The Cambridge Companion to Giotto serves as an introduction to one of the most important masters of early Italian art. Providing an overview of his life and career, this 2003 volume offers essays by leading authorities on the critical reception of the artist, an analysis of workshop practices of the period, the complexities of religious and secular patronage, Giotto's innovations in painting and architecture, and close readings of his most celebrated work, the frescoes of the Arena Chapel in Padua. Designed to serve as an essential resource for students of late medieval and early Renaissance Italy, The Cambridge Companion to Giotto also provides a chronology of the artist's life and a select but comprehensive bibliography.

This volume comprises the fullest and most detailed catalogue of the drawings by and after Michelangelo in the Ashmolean Museum. It is one of the most important collections of drawings by this artist, which also includes drawings after his own by contemporaries that shed light on lost works as well as the artist's reputation and influence during the sixteenth century. The introduction provides a history of Michelangelo's drawings generally and also surveys the various types of drawing practised by Michelangelo and an account of his development as a draughtsman. Most of the drawings in the Ashmolean Museum came from the collection of Sir Thomas Lawrence, and this book contains a detailed appendix that traces the histories of all of the drawings by or after Michelangelo that Lawrence owned, both before he acquired them and after they were dispersed.

Lorenzo de' Medici was a key figure in the creation of the Renaissance. An important patron of the arts in fifteenth century Florence, he was also a passionate collector of objects from antiquity and the post-antique period. His activities as a collector are documented in a group of 173 letters, previously unknown and published here for the first time, which provide the most complete picture of a well-known and historically important collector. As revealed in these letters, Lorenzo acquired sculpture to embellish his palace, but his real predilection was for small objects: coins, hardstone vases, and gems. His main source was the Roman dealer Giovanni Ciampolini, whose scandalous behavior demonstrates the gamesmanship of the art market. This book reveals how objects were studied, where they were displayed, the criteria for their selection, and their monetary worth.

Raphael arrived in Rome in 1508 and remained there until his death in 1520, working as painter and architect for popes Julius II and Leo X and for the most prestigious patrons. Here the artist changed his painting style several times, looking at the works of Michelangelo, Sebastiano del Piombo and the vast repertoire of ancient painting and sculpture. In the Eternal City Raphael practised architecture for the first time, designing buildings that reflected the models of Antiquity such as the Pantheon, the descriptions deriving from written sources such as Vitruvius' treaty on architecture, and the examples of modern architects like Donato Bramante. This guide supplies essential and up to date information on all the civil or religious buildings designed or built by Raphael in Rome, and the frescoes and paintings, housed in churches or museums, whether executed in the city or arrived there at a later stage.

Today few would think of astronomy and astrology as fields related to theology. Fewer still would know that physically absorbing planetary rays was once considered to have medical and psychological effects. But this was the understanding of light radiation held by certain natural philosophers of early modern Europe, and that, argues Mary Quinlan-McGrath, was why educated people of the Renaissance commissioned artworks centered on astrological themes and practices. Influences is the first book to reveal how important Renaissance artworks were designed to be not only beautiful but also perhaps even primarily functional. From the fresco cycles at Caprarola, to the Vatican's Sala dei Pontefici, to the Villa Farnesina, these great works were commissioned to selectively capture and then transmit celestial radiation, influencing the bodies and minds of their audiences. Quinlan-McGrath examines the sophisticated logic behind these theories and practices and, along the way, sheds light on early creation theory; the relationship between astrology and natural theology; and the protochemistry, physics, and mathematics of rays. An original and intellectually stimulating study, Influences adds a new dimension to the understanding of aesthetics among Renaissance patrons and a new meaning to the seductive powers of art.

Michelangelo's Last Judgment was the most criticized and discussed painting of the sixteenth century. The subject of the Last Judgment has been a barometer of cultural mood throughout history. It can be interpreted, as Michelangelo did, as the moment when mortals attain immortal bliss or, in more unsettled times, as the terrifying moment when we face the justice of the Lord and are found wanting. The painting must hold in tension admonition and celebration. Michelangelo created his fresco in the final flowering of Renaissance humanism. Four years after its unveiling, the Council of Trent began meeting and the Counter-Reformation was under way. Caught on the cusp of a major shift of values, Michelangelo and his fresco were praised by lovers of art and condemned by conservative churchmen who sought a tool with which to exhort the wavering faithful, tempted to defect to Protestantism. This book explores the context, both historical and biographical, in which the fresco was created and the debates about the style and function of religious art that it generated.

Achille Bocchi and the Emblem Book as Symbolic Form is an introductory study of the Symbolicae Quaestiones, published in Bologna in 1555, in which Elizabeth See Watson argues that the context of the Symbolicae Quaestiones reflects the intellectual and cultural currents of the university and the literary academies rather than the hidden heresies of the sixteenth century. In order to make Bocchi??'s work more accessible to readers, the first part of the book provides a biographical context. The second part explores poetic theory and the symbol in the development of Bocchi??'s symbols, then examines the rhetorical strategy of paradox and the symbolism of mythology in the way they shape the content of the work. Bocchi fashioned his symbols, each one an emblematic unit of poem, engraving, and motto, from a mix of classical and post-classical myth, symbol, and fable and from allusions to his contemporaries. The iconography of these emblematic units and of the closely related facade design for Bocchi??'s palazzo, serves as a programmatic statement for Bocchi??'s interrelated projects.

