Painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, 28 years after Michelangelo completed the glorious and hopeful ceiling, "The Last Judgment" is full of stark images depicting the End of Days. Here, James Connor uncovers the secrets behind the fresco, and details the engrossing stories of conspiring kings, plotting popes, and murderous rivalries between noble families who were vying for control over Michelangelo and his art. This book combines enchanting storytelling with incisive historical detective work, demonstrating how Michelangelo was inspired by Copernicus and how the Counter-Reformation arose from the ashes of the Renaissance.

Shakespeare's Globe was first built in 1599 and it burnt down in 1613. Almost four centuries later, in 1997, it was rebuilt again in London. This rebuilt Globe is not a reconstructed version of the first, but it is often regarded to typify the amphitheatres of Shakespeare's time. But do we know what the first Globe and its stage really looked like? Is it impossible to reconstruct its features? This work attempts to analyse some of the most trustworthy evidence in order to reconstruct the stage of the first Globe. Non-literary sources such as contracts and sketches give information regarding various stage features, but, most interestingly, some of Shakespeare's plays contain the most fascinating pieces of evidence. In this work, the author looks for these pieces of evidence in various sources making an attempt to find out how trustworthy they are.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

The Renaissance was a ground-breaking period in the history of drawing. Drawing became an art form in its own right rather than just being used in the preparation of other works of art. Prior to 1400 few drawings survive, and it is only in the fifteenth century that we can gain an understanding of how and why artists drew. The reasons for this are threefold: the growth in paper production meant it became more economical to draw; the demand by patrons for originality necessitated artists make more studies to explore new compositional ideas and poses; and, finally a widening interest in collecting meant that drawings were preserved. Drawing was an integral part of how Renaissance artists were trained. Thanks to this education artists were able to express their ideas with extraordinary fluency on paper. The spontaneity and rawness of many of the drawings in this arresting book reveal the minds and working practices of the artists. The use of a variety of drawing tools from red chalk to silverpoint shows how expressive a medium drawing could be. The drawings have been thematically arranged to demonstrate the major innovations that occurred during the Renaissance: artists captured movement, light, human pose and the natural world more convincingly than ever before. They also approached storytelling in a new way: the figures were infused with a new sense of humanity, and the development of perspective helped create realism.

Patronage studies are an important part of modern Italian Rnaissance art history. This book looks at how and why the Sassetti Chapel in Santa Trinit was made. What induced the patron to have it decorated, why did he choose the particular church and why as his chosen painter did he choose Domenico Ghirlandaio. The patrons interest in promoting his image both on earth and in heaven are important factors in any Renaissance patronage study none more so given the bitter rivalry for the favour of Lorenzo de Medici between Francesco Sassetti and his banking rival Giovanni Tornabuoni. These two conducted and extensive campaign for the right to have decorated the main chapel in Santa Maria Novella. Sassetti having failed in his bid, not least as he wanted his chapel dedicated to his name saint then had Ghirlandaio create one of the great Florentine fresco cycles.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

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.

I]n the streets of Milan... moved a people as fantastic, changeful, and dreamlike. To Leonardo least of all men could there be anything poisonous in the exotic flowers of sentiment which grew there. It was a life of brilliant sins and exquisite amusements...-from "Leonard Da Vinci"With his thoughtful sensibility and appreciation of the artistic experience, Walter Pater exerted a dramatic influence over the Aesthetics of the mid to late 19th century: a movement of creative intellectuals, from writer Oscar Wilder to painter James McNeill Whistler, who held that art should be sensual and beauty the highest ideal. Pater's "cult of beauty" also profoundly affected 20th-century arts, literary, and cultural criticism.Here, in a series of essays first reprinted in 1873 from the iconoclastic journal Fortnightly Review, Pater embraces and explores the works of Botticelli, Della Robbia, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and others. This collection, sometimes entitled Studies in the History of the Renaissance, is criticism as beautiful as the art it considers.Also available from Cosimo Classics: Pater's Marius the Epicurean: His Sensations and Ideas.British essayist and critic WALTER HORATIO PATER (1839-94) was educated at Oxford University. He also wrote Imaginary Portraits (1887), Appreciations (1889), and the posthumously published Greek Studies (1895).

In the past half century scholars have downplayed the significance of Lorenzo de' Medici (1449--1492), called "the Magnificent," as a patron of the arts. Less wealthy than his grandfather Cosimo, the argument goes, Lorenzo was far more interested in collecting ancient objects of art than in commissioning contemporary art or architecture. His earlier reputation as a patron was said to be largely a construct of humanist exaggeration and partisan deference.

