The Great Masters of the Italian Renaissance
Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism by
"Professor Wittkower's....studies of humanist architecture aremasterpieces of scholarship."-Sir Kenneth Clark, ArchitecturalReview. A fourth edition of the forty-year-old classic. Focusing on the principal architects of that time-from Alberti toPalladio-this bestselling classic explains the true significance ofcertain architectural forms, bringing to light the connectionsbetween the architecture and culture of the period. Withpublication scheduled to coincide with that of Architectonics ofHumanism, this important reference is superbly reproduced in a new,large square format. The late RUDOLF WITTKOWER was a college professor and eminentscholar residing in London, England.
Architecture of Italy by
Covering all regions of Italy--from Turin's Palace of Labor in northern Italy to the Monreale Cathedral and Cloister in Sicily--and all periods of Italian architecture--from the first-century Colosseum in Rome to the Casa Rustica apartments built in Milan in the 1930s--this volume examines over 70 of Italy's most important architectural landmarks. Writing in an authoritative yet engaging style, Jean Castex, professor of architectural history at the Versailles School of Architecture, describes the features, functions, and historical importance of each structure. Besides idetifying location, style, architects, and periods of initial construction and major renovations, the cross-referenced and illustrated entries also highlight architectural and historical terms explained in the Glossay and conclude with a useful listing of further information resources. The volume also offers ready-reference lists of entries by location, architectural style, and time period, as well as a general bibliography, a detailed subject index, and a comprehensive introductory overview of Italian architecture. Entries cover major architectural structures as well as smaller sites, including everything from the well-known dome of St. Peter's at the Vatican to the Fiat Lingotto Plant in Turin. Ideal for college and high school students, as well as for interested general readers, this comprehensive look at the architecture of Italy is an indispensable addition to every architectural reference collection.
The Art, History and Architecture of Florentine Churches by 
The Art of the Franciscan Order in Italy by
This volume of essays, by a group of scholars from the United States and Great Britain, presents a panoramic look at the study of Franciscan art in late medieval and early Renaissance Italy. In addition to being important case studies, the articles suggest a range of methodologies and interdisciplinary perspectives on important works of art. Senior scholars who have worked in the field for decades are joined by a new generation of researchers in the field. New studies of the Basilica in Assisi as well as innovative looks at early panel paintings and Franciscan stained glass are included. Those who study the Franciscan tradition as well as art historians, historians, literary critics, and theologians will find the studies relevant to their work.Contributors: Donal Cooper; Janet Robson; Daniel T. Michaels; Marilyn Lavin; Thomas De Wesselow; Beth Mulvaney; Ronald B. Herzman; Gregory W. Ahlquist; William R. Cook; Nancy M. Thompson.
The Art of the Renaissance by
The Renaissance began in Italy, but it was not a purely Italian phenomenon. It grew out of European civilization, with roots in Antiquity, in Christian dogma, and in Byzantium. The artistic ferment which had taken hold of Florence by 1420 was also reflected in the national schools of Siena, Umbria, Mantua and Rome; and the new ideas spread form Italy through France, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain and Portugal. Artists as diverse as Piero della Francesca, Van Eyck, Durer, Mantegna and Bellini are included, with superb illustrations of their work, and the book closes with the advent of the giants of the High Renaissance - Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.
The Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi by
A guided tour of the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, featuring rarely seen details of magnificent Italian art Founded in 1228, the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi is the burial place of St. Francis and the mother church of the Franciscan order of monks. It is also a treasure house of art, decorated with monumental frescoes by some of the greatest painters of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Upper Basilica is perhaps most famed for its sequence of frescoes that celebrate the life and teachings of St. Francis, attributed to Giotto and his workshop, while Cimabue and his followers were responsible for a series of dramatic scenes from the Old and New Testaments. The Lower Basilica, meanwhile, has been expanded through the addition of several magnificent chapels; their titular saints are commemorated with great imagination and immediacy in works by artists including Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti. This book takes its readers on a guided tour of this magnificent complex, aided by a wealth of beautiful photographs. Rarely seen details allow the personal imprints of the artists to shine through, and demonstrate that beyond their diversity of styles, they were all united by a desire to mirror reality while maintaining a sense of the spiritual and the sublime. This unmatched artistic heritage marks a revolutionary era in the flowering of Italian art.
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy by
This authoritative study by a distinguished scholar presents a brilliant panorama of Italian Renaissance life, explaining how and why the period constituted a cultural revolution. It traces the influences of classical antiquity on the age's thinkers and artists and chronicles the revival of humanism, the conflict between church and empire, and the rise of both the modern state and the modern individual.
The Early Renaissance and Vernacular Culture by
Why do the paintings and poetry of the Italian Renaissance--a celebration of classical antiquity--also depict the Florentine countryside populated with figures dressed in contemporary silk robes and fleur-de-lys crowns? Dempsey argues that a fusion of classical form with contemporary content was the defining characteristic of the period.
