In Courtly Mediators, Leah R. Clark investigates the exchange of a range of materials and objects, including metalware, ceramic drug jars, Chinese porcelain, and aromatics, across the early modern Italian, Mamluk, and Ottoman courts. She provides a new narrative that places Aragonese Naples at the center of an international courtly culture, where cosmopolitanism and the transcultural flourished, and in which artists, ambassadors, and luxury goods actively participated. By articulating how and why transcultural objects were exchanged, displayed, copied, and framed, she provides a new methodological framework that transforms our understanding of the Italian Renaissance court. Clark's volume provides a multi-sensorial, innovative reading of Italian Renaissance art. It demonstrates that the early modern culture of collecting was more than a humanistic enterprise associated with the European roots of the Renaissance. Rather, it was sustained by interactions with global material cultures from the Islamic world and beyond.

Whereas recent studies of early modern widowhood by social, economic and cultural historians have called attention to the often ambiguous, yet also often empowering, experience and position of widows within society, Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe is the first book to consider the distinct and important relationship between ritual and representation. The fifteen new interdisciplinary essays assembled here read widowhood as a catalyst for the production of a significant body of visual material-representations of, for and by widows, whether through traditional media, such as painting, sculpture and architecture, or through the so-called 'minor arts,' including popular print culture, medals, religious and secular furnishings and ornament, costume and gift objects, in early modern Austria, England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Arranged thematically, this unique collection allows the reader to recognize and appreciate the complexity and contradiction, iconicity and mutability, and timelessness and timeliness of widowhood and representation.

Built in 1290, the cathedral at Orvieto, Italy, is a masterpiece of Italian gothic architecture. The decoration of the Cappella Nuova, commenced by Fra Angelico in 1447 and magnificently completed by Luca Signorelli in 1499 and 1504, displays an awe-inspiring Last Judgement and Apocalypse and, below it, scenes from Dante and classical literature. Drawing on years of detailed research into the history of the chapel, Sara Nair James identifies Signorelli's theological advisors as a group of Dominican scholars, known as the 'Masters of the Sacred Page of this city'. She presents the decoration as an integrated whole, a program complex in iconography, message, source material and theory and, through a detailed response to Dante's Divine Comedy and a moralized reading of classical legends, explains how the events of the end-time join the literary narratives to form a sermon on salvation through penance. The book is not simply a work of traditional iconography, explaining the stories behind the pictures. It is an important study in the theory and techniques of the visual representation of religious belief and its reception by the laity. The detailed illustration includes many photographs taken after the restoration of the chapel in 1996.

The relationship between music and painting in the Early Modern period is the focus of this collection of essays by an international group of distinguished art historians and musicologists. Each writer takes a multidisciplinary approach as he or she explores the interface between music performance and painting, or between music and art theory. The essays reflect a variety and range of approaches and offer methodologies which might usefully be employed in future research in this field. The volume is dedicated to the memory of Franca Trinchieri Camiz, an art historian who worked extensively on topics related to art and music, and who participated in some of the conference panels from which many of these essays originate. Three of Professor Camiz's own essays are included in the final section of this volume, together with a bibliography of her writings in this field. They are preceded by two thematic groups of essays covering aspects of musical imagery in portraits, issues in iconography and theory, and the relationship between music and art in religious imagery.

Few paintings inspire the kind of intense study and speculation as Garden of Earthly Delights, the world famous triptych by Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch. The painting has been interpreted as a heretical masterpiece, an opulent illustration of the Creation and a premonition of the end of the world. In this book, renowned art historian Hans Belting offers a radical reinterpretation of the work, which he sees not as apocalyptic, but utopian, portraying how the world would exist had the Fall not happened. Taking readers through each panel, Belting discusses various schools of thought and explores Bosch's life and times. This fascinating study is an important contribution to the literature and theory surrounding one of the world's most enigmatic artists.

