Who are the Medici brothers? And who is trying to assassinate them? Why was the Pitti Palace never completed? And what part did Leonardo play in all of this? Leonardo da Vinci is remembered as an artist and inventor. But who was he before anyone knew his name? This family-friendly novel explores the history and the legends of his early years in Florence. It also weaves a mystery of politics and power. This novel is the first in the series of historically based novels - The Life and Travels of Da Vinci (followed by Leonardo: Masterpieces in Milan and Leonardo: To Mantua and Beyond)

"The Fat Woodworker" is a delightful story in the tradition of the Italian Renaissance "beffe," stories of practical, often cruel jokes. It is the tale of a prank engineered by the great Renaissance architect, Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), played upon an unsuspecting (and perhaps less-than-brilliant) friend and woodworker named Manetto, in reprisal for the woodworker's social slight. While the prank is indeed cruel, it is so ingenious, and the victim is so comical, that the reader soon forgets the architect's - and the author's - malice and settles in for a delightful turn as part of the unfolding conspiracy set in motion by Brunelleschi's circle of friends. The tale brings the reader into the social world of Florence's craft- and tradespeople, its lawyers and judges, artists, architects and intellectuals and gives a vibrant sense of the city's close-knit social fabric, its packed streets and busy shops and offices. It is as much a portrait of the Renaissance city as of one very befuddled and delightful woodworker. Robert and Valerie Martone provide a solid contemporary translation that carries across the ironic distance of the original. They include an introduction to the story, its author and genre, and to the social and intellectual world of Brunelleschi and Renaissance Florence. Illustrated, introduction, bibliography. Fiction

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When Europeans came to the American continent in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they were confronted with what they perceived as sacrificial practices. Representations of Tupinamba cannibals, Aztecs slicing human hearts out, and idolatrous Incas flooded the early modern European imagination. But there was no less horror within European borders; during the early modern period no region was left untouched by the disasters of war. Sacrifice and Conversion in the Early Modern Atlantic World illuminates a particular aspect of the mutual influences between the European invasions of the American continent and the crisis of Christianity during the Reform and its aftermaths: the conceptualization and representation of sacrifice. Because of its centrality in religious practices and systems, sacrifice becomes a crucial way to understand not only cultural exchange, but also the power struggles between American and European societies in colonial times. How do cultures interpret sacrificial practices other than their own? What is the role of these interpretations in conversion? From the central perspective of sacrifice, these essays examine the encounter between European and American sacrificial conceptions-expressed in texts, music, rituals, and images-and their intellectual, cultural, religious, ideological, and artistic derivations.

Michelangelo, Raphael, Bramante-together these artists created some of the most glorious treasures of the Vatican, viewed daily by thousands of tourists. But how many visitors understand the way these artworks reflect the passions, dreams, and struggles of the popes who commissioned them? For anyone making an artistic pilgrimage to the High Renaissance splendors of the Vatican, George L. Hersey's book is the ideal guide. Before starting the tour of individual works, Hersey describes how the treacherously shifting political and religious alliances of sixteenth-century Italy, France, and Spain played themselves out in the Eternal City. He offers vivid accounts of the lives and personalities of four popes, each a great patron of art and architecture: Julius II, Leo X, Clement VII, and Paul III. He also tells of the complicated rebuilding and expanding of St. Peter's, a project in which Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo all took part. Having set the historical scene, Hersey then explores the Vatican's magnificent Renaissance art and architecture. In separate chapters, organized spatially, he leads the reader through the Cortile del Belvedere and Vatican Museums, with their impressive holdings of statuary and paintings; the richly decorated Stanze and Logge of Raphael; and Michelangelo's Last Judgment and newly cleaned Sistine Chapel ceiling. A fascinating final chapter entitled "The Tragedy of the Tomb" recounts the vicissitudes of Michelangelo's projected funeral monument to Julius II. Hersey is never content to simply identify the subject of a painting or sculpture. He gives us the story behind the works, telling us what their particular themes signified at the time for the artist, the papacy, and the Church. He also indicates how the art was received by contemporaries and viewed by later generations. Generously illustrated and complete with a useful chronology, High Renaissance Art in St. Peter's and the Vatican is a valuable reference for any traveler to Rome or lover of Italian art who has yearned for a single-volume work more informative and stimulating than ordinary guidebooks. At the same time, Hersey's many anecdotes and intriguing comparisons with works outside the Vatican will provide new insights even for specialists.

"Medieval Renaissance Baroque" celebrates Marilyn Aronberg Lavin's breakthrough achievements in both the print and digital realms of art and cultural history. Fifteen friends and colleagues present tributes and essays that reflect every facet of Lavin's brilliant career. Tribute presenters include Ellen Burstyn, Langdon Hammer, Phyllis Lambert, and James Marrow. Contributors include Kirk Alexander, Horst Bredekamp, Nicola Courtright, David Freedberg, Jack Freiberg, Marc Fumaroli, David A. Levine, Daniel T. Michaels, Elizabeth Pilliod, Debra Pincus, and Gary Schwartz. 230 pages, 79 illustrations, bibliography of Marilyn Lavin's works, preface, index.

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.