Although some recent studies have taken issue with this view, no synthesis of Lorenzo as art patron and art lover has yet emerged. In Lorenzo de' Medici and the Art of Magnificence historian F. W. Kent offers a new look at Lorenzo's relationship to the arts, aesthetics, collecting, and building -- especially in the context of his role as the political boss (maestro della bottega) of republican Florence and a leading player in Renaissance Italian diplomacy. As a result of this approach, which pays careful attention to the events of his short but dramatic life, a radically new chronology of Lorenzo's activities as an art patron emerges, revealing them to have been more extensive and creative than previously thought. Kent's Lorenzo was broadly interested in the arts and supported efforts to beautify Florence and the many Medici lands and palaces. His expertise was well regarded by guildsmen and artists, who often turned to him for advice as well as for patronage. Lorenzo himself was educated in the arts by such men, and Kent explores his aesthetic education and taste, taking into account what is known of Lorenzo's patronage of music and manuscripts, and of his own creative work as a major Quattrocento poet.

Richly illustrated withphotographs of Medici landmarks by Ralph Lieberman, Lorenzo de' Medici and the Art of Magnificence offers a masterful portrait of Lorenzo as a man whose achievements might have rivaled his grandfather's had he not died so young.

"Sixteenth-Century Italian Art" is a first-rate collection of the major classic and contemporary writings on the Italian Renaissance. Taking a thematic approach, the book exemplifies the traditional concerns of the field and presents arguments in a clear, accessible way.
A stellar collection of 23 classic and recent essays on the art and architecture of this fascinating period in art history
Brings together in a single volume, important literature on sixteenth-century Italian art from the last half century, highlighting major topics of recent art historical studies
Introduces major topics and debates in the field, including pagan mysteries, nature and artifice, the art of the body, and "reformations" of art, theory and practice
Includes new translations of texts never previously published in English
Organized thematically, and features substantial editorial introductions, making this anthology ideal for course use.

Giotto's Harmony explores the philosophical and cultural intersection of musicians, artists, and intellectuals in early Trecento Padua. Padua's unique intellectual fervor, with its prominent university and proximity to Venice, attracted such titan celebrities as Giotto, Dante, Marchetto da Padova, and Pietro d'Abano. The richness of their cross-disciplinary work places Padua at the forefront of pre-humanism. Both Giotto and Marchetto da Padova sought to reproduce natural phenomena as faithfully as possible in their respective metiers. Professor Beck argues that this return to nature is a reflection of the rebirth of the Aristotelian philosophy of nature found in the Physica and Metaphysica, taught at the University of Padua, and expounded in the theories of Pietro d'Abano. Paduan musical pre-humanist contributions are posited to be at the vanguard of musical development in Italy, rather than a footnote to the musical culture of Florence. Indeed, Giotto's Harmony makes the case that the musical Renaissance, which is often believed to have its origins in the much later work of Dunstable and Dufay, has its roots in Padua's pre-humanist tradition, as reflected in the work of Marchetto and contemporary theorists and composers.

For Italian city builders more than a thousand years ago, the urban realm was the great theater where their best aspirations were played out, the place where society said the most substantial things about who they were and what they longed for. In this masterful blend of art and cultural history, architect David Mayernik reveals how the very different cities of Venice, Rome, Florence, Siena, and Pienza were all literally designed to be both models of the mind and images of heaven. Mayernik takes the reader on a journey into the past in Timeless Cities, but he also explains why these city-building ideas remain relevant today. For those traveling on vacation or appreciating the art and architecture of Italy from home, Mayernik helps bring the wonder and beauty of the Renaissance mind a little closer.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Leonardo da Vinci's written observations about painting rank among the most remarkable from any era. Never edited by the author himself into a single coherent book, these writings were compiled many years after Leonardo's death into the principal repository of his practical thoughts on the techniques of drawing and painting. "A Treatise on Painting" begins with precise instructions on drawing the human body and then moves on to techniques of rendering motion. Other topics include perspective, composition, the expression of various emotions, creating effects of light and shadow, and color. With 48 anatomical drawings by Nicholas Poussin and geometrical and architectural designs by Leon Battista Alberti, this famous volume remains one of the world's most useful and valuable art instruction books.

At the turn of the 16th century, Italy was a turbulent territory made up of independent states, each at war with or intriguing against its neighbor. There were the proud, cultivated, and degenerate Sforzas in Milan, and in Rome, the corrupt Spanish family of the Borgia whose head, Rodrigo, ascended to St Peter's throne as Pope Alexander VI. In Florence, a golden age of culture and sophistication ended with the death of the greatest of the Medici family, Lorenzo the Magnificent, giving way to an era of uncertainty, cruelty, and religious fundamentalism.
In the midst of this turmoil, there existed the greatest concentration of artists that Europe has ever known. Influenced by the rediscovery of the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome, artists and thinkers such as Botticelli and da Vinci threw off the shackles of the Middle Ages to produce one of the most creative periods in history - the Renaissance.
This is the story of twelve years when war, plague, famine, and chaos made their mark on a volatile Italy, and when a young, erratic genius, Michelangelo Buonarroti, made his first great statue - the David. It was to become a symbol not only of the independence and defiance of the city of Florence but also of the tortured soul who created it. This is a wonderful history of the artist, his times, and one of his most magnificent works.