The immense effect that Michelangelo had on many artists working in the sixteenth century is widely acknowledged by historians of Italian Renaissance art. Yet until recently greater stress has been placed on the individuality of these artists' styles and interpretation rather than on the elucidation of their debts to others. There has been little direct focus on the ways in which later sixteenth-century artists actually confronted Michelangelo, or how those areas or aspects of their artistic production that are most closely related to his reveal their attitudes and responses to Michelangelo's work. Reactions to the Master presents the first coherent study of the influence exerted by Michelangelo's work in painting and sculpture on artists of the late-Renaissance period including Alessandro Allori, Agnolo Bronzino, Battista Franco, Francesco Parmigianino, Jacopo Pontormo, Francesco Salviati, Raphael, Giorgio Vasari, Marcello Venusti, and Alessandro Vittoria. The essays focus on the direct relations, such as copies and borrowings, previously underrated by art historians, but which here form significant keys to understanding the aesthetic attitudes and broader issues of theory advanced at the time.

The first book-length study of household servants and slaves, exploring a visual history over 400 years and four continents The first book-length study of both images of ordinary household workers and their material culture, Household Servants and Slaves: A Visual History, 1300-1700 covers four hundred years and four continents, facilitating a better understanding of the changes in service that occurred as Europe developed a monetary economy, global trade, and colonialism. Diane Wolfthal presents new interpretations of artists including the Limbourg brothers, Albrecht Durer, Paolo Veronese, and Diego Velazquez, but also explores numerous long-neglected objects, including independent portraits of ordinary servants, servant dolls and their miniature cleaning utensils, and dummy boards, candlesticks, and tablestands in the form of servants and slaves. Wolfthal analyzes the intersection of class, race, and gender while also interrogating the ideology of service, investigating both the material conditions of household workers' lives and the immaterial qualities with which they were associated. If images repeatedly relegated servants to the background, then this book does the reverse: it foregrounds these figures in order to better understand the ideological and aesthetic functions that they served.

The latest addition to Phaidon's best-selling Colour Library series of affordable introductory books on the great masters and movements in art features all of Leonardo' da Vinci's painted works and a detailed illustrated introduction.

Contents:
Volume I
1. The Inventors of the New Architecture
2. Towards the Ideal City
3. Beginning and End of the 'Third Style'
4. Urban Changes in the Sixteenth Century

Professor Slim deals here with the several roles that music can play in the artworks of the Renaissance, looking in particular at Italian painting of the 16th century. For understandable reasons, art historians sometimes neglect the role of music and, especially, that of musical notation when studying works of art. These studies not only identify musical compositions, wholly or partially inscribed in paintings - and tapestries, ceramics, prints as well - but also seek reasons why these particular musical compositions were included and analyse their relevance to the scene depicted. Furthermore, as many of these studies show, identifying a musical composition, especially if it has a text, leads to the formation of ideas about iconographical functions and thus augments interpretations of the visual art.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a painter, architect, inventor and student of all things scientific. His natural genius crossed so many disciplines that he epitomized the term 'Renaissance man'. Today he remains best known for his art, including two paintings that remain among the world's most famous and admired, Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. This book features six meticulously crafted pop-ups of his most famous works: Self portrait; Annunciation; Ornithopter; Virgin & Child; Architecture - an overview of his drawings and designs; and Vitruvian Man.

This evocative history reviews both the artistic production of the European Renaissance, and the social and economic soil in which it flourished.

This is a beautifully presented and lavishly illustrated history which brings together all Renaissance arts throughout Europe - plays, music, literature and philosophy. With Italy at its center, but encompassing the visual and literary arts throughout Renaissance Europe, it examines the familiar literary and artistic giants of the time and also pays attention to less recognized artists and craftsmen, and examines the crafts of marquetry, silver-work and architectural ornamentation which were central to that period.

Albrecht Durer's prints and drawings have inspired hundreds of artists, both during his life and after his death. Yet his talent as a painter and colorist, and his enthusiasm for the scientific world have not been widely appreciated. Durer's influence was both international and intergenerational-indeed Picasso claimed to have been inspired by the 16th-century artist. Reproduced in stunning detail and including illustrations of Durer's most famous prints and drawings, a catalog raisonne of his paintings, and biographical research, this book presents a Durer for the 21st century. Producing more self-portraits than any other artist of his day; mass marketing his best-selling prints; even inventing his own monogram logo; Albrecht Du rer was commercially astute long before today's generation of self-promoting and financially-savvy artists. There are 55 extant Durer paintings, of which 17 are in dispute. Using scientific research, this book puts all arguments to bed resulting in the definitive catalog raisonne of the paintings. Drawing on in-depth research, this book reveals the truth behind Durer and his art.

