Fact Sheet 1) Oil Paint Was Introduced to Italy from Flanders in the Mid-15Th Century, Initially to Venice. 2) ANTONELLO Da

Fact Sheet

1) Oil paint was introduced to Italy from Flanders in the mid-15th century, initially to Venice.

2) ANTONELLO da Messina (b. 1430, Messina, d. 1479, Messina) was most likely the first painter to use oil paint in Italy. Renaissance includes a work by Antonello‘s son JACOBELLO di Antonello who took over all his artistic commissions at his death.

3) The exhibition has 71 works including: ñ Tempera on panel: 26 works ñ Oil on panel: 25 works ñ Oil on canvas: 16 works ñ Combination / other o Tempera grassa: 2; o oil on panel transferred to canvas: 1 o not panel or canvas (tarot cards): 1

4) At the beginning of the Renaissance, artists painted on wooden panel. By 1500 they had begun to change to paint on canvas instead, however this process took many years, as did the adoption of oil paint.

5) During the course of the Renaissance, portraiture became popular for ordinary citizens. Before the Renaissance this genre of painting had been reserved exclusively for royalty and historic figures.

6) The first known tarot cards were created in northern Italy. The tarot cards in the exhibition are some of the oldest surviving and were made for the rulers of Milan. Tarot was not used in fortune telling until the 18th century.

7) The most expensive pigment during the Renaissance was ultramarine, a bright deep blue. It was made from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli, ground up and added to tempera and oil paint. It was imported from Afghanistan to Venice. Because of its extraordinary cost, ultramarine was reserved for only very wealthy commissions. It was more expensive than gold.

8) Saint Catherine of Siena is one of the best known saints in the exhibition. She is the patron saint of her home town Siena and then later Italy (along with Saint Francis of Assisi) and is one of several patron saints of Europe. In addition she is the patron saint of fire-fighters; illness; miscarriages; people ridiculed for their piety; sexual temptation; sick people; and nurses. She is also invoked against fire and illness.

9) Number of saints who appear in the show: 29

10) Number of Madonna and Childs in the show: 24

11) Number of individual portraits in the show: 17