Measure and proportion, he believed, should be kept in the eyes. Vasari quotes Michelangelo as declaring th at it was necessary to have the compasses in the eyes and not in the hand, because the hands work and the eye judges. Thus Michelangelo went against Vitruvius, Alberti, Leonardo, and others by asserting that the artists inspired judgment could come out other please proportions. He believed that the artist must not be bound, except by the demands made by realizing the idea.This printing press on the artists own authority was typical of Michelangelo and anticipated the modern concept of the right of self expression of talent limited only by the artists own judgment. The artistic license to aspire far beyond the rules was, in part, a manifestation of the pursuit of fame and success that secular humanism fostered. In this context, Michelangelo designed architecture and created paintings that departed from High Renaissance regularity. He put in its attitude a style of vast, expressive strength conveyed through complex, eccentric, and often titanic forms that loom before the viewer i n tragic grandeur. Michelangelos self imposed isolation, creative furies, proud independence, and daring innovations led Italians to blab of the dominating quality of the man and his work in one word -terribilita, the sublime shadowed by the awesome and the fearful.DavidIn 1501, the Florence Cathedral building committee asked Michelangelo to work a great block of stain left over from an earlier aborted commission. From this stone, Michelangelo crafted David, which assured his reputation then and now as an extraordinary talent. The form and its references to classical antiquity appealed to Julius II who associated himself with the humanists and Roman emperors. This sculpture and the acclaim that accompanied its completion lead to Michelangelos papal commissions.Like other David sculptures, Michelangelos had a political dimension. With the political instability of the time, Florentines viewed David as the typic defiant hero of the Florentine republic, especially given the statues p lacement near the west introduction of the Palazzo della Signoria. Forty years after Davids completion, Vasari extolled the political value of David claiming that without a doubt the figure has put in the shade every other statue, ancient or modern, Greek or Roman this was intended as a symbol of liberty for the palace, signifying that just as David protected his people and governed them justly, so whoever govern Florence should vigorously defend the city and govern it with justice. Michelangelo show David, not in victory, but turning his head sternly watching the approaching foe. His whole body and face is tense with gathering power. This energy in reserve is characteristic of Michelangelos later figures.The Roman sculptors skill in precise rendering of heroic physique impressed Michelangelo. In David, without strictly imitating the antique style, Michelangelo captured the Lysippan athletes and the emotionalism of Hellenistic statuary. This David differs from Donatellos and Verr occhios as Hellenistic statues depart from classical ones. Michelangelo abandoned the self contained compositions of the 15th century David statues by giving Davids head the abrupt turn toward Goliath. Michelangelos David is compositionally and emotionally connected to an unseen front end beyond the statue a quality in Hellenistic sculpture. As early as David, Michelangelo invested his efforts in presenting grand pent up emotion rather than calm ideal beauty.Julius IIs TombThe first project Julius II commissioned from Michelangelo in 1505 was the pontiffs own tomb. The original design called for a freestanding two story structure with some 28 statues. This colossal monument would have given Michelangelo the latitude to sculpt numerous human statues while providing the pope with a grandiose memorial which Julius intended to be in St. Peters. Shortly after the project began, it was interrupted, possibly because funds had to be diverted to Bramantes building of St. Peters. After Juli us IIs death in 1513, Michelangelo was forced to reduce the scale of the project step by step until, it became a simple wall tomb with one third of the originally planned figures. The tomb was completed in 1545 and was placed in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, where Julius at one time had been a cardinal.It is with surety that the ambitious Julius II would have been bitterly disappointed. The spirit of the tomb may be summed up in the figure of Moses, which Michelangelo had completed in 1513, during a sporadic resumption of work. It was meant to be seen from below and to be balanced with seven other massive forms related to it in spirit. The position of Moses now in his rather paltry setting does not have its original impact. Michelangelo depicted the Old will prophet seated, the Tablets of the constabulary under one arm and his hands gathering his voluminous beard. The horns were a recognizable convention to identify Moses. Michelangelo used the turned head, which concentrates the e xpression of awful wrath that stirs in Moses powerful frame and eyes. The muscles bulge, the veins swell, and the great legs seem to begin slowly to move with pent up energy.Originally 20 sculptures of buckle downs in various attitudes of freak out and exhaustion, appear on the tomb. Bound Slave is one of those sculptures. Scholars question whether this sculpture and three other slave sculptures should have been part of