Villa Madama, Raphael's late masterwork of architecture, landscape, and decoration for the Medici popes, is a paradigm of the Renaissance villa. The creation of this important, unfinished complex provides a remarkable case study for the nature of architectural invention. Drawing on little known poetry describing the villa while it was on the drawing board, as well as ground plans, letters, and antiquities once installed there, Yvonne Elet reveals the design process to have been a dynamic, collaborative effort involving humanists as well as architects. She explores design as a self-reflexive process, and the dialectic of text and architectural form, illuminating the relation of word and image in Renaissance architectural practice. Her revisionist account of architectural design as a process engaging different systems of knowledge, visual and verbal, has important implications for the relation of architecture and language, meaning in architecture, and the translation of idea into form.

The life, style and colours of the great master of the 16th-century Venetian painting. Tiziano Vecellio was a remarkably versatile painter, equally comfortable with a wide range of genres and subjects. Unlike many artists from history whose work has been appreciated only after their death, Titian enjoyed fame and success throughout his career, which spanned over seven decades. Based in Venice, Titian received commissions from many local patrons and the Venetian government, as well as many distinguished figures from further afield, such as the Pope, the German emperor and the King of Spain. This small book is a perfect introduction to the work of this original and influential Renaissance artist.

The invention of the printing press led to an explosion of cheap printed materials in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ballads were no longer confined to the soapbox. Mass communication was now possible. The broadsides pasted on walls and disseminated among the masses, together with the written ballads hawked at street corners, represented the zeitgeist of popular culture in early modern Europe. Frequently designed in 'blackletter' gothic type and accompanied with distinctive woodcut illustrations, this dynamic, lively form encompassed the obsessions and characteristic humour of the times. This beautifully designed book with a foreword by Reece Shearsmith highlights some of the most striking and amusing examples from the British Library's collections and provides brief commentary on the political and social background of the times. Frequent topics of illustration include monsters, witches, criminals, drinking, war and politics.

Part of a series of exciting and luxurious Flame Tree Notebooks. Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed then foil stamped. And they're powerfully practical: a pocket at the back for receipts and scraps, two bookmarks and a solid magnetic side flap. These are perfect for personal use and make a dazzling gift. This example is based on 'Young Woman with a Water Pitcher' by Vermeer.

The first publication to consider the relationship between these two major artists of the High Renaissance Through most of Michelangelo's working life, one of his closest colleagues was the great Venetian painter Sebastiano del Piombo (1485--1541). The two men met in Rome in 1511, shortly after Sebastiano's arrival from his native city, and while Michelangelo was based in Florence from 1516 to 1534 Sebastiano remained one of his Roman confidants, painting several works after partial designs by him. This landmark publication is about the artists' extraordinary professional alliance and the friendship that underpinned it. It situates them in the dramatic context of their time, tracing their evolving artistic relationship through more than three decades of creative dialogue. Matthias Wivel and other leading scholars investigate Michelangelo's profound influence on Sebastiano and the Venetian artist's highly original interpretation of his friend's formal and thematic concerns. The lavishly illustrated text examines their shared preoccupation with the depiction of death and resurrection, primarily in the life of Christ, through a close analysis of drawings, paintings, and sculpture. The book also brings the austerely beautiful work of Sebastiano to a new audience, offering a reappraisal of this less famous but most accomplished artist.

Andrea Mantegna, 1431-1506, one of the great artists of the early Renaissance in Italy. Born near to Padua, he is most associated with that city and for many commissions for the Gonzaga of Mantua. Contemporary and relative of Giovanni Bellini, Mantegna is noted for his skilful experiments with perspective. He traveled widely in his youth and had a keen interest in archeology and inscriptions, perhaps explaining the great monumentality of many of his works. Mantegna's early work is best represented by a series of frescoes and altar pieces he undertook for various churches in the cities of Padua and Verona.Success led him to become court artist for the rulers of Mantua, the Gonzaga family. His greatest works were commissioned for the Camera degli Sposi (wedding chamber) of the Gonzaga castle. They are great frescoes of the family painted onto the walls and perhaps most famously the ceiling, which shows putti looking over a balustrade with the illusion of the sky above. This work was finished in the 1470s and followed by such paintings as the exquisite St Sebastian now in the Louvre and a series of frescoes for the Pope in the Vatican (destroyed).The famous Triumphs of Caesar painted in the 1490s and now at Hampton Court were acquired by King Charles the First of England in 1628. Mantegna is also noted for his print work and engraving. He was held in high regard by Vasari. "The Timeline Series" - every book in the Timeline series offers a concise, striking visual chronology of its subject, whether this is the evolution of a single painter's style or the changing face of an entire movement in art, fashion or design. Despite first appearances, these are not like other books - each title pulls out to become an innovative two-sided guide.On the front, the Timeline shows you sixteen key images in chronological order - for example, excerpts from the crucial works of a particular artist, or details from evolving stages of an era in design. At a glance, you see a clear visual path through the development of the subject. On the back you will find all the detail - entire reproductions of the pieces discussed, succinct explorations of their context, meaning and history written by experts, biographies of the artists, and more. The Timeline series offers a fresh, simple visual reference that is ideal for art-lovers, casual visitors to museums and art galleries, and students - anyone who wants to see clearly how artistic styles evolve and change over time.

