Both lauded and criticized for his pictorial eclecticism, the Florentine artist Jacopo Carrucci, known as Pontormo, created some of the most visually striking religious images of the Renaissance. These paintings, which challenged prevailing illusionistic conventions, mark a unique contribution into the complex relationship between artistic innovation and Christian traditions in the first half of the sixteenth century. Pontormo's sacred works are generally interpreted as objects that reflect either pure aesthetic experimentation, or personal and cultural anxiety. Jessica Maratsos, however, argues that Pontormo employed stylistic change deliberately for novel devotional purposes. As a painter, he was interested in the various modes of expression and communication - direct address, tactile evocation, affective incitement - as deployed in a wide spectrum of devotional culture, from sacri monti, to Michelangelo's marble sculptures, to evangelical lectures delivered at the Accademia Fiorentina. Maratsos shows how Pontormo translated these modes in ways that prompt a critical rethinking of Renaissance devotional art.

Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530) created altarpieces of startling beauty. Steven J. Cody analyzes those remarkable paintings as a means of illuminating the artist’s career-long engagement with Christian theology.

In this collection of nine essays some of the preeminent art historians in the United States consider the relationship between art and craft, between the creative idea and its realization, in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. The essays, all previously unpublished, are devoted to the pictorial arts and are accompanied by nearly 150 illustrations. Examining works by such artists as Michelangelo, Titian, Volterrano, Giovanni di Paolo, and Annibale Carracci (along with aspects of the artists' creative processes, work habits, and aesthetic convictions), the essayists explore the ways in which art was conceived and produced at a time when collaboration with pupils, assistants, or independent masters was an accepted part of the artistic process. The consensus of the contributors amounts to a revision, or at least a qualification, of Bernard Berenson's interpretation of the emergent Renaissance ideal of individual "genius" as a measure of original artistic achievement: we must accord greater influence to the collaborative, appropriative conventions and practices of the craft workshop, which persisted into and beyond the Renaissance from its origins in the Middle Ages. Consequently, we must acknowledge the sometimes rather ordinary beginnings of some of the world's great works of art--an admission, say the contributors, that will open new avenues of study and enhance our understanding of the complex connections between invention and execution. With one exception, these essays were delivered as lectures in conjunction with the exhibition The Artists and Artisans of Florence: Works from the Horne Museum hosted by the Georgia Museum of Art in the fall of 1992.

Since the iconoclastic controversies of the eighth and ninth centuries, the visual arts have been the subject of much ecclesiastical discussion and contention. In particular, since the mid-1960s Protestant scholars and clergy have been paying more attention to the potential role of the visual arts in theology and liturgy of the Christian Church. As a result, numerous programs were begun under a variety of nomenclature, e.g., Religion and the Arts, Theology and the Arts, etc. Most of the essays in this book were originally presented as part of the Pruit Symposium on "Interpreting Christian Art, " held at Baylor University in October 2000. The symposium provided the opportunity to bring together scholars, clergy, and laity who are interested in the question of how religious art can contribute to the life of the contemporary Christian community. The resulting essays are a rich fare in interdisciplinary exploration of Christian art by art historians, theologians, and biblical scholars. Essayists include Margaret Miles, Robin M. Jensen, Graydon F. Snyder, Charles Barber, Anthony Cutler, William M. Jensen, Paolo Berdini, John W. Cook, and the editors, Heidi J. Hornik and Mikeal C. Parsons.

"A definitive modern study of Filippo Brunelleschi's buildings, based on detailed archaeological investigation of the monuments and new exhaustive studies in the Florentine archives, has long been needed. This sequel to the author's Filippo Brunelleschi: The Cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore (1980) answers that need. It makes a major contribution to our understanding of the creation of Renaissance architecture and of fifteenth-century patronage. In Filippo Brunelleschi: The Buildings Professor Saalman not only gives new insights into the physical fabric of Brunelleschi's projects, but reinterprets every one of his buildings on the basis of previously unpublished archival evidence and in the light of modern historical research on Early Renaissance Florence. The result is a monograph that reassesses Brunelleschi's architectural work in the context of the political, economic and religious environment of early fifteenth-century Florence. The author reexamines Brunelleschi's personal style of designing details and of managing the quantity and disposition of light in his metrically and geometrically proportioned spaces. Major chapters deal with the role of leading patrons, the Barbadori in their chapel in Santa Felicita, Cosimo de' Medici at San Lorenzo, Andrea Pazzi at the chapter house of the Pazzi in the convent of Santa Croce and the Scolari at the Angeli rotunda. An extensive selection of documents is provided in addition to the short excerpts quoted in the main text. The picture of Brunelleschi that emerges confirms earlier views of him as a traditionalist with an all'antica language. But the reader will find here a new dimension of historical precision in the definition of this much studied architect. Clear lines of demarcation are drawn between the work of Filippo and that of major contemporaries such as Michelozzo de Bartolommeo and, in particular, Leon Battista Alberti. We return at the end of the twentieth century to Filippo Brunelleschi's buildings to learn fundamental lessons about the craft and the profession. There is a universal element in his work: integrity - integrity of design, integrity of structure, integrity of detail. There are no false notes, no easy solutions, no slip-shod details. His buildings do not shout for attention: they command it silently through flawless execution and understated monumentality. They do not lend themselves to facile appreciation, but demand careful study and rigorous thought to be fully understood and enjoyed. A man throughly of his time and place, Filippo - like Mes van der Rohe - strove for simplicity, clarity, perfection. It is what makes him relevant to architects today." --

Images in medieval and early modern treatises on medicine, pharmacy, and natural history often confound our expectations about the functions of medical and scientific illustrations. They do not look very much like the things they purport to portray; and their actual usefulness in everyday medical practice or teaching is not obvious. By looking at works as diverse as herbals, jewellery, surgery manuals, lay health guides, cinquecento paintings, manuscripts of Pliny's Natural History, and Leonardo's notebooks, Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200-1550 addresses fundamental questions about the interplay of art and science from the thirteenth to the mid-sixteenth century: What counts as a medical illustration in the Middle Ages? What are the purposes and audiences of the illustrations in medieval medical, pharmaceutical, and natural history texts? How are images used to clarify, expand, authenticate, and replace these texts? How do images of natural objects, observed phenomena, and theoretical concepts amplify texts and convey complex cultural attitudes? What features lead us to regard some of these images as typically 'medieval' while other exactly contemporary images strike us as 'Renaissance' or 'early modern' in character? Art historians, medical historians, historians of science, and specialists in manuscripts and early printed books will welcome this wide-ranging, interdisciplinary examination of the role of visualization in early scientific inquiry.