Religious Poverty, Visual Riches: Art in the Dominican Churches of Central Italy in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries - Hardcover

Cannon, Joanna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300187653 ISBN 13: 9780300187656

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2013

Synopsis

The Dominican friars of late-medieval Italy were committed to a life of poverty, yet their churches contained many visual riches, as this groundbreaking study reveals. Works by supreme practitioners-Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto, and Simone Martini-are examined here in a wider Dominican context. The contents of major foundations-Siena, Pisa, Perugia, and Santa Maria Novella in Florence-are studied alongside less well-known centers. For the first time, these frescoes and panel paintings are brought together with illuminated choir books, carved crucifixes, goldsmith's work, tombs, and stained glass. At the heart of the book is the Dominicans' evolving relationship with the laity, expressed at first by the partitioning of their churches, and subsequently by the sharing of space, and the production and use of art. Joanna Cannon's magisterial study is informed by extensive new research, using chronicles, legislation, liturgy, sermons, and other sources to explore the place of art in the lives of the friars and the urban laity of Central Italy.

About this title

Review:

"[An]outstanding book which show how art can change the world [and] demonstrates, through an intelligent combination of visual and historical research, the transformative role of art and architecture within this revolutionary process. . . . The Franciscans' sister order of preaching friars, the followers of St Dominic, is the subject of Joanna Cannon's ground-breaking and . . . richly illustrated study."--Gervase Rosser, Apollo Magazine-- (02/01/2014)

'Religious Poverty, Visual Riches lives up to its title: this is a copiously detailed notes and an extensive bibliography. It is a delight to turn the pages and encounter such beauty in so any forms.'--Christopher Colven, The Art Newspaper-- (04/01/2014)

'[An] experienced art historian. Joanna Cannon. . .this volume arrives with the mien of a magnum opus, prepared over many years.'--Alexander Murray, TLS-- (07/04/2014)

About the Author:

Joanna Cannon is reader in the history of art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0300187653
• ISBN 13: 9780300187656
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368