Florence: Art and Architecture by 
Giotto and His Publics: Three Paradigms of Patronage by
This probing analysis of three of Giotto's major works and the patrons who commissioned them goes beyond the clichés of Giotto as the founding figure of western painting. It traces the interactions between Franciscan friars and powerful bankers and illuminates the complex interactions between mercantile wealth and the iconography of poverty.
Hollow Men by
This book relates developments in the visual arts and printing to humanist theories of literary and bodily imitation, bringing together fifteenth- and sixteenth-century frescoes, statues, coins, letters, dialogues, epic poems, personal emblems, and printed collections of portraits. Its interdisciplinary analyses show that Renaissance theories of emulating classical heroes generated a deep skepticism about self-presentation, ultimately contributing to a new awareness of representation as representation. Hollow Men shows that the Renaissance questioning of "interiority" derived from a visual ideal, the monument that was the basis of teachings about imitation. In fact, the decline of exemplary pedagogy and the emergence of modern masculine subjectivity were well underway in the mid-fifteenth century, and these changes were hastened by the rapid development of the printed image.
Innovation and Creativity in Late Medieval and Early Modern European C by
Late medieval and early modern cities are often depicted as cradles of artistic creativity and hotbeds of new material culture. Cities in Renaissance Italy and in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century north-western Europe are the most obvious cases in point. But, how did this come about? Contributors to this volume set out to analyze whether, in what context and why regulation or deregulation influenced innovation and creativity in late medieval and early modern cities, and what the impact was of long-term changes in the political and economic sphere.
In the Footsteps of the Ancients: The Origins of Humanism from Lovato to Bruni by
This monograph demonstrates why humanism began in Italy in the mid-thirteenth century. It considers Petrarch a third generation humanist, who christianized a secular movement. The analysis traces the beginning of humanism in poetry and its gradual penetration of other Latin literary genres, and, through stylistic analyses of texts, the extent to which imitation of the ancients produced changes in cognition and visual perception.The volume traces the link between vernacular translations and the emergence of Florence as the leader of Latin humanism by 1400 and why, limited to an elite in the fourteenth century, humanism became a major educational movement in the first decades of the fifteenth. It revises our conception of the relationship of Italian humanism to French twelfth-century humanism and of the character of early Italian humanism itself.In the Footsteps of the Ancients is the recipient of the Jacques Barzun Prize 2000 in Cultural History of the American Philosophical Society.This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details."
Medieval Naples: A Documentary History, 400-1400 by 
Rome, Profile of a City, 312-1308 by
In this classic study, surveying the city's life from Christian Antiquity through the Middle Ages, Richard Krautheimer focuses on monuments of art and architecture as they reflect the historical events, the ideological currents, and the meaning Rome held for its contemporaries. Lavishly illustrated, this book tells an intriguing story in which the heritage of antiquity intertwines with the living presence of Christianity. Written by one of the great art historians of our time, it offers a profile of the Eternal City unlike any drawn in the past or likely to be drawn in the future. "Krautheimer was never (or only rarely) interested in studying heavily researched subjects, in valorizing what was already valorized, in reconquering what had long been conquered and reconquered. He was at heart a pioneer, a discoverer, a master of uncharted scholarly terrain in an age when so many things art historical were thought to be understood."--From the preface by Marvin Trachtenberg ?
The Two Latin Cultures and the Foundation of Renaissance Humanism in Medieval Italy by
This book traces the intellectual life of the Kingdom of Italy, the area in which humanism began in the mid thirteenth century, a century or more before exerting its influence on the rest of Europe. Covering a period of over four and a half centuries, this study offers the first integrated analysis of Latin writings produced in the area, examining not only religious, literary, and legal texts. Ronald G. Witt characterizes the changes reflected in these Latin writings as products of the interaction of thought with economic, political, and religious tendencies in Italian society as well as with intellectual influences coming from abroad. His research ultimately traces the early emergence of humanism in northern Italy in the mid thirteenth century to the precocious development of a lay intelligentsia in the region, whose participation in the culture of Latin writing fostered the beginnings of the intellectual movement which would eventually revolutionize all of Europe.
Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture, 1100-1500 by
Precious spices and textiles, imported from distant trading posts in the eastern Mediterranean, stocked Venetian markets in the Middle Ages; but Venice's merchants imported more than material goods from the East--they acquired also a wealth of visual ideas and information from Muslim culture. This lively and richly illustrated book investigates the influence of oriental trade and travel on medieval Venice and its architecture. Architectural historian Deborah Howard examines the experiences of Venetian merchants overseas, focusing on links with Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, as well as with Persia and the Silk Route. She argues that many Venetians gained insight into Islamic culture through personal contacts with their Muslim trading partners. Based on wide-ranging multidisciplinary research, this book examines the mechanisms that governed the exchange of visual culture across ideological boundaries before the age of printing. Howard explores a range of building types that reflect the impact of Islamic imagery, paying special attention to two icon buildings, San Marco and the Palazzo Ducale. She considers the complexities of importing Muslim ideas to an unambiguously Christian city, itself the point of embarkation for pilgrims to the Holy Land.