PREFACE.Since the former edition of this work was published, the able Translator has paid the debt of nature.*Mr. Rigaud being himself a painter, and highly appreciating the merits of Leonardo da Vinci, felt that he should derive pleasure from exhibiting his well-known Treatise on Painting to the British public with superior advantage. He, therefore, not only gave a new translation, but formed a better arrangement of the materials. The merits of Mr. Rigaud's Translation having been duly appreciated by the public, and the work having been long out of print, another edition, in a neater and more condensed form, is now produced, which, the Publishers presume, may prove a desirable acquisition to students and amateurs. The principal novelty, however, of this edition is the new Life of the Author, by the late J. W.Brown, Esq., which was first published, in a separate volume, in 1828. A long residence in Italy, an intimate acquaintance with its language and literature, together with a constant opportunity of studying the most finished specimens of Art, induced that gentleman to undertake the biography of Leonardo da Vinci, who so largely contributed to form a new sera in the History of the Fine Arts. This distinguished Italian is not so well known in England as he deserves. Among the various biographical sketches of this celebrated character, that written by Giorgio Vasari is perhaps the most authentic, as he had the advantage of contemporaneous information. But this also is rather an account of his works than of himself, containing little more than what is generally known, and forming only one article in Vasari's Lives of celebrated Painters. To most of the editions which have been published of Da Vinci's writings a short biographical notice is prefixed, but they are chiefly copied verbatim from Vasari. The Signor Carlo Ammoretti, librarian of the Ambrosian Library at Milan, has prefixed the best and most ample account of Leonardo da Vinci to the edition of his "Trattato della Pittura," (Treaty of the paint) published at Milan in 1804 ; which he has entitled "Memorie storiche su la Vita, gli Studj, e le Opere di Leonardo da Vinci." (Autobiography on the life, he studies, and the Work of Leonardo from Vinci) In addition to many sources of information, Mr. Brown had the privilege of constant admittance not only to the private library of his Imperial and Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany, but also to his most rare and valuable collection of Manuscripts in the Palazzo Pitti (Plaza Pitti), where he was permitted to copy from the original documents and correspondence whatever he conceived useful to his subject. In selecting from the mass of documents relative to the subject of the present work, Mr. Brown rejected whatever appeared unsupported by sufficient proof ; and he has given such historical anecdotes of that period as were necessary to the subject, from their having materially influenced the private fortunes of Da Vinci. Sept. 5, 1835.

In The Viewer as Poet, Norman Land provides the first comprehensive survey of ekphrasis in literature and art criticism from antiquity through the Renaissance. Land demonstrates, more fully than anyone has so far, that Renaissance art criticism assimilated the poetic tradition of ekphrasis while maintaining its function of analyzing works of art. Broadly speaking, the book shows that purely literary descriptions of art in poetry and prose contain a response like that found in art-critical ekphrasis. This is true in both antiquity and the Renaissance. The response to art in the elder Philostratus's Imagines, for example, is like that found in the descriptions of Apuleius and Lucian. Later Dante, Boccaccio, and Poliziano, among others, respond to imaginary works of art in their poetry in much the same way that Lorenzo Ghiberti, Aretino, and Vasari respond to real works in their writings. Land offers for the first time a synthetic description of the Renaissance response to, or experience of, art as embodied in literature, including art criticism. This book will form the basis for a deeper understanding of Renaissance art than we have now, for it provides not only a tool for viewing works of art as they were originally seen and experienced--that is, from a historical perspective--but also an outline of the tradition out of which modern writings about art grew.

A cultural and social history of art collecting, art history, and the art market In The Rare Art Traditions, Joseph Alsop offers a wide-ranging cultural and social history of art collecting, art history, and the art market. He argues that art collecting is the basic element in a remarkably complex and historically rare behavioral system, which includes the historical study of art, the market for buying and selling art, museums, forgery, and the astonishing prices commanded by some works of art. The Rare Art Traditions tells the story of three important traditions of art collecting: the classical tradition that began in Greece, the Chinese tradition, and the Western tradition. The result is a major original contribution to art history.

"A study based on the text, the Lives of the Artists, by Giorgio Vasari. Discusses how the visual arts in the Renaissance were an occasion for delight or pleasure. Argues that such an attention was encouraged by certain social and intellectual practices"--Provided by publisher.

This volume considers Caravaggio's revolutionary realism from a range of perspectives, presenting new avenues for research by a plurality of leading scholars. First, it advances our understanding of Caravaggio's relationship with the new science of observation championed by Galileo. Second, it examines afresh the theoretical nature and artistic means of Caravaggio's seemingly direct realism. Third, it extends the horizons of research on Caravaggio's complex intellectual and social milieu between high and low cultures. Genevieve Warwick is Senior Lecturer in the Art History department at the University of Glasgow.