User:DFox03/Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara

Notes from class:

- Collection of artworks from best artists in second decade of 15th century, Venetian display

- Gallery idea was a new concept emerging (look into camerino)

- Feast of the Gods (Giovanni Bellini 1514) -> new tradition of mythological representations, stemming from Botticelli's Birth of Venus

- Isabella d'Este (portrait by Titian), his sister, while he was commissioning his own gallery, she was commissioning portraits of herself in her private collection by Titian (sibling competition)

The section below would be added after "Marriages" and before "Art". Essentially an elaboration on an already established paragraph dedicated to the camerini d'alabastro. I felt the article was relatively complete when I found it, so to make things easier to see, I bolded all my contributions/edits (in case I disagreed with grammar or things felt out of place).

The Camerino d'Alabastro (Small Room of Alabaster)
In 1529 Alfonso established one of the most impressive decorative projects of the Renaissance, his studiolo or camerino d'alabastro ("small alabaster room", right), now usually known as his "Camerino", in order to better display his works of art against white marble-veneered walls under a gilded ceiling. The pallor of the marble led to the name of this room as the chamber of alabaster. There are documents from Mario Equicola on 9 October 1511, noting plans for painting of a room in Ferrara, in which "six fabule [fables] or istorie [histories] shall be placed. I have already found them and have presented them in writing." A letter dated 14 November 1514 'confirms Alfonso was the patron that commissioned Giovanni Bellini's The Feast of The Gods'', the first painting completed for the chamber. This painting would later be updated with contributions from Titian as well as Dosso Dossi.  Although only one of Bellini's few mythological renderings, this work helped usher a new tradition of mythological representations, along with Botticelli's Birth of Venus.'''

Art
Like his brother Ippolito I, Cardinal d'Este, he was one of the great patrons of art of his time: for him the elderly Giovanni Bellini painted The Feast of the Gods in 1514, Bellini's last completed painting. He turned to Bellini's pupil, Titian, for a sequence of paintings. Titian is known to have painted two portraits of Alfonso: the first was widely acclaimed, singled out by Michelangelo and coerced as a diplomatic gift by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor; Alfonso induced Titian to paint a free replica, which the artist of the painting illustrated above has adapted for his model. Over the next two decades, Titian added three more paintings: The Worship of Venus (Museo del Prado, Madrid), The Bacchanal of the Andrians (Prado, Madrid), and Bacchus and Ariadne (National Gallery, London). Dosso Dossi produced another large bacchanal, and he also contributed ceiling decorations and a painted frieze for the cornice, depicting scenes from the Aeneid, which gained immediacy by showing the heroes in contemporary dress. All the bacchanals in the Alabaster Chamber dealt with love, and some refer to marriage. After the Este family lost control of Ferrara in 1598, the Alabaster Chamber's paintings and sculpture were dispersed, and the room's appearance was entirely renovated, leaving it unrecognizable from the original rendering.

Alfonso inherited from Cardinal d'Este the poet Ariosto. Following in the lead of his father Ercole, who had made Ferrara into one of the musical centers of Europe, Alfonso brought some of the most famous musicians of the time to his court to work as composers, instrumentalists and singers. Musicians from northern Europe who worked at Ferrara during his reign included Antoine Brumel and Adrian Willaert, the latter of whom was to become the founder of the Venetian School, something which could not have happened without Alfonso's patronage.