This book evokes the art of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Northern Europe in all its richness and splendour. The works of Van Eyck, Bosch, Bruegel, Durer and other masters are considered within the larger context of a changing society in which church and state, Protestant and Catholic, man and woman, artist and patron, independent mercantile city and noble chivalric court all played a part. Craig Harbison considers these and many other facets of the Renaissance world, drawing them together into a unified narrative that illuminates the complexity and brilliance of the art and its times.

No city but Florence contains such an intense concentration of art produced in such a short span of time. The sheer number and proximity of works of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Florence can be so overwhelming that Florentine hospitals treat hundreds of visitors each year for symptoms brought on by trying to see them all, an illness famously identified with the French author Stendhal. While most guidebooks offer only brief descriptions of a large number of works, with little discussion of the historical background, Judith Testa gives a fresh perspective on the rich and brilliant art of the Florentine Renaissance in An Art Lover's Guide to Florence. Concentrating on a number of the greatest works, by such masters as Botticelli and Michelangelo, Testa explains each piece in terms of what it meant to the people who produced it and for whom they made it, deftly treating the complex interplay of politics, sex, and religion that were involved in the creation of those works. With Testa as a guide, armchair travelers and tourists alike will delight in the fascinating world of Florentine art and history.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Il Riposo ... Raffaello Borghini Societa tipografica de'Classici italiani, 1807 Painters; Painting; Sculptors, Italian; Sculpture

Skira Mini ARTbooks is a pocket-sized series, conveniently priced, very practical and with lots of images dedicated to single international artists, artistic movements and painting genres. Andrea Mantegna, the painter who was able to rise above earth and create heavenly forms which are still real (W. Goethe). He was a protagonist of the renewal of the figurative language in northern Italy. This is an introduction to the life of the artist, with his masterpieces.

Shakespeare's Spiral aims to explore a figure forgotten in the dramatic texts of Shakespeare and in Renaissance painting: the snail. Taking as its point of departure the emergence of the gastropod object/subject in the text of King Lear as well as its iconic interface in Giovanni Bellini's painting Allegory of Falsehood (circa 1490), this study sets out to follow the particular path traced by the snail throughout the oeuvre. From the central scene in which the metaphor of the snail and of its shell is specifically made manifest when Lear discovers, in a raging storm, the spectacle of Edgar disguised as Poor Tom coming out of his shelter (III.3.6-9) to the monster, this fiend, displaying on the cliffs of Dover, "horms whelked and waved like the enridged sea" (IV.6.71), this work is the trace of a narrative - of a journey of the gaze - during the course of which the cryptic question of the gastropod - "Why a Snail [...]?" (I.5.26) - does not cease to be developed and transformed. Incorporating a wide-ranging post-structuralist critique, the study aims to bring to light the particular functions of this "revealing detail" in both its textual and visual dimension so as to put forward a new and innovatory understanding of the tragedy of King Lear.

In The Mirror, the Window, and the Telescope, Samuel Y. Edgerton brings fresh insight to a subject of perennial interest to the history of art and science in the West: the birth of linear perspective. Edgerton retells the fascinating story of how perspective emerged in early fifteenth-century Florence, growing out of an artistic and religious context in which devout Christians longed for divine presence in their daily lives. And yet, ironically, its discovery would have a profound effect not only on the history of art but on the history of science and technology, ultimately undermining the very medieval Christian cosmic view that gave rise to it in the first place.

Among Edgerton's cast of characters is Filippo Brunelleschi, who first demonstrated how a familiar object could be painted in a picture exactly as it appeared in a mirror reflection. Brunelleschi communicated the principles of this new perspective to his artist friends Donatello, Masaccio, Masolino, and Fra Angelico. But it was the humanist scholar Leon Battista Alberti who codified Brunelleschi's perspective rules into a simple formula that even mathematically disadvantaged artists could understand.

By looking through a window the geometric beauties of this world were revealed without the theological implications of a mirror reflection. Alberti's treatise, "On Painting," spread the new concept throughout Italy and transalpine Europe, even influencing later scientists including Galileo Galilei. In fact, it was Galileo's telescope, called at the time a "perspective tube," that revealed the earth to be not a mirror reflection of the heavens, as Brunelleschi had advocated, but just the other way around. Building on the knowledge he has accumulated over his distinguished career, Edgerton has written the definitive, up-to-date work on linear perspective, showing how this simple artistic tool did indeed change our present vision of the universe.

