Key Monuments Of The Italian Renaissance

by Laurie Schneider Adams

Organized chronologically from early Renaissance precursors to the Mannerist movement, from Giotto to Titian, Key Monuments of the Italian Renaissance describes and analyzes in depth from various points of view major works and major artists, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Artists included are Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto, Lorenzetti, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Massaccio, Gentile da Fabriano, Uccello, Rossellino, Castagno, Piero della Francesca, Alberti, Botticelli, G. Bellini, Verrocchio, Mantegna, G. Sangallo, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Bramante, Raphael, Giorgione, and Titian. The Florentine Renaissance, the High Renaissance in Florence and Rome, and High Renaissance Painting in Venice are covered. Includes a glossary, a bibliography of works cited, and suggested readings.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published March 23, 2000

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moves effectively from the major pre-Renaissance painters (Cimabue, Giotto) to the Florentine Renaissance beginning with the likes of Masaccio and Ghiberti. The High Renaissance is broken into Florence, Rome and Venice. High points of all the greats are included. Enough stories are tossed in to keep things interesting. I had forgotten that Michaelangelo, for example, was a brooding loner. The anecdote that Michaelangelo accused Raphael of spying on his work in Sistine Chapel and stealing his technique for painting human figures somehow makes both men more relateable to me. My problem is that the lengthy descriptions of the highlighted paintings or sculptures rarely lead to greater understanding or appreciation. The exception to that complaint is the perspective systems of Brunelleschi and Alberti. That all tied together very well.