quattrocento

[kwah-troh-chen-toh; Italian kwaht-traw-chen-taw]

noun (often initial capital letter)

the 15th century, used in reference to the Italian art and literature of that time.

Origin of quattrocento

1870–75; < Italian, short for mil quattro cento 1400, occurring in the names of all the years from 1400 to 1499

Related formsquat·tro·cen·tist, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for quattrocento

Historical Examples of quattrocento

But with the story-tellers of the quattrocento it was no mere affectation.
Renaissance in Italy: Italian Literature
John Addington Symonds
The naïveté of the quattrocento often invests its errors with attraction.
Donatello
David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
As an artist, he has thoroughly outgrown the quattrocento style, and falls short only by a little of the greatest.
Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3
John Addington Symonds
The portrait of Giovanni dei Medici is by an unknown hand of the Quattrocento.
The Story of Florence
Edmund G. Gardner
But here, as elsewhere, the classicisms are held in check, and never invade or embarrass the dominant spirit of the Quattrocento.
Donatello
David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

British Dictionary definitions for quattrocento

quattrocento

noun

the 15th century, esp in reference to Renaissance Italian art and literature

Word Origin for quattrocento

Italian, shortened from milquattrocento 1400

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for quattrocento

"the fifteenth century as a period in art and architecture," 1847, from Italian quattrocento, literally "four hundred," short for mille quattrocento "one thousand four hundred," in reference to a period beginning in "1400;" see four + hundred.