This is the first comprehensive publication on English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish paintings and pastels by artists born before 1841in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ranging in date from the late 16th through the third quarter of the 19th century, the 140 works included are by such major artists as Peake, Lely, Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lawrence, Turner, Constable, and Burne-Jones. While the collection is particularly rich in portraiture, it also contains genre paintings and landscapes. Each painting is reproduced in color and carries full cataloguing data as well as a generous selection of comparative illustrations, among them pendants, related paintings, and prints.

In late 1504 and early 1505, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) were both at work on commissions they had received to paint murals in Florence's City Hall. Leonardo was to depict a historic battle between Florence and Milan, Michelangelo one between Florence and Pisa. Though neither project was ever completed, the painters' mythic encounter shaped art and its history in the decades and centuries that followed.
This concise, lucid, and thought-provoking book looks again at the one moment when Leonardo and Michelangelo worked side by side, seeking to identify the roots of their differing ideas of the figure in 15th-century pictorial practices and to understand what this contrast meant to the artists and writers who followed them. Through close investigation of these two artists, Michael W. Cole provides a new account of critical developments in Italian Renaissance painting.

Presents exciting, original conclusions about Leonardo da Vinci's early life as an artist and amplifies his role in Andrea del Verrocchio's studio This groundbreaking reexamination of the beginnings of Leonardo da Vinci's (1452-1519) life as an artist suggests new candidates for his earliest surviving work and revises our understanding of his role in the studio of his teacher, Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488). Anchoring this analysis are important yet often overlooked considerations about Verrocchio's studio-specifically, the collaborative nature of most works that emerged from it and the probability that Leonardo must initially have learned to paint in tempera, as his teacher did. The book searches for the young artist's hand among the tempera works from Verrocchio's studio and proposes new criteria for judging Verrocchio's own painting style. Several paintings are identified here as likely the work of Leonardo, and others long considered works by Verrocchio or his assistant Lorenzo di Credi (1457/59-1536) may now be seen as collaborations with Leonardo sometime before his departure from Florence in 1482/83. In addition to Laurence Kanter's detailed arguments, the book features three essays presenting recent scientific analysis and imaging that support the new attributions of paintings, or parts of paintings, to Leonardo.

Part of a series of exciting and luxurious Flame Tree Notebooks. Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed, then foil stamped. And they're powerfully practical: a pocket at the back for receipts and scraps, two bookmarks and a solid magnetic side flap. These are perfect for personal use and make a dazzling gift. This example features Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights.

"Professor Wittkower's....studies of humanist architecture are masterpieces of scholarship."-Sir Kenneth Clark, Architectural Review.

A fourth edition of the forty-year-old classic.

Focusing on the principal architects of that time-from Alberti to Palladio-this bestselling classic explains the true significance of certain architectural forms, bringing to light the connections between the architecture and culture of the period. With publication scheduled to coincide with that of Architectonics of Humanism, this important reference is superbly reproduced in a new, large square format.

The late RUDOLF WITTKOWER was a college professor and eminent scholar residing in London, England.

Giambologna (1529 - 1606) is regarded as the most important European sculptor between Michelangelo and Bernini. How did he achieve this status? This volume investigates this question and examines above all Giambologna's study of Michelangelo, his all-powerful role model, and how he successfully prevailed. The young Flemish artist Giambologna most probably embarked on his study trip to Rome in 1550. On his way home he visited Florence, decided to stay and became the star at the Medici court. They sent his sculptures to the princely courts of Europe, where they became sought-after gifts. Although we know a great deal about his success, we know little of his early years in Italy, because he first appeared on the scene as a sculptor from about 1560. The alabaster figures after Michelangelo's "Times of Day" in Dresden, hitherto largely ignored, seem to be early works by the master sculptor. An examination of these sculptures promises to shed fresh light on the development of a genius.

