The third session of the lecture series organised by the Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado with the School de Philosophy y Letras was held on Wednesday 9 at the Museo Universidad de Navarra. Joan Molina, head of department of Spanish Gothic Painting at the national art gallery, gave an overview of the work of the Spanish artists who trained in the Italian school of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael in the first two decades of the 16th century.

As speaker pointed out, Italy was at that time "everyone's dream trip, as it was the scuola del mondo", the place where the most important artists were to be found. A generation of young artists arrived in its workshops, including several Spaniards. The first to go to Italy to learn were the Hernandos, Fernando Llanos and Fernando Yáñez, "representatives of the Renaissance of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, of the rebirth of idealism, and of compositions based on perspective and patterned chromaticism". 

During the period when Michelangelo was painting the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, a series of artists arrived who were to be "not only witnesses but protagonists of the Mannerist revolution, something totally new in art at that time". On the one hand, as Molina pointed out, were the painters Alonso Berruguete and Pedro Machuca. The former, directly recommended by Michelangelo, "stands out for his desire to transgress the classical rule of perspective. It is the figures that create the space; there is no longer the composition of an ideal space". For his part, Pedro Machuca was an artist who, in the words of the expert, "does not copy, but reinterprets his referents". His works stand out for creating "a choreography of disharmony, with very great contrasts of light".

Finally, Molina wanted to highlight the Spanish representatives in sculpture, such as Diego de Siloé and Bartolomé Ordóñez. He pointed out that, "while Siloé is striking for the elegance of his compositions, Ordóñez is capable of creating circular compositions reminiscent of Leonardo or Lippi".

The last session of this cycle, "Sandro Boticelli, between the profane and the sacred", will take place on Wednesday 16 February, at 19:00, in the Theatre of the Museo Universidad de Navarra. It will be given by David García Cueto, Head of department of Italian and French Painting up to 1800 at the Museo del Prado.

Joan Molina holds a PhD in Art History from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Senior Associate Professor of Medieval Art at the University of Girona since 1997. He is visiting professor at the universities of Viterbo and Naples, at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz and the EHESS in Paris. In 2020 he joined the Prado Museum as head of the Spanish Gothic Painting department . He is dedicated primarily to studying the meanings and functions of architecture and the visual arts in late Gothic Spain, with special attention to relations at the Neapolitan court of Alfonso the Magnanimous. His numerous publications include the books Arte, devoción y poder en la pintura tardogótica catalana (1999) and La report de Carlomagno. Worship, liturgy and images in the cathedral of Girona (2018). He is also curator of the exhibitions Bernat Martorell and the Autumn of Catalan Gothic and Bishop Margarit and his time.

Chronicle of the first session: In the beginning was Giotto.An introduction to Renaissance art. 26 January.

Chronicle of the second session: Rogier van der Weyden, pictore nobilissimo. 2 February.

Chronicle of the fourth session: Sandro Botticelli, between the profane and the sacred. 16 February.