A fresh look at the multiplicity of meanings in Leonardo's Last Supper. A picture universally recognized, endlessly scrutinized and described, incessantly copied, adapted, lampooned: does Leonardo's near-ruined Last Supper still offer anything new to be seen or to be said? This book is a resounding Yes to both questions. With direct perception--and with attention paid to the work of earlier scholars and to the criticism embodied in the production of copyists over the past five hundred years-Leo Steinberg demonstrates that Leonardo's mural has been consistently oversimplified. This most thought-out picture in Western art, painted in the 1490s on the north wall of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, is a marvel of compressed meanings. Its subject is not one arrested moment, but successiveness and duration. It is not only Christ's announcement of the forthcoming betrayal, but in equal measure the institution of the Eucharist. More than the spur of the moment animates the disciples, and more than perspective determines their housing. Though Leonardo's geometry obeys all rules, it responds as well to Christ's action at center, as if in emanation from the prime mover. The picture is simultaneously narrative and sacramental. As its protagonist is two-natured, as the twofold event of this night is both human submission and divine dispensation--so the entire picture is shown to have been conceived in duplexity: a sublime pun. Meanwhile, the unending disagreement as to what exactly is represented, what the depicted actions express, how and where this assembly is seated--all these still-raging disputes are traced to a single mistaken assumption: that Leonardo intended throughout to be unambiguous and clear, and that any one meaning necessarily rules out every other. As Steinberg reveals an abundance of significant interrelations previously overlooked, Leonardo's masterpiece regains the freshness of its initial conception and the power to fascinate.

Modern viewers take for granted the pictorial conventions present in easel paintings and engraved prints of such subjects as landscapes or peasants. These generic subjects and their representational conventions, however, have their own origins and early histories. In sixteenth-century Antwerp, painting and the emerging new medium of engraving began to depart from traditional visual culture, which had been defined primarily by wall paintings, altarpieces, and portraits of the elite. New genres and new media arose simultaneously in this volatile commercial and financial capital of Europe, home to the first open art market near the city Bourse. The new pictorial subjects emerged first as hybrid images, dominated by religious themes but also including elements that later became pictorial categories in their own right: landscapes, food markets, peasants at work and play, and still-life compositions. In addition to being the place of the origin and evolution of these genres, the Antwerp art market gave rise to the concept of artistic identity, in which favorite forms and favorite themes by an individual artist gained consumer recognition. In Peasant Scenes and Landscapes, Larry Silver examines the emergence of pictorial kinds-scenes of taverns and markets, landscapes and peasants-and charts their evolution as genres from initial hybrids to more conventionalized artistic formulas. The relationship of these new genres and their favorite themes reflect a burgeoning urbanism and capitalism in Antwerp, and Silver analyzes how pictorial genres and the Antwerp marketplace fostered the development of what has come to be known as "signature" artistic style. By examining Bosch and Bruegel, together with their imitators, he focuses on pictorial innovation as well as the marketing of individual styles, attending particularly to the growing practice of artists signing their works. In addition, he argues that consumer interest in the style of individual artists reinforced another phenomenon of the later sixteenth century: art collecting. While today we take such typical artistic formulas as commonplace, along with their frequent use of identifying signatures (a Rothko, a Pollock), Peasant Scenes and Landscapes shows how these developed simultaneously in the commercial world of early modern Antwerp.

During the period 1000-1700 major transformations took place in material culture. Quite simply, more objects were manufactured and used than ever before and many objects travelled across geographic, political, religious, linguistic, class and cultural boundaries. By starting with a focus on past objects, this volume brings together essays from art historians, historians, archaeologists, literary scholars and museum curators to reveal the different disciplinary approaches and methods taken to the study of objects and what this can reveal about transformations in material culture 1000-1700. Contributors: Katherine A. Wilson, Leah R. Clark, Alison M. Leonard, Steven P. Ashby, Michael Lewis, Robert Maniura, Sarah Hinds, Christina Antenhofer, Alexandra van Dongen, Bettina Bildhauer, Julie De Groot, Jennifer Hillman, Ruth Whelan, Christopher Donaldson, Thomas Pickles.