Ferdinand Columbus, son of Christopher Columbus and author of the first published account of a voyage to the New World, was also the owner of one of the largest private libraries assembled during the Renaissance and the most important early collection of prints. Although the collection has vanished, about half of it has been reconstructed by Mark McDonald from information found in a detailed inventory that survives in Seville. This beautifully produced book catalogues 110 of the most significant prints in Columbus's collection. The introductory chapters discuss Columbus's life and work and show how the reconstruction of his collection has radically transformed our understanding of the print industry in Renaissance Europe.

A pioneer of Italian Renaissance architecture, Filippo Brunelleschi is most famous for his daring and original ideas, among them the magnificent dome of Florence's famed Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral. This comprehensive book describes how he created the structure, construction concepts, and other inventions. 28 halftones, 18 line illustrations.

Read this book and the world's most famous image will never look the same again. For the world's greatest cultural icon still has secrets to reveal - not the silly secrets that the 'Leonardo loonies' continue to advance, but previously unknown facts about the lives of Leonardo, his father, Lisa Gherardini, the subject of the portrait, and her husband Francesco del Giocondo. From this factual beginning we see how the painting metamorphosed into a 'universal picture' that became the prime vehicle for Leonardo's prodigious knowledge of the human and natural worlds. We learn about the new money of the ambitious merchant who married into the old gentry of Lisa's family. We discover Lisa's life as a wife and mother, her association with sexual scandals, and her later life in a convent. We meet, for the first time, previously undiscovered members of Leonardo's immediate family and discover new information about his early life. The tiny hill town of Vinci is placed before us, with its widespread poverty. We find out about the career and possessions of his father, a notable lawyer in Florence. The meaning of the portrait that resulted from these human circumstances is vividly illuminated though Renaissance love poetry and verses specifically dedicated to Leonardo. We come to understand how Leonardo's sciences of optics, psychology, anatomy and geology are embraced in his poetic science of art. Recent scientific examinations of the painting disclose how it evolved to assume its present appearance in Leonardo's experimental hands. Above all, we cut through the suppositions and the myths to show that the portrait is a product of real people in a real place at a real time. This is the book that brings back a sense of reality into the creation of the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. And the actual Mona Lisa, it turns out, is even more astonishing and transcendent than the Mona Lisa of legend.

The Print Room of the Royal Library of Belgium currently possesses roughly 700,000 independent prints, including a few hundred early woodcuts and engravings from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, which make up one of the most important parts of the collection. In the course of time, only a small portion of these has been recorded in a systematic catalogue. One-and-a-half centuries ago, in 1857, the head curator Louis Alvin catalogued the Librarys noteworthy collection of Italian niello prints. Thirty-five years later, in 1892, Max Lehrs, then head of the Dresden Print Room, published the first and only inventory of the collection of fifteenth-century northern engravings in the Royal Librarys Print Room. As for the two other parts of the collection included in this book, namely the early woodcuts and the early Italian prints, this is the very first time that each has been examined as a group. Consequently, the exceptionally rich collection of early prints in the Royal Library of Belgium has remained essentially unknown to many thus far. This catalogue is a first step in making the collection better known.

This book is a collection of specially-commissioned art-historical essays on the theme of manuscript studies by some of the world's leading art historians and curators of manuscripts. It is expected to be even more successful and well-received than the comparable volume from University of Exeter Press, The Art of the Book: Its Place in Medieval Worship, edited by Margaret M. Manion and Bernard J. Muir. The contributors are writing on their particular area of manuscript study, with the Wharncliffe Hours and the Book of Kells among the important manuscripts discussed. Their essays are written in honor of Margaret M. Manion, Professor Emeritus, Department of Fine Arts, University of Melbourne. Margaret Manion has an international reputation for her work in the field of art history. Her many publications include a facsimile edition of The Wharncliffe Hours (Thames & Hudson) and Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts in Australian Collections (with Vera F. Vines, Thames & Hudson).

Sifting the available evidence, Carlo Ginzburg builds up a vivid portrait of Piero della Francesca's patrons and convincingly explains the contemporary intrigues resonant in his painting. This new edition, extensively illustrated, includes additional material by Ginzburg dealing with the work of Roberto Longhi, the dating of the Arezzo Cycle, and the rediscovery of della Francesca in the twentieth century.

Inigo Jones, the first English classical architect, was famous in his own time and was the posthumous sponsor of the Palladian movement of the eighteenth century. This authoritative and elegantly written book, first published in 1966, reassessed Jones's life and career, cleared away the myths of attribution that surround his work, and reassigned to him projects that had disappeared from his oeuvre. Summerson's classic text is enhanced by a new foreword and notes by Howard Colvin, updated bibliography, and improved illustrations.