The subject of Portrait of a Musician,…

Peter Vischer the Elder, a master of late-Gothic naturalism working in the family’s Nuremberg workshop, reveals an interest in bodily movement that is new to his age in his so-called Branch Breaker of 1490, a bronze of a kneeling man.

Ladislas II, King of Bohemia since 1471, succeeds as King of Hungary at the death of Matthias Corvinus on April 6, 1490.

Bahmani governor Malik Ahmad, the son of Nizam-ul-Mulk Malik Hasan Bahri, has assumed the appellation of his father afterr his death and from this the dynasty founded by him is known as the Nizam Shahi dynasty.

he declares independence fter defeating the Bahmani army led by general Jahangir Khan on May 28, 1490.

Initially his capital is in the town of Junnar with its fort, later renamed Shivneri.

As cardinal, Aubusson reforms the Order of St. John, strengthens its authority in Rhodes, and eliminates Judaism from the island by expelling all adult Jews and forcibly baptizing their children.

The war appears to be over with the fall of Baza and the capture of al-Zagal in 1490.

Ferdinand and Isabella certainly think this is the case.

However, Boabdil is unhappy with the rewards for his alliance with Ferdinand and Isabella, possibly because lands that had been promised to him are being administered by Castile.

He breaks off his vassalage and rebels against the Catholic Monarchs, despite holding only the city of Granada and the Alpujarras Mountains.

It is clear that such a position is untenable in the long term, so Boabdil sends out desperate requests for external aid.

The Sultan of Egypt mildly rebukes Ferdinand for the Granada War, but the Mamluks who rule Egypt are in a near constant war with the Ottoman Turks.

As Castile and Aragon are fellow enemies of the Turks, the Sultan has no desire to break their alliance against the Turks.

Boabdil also requests aid from the Kingdom of Fez (modern Morocco), but no reply is recorded by history.

North Africa has continues to sell Castile wheat throughout the war and values maintaining good trade relations.

In any case, the Granadans no longer control any coastline from where to receive overseas aid.

No help will be forthcoming for Granada.

The prolific Pinturicchio executes many important commissions, including the Bufalini Chapel in Santa Maria in Aracoeli, painted from around 1485 to 1490.

Catalonia’s vigorous school of painting culminates in Bartolome Bermejo’s dark, brooding “Pietá,” painted in 1490.

Bermejo, whose real name is Bartolomé de Cárdenas, was born in Córdoba.

He is first documented in a first payment issued in Valencia in 1468 when a patron, Antonio Juan, commissioned him to paint the altarpiece of the church of San Miguel in Tous, in Valencia (the central panel of which is currently housed in the National Gallery, London).

He is active in four cities of the Crown of Aragon: Valencia, Daroca (1474), Zaragoza (1477–84) and Barcelona (1486–1501).

Although it is unclear where Bermejo received his training, his complete mastery of the oil glaze technique suggests direct contact with fifteenth century Flemish painting, which he is able to adapt perfectly to the demands of Spanish altarpieces of the period.

He never settles in any one place for more than a decade, and his one work for which there exists a contract (1474), the Retable of Santo Domingo de Silos, painted for the church by that name in Daroca, had been left incomplete when he had moved on to Zaragoza, where a second contract had to be made (1477), in collaboration with the local painter Martín Bernat.

Previously, in Daroca Bermejo had married a local widow, Gracia de Palanciano, and produced at least two other works, the Dead Christ with Angels for a local merchant, Johan de Loperuelo (now Museu del Castell de Perelada) and the Retable of Saint Engracia (various museums in Spain and the U.S.).

Bermejo's seven-year residence in Zaragoza produced at least one additional altarpiece in collaboration with Martín Bernat and he also was part of a team that polychromed the alabaster High Altar Retable of Zaragoza Cathedral.

An undocumented return to Valencia around 1485 had resulted in the production of a Flemish-style Triptych of the Virgin of Montserrat, for Francesco della Chiesa, an Italian merchant, for the family chapel in Acqui Cathedral.

This was again a collaboration: Bermejo painted the central panel, while the wings were completed by the Valencian master Rodrigo de Osona.

Bermejo's later years are spent in Barcelona, where he works on the High Altar Retable (destroyed in 1936) for the convent church of Santa Anna, and completes his masterwork for Canon Lluís Desplà i Oms' private chapel, the Pietà (1490), which contains the donor's portrait.

Other documents in Barcelona concern designs for stained-glass windows.

Beyond his skill in oil glaze painting, Bermejo's distinctive style can be seen in his physical types, a lively sense of drama in his narrative scenes, and above all in his attention to landscape, particularly in the extensive sunrise and sunset settings in the Triptych of the Virgin of Montserrat and the Pietà.

Bermejo's distinctive style has a considerable influence, particularly in Aragon, where it is widely disseminated in the prolific studio of Martín Bernat.

No one at this time, however, can duplicate his landscapes.

