Renaissance Art Reconsidered An Anthology of Primary Sources

by Richardson, Carol M.; Woods, Kim W.; Franklin, Michael W.

• ISBN13: 9781405146401
• ISBN10: 1405146400
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-02-12
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Renaissance Art Reconsidered showcases the aesthetic principles and the workaday practices guiding daily life through these years of extraordinary human achievement. A major new anthology, bringing to life the places, works, media, and issues that define Renaissance art Ideal for use on Renaissance studies courses and for reference by students of art history Moves beyond the borders of Italy to consider European, Mediterranean, and post Byzantine art, widening the traditional focus of Renaissance art Includes letters, treatises, contracts, inventories, and other public documents, many of which are translated into English for the first time in this volume Showcases the aesthetic principles and the workaday practices guiding daily life through these years of extraordinary human achievement, providing crucial insight into the art and the context in which it was produced.

Author Biography

Carol M. Richardson is Lecturer in the History of Art Department at The Open University. She is the author of Reclaiming Rome: Cardinals in the Early Renaissance (1400–1480) (2007).

Kim W. Woods is Lecturer in the History of Art Department at The Open University. She is the author of Imported Images (2007).

Michael W. Franklin is Course Administrator at The Open University.

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors	p. xiii
Preface	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Making Renaissance Art	p. 3
Drawing and Workshop Practice	p. 5
Cennino Cennini on drawing	p. 6
Alberti on drawing figures	p. 8
Francesco Squarcione details the drawing regime for his pupils	p. 9
Gerard Horenbout takes on two apprentices	p. 10
A master's duty of care for his apprentices	p. 13
Leonardo da Vinci on drawing	p. 15
Durer gives drawings as gifts and uses them to pay day-to-day expenses	p. 18
Durer lists the qualities required to be a painter	p. 22
Joachim Camerarius praises Durer's drawings	p. 23
Linear Perspective	p. 29
Cennino Cennini's method for depicting buildings in a painting	p. 30
Alberti and the earliest written description of single-point perspective	p. 31
Lorenzo Ghiberti lists the sources for perspective	p. 41
Filarete's method for making drawings of buildings	p. 43
Piero della Francesca's perspective for painters	p. 47
Manetti's descriptions of Brunelleschi's experiments	p. 49
Leonardo da Vinci on single-point and aerial perspective	p. 51
Sculpture	p. 59
Posthumous inventory of Tournai sculptor Colart le Cat	p. 60
Michelozzo and Donatello are contracted to make the Prato Pulpit	p. 62
Report on Donatello's progress on the Prato pulpit	p. 65
The Brussels painters' guild claims exclusive rights to market painted works of art	p. 66
Extracts from De Statua by Leon Battista Alberti	p. 68
1470 regulations of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke	p. 71
Utrecht sculptor Adriaen van Wesel makes a carved altarpiece for the Confraternity of Our Lady, 's-Hertogenbosch	p. 74
Architecture	p. 79
Filarete's system of architecture	p. 80
Brunelleschi's practice of architecture	p. 85
Panel Painting	p. 91
Cennino Cennini's instructions on how to paint drapery in a fresco painting	p. 92
Cennino Cennini's instructions on how to acquire the skills to paint on panel	p. 93
Cennino Cennini's instructions on how to prepare and size a panel	p. 95
Cennino Cennini's instructions on how to paint on panel	p. 96
Contract for Sassetta's Madonna della Neve altarpiece	p. 98
Valuation of Sassetta's Madonna della Neve altarpiece	p. 101
A fee is fixed for the Madonna della Neve altarpiece	p. 102
Final valuation of Sassetta's Madonna della Neve altarpiece	p. 104
Contract for Enguerrand Quarton's Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece	p. 106
Prints and Printmaking	p. 113
An ordinance from the Stadsarchief, Leuven, concerning the printmaker Jan van den Berghe	p. 114
The hard business of printing	p. 115
A printer tries to protect his creative rights	p. 119
Durer's letter to Jakob Heller	p. 122
A letter from block-cutter Jost de Negker to Maximilian I	p. 124
The purchase of the contents of an Antwerp printer's workshop	p. 127
Erasmus's eulogy on Durer	p. 128
Robert Peril's agreement regarding the manufacture of playing cards in Antwerp	p. 131
Vasari's life of Marcantonio Raimondi	p. 133
Treatises, Histories, Artists and Education	p. 137
Lorenzo Ghiberti on the education required for making sculpture	p. 138
Two Florentine views of art history: (1) Antonio Manetti	p. 143
Two Florentine views of art history: (2) Leonardo da Vinci	p. 146
Books known or owned by Leonardo da Vinci	p. 147
Courtiers discuss the merits of painting and sculpture	p. 152
Locating Renaissance Art	p. 157
Florence and Rome	p. 159
Domenico Veneziano looks for work in Florence	p. 160
The contract for wall paintings at the Sistine Chapel	p. 161
The valuation of the first four narratives at the Sistine Chapel	p. 163
Botticelli pursues outstanding payments for his work in the Sistine Chapel	p. 164
Filippino Lippi works for Cardinal Carafa in Rome at Lorenzo de' Medici's suggestion	p. 165
Filippino Lippi explains to Filippo Strozzi why he has gone to Rome	p. 166
The Duke of Milan's agent reports on Florentine artists	p. 168
Michelangelo's letter to Lorenzo de' Pierfrancesco de' Medici from Rome	p. 169
A dialogue between Florence and Rome against Savonarola	p. 170
A cultural tourist describes some of the sites in Rome	p. 177
Netherlandish Networks	p. 179
Pero Tafur's impressions of the Netherlands in the 1430s	p. 180