The Museo del Prado houses the largest known collection of works by Jheronimus Bosch. Among its holdings are The Adoration of the Magi and The Garden of Earthly Delights triptychs, as well as the original of The Haywain, making it the `home of Bosch' and the perfect institution to hold a major exhibition marking the quincentenary of the artist's death. This magnificent, richly illustrated book reproduces these masterpieces and other recently cleaned and restored paintings, and reveals hitherto unknown facets of Bosch's art. A distinguished team of Bosch scholars contribute to the volume. Pilar Silva Maroto's essay presents an updated biography of Bosch and his family, and includes all the surviving documents dating from his lifetime. It also locates the artist in the context of his home town, 's-Hertogenbosch, and offers an in-depth appreciation of his status as a painter and draughtsman. Eric De Bruyn considers Bosch's sources in texts and images; Paul Vandenbroeck, his values and ideology; and Larry Silver, the sins and their punishment, a fundamental theme in the artist's work. Finally, there is a `conversation' between Reindert Falkenburg and The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych, and a reflection by Fernando Checa on the reception of Bosch at the Habsburg court in Flanders and in Spain in the 16th century. The catalogue entries for the paintings belonging to the Prado collection discuss the findings of recent technical research carried out specifically for the exhibition, which has shed new light on these works.

Jean Fouquet was France's most important 15th-century artist, painting for the courts of Charles VII and Louis XI. His art synthesized the realistic style of Flemish arts like van Eyck with the monumentality of Florentines like Masaccio. Fouquet's work had a powerful appeal, shaping the next two generations of painters and introducing to the French a taste for Italian art.

The first survey of Fouquet's work in English in nearly sixty years, this captivating book offers a major advance in scholarship about the artist and his far-reaching impact. Erik Inglis links Fouquet's style, iconography, and audience to explain how his art helped define French identity, a project of great importance for anxious courtiers in the wake of the Hundred Years War. "Jean Fouquet and the Invention of France" provides a new lens for looking at the century that saw the greatest changes in French art prior to Impressionism.

Renaissance bodies, dressed and undressed, have not lacked attention in art historical literature, but scholarship on the male body has generally concentrated on phallic-oriented masculinity and been connected to issues of patriarchy and power. This original book examines the range of meaning that has been attached to the male backside in Renaissance art and culture, the transformation of the base connotation of the image to high art, and the question of homoerotic impulses or implications of admiring male figures from behind. Representations of the male body's behind have often been associated with things obscene, carnivalesque, comical, or villainous. Presenting serious scholarship with a deft hand, Seen from Behind expands our understanding of the motif of the male buttocks in Renaissance art, revealing both continuities and changes in the ways the images convey meaning and have been given meaning.

An accessible survey on a genius artist, published to accompany the 500th anniversary of Bosch's death Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) lived and worked in 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, where he created enigmatic paintings and drawings full of bizarre creatures, phantasmagoric monsters, and terrifying nightmares. He also depicted detailed landscapes and found inspiration in fundamental moral concepts: seduction, sin, and judgment. This beautiful book accompanies a major exhibition on Bosch's work in his native city, and will feature important new research on his 25 known paintings and 20 drawings. The book, divided into six sections, covers the entirety of the artist's career. It discusses in detail Bosch's Pilgrimage of Life, Bosch and the Life of Christ, his role as a draughtsman, his depictions of saints, and his visualization of Judgment Day and the hereafter, among other topics, and is handsomely illustrated by new photography undertaken by the Bosch Research and Conservation Project Team.

The first book to explore the role of images in philosophical thought and teaching in the early modern period Delving into the intersections between artistic images and philosophical knowledge in Europe from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, The Art of Philosophy shows that the making and study of visual art functioned as important methods of philosophical thinking and instruction. From frontispieces of books to monumental prints created by philosophers in collaboration with renowned artists, Susanna Berger examines visual representations of philosophy and overturns prevailing assumptions about the limited function of the visual in European intellectual history. Rather than merely illustrating already existing philosophical concepts, visual images generated new knowledge for both Aristotelian thinkers and anti-Aristotelians, such as Descartes and Hobbes. Printmaking and drawing played a decisive role in discoveries that led to a move away from the authority of Aristotle in the seventeenth century. Berger interprets visual art from printed books, student lecture notebooks, alba amicorum (friendship albums), broadsides, and paintings, and examines the work of such artists as Pietro Testa, Leonard Gaultier, Abraham Bosse, Durer, and Rembrandt. In particular, she focuses on the rise and decline of the "plural image," a genre that was popular among early modern philosophers. Plural images brought multiple images together on the same page, often in order to visualize systems of logic, metaphysics, natural philosophy, or moral philosophy. Featuring previously unpublished prints and drawings from the early modern period and lavish gatefolds, The Art of Philosophy reveals the essential connections between visual commentary and philosophical thought.