In a Reformation kingdom ill-used to queens, Elizabeth I needed a very particular image to hold her divided country together. The 'Cult of Gloriana' would elevate the queen to the status of a virgin goddess, aided by authors, musicians, and artists such as Spenser, Shakespeare, Hilliard, Tallis and Byrd. Her image was widely owned and distributed, thanks to the expansion of printing, and the English came to surpass their European counterparts in miniature painting, allowing courtiers to carry a likeness of their sovereign close to their hearts. Sumptuously illustrated, Gloriana: Elizabeth I and the Art of Queenship tells the story of Elizabethan art as a powerful device for royal magnificence and propaganda, illuminating several key artworks of Elizabeth's reign to create a portrait of the Tudor monarch as she has never been seen before.

A chance discovery provided the author with the key to unlocking the centuries old enigma of Botticelli's Primavera, a masterpiece painted for the private viewing of a Medici. Its pagan figures in a paradisical spring meadow illuminated the cryptic world of the Renaissance pagan revival. Botticelli's allegory emerged to address its personal message to a young Medici. Botticelli's cleverly disguised message for Lorenzo Minore, is to be found on the right side of La Primavera, where Chloris draws Zephyr's attention to it. This book is extremely well researched and beautifully produced with eighty color plates. Lane-Spollen clearly explains the fusion of Christian and pagan imagery which is reflected in La Primavera, placing it in the wider context of Italy's religion and politics. The author employs a readable style which will make this book suitable for those familiar with this period looking for more detail about a beloved painting, and those who are new to the Renaissance and Art History. Lane-Spollen gives a clear overview of why and how Botticelli conveyed his message in disguise. An esteemed circle of scholars around the Medici, disillusioned with a worldly and corrupted medieval Church, searched for a purer, unadulterated Christianity in the pre-Christian foundations of their faith. This was a sensitive occupation in a society where the reach of the Church was present in all matters public and private. In 1460 a manuscript was brought to Cosimo de'Medici. Its author, Hermes, was revered by Augustine and the early Church Fathers. Its revelations on the true nature of Man held the evidence they were seeking and stood in stark contrast to the medieval Church view in which the lowly humble sinner must throw himself on the mercy of the Church for his redemption. The Hermetic corpus which so inspired the Medici circle, saw Man as unique among all species, of unlimited potential and possessing a 'spark of the Divine'. As Burckhardt noted, "it became the breath of life for all the most instructed minds of Europe". For medieval man, it heralded his rebirth, his Renaissance. Expressing this newly discovered 'God-like' being in art stimulated the creative imagination of Renaissance artists like Botticelli, Leonardo, and Raffaello. Lane-Spollen gives a clear overview of why and how Botticelli conveyed his message in code: An esteemed circle of scholars around the Medici, disillusioned with a worldly and corrupted medieval Church, searched for a purer, unadulterated Christianity in the pre-Christian foundations of their faith. This was a dangerous occupation in a society where the reach of the Church was present in all matters public and private. In 1460 a manuscript was brought to Cosimo de'Medici. Its author, Hermes, was revered by Augustine and the early Church Fathers. Its revelations on the true nature of Man held the evidence they were seeking and stood in stark contrast to the teachings of the medieval church and had no place for man as a lowly humble sinner who must throw himself on the mercy of the Church. Neoplatonism and the Hermetic corpus which so inspired the Medici circle, saw Man as unique among all species and possessing a 'spark of the divine'.Though heretical and blasphemous in the extreme, this philosophy had a profound effect and spread rapidly. As Burckhardt noted, 'it became the breath of life for all the most instructed minds of Europe'. Convinced by its impeccable provenance, the Medici circle of philosophers and poets strived to merge the three great but competing religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, into a single religion in harmony with their original pre-Christian foundations. Expressing this newly discovered 'God-like' being in art stimulated the creative imagination of the early Renaissance as artists like Botticelli, Leonardo, Michaelangelo and Raphaello strove to express 'divine' Man's dignity, his innate capability and the profound depths of his potential for greatness.