Satire, Veneration, and St. Joseph in Art, c. 1300.1550 is the first book to reclaim satire as a central component of Catholic altarpieces, devotional art, and veneration, moving beyond humor's relegation to the medieval margins or to the profane arts alone. The book challenges humor's perception as a mere teaching tool for the laity and the antithesis of 'high' veneration and theology, a divide perpetuated by Counter-Reformation thought and the inheritance of Mikhail Bakhtin (Rabelais and His World, 1965). It reveals how humor, laughter, and material culture played a critical role in establishing St. Joseph as an exemplar in western Europe as early as the thirteenth century. Its goal is to open a new line of interpretation in medieval and early modern cultural studies by revealing the functions of humor in sacred scenes, the role of laughter as veneration, and the importance of play for pre-Reformation religious experiences.

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.

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.

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

The idea of the book was central throughout the western European and the eastern Mediterranean world in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. From the beginning, the word for 'book'-sefer in Hebrew, biblia in Greek, and liber in Latin-was identified with sacred writings--the Holy Scriptures of Jews and Christians, who were known as 'people of the book'. The centrality of the book to medieval thought is reflected materially in the countless images of books that appear in the manuscripts of the era, be they in the most treasured, highly decorated, sacred texts or in devotional and secular works as well. In Penned & Painted, Lucy Freeman Sandler, one of one of the world's most respected authorities on medieval art, takes us on a personal but highly insightful exploration of some of the British Library's most precious manuscript holdings and describes the many uses and meanings of these 'books in books'. Through the fascinating face-to-face discovery of 60 manuscripts, she investigates the various types and forms of books as depicted in the era. How were they produced and what did they look like? What do they tell us of the lives and skills of the scribes and illuminators? What did these books record and signify? How were they displayed, consumed and how did some of these objects of supreme beauty even come to be wantonly destroyed? Penned & Painted is presented in full-colour throughout and includes a high number of images specially photographed for this volume.

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.

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.

Italian court culture of the fifteenth century was a golden age, gleaming with dazzling princes, splendid surfaces, and luminous images that separated the lords from the (literally) lackluster masses. In Brilliant Bodies, Timothy McCall describes and interprets the Renaissance glitterati-gorgeously dressed and adorned men-to reveal how charismatic bodies, in the palazzo and the piazza, seduced audiences and materialized power. Fifteenth-century Italian courts put men on display. Here, men were peacocks, attracting attention with scintillating brocades, shining armor, sparkling jewels, and glistening swords, spurs, and sequins. McCall's investigation of these spectacular masculinities challenges widely held assumptions about appropriate male display and adornment. Interpreting surviving objects, visual representations in a wide range of media, and a diverse array of primary textual sources, McCall argues that Renaissance masculine dress was a political phenomenon that fashioned power and patriarchal authority. Brilliant Bodies describes and recontextualizes the technical construction and cultural meanings of attire, casts a critical eye toward the complex and entangled relations between bodies and clothing, and explores the negotiations among makers, wearers, and materials. This groundbreaking study of masculinity makes an important intervention in the history of male ornamentation and fashion by examining a period when the public display of splendid men not only supported but also constituted authority. It will appeal to specialists in art history and fashion history as well as scholars working at the intersections of gender and politics in quattrocento Italy.

This wide-ranging book elucidates the symbolism of veils and highlights the power of drapery in Italian art from Giotto to Titian. In the cities of the Renaissance, display of luxury dress was a marker of status. Florentines decked out their palaces and streets with textiles for public rituals. But cloths are also the stuff of fantasy: throughout the book, the author moves from the material to the metaphorical. Curtains and veils, swaddling and shrouds, evoke associations with birth and death. The central chapters address the sculpture of Ghiberti and Donatello, focusing on how they deployed drapery to dramatic effect. In the final chapters the focus shifts to the paintings of Bellini, Lotto, and Titian, where drapery both clothes the figures and composes the picture. In the work of Titian, the veiled presence of the body is absorbed within the materials of oil-paint on canvas: medium and subject become one.

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).

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.

"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.

Distant blue hills, soaring trees, vast cloudless skies-the majesty of nature has always had the power to lift the human spirit. For some it evokes a sense of timelessness and wonder. For others it reinforces religious convictions. And for many people today, it raises concerns for the welfare of the planet.During the Renaissance, artists from Italy to Flanders andEngland to Germany depicted nature in their religious art tointensify the spiritual experience of the viewer. Devotionalmanuscripts for personal or communal use-from small-scale prayer books to massive choir books-were filled withsome of the most illusionistic nature studies of this period.Sacred Landscapes, which accompanies an exhibition at theJ. Paul Getty Museum, presents some of the mostimpressive examples of this art, gathering a wide range ofilluminated manuscripts made between 1400 and 1600, aswell as panel paintings, drawings, and decorative arts.Readers will see the influ-ence of such masters as AlbrechtDu rer, Jan van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, and Piero dellaFrancesca and will gain new appreciation for manuscriptilluminators like Simon Bening, Joris Hoefnagel, Vincent Raymond, and the Spitz Master. These artists were innovative in the early development of landscape painting and were revered through-out the early modern period. The authors provide thoughtful examination of works from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries.

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.