![]() Such mobility was facilitated by the network of European courts, which were instrumental in the rapid spread of Italian Renaissance art. Artists travelled both within and between countries and on occasion even between continents. ![]() Artists and patrons were well aware of artistic developments in other countries. Any notion of the humble medieval artist oblivious to anything beyond his own immediate environment must be dispelled. The important point to be made is that the medieval and Renaissance period was not parochial and neither were its artists. The luxury oriental fabrics painstakingly represented in paintings by Simone Martini ( c.1284–1344), and the feather pictures made in Mexico for European collectors, are only two examples. Trade, diplomacy and conquest connected Christendom to the wider world, which in turn had an impact on art. Medieval Christendom could not but be aware of its neighbours. Famously, Columbus made his voyage of discovery of the New World in 1492. The period witnessed the slow erosion of the crusader states in the Holy Land, finally relinquished in 1291, and of the Greek Byzantine world until Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453. The focus is on art in medieval and Renaissance Christendom, but this does not imply that Europe was insular during this period. We begin by considering the production and consumption of art from the Crusades through to the period of the Catholic Reformation. ![]()
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