This book presents the Gianfranco Luzzetti collection housed in the historic complex of the former convent of the Clarisse in Grosseto, a new museum in the city. The collection is the result of the donation to the Municipality, in 2018, of over 60 works from the personal heritage of Luzzetti, an antiquarian from Grosseto, deeply linked to his land. The paintings, of great quality, trace Italian art from the 14th to the 19th century, with particular attention to Florentine art of the 17th century. The collection includes masterpieces by Antonio Rossellino, Giambologna, Rutilio Manetti, Passignano, Niccolo di Pietro Lamberti, Corrado Giaquinto, Camillo Rusconi, Pier Dandini and Giovanni di Tano Fei, as well as important works by Donatello and Beccafumi and works already donated to the Municipality of Grosseto in past years, of Santi di Tito and Cigoli. This volume, with introductory texts regarding the history of the site, the birth of the Museum and the Collection, is complemented by an anthology of writings by Luzzetti and bibliographic apparatuses. Research and texts: Sandro Bellesi, Marco Ciampolini, Roberto Contini, Elena Dubaldo, Lucia Ferri, Claudia Ganci, Cecilia Luzzetti, Gianfranco Luzzetti, Andrea Marchi, Mauro Papa, Marcella Parisi, Francesca Perillo, Gianluca Sposato, Angelo Tartuferi. Italian edition, with English translation in the appendix.

Leonardo da Vinci was a revolutionary thinker, artist and inventor who has been written about and celebrated for centuries. Lesser known, however, is his revolutionary and empowering portrayal of the modern female, centuries before the first women's liberation movements. Before da Vinci, portraits of women in Italy were still, impersonal and mostly shown in profile. Leonardo pushed the boundaries of female depiction having several of his female subjects, including his Mona Lisa, gaze at the viewer, giving them an authority which was withheld from women at the time. Art historian and journalist Kia Vahland recounts Leonardo's entire life from April 15, 1452, as a child born out of wedlock in Vinci up through his death on May 2, 1519, in the French castle of von Cloux. Included throughout are 80 sketches and paintings showcasing Leonardo's approach to the female form (including anatomical sketches of birth) and other artwork as well as examples from other artists from the 15th and 16th centuries. Vahland explains how artists like Raphael, Giorgione, Giovanni Bellini and the young Titian were influenced by da Vinci's women while Michelangelo, da Vinci's main rival, created masculine images of woman that counters Leonardo's depictions.

The fifteenth century saw the evolution of a distinct and powerfully influential European artistic culture. But what does the familiar phrase Renaissance Art actually refer to? Through engaging discussion of timeless works by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo, and supported by illustrations including colour plates, Tom Nichols offers a masterpiece of his own as he explores the truly original and diverse character of the art of the Renaissance.

The self-portrait of Baccio Bandinelli in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, shows the scupltor pointing not to a work of marble or bronze, but to a drawing. Bandinelli was particularly proud of his skills as a draughtsman, and he was prolific in his production of works on paper. This set him apart from contemporaries in his profession; many Renaissance sculptors left us no drawings at all. Accompanying an exhibition at the Gardner Museum, this publication will put Bandinelli's portrait in context by looking at the practice of drawing by scupltors from the Renaissance to the Baroque in Central Italy. A focus of the book will be Bandinelli's own drawings and the development of his practice across his career and his experimentation with different media. Bandinelli's drawings will be compared with those of Michelangelo and Cellini. The broader question considered, however, is when, how, and why scupltors drew. EVery Renaissance sculptor who set out to make a work in metal or stone would first have made a series of preparatory models in wax, clay, and/or stucco. Drawing was not an essential practice for sculptors in teh way it was for painters, and indeed, most surviving sculptors' drawings are not preparatory studies for works they subsequently executed in three dimensions. By comparing bot rough sketches and more finished drawings with related three-dimensional works by the same artists, the importance of drawing for various individual sculptors will be examined. When sculptors did draw, it often indicated something about the artist's training or about his ambitions. Among the most accomplished draftsmen were artists like Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio, and Cellini, who had come to sculpture by way of goldsmithery, a profession that required profieciency in ornamental design. Artists who soought to become architects, meanwhile - the likes of Michelangelo, Giambologna, and Ammanati - similarly needed to learn to draw, since architects had to provide plans, elevations, and other drawings to assistants and clients and had to imagine the place of individual figures within a larger multi-media ensemble. Certain kinds of projects, moreover - fountains and tombs, for example - required drawings to a degree that others did not. Sections on the Renaissance goldsmith-sculptor and sculptor-architect will allow comparison of the place drawing had in various artists' careers. Beginning with a chapter dedicated to the importance of draftsmanship in the education of sculptors, showing works by Finiguerra, Cellini Bandinelli, and Giambologna, the book will be split up into chapters dealing with the various challenges scupltors faced while drawing objects in the round, reliefs, and architectural structures. A central section will focus on Bandinelli, demonstrating the importance drawing held for him while he was preparing sculptures and as an independent token of his artistry.

"Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy" represents a departure from previous studies, both in its focus on demand and in its emphasis on the history of the material culture of the West. By demonstrating that the roots of modern consumer society can be found in Renaissance Italy, Richard Goldthwaite offers a significant contribution to the growing body of literature on the history of modern consumerism--a movement which he regards as a positive force for the formation of new attitudes about things that is a defining characteristic of modern culture.

A comprehensive survey of the work of this most influential Florentine artist and teacher Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435-1488) was one of the most versatile and inventive artists of the Italian Renaissance. He created art across media, from his spectacular sculptures and paintings to his work in goldsmithing, architecture, and engineering. His expressive, confident drawings provide a key point of contact between sculpture and painting. He led a vibrant workshop where he taught young artists who later became some of the greatest painters of the period, including Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, and Domenico Ghirlandaio. This beautifully illustrated book presents a comprehensive survey of Verrocchio's art, spanning his entire career and featuring some fifty sculptures, paintings, and drawings, in addition to works he created with his students. Through incisive scholarly essays, in-depth catalog entries, and breathtaking illustrations, this volume draws on the latest research in art history to show why Verrocchio was one of the most innovative and influential of all Florentine artists. Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

This volume provides an account of the art and architecture of Venice and the principal cities of the Venetian mainland empire in the Renaissance, from 1450 to1600. Thematically organized, it puts special emphasis on the relationship between art and the political, social, and religious institutions of the Venetian Republic. Major painters such as Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese and of major architects such as Sansovino and Palladio are viewed in the context of the particular needs and ideologies of individual and institutional patrons. Moreover, the distinctive character of Venice as an artistic center is complemented by the discussion of the art produced in the mainland cities of Padua, Treviso, Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, and Bergamo, all of which similarly used visual means to assert their own separate identities. An up-to-date account of the art of early modern Venice, with specially commissioned essays by a team of internationally-known scholars is also included.

The volume, investigating the extraordinary season of the Italian Renaissance, highlights the great contribution offered to the culture of that period by the Jewish world, still little documented in today's studies. Indeed, there is no doubt that Judaism, with its long-lasting identity and tradition strongly rooted in territorial states, has made a peculiar contribution to the sphere of arts, literature and humanistic philosophy, contributing to giving many original and inimitable intonations to the Italian Renaissance. The investigation proposed here focuses on the relationship - harmonious in some cases and conflicting in others - between the Christian majority society and the Jewish identity in the period between the early fifteenth and mid-sixteenth centuries, meaning from the full affirmation of the Humanism to the conclusion of the Council of Trento, offering at the same time a precise geographical overview of the phenomenon. The volume is divided into thematic chapters, it contains a rich catalogue of testimonies ranging from liturgical objects to those of daily use, from manuscripts to furnishings to some art masterpieces, and is supplemented by bibliographical apparatus. Essays by: Guido Bartolucci, Giulio Busi, Donatella Calabi, Saverio Campanini, J.H. Chajes, Andreina Contessa, Miriam Davide, Silvana Greco, Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, Mauro Perani, David B. Ruderman, Angela Scandaliato, Salvatore Settis, Giacomo Todeschini, Francesca Trivellato, Giuseppe Veltri, Gianni Venturi, Joanna Weinberg.

How the nature illustrations of a Renaissance polymath reflect his turbulent age This pathbreaking and stunningly illustrated book recovers the intersections between natural history, politics, art, and philosophy in the late sixteenth-century Low Countries. Insect Artifice explores the moment when the seismic forces of the Dutch Revolt wreaked havoc on the region's creative and intellectual community, compelling its members to seek solace in intimate exchanges of art and knowledge. At its center is a neglected treasure of the late Renaissance: the Four Elements manuscripts of Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1600), a learned Netherlandish merchant, miniaturist, and itinerant draftsman who turned to the study of nature in this era of political and spiritual upheaval. Presented here for the first time are more than eighty pages in color facsimile of Hoefnagel's encyclopedic masterwork, which showcase both the splendor and eccentricity of its meticulously painted animals, insects, and botanical specimens. Marisa Anne Bass unfolds the circumstances that drove the creation of the Four Elements by delving into Hoefnagel's writings and larger oeuvre, the works of his friends, and the rich world of classical learning and empirical inquiry in which he participated. Bass reveals how Hoefnagel and his colleagues engaged with natural philosophy as a means to reflect on their experiences of war and exile, and found refuge from the threats of iconoclasm and inquisition in the manuscript medium itself. This is a book about how destruction and violence can lead to cultural renewal, and about the transformation of Netherlandish identity on the eve of the Dutch Golden Age.

