"Richly illustrated, and featuring detailed descriptions of works by pivotal figures in the Italian Renaissance, this enlightening volume traces the development of art and architecture throughout the Italian peninsula in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A smart, elegant, and jargon-free analysis of the Italian Renaissance - what it was, what it means, and why we should study it. Provides a sustained discussion of many great works of Renaissance...

"Spanning the period from the thirteenth century to Vasari's own time, the Lives opens a window on the greatest personalities of the period, including Giotto, Brunelleschi, Mantegna, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Titian. This Modern Library edition, abridged from the original text with notes drawn from earlier commentaries as well as current research, reminds us why The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects is indispensable...

Giorgio Vasari's biographical collection "The Lives of the Artists" is one of the most frequently cited art history books since the 16th century. It is also the first comprehensive book on art history ever created. In the work, Vasari brings together facts, knowledge, and sometimes gossip about almost 200 Renaissance artists. Most of the biographies are focused on Florentines and Romans, though Vasari also wrote about other European artists. "The...

An instant success upon its publication in the mid-sixteenth century, Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists remains one of the principal resources for study of the art and artists of the Italian Renaissance. The Lives' colorful and detailed portraits of the most representative figures of Italian painting and sculpture trace the flowering of the Renaissance across three centuries. This single-volume edition of selections from Vasari's immense work...

Over the course of several centuries, Venice fashioned and refined a portrait of itself that responded to and exploited historical circumstance. Never conquered and taking its enduring independence as a sign of divine favor, free of civil strife and proud of its internal stability, Venice broadcast the image of itself as the Most Serene Republic, an ideal state whose ruling patriciate were selflessly devoted to the commonweal. All this has come to...

A glance at the pages of Art in Renaissance Italy shows at once its freshness and breadth of approach, which includes: How and why works at art, buildings, prints, and other kinds of art came to be; how men and women of the Renaissance regarded art and artists; and 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.

This definitive monograph on Modigliani incorporates new research into one of the most comprehensive surveys ever published on the seminal twentieth-century artist. Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) is one of the most important artists of the early twentieth century. This ambitious volume includes 150 works from throughout Modigliani's tragically brief yet formative career, from the artist's celebrated erotic nudes and iconic, elongated figures to his...