This book considers the reception of the early modern culture of Florence, Rome, and Venice in other centers of the Italic peninsula, such as Ferrara, Bologna, Ancona, San Gimignano, and Pistoia, which had flourishing local cultures of their own. Offering a perspective that focuses on dialogue and exchange between different urban centers and cultural groups, it also involves a reexamination of the Renaissance itself as a form of translation of a past culture, one that attempted to assimilate the lost or fragmentary world of the Roman emperors, the Greek Platonists, and the ancient Egyptians. Collectively the essays examine how the processes of cultural self-definition varied between the Italian urban centers in the early modern period, well before the formation of a distinct Italian national identity. Exploring how artistic forms made the transition from one Italian city to another, attention is also focused on the subtle modification of practice required by local conditions and priorities.

Michelangelo's Last Judgment was the most criticized and discussed painting of the sixteenth century. The subject of the Last Judgment has been a barometer of cultural mood throughout history. It can be interpreted, as Michelangelo did, as the moment when mortals attain immortal bliss or, in more unsettled times, as the terrifying moment when we face the justice of the Lord and are found wanting. The painting must hold in tension admonition and celebration. Michelangelo created his fresco in the final flowering of Renaissance humanism. Four years after its unveiling, the Council of Trent began meeting and the Counter-Reformation was under way. Caught on the cusp of a major shift of values, Michelangelo and his fresco were praised by lovers of art and condemned by conservative churchmen who sought a tool with which to exhort the wavering faithful, tempted to defect to Protestantism. This book explores the context, both historical and biographical, in which the fresco was created and the debates about the style and function of religious art that it generated.

Pius VI was the last great papal patron of the arts in the Renaissance and Baroque tradition. This book presents the first synthetic study of his artistic patronage and policies in an effort to understand how he used the arts strategically, as a means of countering the growing hostility to the old order and the supremacy of the papacy. Pius' initiatives included the grand sacristy for St Peter's, the new Vatican Museum of ancient art, and the re-erection of Egyptian obelisks. These projects, along with Pius' use of prints, paintings, and performances, created Pius' public persona, and helped to anchor Rome's place as the cultural capital of Europe.

As a great master of the early Renaissance, Piero della Francesca created paintings for ecclesiastics, confaternities, and illustrious nobles throughout the Italian peninsula. Since the early twentieth century, the rational space, abstract designs, lucid illumination and naturalistic details of his pictures have attracted wide audiences. Piero's treatises on mathematics and perspective fascinate scholars in a wide range of disciplines. This Companion brings together new essays that offer a synthesis and overview of Piero's life and accomplishments as a painter and theoretician.

Enjoying Great Art Series: Food is a part of our everyday life. But do we think of it when we think of great art? Here is a picture book for adults and students of all ages...A picture book of food in art Different quantity, colors, shapes, sizes...Some where the food is only a small part of the painting, some where it is the focus of the painting. You can look through these paintings that span many centuries, and notice the similarities and the differences between them...See the colors, the textures and patterns, and more. Take note of whether there are people included in the different paintings, and if so, if men, women, or children are more often portrayed with the food. And most of all, enjoy Note to parents: All of the paintings selected for the books in this series are child-friendly - but we aren't necessarily recommending all of the other paintings by these same artists If you and your children want to go exploring after this - please exercise caution.

Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Palace has often been considered the artist's most aesthetically perfect work. Executed between 1508 and 1511, it features a painted ceiling, a pavement of inlaid marble, and four frescoed walls, all orchestrated with a cast of famous historical figures who exemplify the various disciplines of learning. Joost-Gaugier's study is the first to examine the elements of the Stanza della Segnatura as an ensemble, exploring the meaning of the frescoes and accompanying decoration in light of recent studies into the intellectual world of High Renaissance Rome.

Style is one of the oldest and most powerful analytic tools available to art writers. Despite the importance of style as an artistic, literary, and historiographic practice, the study of it as a concept has been intermittent, perhaps, as Philip Sohm argues, because style has resisted neat definition since the very origins of art history as a discipline. His analysis of the language that painters and their literate public used to characterize painters and paintings will enrich our understanding about the concept of style.

