The Anglo-Florentine Renaissance; Art for the Early Tudors

Under the rule of Henry VII (r. 1485-1509) England became a powerful nation. The Tudor court sought to express its worldliness and political clout through major artistic commissions, employing Florentine sculptors and painters to create lavish new interiors, suitable for entertaining foreign dignitaries, for its royal palaces. These were exemplified by Henry VIII's palace of Nonsuch, so named because no other palace could match its magnificence. Italian sculpture, painting, and tapestries of the day reflected an interest in portraiture and dynastic monuments, epitomized in England by the royal tomb projects created by Baccio Bandinelli, Benedetto da Rovezzano, and Pietro Torrigiani. Generously illustrated throughout, The Anglo-Florentine Renaissancetraces the artistic links between Medicean Florence and Tudor England through essays by an international team of scholars and explores how the language of Florentine art effectively expressed England's political aspirations and rose to prominence as a new international courtly style.

Cinzia Maria Sicca is professor and director of the art history doctoral program in the Department of Art History at the Università di Pisa, Italy. Louis Waldman in an associate professor of art history at The University of Texas at Austin.