There are three surviving works that incorporate the artist's name within the compositions, still unusual in Spanish painting of this period: Saint Michael with Kneeling Donor, Antonio Juan); the Triptych of the Virgin of Montserrat with Donor, Francesco della Chiesa; and the Pietà with Canon Desplà.

The first two bear the artist's name on simulated parchment, and the last is found in an inscription on the frame.

Indirect evidence also speaks of royal patronage, for an Epiphany now in the Royal Chapel of Granada was part of the personal collection of Isabella I of Castile.

Lorenzo di Credi, born Lorenzo d'Andrea d'Oerigo, had developed a meticulous technique as a painter, sculptor, and goldsmith under the tutelage of Andrea del Verrocchio.

Unlike his contemporaries in Verrocchio's studio, Leonardo da Vinci and Perugino, Credi was resistant to the stylistic innovations of the High Renaissance.

Handpicked as his late teacher's successor, Credi becomes in 1488 the director of the most flourishing artistic workshop in Florence.

For Pistoia Cathedral he completes the painting of the Madonna Enthroned between John the Baptist and St. Donatus which had been partially painted by his master, Verrocchio, but was left unfinished when Verrocchio went to Venice.

Although Credi’s numerous images of seated Madonnas with attendant angels reveal an artistic personality of scant imagination and often monotonous repetitiveness, his consistently fine draftsmanship is evident in his “Self-Portrait,” painted in about 1490.

Giacomo's power increases, and with his cruelty and insolence he incurs the hatred of all, including Caterina's children.

The eleven-year-old Ottaviano, despite his official status, is in reality controlled by his domineering mother and her lover.

When Feo humiliates Giacomo in public by slapping him, his nominal courtiers do nothing to support him.

After this episode, the situation in Forli becomes very strained.

Ottaviano's friends plot to use the episode as an excuse to "liberate" the city from the rule of Giacomo Feo by assassinating him.

The first attempt in 1490 fails.

The eleven-year-old Ottaviano, despite his official status, is in reality controlled by his domineering mother and her lover.

When Feo humiliates Giacomo in public by slapping him, his nominal courtiers do nothing to support him.

After this episode, the situation in Forli becomes very strained.

Ottaviano's friends plot to use the episode as an excuse to "liberate" the city from the rule of Giacomo Feo by assassinating him.

The first attempt in 1490 fails.

The recorded fresco work from the brush of Piero di Cosimo is the landscape background in Rosselli's fresco of the Sermon on the Mount, in the Sistine Chapel.

On the other hand, Piero enjoys a great reputation as a portrait painter: the most famous of his work is in fact the portrait of a Florentine noblewoman, Simonetta Vespucci, mistress of Giuliano de' Medici.

Simonetta is a Genoese noblewoman who had married Marco Vespucci of Florence at the age of either fifteen or sixteen, and who was renowned for being the greatest beauty of her era—certainly of the city of Florence.

She was admired by all of Florence for her beauty, which later becomes a legend after her premature death in 1476 at the age of twenty-three.

Sandro Botticelli had been inspired by her features in The Birth of Venus and Piero di Cosimo had been a passionate admirer.

The subject is a young girl portrayed at half length in profile, facing left.

Her breasts are bared and a small snake twines around the necklace she is wearing.

In the background is an open landscape, arid on the left and lush on the right.

The dark clouds are a symbol of her early death, as is the dead tree in the background.

At the base of the painting is a border with an inscription that mimics carved letters, a method used in art since the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck at the beginning of the century; it reads: SIMONETTA IANUENSIS VESPUCCIA.

The dark clouds contrast with the pure profile of the face and the clear complexion.

It is traditionally identified as a portrait of Simonetta.

Giorgio Vasari regarded her as portraying Cleopatra, because of the toplessness and the snake, which he identified with the asp with which, according to Plutarch, Cleopatra committed suicide.

However, the art historian Norbert Schneider regards it as more likely that the iconography of the portrait derives from that in late Classical antiquity, in which the snake, especially biting its own tail, symbolized the cycle of time and hence rejuvenation, and was thus associated with Janus, the Roman god of the new year, and with Saturn, who became a "Father Time" figure because his Greek name, Kronos, was conflated with Chronos, meaning "time".

The inscription refers to Simonetta as Januensis (of Genoa, but the variant spelling punning on Janus).

The snake was also the symbol of Prudentia; in that interpretation, it would be praise for Simonetta's wisdom.

An alternative suggestion is that she is presented as Proserpina, with the snake symbolizing the pagans' hope of resurrection.

The bust, in fifteenth-century style, is slightly turned towards the spectator, so as to favour the view, and her shoulders are wrapped in a richly embroidered cloth.

According to Schneider, her naked breasts would not have caused any offense to contemporary viewers.

They were rather an allusion to "Venus pudica", or the "chaste" Venus.

Her features have a surprising purity.

The forehead is high, according to the fashion of the time which included a shaved hairline.

The hairstyle is that of a married woman, gathered up in braids and richly decorated with ribbons, beads, and pearls.