Lluis Dalmau is contracted to make an altarpiece for the councillors' chapel in Barcelona	p. 183
Ciriaco d'Ancona's comments on a Deposition triptych by Rogier van der Weyden	p. 186
Bartlomeo Facio's description of the work of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden	p. 187
Marcantonio Michiel records Netherlandish paintings in the homes of collectors in Venice and Padua in the early sixteenth century	p. 190
Pietro Summonte describes works by Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden in Naples	p. 193
Tapestries	p. 197
Statutes of the Tapestry-Makers' Guild in Brussels	p. 198
The Signoria of Florence recommends a weaver from Bruges	p. 204
A dispute between the Painters' Guild and the Tapestry-Makers' Guild	p. 205
Siena	p. 207
Ghiberti's admiration for early Sienese art	p. 208
The commissioning of the reconstructed altar and altarpiece for the Cappella dei Signori	p. 211
Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini and international politics	p. 213
Pius II's canonization of Saint Catherine of Siena	p. 217
Pius II's description of his cathedral in Pienza and its interior	p. 218
The Post-Byzantine Renaissance	p. 223
The will of the painter Angelos Akotantos	p. 224
Ioannes Akotantos sells the drawings of his brother, Angelos Akotantos	p. 228
Contract to teach the art of painting in the workshop of Ioannes Akoantos	p. 229
Contract to teach the art of painting in the workshop of Andreas Pavias	p. 230
Andreas Pavias intervenes to secure the return of an icon painted by Angelos Akotantos	p. 231
The commission of the Venetian ruler of Nauplio for a pala d'altare	p. 231
On the making of anthibola (imprinted cartoons)	p. 234
How to plaster a wall	p. 235
Venice	p. 237
From the Mariegola (rule-book) of the Mercers' company in Venice	p. 238
Gentile Bellini undertakes the decoration of the Grand Council chamber	p. 240
Gentile Bellini is sent on a mission to Constantinople	p. 241
Giovanni Bellini is contracted to decorate the Grand Council chamber	p. 242
Giovanni Bellini is exempted from duties in the painters' guild	p. 243
Alvise Vivarini's petition to work on the decoration of the Grand Council chamber	p. 243
Marin Sanudo, from Praise of the City of Venice	p. 245
From the Memoirs of Philippe de Commynes	p. 248
From Pietro Casola's account of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem	p. 250
The Bellini brothers are contracted to work at the Scuola Grande di San Marco	p. 251
Gentile Bellini agrees to continue work at the Scuola Grande di San Marco	p. 253
Giovanni Bellini is contracted to complete his brother's work	p. 253
Durer's correspondence on Venice, and on Venetian art and artists	p. 255
From Francesco Sansovino, Dialogue on All the Notable Things which are in Venice	p. 259
Architectural Treatises	p. 261
Vitruvius' ideas on architecture	p. 262
Alberti improves on Vitruvius	p. 267
Viewing Renaissance Art	p. 281
Art, Class and Wealth	p. 283
Treasures in the ducal chapel of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy	p. 284
The camera grande of Doctor Bartolo di Tura	p. 288
Luxury goods in the rooms of Lorenzo the Magnificent	p. 291
Views on Art in Florence	p. 305
The Florentine merchant Giovanni Rucellai discusses his spending	p. 306
A coppersmith describes the festivities in Florence for St John the Baptist	p. 309
Fra Girolamo Savonarola warns Florentines against the dangers of the new type of painting	p. 311
The cloth merchants' guild commission a new sculpture for the Florentine Baptistery	p. 315
A meeting about where to place Michelangelo's David	p. 317
Illuminated Manuscripts	p. 325
The manuscripts in the library of the Duke of Urbino	p. 326
The contract between Attavante and a Florentine merchant for an illuminated manuscript	p. 329
The chequered history of the Sforza Hours	p. 332
The preface to Sala's poetry book	p. 335
Art and Monarchy in France	p. 339
The tomb of Louis XI	p. 340
Bourdichon: 'Painter to the King'	p. 341
Jean Robertet's poem about the worst painter in the world	p. 345
Henri Baude: 'Moral Sayings for Making Tapestries'	p. 347
Jean Lemaire de Belges	p. 349
Jean Perreal de Paris: painter and poet	p. 352
Michel Colombe's contract for a tomb project at Brou	p. 355
The travel journal of Antonio de Beatis	p. 357
The Market in Icons	p. 363
John of Damascus on images	p. 364
The will of Andreas Cornaros	p. 370
Three Cretan painters are commissioned to make 700 icons of the Virgin	p. 371
Contract for employment of a painter in the workshop of another	p. 373
Contract for employment of a painter in the workshop of another	p. 374
Commision for 10 triptychs	p. 375
Vasari's views on the 'Greek' style	p. 376
Art and Death	p. 379
Leonardo Bruni condemns the tomb of the poet Bartolommeo Aragazzi	p. 380
John Lydgate's version of 'The Dance of Death' for the cloister of St Paul's Cathedral, London	p. 382
The foundation statutes of the chantry at Ewelme	p. 393
The will of John Baret of Bury St Edmunds	p. 396
The choice of artist for the monument to Cardinal Niccolo Forteguerri in Pistoia	p. 400
Cardinal Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini prepares for his death	p. 402
The wills of the 'Catholic Monarchs', Isabella and Ferdinand	p. 405
The Reform of Images	p. 409
Andreas Karlstadt, On the removal of images	p. 410
Extract from Hieronymus Emser's response to Karlstadt	p. 414
Ulrich Zwingli's criticisms of religious images	p. 416
Zurich council orders the removal of images from churches	p. 418
Luther states his own position on religious images	p. 419
Sir Thomas More defends the use of images	p. 422
William Tyndale responds to Sir Thomas More	p. 425
List of Sources and Acknowledgements	p. 429
Index	p. 437
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