Raffaello Borghini's Il Riposo (1584) is the most widely known Florentine document on the subject of the Counter-Reformation content of religious paintings. Despite its reputation as an art-historical text, this is the first English-language translation of Il Riposo to be published. A distillation of the art gossip that was a feature of the Medici Grand Ducal court, Borghini's treatise puts forth simple criteria for judging the quality of a work of art. Published sixteen years after the second edition of Giorgio Vasari's Vite, the text that set the standard for art-historical writing during the period, Il Riposo focuses on important issues that Vasari avoided, ignored, or was oblivious to. Picking up where Vasari left off, Borghini deals with artists who came after Michaelangelo and provides more comprehensive descriptions of artists who Vasari only touched upon such as Tintoretto, Veronese, Barocci, and the artists of Francesco I's Studiolo. This text is also invaluable as a description of the mid-sixteenth century reaction against the style of the 'maniera,' which stressed the representation of self-consciously convoluted figures in complicated works of art.The first art treatise specifically directed toward non-practitioners, Il Riposo gives unique insight into the early stages of art history as a discipline, late Renaissance art and theory, and the Counter-Reformation in Italy.

Raphael's "St. George and the Dragon" is the work of a genius -- an exquisitely rendered vision of heroism and innocence by one of the greatest painters of all time. Yet the painting's creation is only the beginning of its fascinating story, which spans centuries of power play and intrigue, and has made it a witness to the rise and fall of the great powers of the Western world as it seduced its owners to ever greater heights of corruption and greed.

Raphael's masterpiece was commissioned by Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, the ruler of Urbino, in 1506. Raphael was only twenty-three years old, but he had already begun to acquire a reputation as a painter who was as ruthless in his pursuit of money as he was talented. The duke sent the painting to England's King Henry VII as a thank-you for naming him a knight in the Order of the Garter.

The painting then mysteriously disappeared for one hundred years until King Charles I saw it hanging in the collection of the Earl of Pembroke and acquired it for a book of Holbein drawings. After Charles was beheaded in 1649, his collection was broken up and the painting made its way to the private gallery of the third-richest man in France, where it was ensconced in its own special room. Thirty years later, the philosopher Diderot was instructed by Catherine the Great of Russia to buy it for her vast collection at the Hermitage.

The heroic curators of the Hermitage protected "St. George and the Dragon" from fire, water, and the anarchists of the Russian Revolution, until Joseph Stalin sold it in 1930 to raise cash. The secret buyer was Andrew Mellon, Treasury Secretary of the United States, who in doing so blatantly violated a U.S. sanction against doing any business with Soviet Russia. Mellon eventually founded The National Gallery in Washington, D.C., where "St. George and the Dragon" rests to this day.

Exceptionally written and breathlessly paced, "The Dragon's Trail" is a microhistory that touches on the rise of the Tudors, the downfall of a Stuart, the twilight of the French aristocracy, the terrors of the Bolshevik revolution, and the depths of the Cold War -- all witnessed by one painting that inspired the best and the worst instincts in its owners.

Material culture is not static: objects are created, used and re-used, sometimes for centuries, and their lives interact with those of the people who made and used them. The essays in this book discuss the 'social lives' of objects in late-medieval and renaissance Italy, ranging from maiolica, through sculpture and prostitutes' jewellery, to miraculous painted images.
Demonstrates the continued life of these objects well past the deaths of their creators and patrons.
Contains a series of original contributions by young scholars, representing a broad range of approaches.

Michelangelo's art is exhilarating, but also bewildering. What is the source of his incomparable power? In this bold and absorbing study, the art critic James Hall explores the body-language of Michelangelo's figures, and his preoccupation with the male nude. He answers many of the major puzzles - his stern Madonnas and their lack of maternal feeling; his concern with colossal scale and size; his passion for anatomical dissection; the meaning of the drawings made for his young lover Tommaso da Cavalieri. By asking basic questions about Michelangelo and his times, Hall sheds dramatic new light on many of his most familiar works, including the statue of David, the narratives of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and his haunting late images of the dead Christ. This book re-assesses the popular idea of Michelangelo as an artist-superman possessed of titanic mental and physical powers, and the long-held view of him as brilliant but unbalanced, obsessed with the male nude. Hall sees him as the first artist to put the unadorned human body centre stage, giving him a profound relevance to our own time, in which visual artists and writers are so fixated on 'the body'. If we really want to understand our own culture, he argues, we need to understand Michelangelo. This compelling new study offers us a way to do so.

Die Untersuchung beschaftigt sich mit Entstehung, Entwicklung und Aufgaben plastisch-figurlicher Stuckdekoration in Rom. Die fruhesten Beispiele fur die im 17. Jahrhundert weit verbreiteten monumentalen Stuckfiguren finden sich bereits in der ersten Halfte des 16. Jahrhunderts. Als Geburtsstatte darf die Sala Regia im Vatikan angesehen werden. Hier entstand eine Fulle von Figuren unter direktem Einfluss von Michelangelos plastischem Schaffen. Anhand exemplarisch ausgewahlter Dekorationen werden die Entwicklungsschritte bis hin zu fruhbarocken Ausstattungen aufgezeigt, die eine wichtige Grundlage fur die Kunstauffassung Gianlorenzo Berninis bilden. So kann ein Bogen geschlagen werden von Michelangelo zu Bernini, der Aufschlusse uber die Genese der barocken Skulptur zulasst."

