Free downloadable Renaissance Catholic paintings in the public domain.
Details: One of the most important surviving examples of fourteenth-century painting from Rimini (on Italy’s Adriatic coast), this panel was one of eight scenes depicting the life of Saint John the Baptist from a now-dismembered altarpiece. Riminese painters of the first half of the fourteenth century were...
Details: According to all four canonical Gospels, immediately after the Last Supper, Jesus took a walk to pray. Each Gospel offers a slightly different account regarding narrative details. The gospels of Matthew and Mark identify this place of prayer as Gethsemane. Jesus was accompanied by three Apostles: Peter, John and...
Details: The Three Marys (also spelled Maries) are women mentioned in the canonical gospels' narratives of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, several of whom were, or have been considered by Christian tradition, to have been named Mary (the most common name for Jewish women of the period). The...
Details: Guillaume Vrelant, born in Utrecht, was known to be in Bruges from 1454 onward where he died around 1481. He probably went there to sidestep a 1427 law which banned the sale of Utrecht images. A painter very much in vogue, he founded the Illuminators’ Guild in Bruges under...
Details: Assumption, in Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic theology, the notion or (in Roman Catholicism) the doctrine that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken (assumed) into heaven, body and soul, following the end of her life on Earth. There is no mention of the Assumption in the New Testament,...
Details: This is an illustration of the eighth article of faith (I believe in the Holy Spirit) of the Apostles' Creed. Mary and the twelve apostles are sitting in a room. Tongues of fire burn above the heads of some of them. The Holy Spirit, in the form of...
Details: This is a half-length print of the Virgin Mary, on a cloud, with a halo of (oxidized) silver. This is likely a relief/woodcut. Woodcuts are probably the oldest method of printing – the application of ink to the saved image areas which are raised – the non-image areas...
Description0:00/0:261×Details: The fifteen metalcuts, or “dotted prints,” that form this Passion suite constitute one of the most complete block books in existence. It is possible that the series at one time included as many as nineteen images, each exquisitely hand-colored with the biblical text inscribed...
Virgin and Child with Four Saints Cleveland Museum of Art0:00/0:281×Details: The Virgin and Child appear with Saints Catherine, John the Evangelist, Jodocus, and Mary Magdalene. Symbols of the Virgin’s purity and of Christ’s death and redemptive mission are included in the scene: the wall,...
The Ascension 16th Century by Dosso Dossi Public Domain Bible Painting SD Cason Ca0:00/1:081×Details: The Ascension of Jesus is the Christian teaching that Christ physically departed from Earth by rising into Heaven, in the presence of eleven of his apostles. According to the New Testament narrative,...
Pentecost Bartolomeo di Tommaso Mia0:00/0:391×Details: In this scene from the New Testament, the twelve apostles were gathered in a room after Christ's death and ascension into heaven. Suddenly there appeared on each of them tongues of fire. They were filled with the Holy Spirit,...
P5020:00/0:561×Details: This was once the main panel of a large altar piece consisting of many parts. It was painted by Mariotto di Nardoex in 1408 for the church of San Stefano in a rural district outside of Florence, Italy. In this scene the Virgin Mary is...
Details: In the 1400s, the city of Tours became the seat of the French royal court. With a simultaneous flourishing of the arts in the city, Tours became the center of an important school of illuminators and painters. The work of Jean Poyet, an influential artist in this school, was...
Details: After Christ's death and ascension into heaven, he appeared to his disciples several times. On this occasion, he walked with two of them on their way from Jerusalem to the neighboring village of Emmaus. They did not recognize him until later at supper. Christ is dressed as...
Details: Also known as the "Poor Men's Bible," the Biblia Pauperum was a simple picture book used to explain biblical prophecies and symbolism. These volumes served as an aid for preachers to demonstrate the unity of the Bible. The iconography of these popular books juxtaposed two...
Details: This colorful metalcut was removed from a 1480 missal printed by Bartholomew Gothan and Lucas Brandis in Magdeburg. That volume also included a Crucifixion and other images from the same anonymous artist’s set of large metalcuts, using the same separately cut border plate for each different center plate....
Details: This masterful initial M, colorful and crowded with playful animals and fantastic forms, recalls the announcement to the Virgin Mary by the Angel Gabriel that she will conceive and bear a son: Missus est Gabriel Angelus ad Miriam Virginem. . . . (The Angel Gabriel was sent to Mary. . . .), the response for...
Details: Little is known about the life and career of Sint Jans. He seems to have been born in Haarlem in Holland in the northern Low Countries where he may have been attached to the Knights of Saint John as a lay brother, and likely produced an altarpiece for that...
Details: Although Veronese is best known for his large-scale, pageant-like presentations, here the artist has taken the narrative of the Annunciation (the announcement of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and bear a son) and compressed the figures close to one another, creating...
Details: In this image of the Holy Family, Joseph and Mary lean in to admire the Christ Child while a shepherd looks on, leaning on his staff. Before executing this painting, Battista visited Rome, including an extensive study of Raphael's works. Afterward, Battista began a second style of...
0:00/1× Details: This picture’s original use is uncertain. Its size and shape are appropriate for a predella (the pedestal portion of an altarpiece), which often consists of several small panels. However, the Coronation of the Virgin almost never appears on predellas. The panel’s minute detail and...
Details: Although born into a wealthy merchant family, St. Francis (1181-1226) rejected all wordly goods, dedicating himself to chastity, humility, and selfless acts of kindness. By the time of his death, the order of friars he founded had expanded throughout Europe. In the summer of 1224, Francis visited a...
Details: Early devotional woodcuts are exceedingly rare today because, ironically, they were such a common part of fifteenth-century life. Available by the thousands from peddlers or monastics and at shrines and fairs, these images were carried around, tacked up for use as home altars, sewn into clothing, and prayed...
Details: Gutenberg's Bible appeared in 1455. The first book to combine his invention with printed illustrations appeared in 1463. At about the same time, perhaps a little earlier or a little later, a different kind of printed illustrated book-the blockbook-began to appear. Gutenberg's catered...
