03 — ARTWORK
Triumph of David
ALENZA Y NIETO, Leonardo · 1842 →
- MEDIUM
- Oil on canvas
- TYPE
- Religious
PALETTE
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- FILE
- 1280 × 1051 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
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The painting TriumphWith growing interest from the early 14th century in the history of ancient Rome came a fascination with the city's conquests, the wars by which they were won - and the ceremony which marked their success: the victor's triumph. The knowledge that the privilege of being commemorated by one of these enormous and costly processions of warriors, loot and prisoners was given sparingly, only to the sole commander of a major victory over a foreign army of whom at least 5000 were slain, added to the glamour of the triumph. Its centrepiece was the chariot of the victor himself. Dante gave one to Beatrice in Purgatorio XXIX: 'Rome upon Africanus ne'er conferred / Nor on Augustus's self, a car so brave'. But it was tentatively with the relief carvings on the Triumphal Arch (1452-66) at Castelnuovo in Naples commemorating Alfonso the Magnanimous, and finally with Mantegna's superb Triumph of Caesar cartoons (Hampton Court), that the visual reconstruction of a Roman triumph became complete. Meanwhile, in an age which did not like the idea of large numbers of victory-flushed soldiers parading through its streets, the military triumph became sublimated, as it were, into a number of less controversial forms. This was largely under the influence of Petrarch's 'Trionfi' - poems describing the processions commemorating the triumphs of love, chastity, death; fame, time and eternity. Disseminated soon after his death, they soon appeared in illuminated manuscripts, and the triumph scene became a popular one for woodcuts, decorated marriage chests and other paintings, most beautifully of all on the backs of Piero della Francesca's portraits of Federigo da Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza. Other 'triumphs' were invented: of the seasons, of virtues and of the arts. Nor was the theme allowed to be simply a profane one. Just before his death Savonarola published his 'Triumph of the Cross', in which the reader was invited to imagine 'a four-wheeled chariot on which is seated Christ as Conqueror.' Before it go the apostles, patriarchs and prophets, beside it the army of martyrs, behind it, after 'a countless number of virgins, of both sexes', come the prisoners: 'the serried ranks of the enemies of the Church of Christ.' This aspect of the theme was magnificently realized in Titian's great woodcut 'The Triumph of the Faith'. of David led to Alenza's election as an 'Académico de mérito' at the Real Academia de San Fernando in 1842.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r2f317dff51223b,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Triumph of David by ALENZA Y NIETO, Leonardo},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/alenza-y-nieto-leonardo-r0a921fd4f67efa/triumph-of-david-r2f317dff51223b},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
OTHER WORKS BY LEONARDO ALENZA Y NIETO
The archive catalogues no further works by this artist.
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