Hans Baldung Grien war einer der aussergewoehnlichsten deutschen Kunstler der Renaissance. In einer Epoche tiefgreifender Umwalzungen schuf er ein vielfaltiges und eigenstandiges Werk, das bis heute fasziniert. Der Katalog begleitete die Grosse Landesausstellung in der Staatlichen Kunsthalle Karlsruhe und umfasst rund 250 Exponate aus zahlreichen internationalen Sammlungen, darunter intime Andachtsbilder, leuchtende Glasgemalde, charaktervolle Portrats, humanistische Denkbilder und sinnliche Akte, zu denen auch die beruhmten Sundenfalldarstellungen und die drastischen Hexenszenen zahlen. Mit Einfuhrungen und Exponat-Texten, die sich an ein breiteres Publikum richten, sowie vielen Abbildungen bietet er einen einzigartigen UEberblick uber das Werk dieses grossen Malers, Zeichners und Druckgrafikers.

An analysis of how visual variety and grandeur are intrinsic and artistically well-conceived elements of the work of Rabelais, and that they develop naturally from the Renaissance outlook on the world.

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.

In 1505, Michelangelo began planning the magnificent tomb for Pope Julius II, which would dominate the next forty years of his career. Repeated failures to complete the monument were characterized by Condivi, Michelangelo's authorized biographer, as "the tragedy of the tomb." This definitive book thoroughly documents the art of the tomb and each stage of its complicated evolution. Edited by Christoph Luitpold Frommel, who also acted as the lead consultant on tge recent restoration campaign, this volume offers new post-restoration photography that reveal the beauty of the tomb overall, its individual statues, and its myriad details. This book traces Michelangelo's stylistic evolution; documents the dialogue between the artist and his great friend and exacting patron, Pope Julius II (who died long before the work was completed); unravels the complicated relationship between the master and his assistants, who executed large parts of the design; and sheds new light on the importance of Neo-Platonism in Michelangelo's thinking, which gave shape to the tomb's most famous statue, the Moses, and the work as a whole. A rich trove of documents in the original Latin and archaic Italian-many unpublished-relates the story firsthand through letters, contracts, and other records covering Michelangelo's travels, the purchase of the marble, the concerns that arose as work progressed, and numerous disagreements and negotiations. The book also includes catalogues of fifteen sculptures designed for the tomb and more than 80 related drawings, as well as an extensive and up-to-date bibliography.

Venetian artistic giants of the sixteenth century, such as Giorgione, Vittore Carpaccio, Titian, Jacopo Sansovino, Jacopo Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, and their contemporaries, continued to shape artistic development, tastes in collecting, and modes of display long after their own practices ended. The robust reverberation of the Venetian Renaissance spread far beyond the borders of the lagoon to inform and influence artists, authors, and collectors who spent very little or even no time in Venice proper. The Enduring Legacy of Venetian Renaissance Art investigates the historical resonance of Venetian sixteenth-century art and explores its afterlife and its reinvention by artists working in its shadow. Despite being a frequently acknowledged truism, the pervasive legacy of Venetian sixteenth-century art has not received comprehensive treatment in recent publication history. The broad scope of the topics covered in these essays, from Titian's profound influence on the development of landscape painting to the effects of Carpaccio's historical paintings on early twentieth-century fashion, illustrates the persistence and adaptability of the Venetian Renaissance's legacy. In addition to analyzing the effects of individual artists on each other, this volume offers insight into the shifting characterizations and reception of Venice as a center for artistic innovation and inspiration throughout the early modern period, providing a nuanced and multifaceted view of the singular lagoon city and its indelible imprint on the history of art.

'An absorbing book, beautifully told and with the writer fully in command of a huge body of research' Philip Hensher, Mail on Sunday There was an epic sweep to Michelangelo's life. At 31 he was considered the finest artist in Italy, perhaps the world; long before he died at almost 90 he was widely believed to be the greatest sculptor or painter who had ever lived (and, by his enemies, to be an arrogant, uncouth, swindling miser). For decade after decade, he worked near the dynamic centre of events: the vortex at which European history was changing from Renaissance to Counter Reformation. Few of his works - including the huge frescoes of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, the marble giant David and The Last Judgment - were small or easy to accomplish. Like a hero of classical mythology - such as Hercules, whose statue Michelangelo carved in his youth - he was subject to constant trials and labours. In Michelangelo Martin Gayford describes what it felt like to be Michelangelo Buonarroti, and how he transformed forever our notion of what an artist could be. 'It is a measure of [Michelangelo's] magnitude, and Gayford's skill in capturing it, that you finish this book wishing that Michelangelo had lived longer and created more' Rachel Spence, FT 'One of our most distinguished writers on what makes modern artists tick . . . It is very difficult to cut through the thicket of generations of scholarship and say anything new about David, the Sistine Chapel, The Last Judgement, the Basilica of St Peter's or many of Michelangelo's other masterpieces, but Gayford manages to do so by encouraging us to think - and look - at both the obvious and the overlooked' Sunday Telegraph 'Only the most ambitious biographer can take on the talent of Michelangelo Buonarroti' The Times