Using scientific methods in his investigations of the human body -- the first ever by an artist -- da Vinci was able to produce remarkably accurate depictions of the "ideal" human figure. This exceptional collection reprints 59 of his sketches of the skeleton, skull, upper and lower extremities, human embryos, and other subjects.

This book comprises a rigorous and enchanting exploration of a highly innovative and exciting period of art following the careers of artists such as Van Eyck, Durer and Holbein. Jeffrey Chipps Smith analyses key conceptual aspects of that period, such as the Protestant Reformation and the discovery of the Americas, offering the reader a penetrative insight into domestic, civic and court life as illustrated by some of the most exquisite artworks ever created. In the years from 1380 to 1580, northern Europe witnessed a period of artistic innovation as dynamic as contemporary developments in Italy. Stimulated by the atmosphere of intellectual curiosity about the individual and the natural world, Northern Renaissance artists mastered the new techniques of oil painting and printmaking to produce some of the most exquisite art of all time. It was also a period of political, religious and social turmoil, which profoundly changed the patronage, production and subject matter of art. At all levels of society art was a part of everyday life. Chipps Smith writes with tireless lucidity about these changes and the objects themselves. The works range from tapestries, altarpieces and illuminated manuscripts to churches, palaces and civic architecture. He discusses the audiences and functions of art from across nothern Europe, including not only Germany, France and the Low Countries, but also Britain and Austria. He explores major cultural and historic events such as the Protestant Reformation and the discovery of the Americas, to consider how they widened intellectual and religious horizons. The result is a book that reveals, with passion and erudition, how the Northern Renaissance masters laid the foundations for the art of succeeding centuries.

Materials carried the meaning of early modern art. Transformed and crafted from the matter of nature, art objects were the physical embodiment of both the inherent qualities of materials and the forces of culture that used, refined and produced them. The study of materials offers a new approach to this important period in the history of art, science and culture, linking the close study of painting, sculpture and architecture to much wider categories of the everyday and the exotic. Drawing on new research and models from anthropology, material culture and the history of art, scholars in The matter of art explore topics as diverse as Inka stonework, gold in panel painting, cork platforms for shoes, and the Christian Eucharist. -- .

Superb reproductions of 44 of Holbein's finest portrait drawings: Sir Thomas Moore, Jane Seymour, the Prince of Wales, Anne Boleyn, dozens more personalities from the court of Henry VIII. 44 black-and-white illustrations. Publisher's Note. Captions.

This collection of essays by major scholars in the field explores how the rich intersections between Italy and Spain during the early modern period resulted in a confluence of cultural ideals. Various means of exchange and convergence are explored through two main catalysts: humans-their trips or resettlements-and objects-such as books, paintings, sculptures, and prints. The visual and textual evidence of the transmission of ideas, iconographies and styles are examined, such as triumphal ephemera, treatises on painting, the social status of the artist, collections and their display, church decoration, and funerary monuments, providing a more nuanced understanding of the exchanges of styles, forms and ideals across southern Europe.

The concept of a Northern European 'Renaissance' in the arts, in thought, and in more general culture north of the Alps often evokes the idea of a cultural transplant which was not indigenous to, or rooted in, the society from which it emerged. Classic definitions of the European 'Renaissance' during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries have often seen it as an Italian import of, for example, humanism and classical learning into the Gothic North. There were certainly differences between North and South which have to be addressed, not least in the development of the visual arts. In this book, Malcolm Vale argues for a Northern Renaissance which, while cognisant of Italian developments, had a life of its own, expressed through such innovations as a rediscovery of pictorial space and representational realism, and which displayed strong continuities with the indigenous cultures of northern Europe. But it also contributed new movements and tendencies in thought, the visual arts, literature, religious beliefs and the dissemination of knowledge which often stemmed from, and built upon, those continuities. A Short History of the Renaissance in Northern Europe - while in no way ignoring or diminishing the importance of the Greek and Roman legacy - seeks other sources, and different uses of classical antiquity, for a rather different kind of 'Renaissance' in the North.

