Art in Renaissance Italy

For upper-level undergraduate courses in Italian Renaissance Art.

“Art mattered in the Renaissance... People expected painting, sculpture, architecture, and other forms of visual art to have a meaningful effect on their lives,” write the authors of this important new look at Italian Renaissance art.

A glance at the pages of Art in Renaissance Italy shows at once its freshness and breadth of approach, which includes thorough explanation into how and why works of art, buildings, prints, and other forms of visual production came to be. The authors also discuss how men and women of the Renaissance regarded art and artists, why works of Renaissance art look the way they do, and what this means to us. Unlike other books on the subject, this one covers not only Florence and Rome, but also Venice and the Veneto, Assisi, Siena, Milan, Pavia, Padua, Mantua, Verona, Ferrara, Urbino, and Naples–each governed in a distinctly different manner, every one with individual, political, and social structures that inevitably affected artistic styles. Spanning more than three centuries, the narrative brings to life the rich tapestry of Italian Renaissance society and the art that is its enduring legacy. Throughout, special features, including textual sources from the period and descriptions of social rituals, evoke and document the people and places of this dynamic age.

"Art mattered in the Renaissance," write the authors of this important book on Italian Renaissance art. "Viewers expected works of art to be meaningful, purposeful, and functional, not just beautiful."

Art in Renaissance Italy, Second Edition, has a freshness and breadth of approach that sets the art in its context, exploring why it was created and who commissioned the palaces and cathedrals, the paintings and sculptures. For, as the authors claim, Italian Renaissance artists were no more solitary geniuses than are most architects and commercial artists today.

Unlike other books on the subject, Art in Renaissance Italy, Second Edition, covers not only Florence and Rome. Here too are Venice and the Veneto, Assisi, Siena, Milan, Pavia, Genoa, Padua, Mantua, Verona, Ferrara, Urbino, and Naples―each one distinctively governed, each with unique political and social structures that inevitably affected artistic styles.

Spanning more than three centuries, the narrative brings to life the rich tapestry of Italian Renaissance society from the mid-13th century to 1600. Special features evoke and document the people and places of this dynamic age. "Contemporary Scene" boxes provide fascinating glimpses of daily life: the food that people ate, how they entertained themselves, society's methods of punishing miscreants, and more. "Contemporary Voice" boxes quote directly from Renaissance painters and writers (Ghirlandaio, Vasari, Ghiberti, Alberti, Veneziano, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Castiglione, Cellini, and Aretino), shedding light on how artworks were created―even down to paint quality and fees.

New to the Second Edition is a fresh, open design and expanded page size with more color pictures; a fuller discussion of individual cities (notably Milan, Naples, and Venice); a section on 16th-century Genoa; and more "Contemporary Voice" boxes. The artists' biographies have now been incorporated into the main text and more discursive captions with stylistic analyses of artworks have been added.

A brilliant selection of familiar and unfamiliar illustrations presents the visual arts as an integrated whole. Frescoes are shown in situ and close-up, sculptures are displayed in their architectural setting, and examples of other arts such as intarsia and prints are included.

An invaluable reference section includes genealogies of influential families, listings of popes and doges, plans of major Italian cities, a timechart, a bibliography, and a glossary.

Innovative and scholarly, yet accessible and beautifully presented, Art In Renaissance Italy, Second Edition, is set to become a definitive work on this most significant era of Western culture.