Patronage in Renaissance Italy: From 1400 to the Early 16th Century - Couverture souple

Hollingsworth, Mary

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0719553784 ISBN 13 : 9780719553783

Editeur : John Murray Publishers Ltd, 1994

Synopsis

This is a comprehensive study of patrons in the Italian quattrocento. It should be of interest to art historians and their students and to lovers of Renaissance art and civilization. At the start of the 15th century the patron, not the artist, was seen as the creator and he carefully controlled both subject and medium. In a competitive and violent age, image and ostentation were essential statements of power. Buildings, bronzes or tapestry were much more eloquent statements than the cheaper marble or fresco. The artistic quality that concerns us nowadays was less important then than perceived cost. The arts in any case were just part of a pattern of conspicuous expenditure which would have included for instance holy relics, manuscripts and jewels - all of which had the added advantage that they were portable and could be used as collateral for bank loans. Since Christian teaching frowned on wealth and power, money had also to be spent on religious endowments made in expiation. But here too the patron was in control, and used the arts and other means to express religious belief, not aesthetic sensibility. Thus artists in the Early Renaissance were employed as craftsmen. Only late in the century did their relations with patrons start to adopt a pattern we might recognize today. This book, which also discusses the important differences between mercantile republics like Florence and Venice, the princely states such as Naples and Milan, and the papal court in Rome, offers a fuller understanding of why the works of this seminal period take the forms they do.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

‘A superb, information-packed book’
The Art Book

‘A vivid, lively account of a complex society in which art was made to express the wealth, status, worldly concerns and religious aspirations of its patrons.’
Art Quarterly

‘She writes authoritatively, drawing on a vast store of knowledge.’
Frances Spalding, The Sunday Times

‘A refreshing contrast to the abstraction and intellectual constipation that characterise much of the cultural history written in Italy.’
Apollo

A comprehensive study of the patrons of fifteenth-century Italian art, this book investigates the role they played in the evolution of the Renaissance and the revival of the styles and themes of the art of ancient Rome.

This process was far from uniform: the classical tradition provided flattering models not only for absolute rulers of Italy’s many principalities, but also for the republican governments of Florence and Venice, and even for the pope in Rome.

Above all, these fifteenth-century patrons were Christian, and much of the art they commissioned gave visual expression to their religious beliefs and duties.

This book examines how and why they financed their projects, what factors lay behind their choice of themes and styles, and the extent to which they themselves were involved in the final appearance of these palaces, churches, statues, altarpieces and fresco cycles which form a landmark in the history of European art.

Biographie de l'auteur

Mary Hollingsworth has a B.Sc. in business studies and a Ph.D. in art history. Her doctoral thesis dealt with the role of the architect in Italian Renaissance building projects and led to research on the role of the patron in the development of Renaissance art and architecture, a subject she taught to undergraduates and postgraduates, and published in two books (see below). Her subsequent work on the papers of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este considerably broadened her horizons, and expertise, well beyond the confines of art history into the everyday world of Renaissance Europe. She has published widely on these topics in academic journals and was one of the senior academics on the Material Renaissance Project, a collaborative project funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Board and the Getty Grant Program, which investigated costs and consumption in Italy 1300-1650.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: John Murray Publishers Ltd
• Date d'édition: 1994
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0719553784
• ISBN 13: 9780719553783
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 372
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible