A new book in the "Enjoying Great Art" series: Today candles are generally not part of our everyday lives, often relegated to merely "emergency light" status. But before electric lights, candles and lanterns were an every day occurrence. So we probably should be surprised to see them popping up in our great art. Here is a picture book for adults and students of all ages...A picture book with candlelight in art Different colors, shapes, and sizes of candles...Some that are only small parts of the painting, some which are the focus of the painting.

Cats are a part of our everyday life. But do we think of them when we think of great art? Here is a picture book for adults and students of all ages...A picture book of cats in art Different colors, shapes, sizes...Some that are only small parts of the painting, some which are 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 cats. 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.

The Casa del Dean in Puebla, Mexico, is one of few surviving sixteenth-century residences in the Americas. Built in 1580 by Tomas de la Plaza, the Dean of the Cathedral, the house was decorated with at least three magnificent murals, two of which survive. Their rediscovery in the 1950s and restoration in 2010 revealed works of art that rival European masterpieces of the early Renaissance, while incorporating indigenous elements that identify them with Amerindian visual traditions.

Extensively illustrated with new color photographs of the murals, The Casa del Dean presents a thorough iconographic analysis of the paintings and an enlightening discussion of the relationship between Tomas de la Plaza and the indigenous artists whom he commissioned. Penny Morrill skillfully traces how native painters, trained by the Franciscans, used images from Classical mythology found in Flemish and Italian prints and illustrated books from France--as well as animal images and glyphic traditions with pre-Columbian origins--to create murals that are reflective of Don Tomas's erudition and his role in evangelizing among the Amerindians. She demonstrates how the importance given to rhetoric by both the Spaniards and the Nahuas became a bridge of communication between these two distinct and highly evolved cultures. This pioneering study of the Casa del Dean mural cycle adds an important new chapter to the study of colonial Latin American art, as it increases our understanding of the process by which imagery in the New World took on Christian meaning.

Enjoying Great Art Series: Umbrellas are a part of our everyday life. But do we think of them when we think of great art? Here is a picture book for adults and students of all ages...A picture book of umbrellas (used to keep off the rain) and parasols (to keep off the sun) in art Different colors, shapes, sizes...Some that are only small parts of the painting, some which are 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. 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.

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.

Bridges are clearly important structures - and not just the ones of the present day (my apologies to Whitman). But do we think of them when we think of great art? Here is a picture book of bridges (from around the world) for students of all ages...Different colors, shapes, sizes...Some that are only small parts of the painting, some which are the focus of the painting.

One of the original books in the "Enjoying Great Art" series, but it has been enlarged - with more, and bigger paintings now: Animals are a part of our everyday life. But do we think of them when we think of great art? Here is a picture book for students of all ages...A picture book of animals in art Different colors, shapes, sizes...Some that are only small parts of the painting, some which are 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 animals. 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.

There is no shortage of books and booklets about Leonardo da Vinci, including by this very author. So what makes this one different? This small, full-color book joins Catherine's growing set of "Enjoying Great Art" books that concentrate on the art itself, with very little verbal interruption. And just like the other booklets in this series, this one is in chronological order. But this booklet's focus is on the art of Leonardo da Vinci, showcasing each of the paintings currently attributed in part or in whole to the great master. It also includes a number of his sketches, which are also extremely artistic, and several paintings by other authors that relate to Leonardo da Vinci and his work. Maps, quotes, and "job" titles have been added to round out the extras included. So whether you are starting a study of Leonardo da Vinci or just looking for another great book to add to your da Vinci collection, you are likely to enjoy this little tribute to the genius of this one man - who packed much into his sixty-seven year life.

FRA ANGELICO, known by various names, including Fra Giovanni Beato Angelico da Fiesole (1399?-1455), is one of the very few painters of the Italian Renaissance who painted religious pictures exclusively. Almost all Angelico's paintings are religious - he did not paint secular portraits, like, say, Giovanni Bellini or Ghirlandaio. It was Vasari who stressed Angelico's purity, holiness, faith, humility and devout nature, and this description of Angelico as a holy monk-like painter persists throughout the centuries. John Ruskin called Angelico 'an inspired saint'.