Painting landscapes was very much a private activity for Peter Paul Rubens. Whilst the majority of his other works were commissioned, the landscapes seem to have been painted for his own pleasure and delight and stayed in the artist's possession until his death. Most of them were painted in the last decade of his life; a happy period, in which Rubens retired from public duties and spent most of his free time studying the antique and enjoying sojourns on his country estate, castle Het Steen. To grasp this profoundly personal character of Rubens's landscapes, this book considers the artist's highly complex method of pictorial invention to illuminate the perception, implementation, dissemination, and posthumous reception of views on nature and landscape as depicted in Rubens's landscape art. By investigating contemporary notions on the changing perception of nature and landscape in late 16th and early 17th-century southern Netherlandish culture, Rubens's position within this socio-cultural matrix will be established, thus shedding new light on the artist's own perception of nature and landscape. The re-assessment of the influence of classical and contemporary ideas about nature and landscape, as well as Rubens's personal sense of place, will illuminate important characteristics which further define Rubens's ideas about nature implemented in his landscape art. Also, fresh light will be cast on the sudden promulgation and dissemination of Rubens's apparently private views on nature and landscape through a novel examination of the print series of the Small and Large Landscapes, reproducing the artist's landscapes. The final theme in this illuminating book considers the posthumous reception of Rubens's 'painted ideas of landscape'. The book also contains an updated version of the catalogue raisonne of Rubens's landscape art, supplemented by a record of the Small and Large Landscapes prints series.

The Book of Miracles first surfaced only a few years ago and is one of the most spectacular discoveries in the field of Renaissance art. The near-complete illustrated manuscript, created in Augsburg around 1550, is composed of 169 pages of large-format illustrations in gouache and watercolor, depicting wondrous and often eerie phenomena. The mesmerizing images deal with both biblical and folkloric tales, depicting stories from the Old Testament and Book of Revelation as well as events that took place in the immediate present of the manuscript's author. From shooting stars to swarms of locusts, terrifying monsters to fatal floods, page after page hypnotizes with visions alternately dreadful, spectacular, and even apocalyptic. This volume presents the revelatory Book of Miracles in a new, compact format, making this extraordinary document accessible to everyone. It comes with a translation of the manuscript texts and two essays that give an introduction to the cultural and historical context of this unique Renaissance work.

Antiquity and Its Interpreters examines how the physical and textual remains of the ancient Romans were viewed and received by writers, artists, and cultural makers of early modern Italy. The case studies analyze specific texts, the archaeological projects that made "antiquity" available, the revival of art history and theory, and the appropriation of antiquities to serve social ideologies, among other topics.

Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo are familiar names that are often closely associated with the concepts of genius and masterpiece. But what about Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, and Irene di Spilimbengo? Their names are unfamiliar and their works are literally unknown. Why? Defining the Renaissance 'Virtuosa' considers the language of art in relationship to the issues of gender difference through an examination of art criticism written between 1550 and 1800 on approximately forty women artists who were active in Renaissance Italy. Fredrika Jacobs demonstrates how these theoretical writings defined women artists, by linking artistic creation and biological procreation. She also examines the ambiguity of these women as both beautiful object and creator of beautiful object. Jacobs' study shows how deeply the biases of these early critics have inflected both subsequent reception of these Renaissance virtuose, as well as modern scholarship.

'art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake' In Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873), a diffident Oxford don produced an audacious and incalculably influential defence of aestheticism. Through his highly idiosyncratic readings of some of the finest paintings, sculptures, and poems of the French and Italian Renaissance, Pater redefined the practice of criticism as an impressionistic, almost erotic exploration of the critic's aesthetic responses. At the same time, reclaiming the Hellenism that he saw as the most characteristic aspect of the Renaissance, he implicitly celebrated homoerotic friendship. Pater's infamous 'Conclusion', which forever linked him with the decadent movement, scandalized many with its insistence on making pleasure the sole motive of life, even as it charmed fellow aesthetes such as Oscar Wilde. This edition of Studies reproduces the text of the first edition, recapturing its initial impact, and the Introduction celebrates its doomed attempt to stand out against the processes of industrialization. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

"From the Attic of Civilization" can best be described by quoting a reviewer: 5 out of 5 stars "Dr. Girsh has a wonderful grasp of the complex nuances of Rembrandt's works, tying together Biblical references to other important figures in history. He shines light on hidden concepts that eludes even the most analytical of readers. A strong theme of "the origin of thought" branching into many subjects: languages, human thinking and behavior. Truly a masterpiece " The book also serves as a guide to the paintings in exhibition form enabling readers to enjoy the reproductions of great masterpieces of European art on Biblical themes, from Genesis to Deuteronomy. These are artistic interpretations of scenes in Genesis: Creation, Noah and the Flood, Abraham and the Binding of Isaac, Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph. Rembrandt, Poussin, Rubens and West are but a few of the prominent artists represented in "From the Attic of Civilization." For example, Rembrandt's masterpiece, "Isaac and Rebecca," sensitively depicts the love that Isaac had for his wife, Rebecca. The Biblical scenes are depicted by these classical artists whose art is part of our cultural evolution. "From the Attic of Civilization" has been honored by being sold at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Scotland. This book has been presented in exhibition format throughout the country and has been very well received. To quote a visitor present at an exhibition, "We were treated to a 'feast for our eyes' with some of the greatest Biblical art ever produced."

Vitruvius' Ten Books of Architecture was the fountainhead of architectural theory in the Italian Renaissance. Offering theoretical and practical solutions to a wide variety of architectural issues, this treatise did not, however, address all of the questions that were of concern to early modern architects. This study examines the Italian Renaissance architect's efforts to negotiate between imitation and reinvention of classicism. Through a close reading of Vitruvius and texts written during the period 1400-1600, Alina Payne identifies ornament as the central issue around which much of this debate focused.