Translated by Lucinda Byatt This book tells the remarkable story of a rare discovery: the uncovering of two lost paintings by the great Renaissance artist Michelangelo. Like many stories of artistic loss, this one begins in a library in Italy, where Antonio Forcellino - a distinguished Michelangelo scholar and restorer - stumbled across some unpublished letters among the papers of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, son of Isabella d Este and an extremely important figure in the Italian Renaissance. These letters comment on the paintings of Michelangelo in a way that is completely at odds with what was to become the dominant critical tradition of Michelangelo scholarship, an inconsistency that set Forcellino off on a journey that took him to Dubrovnik, Oxford, New York and Niagara Falls and culminated in the discovery of two magnificent paintings: Pieta with Mary and Two Angels, now in a private collection in America, and Cavalieri Crucifixion, now held by an educational institution in England. Through a combination of careful historical research, extensive restoration and meticulous radiographic analysis, Forcellino shows convincingly that these paintings can be traced back to the studio of Michelangelo. This extraordinary story, brilliantly retold, calls into question the received view of Michelangelo s work and fills in a missing piece in our understanding of one of the greatest artists of all time.

In the late fifteenth century, votive panel paintings, or tavolette votive, began to accumulate around reliquary shrines and miracle-working images throughout Italy. Although often dismissed as popular art of little aesthetic consequence, more than 1,500 panels from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are extant, a testimony to their ubiquity and importance in religious practice. Humble in both their materiality and style, they represent donors in prayer and supplicants petitioning a saint at a dramatic moment of crisis. In this book, Fredrika H. Jacobs traces the origins and development of the use of votive panels in this period. She examines the form, context and functional value of votive panels, and considers how they created meaning for the person who dedicated them as well as how they accrued meaning in relationship to other images and objects within a sacred space activated by practices of cultic culture.

This book examines the multi-media art patronage of three generations of the Tornabuoni family, who commissioned works from innovative artists, such as Sandro Botticelli and Rosso Fiorentino. Best known for commissioning the fresco cycle in Santa Maria Novella by Domenico Ghirlandaio, a key monument of the Florentine Renaissance, the Tornabuoni ordered a number of still-surviving art works, inspired by their commitment to family, knowledge of ancient literature, music, love, loss, and religious devotion. This extensive body of work makes the Tornabuoni a critically important family of early modern art patrons. However, they are further distinguished by the numerous objects they commissioned to honor female relations who served in different family roles, thus deepening understanding of Florentine Renaissance gender relations. Maria DePrano presents a comprehensive picture of how one Florentine family commissioned art to gain recognition in their society, revere God, honor family members, especially women, and memorialize deceased loved ones.

John Marciari tells the story of the monuments, artists and patrons of Renaissance Rome in this compelling book. In no other city is the ancient world so palpably present, and nowhere else is the mission of the church so evident. At the same time as the humanists sought to preserve and recreate the ancient city, giving it a new lease of life, the popes dispensed patronage much as any other contemporary Italian ruler. By adopting a chronological structure, covering the period c.1300-1600, Marciari is able to explore the nature of Roman patronage as it differed from papacy to papacy. He examines the city's extraordinary works of art in the context of the working practices, competition and rivalries that made Renaissance Rome so magnificent.

Hans Holbein the Younger is best known for his work in Henry VIII's England, where he painted portraits and designed decorative objects for courtly circles. England, however, only accounts for half of Holbein's working life. He developed his artistic identity on the Continent, creating a diverse range of artworks for urban elites, scholars, and publishers. Translating Nature into Art argues that by the time Holbein reached England, he had developed two roughly alternative styles of representation: a highly descriptive and objective mode, which he used for most of his portraiture, and a much more stylized and inventive manner, which he applied primarily to religious, historical, and decorative subjects. Jeanne Nuechterlein contends that when Holbein used his stylized manner, he acknowledged that he was the inventor of the image; when Holbein painted a portrait or a religious work in the objective manner, he implied instead that he was observing something in front of him and reproducing what he saw. By establishing this dialectic, Holbein was actively engaging in one of the central debates of the Reformation era concerning the nature and validity of the visible world. Holbein explored how much art should look like the visible world, and in the process discovered alternative ways of making representation meaningful.

346 in all: Old Testament, St. Jerome, Passion, Life of Virgin, Apocalypse, many others. Introduction by Campbell Dodgson. "...it was in woodcut design that the creative genius of Dürer reached its highest expression...The only available source for many of these works."-Antique Monthly.