Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) was one of the first great historians of culture and art. In his manuscript on the genres of Italian Renaissance painting-still unpublished in the original German and published here in English for the first time-Burckhardt assayed a transformative approach to the study of art history. Rather than undertaking a biographical or a chronological reading of artistic development, Burckhardt chose to read the source materials and extant works of the Italian Renaissance synchronically, by genre. Probably written between 1885 and 1893, this manuscript takes up twelve different categories of paintings, ranging from the allegorical to the historical, from the biblical to the mythological, from the glorification of saints to the denunciation of sinners. Maurizio Ghelardi's introductory essay analyzes Burckhardt's innovative treatment of his subject, establishing the importance of this text not only within Burckhardt's oeuvre but also within the continuum of art historical research.

Proposing an original and important re-conceptualization of Italian Renaissance drama, Kristin Phillips-Court here explores how the intertextuality of major works of Italian dramatic literature is not only poetic but also figurative. She argues that not only did the painterly gaze, so prevalent in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century devotional art, portraiture, and visual allegory, inform humanistic theories, practices and themes, it also led prominent Italian intellectuals to write visually evocative works of dramatic literature whose topical plots and structures provide only a fraction of their cultural significance. Through a combination of interpretive literary criticism, art historical analysis and cultural and intellectual historiography, Phillips-Court offers detailed readings of individual plays juxtaposed with specific developments and achievements in the realm of painting. Revealing more than historical connections between artists and poets such as Tasso and Giorgione, Mantegna and Trissino, Michelangelo and Caro, or Bruno and Caravaggio, the author locates the history of Renaissance art and drama securely within the history of ideas. She provides us with a story about the emergence and eventual disintegration of Italian Renaissance drama as a rigorously philosophical and empirical form. Considering rhetorical, philosophical, ethical, religious, political-ideological, and aesthetic dimensions of each of the plays she treats, Kristin Phillips-Court draws our attention to the intermedial conversation between the theater and painting in a culture famously dominated by art. Her integrated analysis of visual and dramatic works brings to light how the lines and verses of the text reveal an ongoing dialogue with visual art that was far richer and more intellectually engaged than we might reconstruct from stage diagrams and painted backdrops.

Zuffi reveals the world of the Renaissance masters in a new and rich light. Each spread uses an important painting as a way to explain a key concept. Includes brief biographies of the major artists, provided an accessible introduction to the art and culture of the Italian Renaissance.

"The book is about a new development in Italian Renaissance art; its aim is to show how artists and humanists came together to effect this revolution, it is important because this is a long-ignored but crucial aspect of the Italian Renaissance, showing us why the masterpieces we take for granted are the way they are, and thre is no competitor in the field. The book sheds light on some of the world's greatest masterpirces of art, including Botticelli's Venus, Leonardo's Leda, Raphael's Galatea, and Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne"--Provided by publisher.

A new edition--now in two volumes--of the largest and most comprehensive textbook about Italian Renaissance art. Now in its second edition, Italian Renaissance Art presents an updated and even more accessible history. The book has been split into two volumes: the first, covering the period 1300 to 1510; the second, 1490 to 1600. The volumes retain the same innovative decade-by-decade structure as the first edition, and a number of chapters have been revised by the authors to reflect the latest scholarship. The coverage of the Trecento has been expanded, and a new appendix section explains all the key Renaissance art-making techniques, with illustrations and step-by-steps for such processes as lost-wax casting. This book tells the story of art in the great cities of Rome, Florence, and Venice while profiling a range of other centers throughout Italy--including in this edition art from Naples, Padua, and Palermo.

Under the guidance of the leading experts on baptismal fonts and the co-directors of the Baptisteria Sacra Index, the world?s only iconographical inventory of baptismal fonts, a research project at the University of Toronto, this collection of essays by a group of European and North American scholars extends the traditional boundaries associated with the study of baptismal fonts. The ?visual? is privileged, whether it is in the metaphysical, literary or empirical realms of scholarship, offering a rich understanding of the powerful role of baptism played in medieval and renaissance society. In the quest for a holistic understanding of the vessels, the settings and contexts, the rituals and the spiritual significance of the font, itself, the contributors have turned to a range of sources, folkloric tales, baptismal records, liturgical sermons, civic records, literary accounts, hagiographies and historical documents about local families, communities and ecclesiastical developments. Previous scholarship about baptismal fonts has often focused on the purely stylistic, iconographical and liturgical perspectives, using primarily ecclesiastical and liturgical documentation. This collection of essays shows the wealth of new information that baptismal fonts can offer when scholars adopt interdisciplinary approaches and engage in readings that question traditional assumptions inherited in scholarship.

Dosso Dossi has long been considered one of Renaissance Italy's most intriguing artists. Although a wealth of documents chronicles his life, he remains, in many ways, an enigma, and his art continues to be as elusive as it is compelling. In Dosso's Fate, leading scholars from a wide range of disciplines examine the social, intellectual, and historical contexts of his art, focusing on the development of new genres of painting, questions of style and chronology, the influence of courtly culture, and the work of his collaborators, as well as his visual and literary sources and his painting technique. The result is an important and original contribution not only to literature on Dosso Dossi but also to the study of cultural history in early modern Italy.