In this book, Irina Chernetsky examines how humanists, patrons, and artists promoted Florence as the reincarnation of the great cities of pagan and Christian antiquity - Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. The architectural image of an ideal Florence was discussed in chronicles and histories, poetry and prose, and treatises on art and religious sermons. It was also portrayed in paintings, sculpture, and sketches, as well as encoded in buildings erected during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Over time, the concept of an ideal Florence became inseparable from the real city, in both its social and architectural structures. Chernetsky demonstrates how the Renaissance notion of genealogy was applied to Florence, which was considered to be part of a family of illustrious cities of both the past and present. She also explores the concept of the ideal city in its intellectual, political, and aesthetic contexts, while offering new insights into the experience of urban space.

French mercantile endeavors in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century India were marked by novel intersections of aesthetics, science, and often violent commercialism. Connecting all of these worlds were the thriving textile industries of India's Coromandel Coast. This book focuses on the integration of the Coromandel textile industries with French colonies in India from the founding of the French East India Company in 1664 to its debilitating defeat by the British during the Seven Years' War. Narratives of British trade and colonialism have long dominated eighteenth-century histories of India, overshadowing the French East India Company's far-reaching sphere of influence and its significant integration into the political and cultural worlds of South India. As this study shows, the visual and material cultures of eighteenth-century France and India were deeply connected, and together shaped the century's broader debates about mercantilism, liberalism, and the global trade of goods, ideas, and humans.

This new edition of Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Leicester is the most comprehensive scholarly edition of any of Leonardo's manuscripts. It contains a high-quality facsimile reproduction of the Codex, a new transcription and translation, accompanied by a paraphrase in modern language and a page-by-page commentary, and a series of interpretative essays. This important endeavour introduces important new research into the interpretation of the texts and images, on the setting of Leonardo's ideas in the context of ancient and medieval theories, and above all into the notable fortunes of the Codex within the sciences of astronomy, water, and the history of the earth, opening a new field of research into the impact of Leonardo as a scientist after his death.

Rome as we know it is largely a creation of the Renaissance, restructured and risen anew from a neglected medieval town. This book traces the extraordinary works of painting, sculpture and architecture commissioned by Rome's church and civic nobility as part of their rival bids for power and prestige. With the aid of 118 illustrations, most of them in colour, Loren Partridge charts the course of Rome's transformation into the most magnificent showpiece of the Catholic world.

Dürer's Lost Masterpiece tracks the history of a turning point in the career of the celebrated German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), when he stopped painting altarpieces after arguing with a merchant patron over payment. As an eloquent homage to Dürer´s life, it brings us closer to the creation and meaning of his paintings than ever before. Dürer's Lost Masterpiece considers the celebrated German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), his time and his legacy. It tracks the history of a crucial, and often overlooked, turning point in his career, when Dürer stopped painting altarpieces after falling out with the Frankfurt merchant Jacob Heller over a commission. The story of this painting, as Dürer´s lost masterpiece, functions as a lens through which to view the new relationship developing between art, collecting and commerce in Europe up to the Thirty Years´ War (1618-1648) when global trade and cultural exchanges were increasing. At the heart of the book is the argument that merchants, and their mentalities, were crucial for the making of Renaissance art and its legacy for modern art. The book draws on a decade of research, and uniquely draws the reader into the rich emotional worlds of three merchants each of whom typified the evolving relationship between art and commerce in that entrepreneurial, and often ruthless, age. It brings to life Dürer´s determined fight for creative makers to be adequately paid and explores the big questions about how European societies came to value the arts and crafts that remain relevant to our time.

This book celebrates the extraordinary talent of Raphael, 500 years after his death. This is the story of an unequalled master whose figure has surpassed that of other leading figures of the Renaissance. His talent grew with astonishing rapidity, starting with the years of training at the workshop of his father Giovanni Santi: in 1500, at only 17 years old, he was already defined 'magister'. The author leads us into the folds of the extraordinary story of Raphael, studded with masterpieces that have become cornerstones in the history of art, and helps us to understand his timeless talent through new comparisons and explanations. The deep knowledge and the profound passion of the author make reading the book exciting and unforgettable.