The service books of the Florentine Duomo of Santa Maria del Fiore were, like the church itself, a cultural reflection of the city's position of power and prestige. Largely unexplored by modern scholars, these manuscripts provided the texts and, sometimes, the music necessary for the celebration of the liturgical services. Marica S. Tacconi offers the first comprehensive investigation of the sixty-five extant liturgical manuscripts produced between 1150 and 1526 for both Santa Maria del Fiore and its predecessor, the early cathedral of Santa Reparata. She employs a multidisciplinary approach that recognizes the books as codicological, liturgical, musical, and artistic products. Their cultural contexts, and their civic and propagandistic uses, are uncovered through the analysis of extensive archival material, much of which is presented here for the first time. This important and fascinating study provides new insights into late medieval and Renaissance Florentine ritual and culture.

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of Islamic studies find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated related. This ebook is a static version of an article from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Renaissance and Reformation, a dynamic, continuously updated, online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of European history and culture between the 14th and 17th centuries. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.oxfordbibliographies.com.

"Florence is justly celebrated as one of the world's most important cities. It enjoys mythic status and occupies an enviable place in the historical imagination. But its music-historical importance is less well understood than it should be. If Florence was the city of Dante, Michelangelo, and Galileo, it was also the birthplace of the madrigal, opera, and the piano. This is the only book of its kind, a comprehensive account of music in Florence from the late Middle Ages until the end of the Medici dynasty in the mid-eighteenth century. It recounts the principal developments in the history of Florence's contributions to music and how music was heard and cultivated in the city, from civic and religious institutions to private patronage and the academies. Scholars from sister disciplines and a general readership interested in the history and culture of Florence will find this book an invaluable complement to studies of the art, literature, and political thought of the late-medieval and early-modern eras and the quasi-legendary figures in the Florentine cultural pantheon"--

Street corners, guild halls, government offices, and confraternity centers contained paintings that made the city of Florence a visual jewel at precisely the time of its emergence as an international cultural leader. This book considers the paintings that were made specifically for consideration by lay viewers, as well as the way they could have been interpreted by audiences who approached them with specific perspectives. Their belief in the power of images, their understanding of the persuasiveness of pictures, and their acceptance of the utterly vital role that art could play as a propagator of civic, corporate, and individual identity made lay viewers keenly aware of the paintings in their midst. Those pictures affirmed the piety of the people for whom they were made in an age of social and political upheaval, as the city experimented with an imperfect form of republicanism that often failed to adhere to its declared aspirations.

As a coherent field of research, the field of music and visual culture has seen rapid growth in recent years. The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual Culture serves as the first comprehensive reference on the intersection between these two areas of study, an ideal introduction for those coming to the field for the first time as well as a useful source of information for seasoned researchers. This collection of over forty entries, from musicologists and art historians from the US and UK, delineate the key concepts in the field in five parts: Starting Points Methodologies Reciprocation – the musical in visual culture and the visual in musical culture Convergence –in metaphor, in conception, and in practice Hybrid Arts This reference work speaks to the important questions concerning this burgeoning field of research –what are the established approaches to studying musical and visual cultures side by side? What have been the major points of contact between these two areas and what kind of questions can this interdisciplinary research address moving forward? The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual Culture is an indispensable guide for anyone interested in the field of music and visual culture.

This study is the first to examine the relationship between art and violence in 15th-century Florence, exposing the underbelly of a period more often celebrated for enlightened and progressive ideas. Renaissance Florentines were constantly subjected to the sight of violence, whether in carefully staged rituals of execution or images of the suffering inflicted on Christ. There was nothing new in this culture of pain, unlike the aesthetic of violence that developed towards the end of the 15th century. It emerged in the work of artists such as Piero di Cosimo, Bertoldo di Giovanni, Antonio del Pollaiuolo, and the young Michelangelo. Inspired by the art of antiquity, they painted, engraved, and sculpted images of deadly battles, ultimately normalizing representations of brutal violence. Drawing on work in social and literary history, as well as art history, Scott Nethersole sheds light on the relationship between these Renaissance images, violence, and ideas of artistic invention and authorship.

A People's Church brings together a distinguished international group of historians to provide a sweeping introduction to Christian religious life and institutions in medieval Italy. Each essay treats a single theme as broadly as possible, highlighting both the unique aspects of medieval Christianity on the Italian peninsula and the beliefs and practices it shared with other Christian societies. Because of its long tradition of communal self-governance, Christianity in medieval Italy, perhaps more than anywhere else, was truly a "people's church." At the same time, its exceptional urban wealth and literacy rates, along with its rich and varied intellectual and artistic culture, led to diverse forms of religious devotion and institutions. Contributors: Maria Pia Alberzoni on heresy; Frances Andrews on urban religion; Cécile Caby on monasticism; Giovanna Casagrande on mendicants; George Dameron on Florence; Antonella Degl'Innocenti on saints; Marina Gazzini on lay confraternities; Maureen C. Miller on bishops; Agostino Paravicini Bagliani and Pietro Silanos on the papacy and Italian politics; Antonio Rigon on clerical confraternities; Neslihan Şenocak on the pievi and care of souls; Giovanni Vitolo on Naples.