Introduction: The idea to solve the Voynich came to me when I first looked at the glyphs of the entire MS-408 when I first came across it online around 2009. It was a complete mystery and I desperately wanted to know what was behind the so called curtain of the code; like anyone else who has witnessed its very intense complex structure. A starting point for me was the astrology (Folio 67r) wheel and putting together a cipher to break it down. My understanding of astrology helped too and the wheel seldom had tarot side to it included. I counted the glyphs of the Voynich code that were similar and would number them in their perspective place marks. This enabled me to have at least a baseline for the highest and lowest number of Voynich letters to establish which alphabet I would have to find and match it up too. I tried Spanish first, because of the number of vowels and it did not pan out. Well French and German did not work either. Finally, my cipher unraveled nine words from the Rosetta Wheel (Folio 57v) in Italian and then I targeted the Astrology section with amazing results. My decrypting method included this scenario. First I went online and found a great Italian anagram engine which I inputted my cipher into so that it would rearrange the letters into readable Italian. Then I ran a string of sentences together that followed logic and well magic happened. It (Folio 58r) was a mind blowing experience for me knowing that I was making sense out of MS-408.

Old St Peter's Basilica in Rome stood for over eleven centuries until it was demolished to make room for today's church on the same Vatican site. Its last eyewitness, Maffeo Vegio, explained to the Roman hierarchy how revival of the papacy, whose prestige after the exile to Avignon had been diminished, was inseparable from a renewed awareness of the primacy of Peter's Church. To make his case, Vegio wrote a history founded on credible written and visual evidence. The text guides us through the building's true story in its material reality, undistorted by medieval guides. This was its living memory and a visualization of the continuity of Roman history into modern times. This volume makes available the first complete English translation of Vegio's text. Accompanied by full-color digital reconstructions of the Basilica as it appeared in Vegio's day.

New, full-color, larger size book When did Leonardo da Vinci paint the Last Supper? Why did Leonardo paint the Last Supper? How did he paint the Last Supper? Was Leonardo's Last Supper the first rendition of the Last Supper? Was it the last? Here in one convenient location you will find the answers to these, and many other, questions - with dozens of beautiful pictures of paintings that came before and after Leonardo's Last Supper - as well as many details about how he painted his mural, and the history of it over the last 500 years. A treat for art and history buffs alike Note: This book focuses on Leonardo da Vinci's well-known version of the Last Supper, with some of the before and after versions included. For even more versions of the Last Supper (with less text and more pictures), see Catherine's In Art: The Last Supper book.

Part of the "Enjoying Great Art" series by Catherine Jaime and Deirdre Fuller: Lighthouses may or may not be a part of your everyday life, depending on whether we live near a coast, or spend much time visiting in the area. But, either way, do we think of lighthouses when we think of great art? Here is a picture book for students of all ages...A picture book of lighthouses in art Different colors, shapes, sizes...Some that are only small parts of the painting, some which are the focus of the painting.

Another book in the "Enjoying Great Art" series: Self-Portraits - More than three dozen different self-portraits by artists from around the world and through the ages. Great fun for adults and students of all ages. (As with the other books in this series, all the paintings in this book are family-friendly - though, sadly, we can't say the same of all of the other paintings by the same artists.)

Word searches, drawings, quotes, and more...all arranged in both a topical and chronological order to help introduce students to the amazing work of Leonardo da Vinci. This book is a great compliment to Da Vinci: His Life and His Legacy, but it is also a great stand-alone title. Each topic - Leonardo the Mathematician, Leonardo and the Horse, Leonardo the Architect, and many others - includes a historical context and ideas for hands-on study of that topic. The ideas in the book have been classroom tested and kid-approved (This book includes everything from Catherine's Da Vinci Unit Study, Da Vinci Student Book, and more )

Accompanying a landmark exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, this book examines the remarkable drawings made by Du rer as a young man from 1490 to 1495, especially those made during his journeyman years, or Wanderjahre - considered the final part of a craftsman's training - and a second shorter trip which immediately followed and seems to have brought the artist to Italy. These trips form the framework for the book, which focuses on the young artist's figure studies and has at its heart the Courtauld Gallery's double-sided drawing of a Wise Virgin and Two studies of the artist's left leg. This superbly ambitious work serves as a springboard to explore in depth the role of drawing at this stage of Du rer's career. It allows us to address a series of crucial questions: how Du rer formed 'his hand', how he responded to artistic challenges presented by contemporary and earlier art (both on a stylistic and an iconographic level), how his pursuit of professional success was linked with the quest for an individual artistic identity, and how the strategy of recording his own creative achievements in drawings dovetails with his claim for a new status for the artist in his city. The scholarly and beautifully illustrated catalogue is introduced with five essays by distinguished experts. Stephanie Buck examines the documentary evidence and attempts to reconstruct the motivations and activities of Du rer's travels as a young man. David Freedberg discusses Du rer's obsessive observation and recording of himself in portraits and in studies of his limbs. These represent the first critical steps in the artist's developing understanding of the body, and of the ways in which its movements could not just show emotion, but rouse the equivalent sense of torsion, tension and pathos in the bodies and minds of his viewers. Stephanie Porras looks at Du rer's copies of drawings or prints circulating in Nuremberg workshops or acquired during the Wanderjahre, which were used as a means of seeking inspiration, of challenging himself to draw more sophisticated figures and dynamic compositions. Michael Roth asks the question of how the three strands of the art of the line- drawing, engraving and woodcut - structurally correspond in Du rer's work and, consequently, how drawing merges with certain manual aspects of printing. A final essay presents new technical research on Du rer's early drawings undertaken collaboratively in a number of leading collections of the artist's work, and aims to enrich our understanding of the young Du rer's approach to the medium of drawing.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR RENAISSANCE PORN STAR THE SAGA OF PIETRO ARETINO: THE WORLD'S GREATEST HUSTLER Sex, drugs, and the Medicis. A story of murder, revenge, art, pornography, and celebration with an all-star cast of characters: Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, a klatch of mafi a-don-style popes, and Shakespeare. A tale that turns deep, deep erudition into exquisite sweets for the heart and mind. -Howard Bloom, author of "The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism" If Jan Wenner had given Hunter S. Thompson an assignment to write a historical essay of Renaissance sexuality and literature, the resulting pages might have looked something like "Renaissance Porn Star": raw, uncensored, clearly mad, and quite brilliant. -Jess Winfi eld, author of "My name is Will" Like a buried treasure unearthed, "Renaissance Porn Star" sheds new light on how the Italian icon of the Renaissance, Pietro Aretino, helped shape an awakened world. Mark Lamonica mixes his amazing attention to historical detail and breathes new life into Shakespeare. -Thelma Reyna, Ph.D. author of "The Heavens Weep for Us" What art restoration has done for paintings, Mark Lamonica has done through a historical account of Pietro Aretino that wipes clean the whitewash of our puritanical perspective on the Renaissance over the past several hundred years. Not unlike a newly restored masterpiece, "Renaissance Porn Star" is both beautiful and shocking. -Adam Hall, Shakespeare scholar Mark Lamonica is an accomplished photographer and author of three highly acclaimed books: "Junkyard Dogs and William Shakespeare" (1997); co-author of "Rio LA: Tales from the Los Angeles River" (2001); named "a best book of the year" by the Los Angeles Times Book Review. "Whacking Buddha: The Mysterious World of Shakespeare and Zen Buddhism" (2005); hailed as a work of "spiritual literary dynamite." He is at work on a new book about the Devil.

One of the most troublesome questions about Utopia is Thomas More's reason for writing it. Some of the ideas in it, such as the ease of divorce, euthanasia and both married priests and female priests, seem to be polar opposites of his beliefs and those expected of the devout Catholic that he was. The concept of religious toleration seems to jar particularly with the information we have about him as Lord Chancellor: that he was a keen persecutor of Protestants. Similarly, the criticism of lawyers comes from a writer who, as Lord Chancellor, was arguably the most influential lawyer in England.Wilder Publications is a green publisher. All of our books are printed to order. This reduces waste and helps us keep prices low while greatly reducing our impact on the environment.

Vasari's intellectual curiosity, enthusiasm, and artistic ability made it possible for him to put forth a new perspective on art which expresses a concern for success, a fascination for the antique, and a delight for virtuosity depicted in his religious and secular paintings. 192 pp.

The Italian Renaissance is a pivotal episode in the history of Western culture. Artists such as Masaccio, Donatello, and Fra Angelico created some of the most influential and exciting works in a variety of artistic fields at this time. Evelyn Welch presents a fresh picture of this period in the light of new scholarship and by recreating the experience of contemporary Italians - the patrons, the viewing public and the artists. The book discusses a wide range of works from across Italy, examines the issues of materials, workshop practices and artist-patron relationships, and explores the ways in which visual imagery related to contemporary sexual, social and political behaviour.

A fully illustrated survey of Early Netherlandish painting, featuring all of the major artists, and many lesser-known painters.