The remarkable career of the architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) is largely due to an extraordinary moment of prosperity in the Veneto mainland, both in the city and in the countryside: a boom due in large measure to a little-studied revolution in manufacturing. This book brings to light for the first time the architecture of these early industries, especially the production of textiles (wool, silk), mining and metalworking, paper manufacture, ceramics, sawmilling and leather-tanning. The huge surge in patent applications to the Venetian Senate in the period highlights the parallel technological improvements in both efficiency and quality. Former proto-industrial buildings across the Veneto, studied at first-hand, reveal the efficiency of hydraulic power and smooth-running mechanical processes. Water-power, a clean, renewable energy source, and structures made of natural, traditional materials, have much to teach today’s civilisation.

The reinvention of art-history during the 1980s has provided a serious challenge to the earlier formalist and connoisseurial approaches to the discipline, in ways which can only help economic and social historians in the current drive to study past societies in terms of what they consumed, produced, perceived and imagined. This group of essays focuses on three main issues: the demand for art, including the range of art objects purchased by various social groups; the conditions of artistic creativity and communication between different production centres and artistic millieux; and the emergence of art markets which served to link the first two phenomena. The work draws on new research by art historians and economic and social historians from Europe and the United States, and covers the period from the late Middle Ages to the early nineteenth century.

Guido Guerzoni presents the results of fifteen years of research into one of the more hotly debated topics among historians of art and of economics: the history of art markets. Dedicating equal attention to current thought in the fields of economics, economic history, and art history, Guerzoni offers a broad and far-reaching analysis of the Italian scene, highlighting the existence of different forms of commercial interchange and diverse kinds of art markets. In doing so he ranges beyond painting and sculpture, to examine as well the economic drivers behind architecture, decorative and sumptuary arts, and performing or ephemeral events. Organized by thematic areas (the ethics and psychology of consumption, an analysis of the demand, labor markets, services, prices, laws) that cover a large chronological period (from the 15th through the 17th century), various geographical areas, and several institution typologies, this book offers an exhaustive and up-to-date study of an increasingly fascinating topic.

The aesthetics of everyday life, as reflected in art museums and galleries throughout the western world, is the result of a profound shift in aesthetic perception that occurred during the Renaissance and Reformation. In this book, William A. Dyrness examines intellectual developments in late Medieval Europe, which turned attention away from a narrow range liturgical art and practices and towards a celebration of God's presence in creation and in history. Though threatened by the human tendency to self-assertion, he shows how a new focus on God's creative and recreative action in the world gave time and history a new seriousness, and engendered a broad spectrum of aesthetic potential. Focusing in particular on the writings of Luther and Calvin, Dyrness demonstrates how the reformers' conceptual and theological frameworks pertaining to the role of the arts influenced the rise of realistic theater, lyric poetry, landscape painting, and architecture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

From the acclaimed author of Blue, a beautifully illustrated history of yellow from antiquity to the present In this richly illustrated book, Michel Pastoureau-a renowned authority on the history of color and the author of celebrated volumes on blue, black, green, and red-now traces the visual, social, and cultural history of yellow. Focusing on European societies, with comparisons from East Asia, India, Africa, and South America, Yellow tells the intriguing story of the color's evolving place in art, religion, fashion, literature, and science. In Europe today, yellow is a discreet color, little present in everyday life and rarely carrying great symbolism. This has not always been the case. In antiquity, yellow was almost sacred, a symbol of light, warmth, and prosperity. It became highly ambivalent in medieval Europe: greenish yellow came to signify demonic sulfur and bile, the color of forgers, lawless knights, Judas, and Lucifer-while warm yellow recalled honey and gold, serving as a sign of pleasure and abundance. In Asia, yellow has generally had a positive meaning. In ancient China, yellow clothing was reserved for the emperor, while in India the color is associated with happiness. Above all, yellow is the color of Buddhism, whose temple doors are marked with it. Throughout, Pastoureau illuminates the history of yellow with a wealth of captivating images. With its striking design and compelling text, Yellow is a feast for the eye and mind.