Juliuss tomb. Many scholars also reject their identification as slaves or captives. What ever their intended purpose they are definitive. The figures do not represent an abstract concept, as in chivalrous allegory, but embody powerful emotional states associated with oppression. Michelangelo based his whole art on his conviction that whatever can be said greatly through sculpture and painting must be said through the human figure.The Sistine ChapelWith the suspension of the tomb project, Julius gave the bitter and reluctant Michelangelo the commission to paint th e Sistine Chapel in 1508. Michelangelo gave in hoping that the tomb commission would be revived. He faced enormous difficulties in painting the Sistine ceiling. He was inexperienced in fresco painting. The ceiling was some 5,800 square feet of surface to be covered and it was 70 feet above the ground. The vaults height and curve created complicated perspective problems. Yet, in less than four years, Michelangelo produced an unprecedented work a monumental fresco incorporating the patrons agenda, Church doctrine, and the artists interests. The theme of the creation, the fall, and the redemption of humanity weave together more than 300 figures.A long sequence of narrative panels describing the Creation as recorded in Genesis, runs along the c trendn of the vault. The Hebrew prophets and pagan sibyls who foretold the coming of Christ appear seated in large thrones on both sides of the central row of scenes from Genesis where the vault curves down. In the four corner pendentives are pl aced four Old Testament scenes with David, Judith, Haman, and Moses and the Brazen Serpent. Scores of lesser figures also appear.The ancestors of Christ fill the triangular compartments above the windows, nude youths check the corners of the central panels and small pairs of putti (cherub little boys) support the painted cornice surrounding the entire central corridor. The boilersuit concept a sweeping chronology of Christianity was keeping with Renaissance ideas about Christian history. Such ideas include interest in the conflict between good and evil and between the energy of youth and the wisdom of age. The creative activity of the entire ceiling was astounding in itself, and the articulation of it in its thousand details was a herculean achievement.One of the ceilings central panels, the Creation of Adam, is also one of the most famous. Michelangelo created a bold, entirely humanistic comment of the momentous event. God and Adam confront each other in a primordial unformed landscape of which Adam is still a material part. The Lord transcends the earth, wrapped in a soar up cloud of drapery and borne up by his powers. Life leaps to Adam like a spark from the panoptic hand of God. The communication between Gods and man was common in myth and the connection here is clear. It emphasizes how High Renaissance thought joined classical and Christian traditions. Beneath the Lords sheltering arm is a female figure comprehensive but uncreated. Scholars traditionally have believed this to be Eve, but recent encyclopaedism suggests that it may be the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child at her knee. If this is true, Michelangelo incorporated into the fresco the raw material tenets of the Christian faith. RaphaelWhile Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Ceiling, Pope Julius II commissioned Raphael (1483 1520) to decorate the papal apartments in 1508. Raphael painted the Stanza della Segnatura (Room of the Signature the papal library) and the Stanza dEliodor o (Room of Heliodorus). His pupils completed the other rooms, following his sketches. On the Four walls in the Stanza della Segnatura, under the headings of Theology (Disputa), Law (Justice), Poetry (Parnassus), and Philosophy ( trail of Athens), Raphael presented images that symbolize and sum up Western information as Renaissance society understood it. The frescos refer to the four branches of human knowledge and wisdom while pointing out the virtues and learning appropriate to a pope.Given Julius IIs desire for recognition as both a spiritual and temporal leader, it is appropriate that the Theology and Philosophy frescos face each other. The two images present a balanced picture of the pope as a cultured, knowledgeable, individual, on the one hand, and as a wise, divinely ordained religious authority on the other. The Philosophy mural (the so called School of Athens) is the setting not of a school but a congregation of the great philosophers and scientists of the ancient world. Raphael depicted these luminaries rediscovered by Renaissance thinkers conversing and explaining their various theories and ideas. In a vast hall covered by massive barrel vaults that recall Roman architecture (and approximate the appearance of the new Saint Peters in 1509 when the painting was executed), colossal statues of Apollo and Athena, patron gods of the arts and of wisdom, oversee the interactions.Plato and Aristotle serve as the central figures around whom Raphael carefully arranged others. Plato holds his book Timaeus and points to heaven, the source of his inspiration, while Aristotle carries his book Nichomachean Ethics and gestures toward the earth, from which his observations of reality sprang. On Platos side are the ancient philosophers, men concerned with the ultimate mysteries that transcend this world. On Aristotles side are the philosophers and scientists concerned with the nature of human affairs. At the lower left, Pythagoras