Nopestalgia scene notes · 1503
What's wrong in 1503? A painter's workshop in Renaissance Florence
It is 1503 in Florence, at the height of the Italian Renaissance. In a busy bottega (workshop) a master painter in a red robe and cap works on a portrait propped on a wooden easel. Two apprentices grind pigments in stone mortars, and through the arched window you can see the city's terracotta rooftops, the bell tower, and Brunelleschi's great brick dome on the cathedral.
1503 is roughly the year Leonardo da Vinci is believed to have begun the Mona Lisa in Florence. Our painter isn't meant to be any one artist, but the way he works is typical of the time: a master ran a workshop, and apprentices learned the trade by doing the grinding, mixing and preparation for years before they were trusted with a brush.
What belongs in 1503
Every Nopestalgia scene gets a period check before it goes live. Here's what's in this one, and why it fits the year:
- Apprentices grinding pigment. Painters made their own colors. Minerals and earths such as ochre, vermilion and lapis lazuli (for ultramarine blue) were ground by hand and mixed with egg for tempera or with oil, which was spreading through Italy in the late 1400s.
- Clay jars, not tubes. Paint was stored in jars, shells or pig bladders. The collapsible metal paint tube wasn't patented until 1841.
- The cathedral dome. Brunelleschi's dome on Florence Cathedral was completed in 1436, and Giotto's bell tower was finished in the 1350s, so both belong on the 1503 skyline.
- Brushes in a pot. Brushes were made from hog bristle or soft animal hair tied into quills or wooden handles.
- Candlelight. Workshops relied on daylight from big windows plus candles or oil lamps.
What we kept out
No clocks, no glass bottles, no tomatoes (they came from the Americas and weren't eaten widely in Italy until much later), and nothing with lettering on it. Only one thing in the picture is allowed to be out of place.
The answer
Show the hidden modern object (spoiler)
The modern object is a takeaway coffee cup with a plastic lid. Coffee did not reach Italy until around 1600 (Venice's first coffee house opened in 1645), paper cups appeared around 1908, and snap-on plastic lids came decades later still.
Hint, if you just want a nudge: Someone needed a pick-me-up. Look among the jars.
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