Every painted work that is on display in the Uffizi Gallery, The Pitti Palace, the Accademia, and the Duomo is included in the book, plus many or most of the works from 28 of the city's other magnificent museums and churches. The research and text are by Ross King (best-selling author), Anja Grebe (author or The Louvre and The Vatican), Cristina Acidini (former Superintendent of the public museums of Florence) and Msgr. Timothy Verdon (Director of the artworks for the Archdiocese of Florence).

In 2017 the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. But is it a real da Vinci? In a thrilling narrative built on formidable research, Ben Lewis tracks the extraordinary journey of a masterpiece lost and found, lied and fought over across the centuries. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci's small oil painting, the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as saviour of the world is 'the rarest thing on the planet by the greatest human being who ever lived'. Its dazzling price also makes it the world's most expensive painting. For two centuries art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo's assistants in the first half of the sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself? In November 2017, Christie's auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings and sheikhs. Lewis takes us to Leonardo's studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Holland, Moscow and Louisiana; to the galleries, salerooms and restorer's workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly, emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across five centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, where we're never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth.

Michelangelo's masterpiece The Dream ( Il Sogno) has been described as one of the finest of all Italian Renaissance drawings and is amongst The Courtauld Gallery's greatest treasures. Executed in c. 1533, The Dream exemplifies Michelangelo's unrivalled skill as draftsman. Accompanying an exhibition at the Courtauld in 2010, this catalogue examines this celebrated work in the context of a group of closely related drawings by Michelangelo, as well as some of his original letters and poems and works by his contemporaries. The Dream is one of Michelangelo's 'presentation drawings', a magnificent and famous group of highly refined compositions which the artist gave to his closest friends. These beautiful and complex works transformed drawings into an independent art form and are amongst Michelangelo's very finest creations in any medium. The Dream was probably one of a superb group made for a young Roman nobleman with whom Michelangelo was in love, Tommaso de' Cavalieri, who was celebrated for his outstanding beauty, gracious manners and intellect. This group is studied in the book and includes The Punishment of Tityus, The Fall of Phaeton, A Bacchanal of Children and The Rape of Ganymede. In his Life of Michelangelo (1568) the biographer and artist Giorgio Vasari praised these exceptional works as "drawings the like of which have never been seen" - and they are still regarded as amongst the greatest single series of drawings ever made.

A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR AN OBSERVER BEST ART BOOK OF 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2022 'This is a wonderful book. A lyrical journey into the natural and unnatural world' Patti Smith 'Everything Philip Hoare writes is bewitching' Olivia Laing An illuminating exploration of the intersection between life, art and the sea from the award-winning author of Leviathan. Albrecht Durer changed the way we saw nature through art. From his prints in 1498 of the plague ridden Apocalypse - the first works mass produced by any artist - to his hyper-real images of animals and plants, his art was a revelation: it showed us who we are but it also foresaw our future. It is a vision that remains startlingly powerful and seductive, even now. In Albert & the Whale, Philip Hoare sets out to discover why Durer's art endures. He encounters medieval alchemists and modernist poets, eccentric emperors and queer soul rebels, ambassadorial whales and enigmatic pop artists. He witnesses the miraculous birth of Durer's fantastical rhinoceros and his hermaphroditic hare, and he traces the fate of the star-crossed leviathan that the artist pursued. And as the author swims from Europe to America and beyond, these prophetic artists and downed angels provoke awkward questions. What is natural or unnatural? Is art a fatal contract? Or does it in fact have the power to save us? With its wild and watery adventures, its witty accounts of amazing cultural lives and its delight in the fragile beauty of the natural world, Albert & the Whale offers glorious, inspiring insights into a great artist, and his unerring, sometimes disturbing gaze.

'Packed with absorbing detail and brilliant insights ... I was gripped from the first paragraph.' - Alison Weir No English king is as well-known to us as Henry VIII - famous for his six marriages, for dissolving the monasteries and for the ruthless destruction of his foes. But Henry was also an ardent patron of the arts, whose magnificent tapestries and paintings adorned his lavish court and began the Royal Collection. In contrast to later royal collectors, Henry was more interested in storytelling than art for its own sake, and all his commissions relate to one central tale: the glorification of the king and his realm. Henry's life can be seen through his collection and the works reveal much about both his kingship and his insecurities. King and Collector tells this unique story of art and power, peeling back the layers of propaganda to show the true face of the Tudor monarch.