writes as a servant holds up the harmonic scale. In the foreground, Heraclitus (probably a portrait of Michelangelo) broods alone. Diogenes sprawls on the steps. At the right, students are around Euclid, who demonstrates a theorem.This group is especially interesting Euclid may be the portrait of the aging Bramante. At the extreme right, just to the right of the astronomers Zoroaster and Ptolemy, both holding globes, Raphael included his own portrait. The figures self assurance and natural dignity convey the very nature of calm reason that balance and measure the great Renaissance minds so admired as the heart of philosophy. In this work Raphael placed himself among the mathematicians and scientists. His convincing depiction of a vast perspective space on a two dimensional surface was the consequence of the union of mathematics, with pictorial space, here know completely.All the characters in the School of Athens, communicate moods that reflect their beliefs, and the artists placement of each figure tied these moo ds together. From the center, Raphael arranged groups of figures in an elliptical movement around Plato and Aristotle. It seems to swing forward, looping around the two foreground groups on both sides and then back again to the center. Moving through the wide first step in the foreground around the floors perspective pattern, the viewers eye penetrates the convention of philosophers and continues, by way of the reclining Diogenes, up to the here reconciled leaders of the two great opposing camps of Renaissance philosophy. The perspectives vanishing point falls on Platos left hand, drawing the viewers attention to Timaeus. In the works in the Stanza della Segnatura, Raphael reconciled and harmonized not only the Platonists and Aristotelians but also paganism and Christianity, surely a major factor in his appeal to Julius II.GalateaPope Leo X (Giovanni de Medici, 1513 1521), the son of Lorenzo de Medici, succeeded Julius II as Raphaels patron. Leo was a worldly, pleasure loving pri nce who spent huge amounts on the arts. Raphael moved in the highest circles of the papal court, the star of a brilliant society. He was young, handsome, wealthy, and adulated, not only by his followers, but also by Rome and all Italy. Genial, even tempered, generous, and high minded. Raphaels individualizedity contrasted with the mysterious and aloof Leonardo, or the tormented and obstinate Michelangelo. The Pope was not Raphaels only patron. His friend Agostino Chigi, an vastly wealthy banker who managed the papal states financial affairs, commissioned Raphael to decorate his palace, the Villa Farnesina, on the Tiber with scenes from classical mythology. owing(p) among the frescos was Galatea, which Raphael based on Metamorphoses, by the ancient Roman poet Ovid.In Raphaels fresco, Galatea flees from her uncouth lover, the Cyclops Polyphemus, on a shell drawn by leaping dolphins. Sea creatures and playful cupids surround her. The painting erupts in unrestrained pagan joy and exu berance, an exultant song in praise of human beauty and bonkers love. Raphael enhanced the liveliness of the composition by placing the sturdy figures around Galatea in bounding and dashing movements that always return to her energetic center. The cupids, skillfully foreshortened, repeat the circling motion. Raphael conceived his figures sculpturally. Galateas body is strong and vigorous in motion suggesting the coiling motion of Hellenistic statuary, and contrasting with Botticellis, almost dematerialized Venus. Pagan myth presented in monumental form, in quick movement, and a spirit of passionate delight resurrects the naturalistic art and poetry of the classical world.Pope Paul IIIPope Paul III maintained the lavish lifestyle of previous popes and was a great patron of the arts. He commissioned a palace for himself while he was still Cardinal Farnese. The Palazzo Farnese in Rome was designed by Antonio Da Sangallo the Younger (1483 1546) who established himself as the favorite architect of Pope Paul II and received many commissions that might have otherwise gone to Michelangelo. Antonio was from a family of architects and was an adjunct and draftsman for Bramante. Antonio built fortifications for almost the entire papal state and received more commissions for military than for civil architecture.The Palazzo Farnese set the standard for the High Renaissance palazzo and fully expresses the classical order, regularity, simplicity, and dignity of the High Renaissance. It was finished by Michelangelo after Antonios death in 1546.The Last JudgmentMany of Pope Paul IIIs commissions were part of an orchestrated campaign to restore the prominence of the Catholic Church in rout out of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation was the result of widespread dissatisfaction with the leadership and practices of the Catholic Church. Led by Clerics such as Martin Luther (1483 1546) and John Calvin (1509 1564) the Reformation directly challenged papal authority. Th e disgruntled Catholics voiced concerns about the sale of indulgences, nepotism, and high Church officials pursuing personal wealth. This reform movement resulted in the establishment of Protestantism, with sub groups such as Lutheranism and Calvinism. Central to Protestantism is a belief in personal faith rather than adherence to decreed Church practices and doctrines. This personal relationship between an individual and God, in essence eliminated the need for Church intercession central to Catholicism.