"Inspired by the teachings and research of Patricia Fortini Brown, a renowned scholar of Venetian art and history, these beautifully illustrated essays by leading scholars address topics ranging from painted Venetian narrative cycles of the late 15th century to the rebuilding of the Campanile in the early 20th century. This book was derived from [a portion of the] papers given at the [56th annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America held April 8-10, 2010, Venice, Italy, and the 2010] Giorgione Symposium [Giorgione and his time : confronting alternate realities] held at Princeton University on the occasion of Fortini Brown’s recent retirement"--

This study reveals the broad material, devotional, and cultural implications of sculpture in Renaissance Venice. Examining a wide range of sources—the era’s art-theoretical and devotional literature, guidebooks and travel diaries, and artworks in various media—Lorenzo Buonanno recovers the sculptural values permeating a city most famous for its painting. The book traces the interconnected phenomena of audience response, display and thematization of sculptural bravura, and artistic self-fashioning. It will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance history, early modern art and architecture, material culture, and Italian studies.

"A comprehensive and richly illustrated survey of Venetian Renaissance architecture, sculpture, and painting created between 1400 and 1600 addressed to students, travellers, and the general public. The works of art are analysed within Venice's cultural circumstances--political, economic, intellectual, and religious--and in terms of function, style, iconography, patronage, classical sources, gender, art theories, and artist's innovations, rivalries, and social status. The text has been divided into two parts--the fifteenth century and the sixteenth century--each part preceded by an introduction that recounts the history of Venice to 1500 and to 1600 respectively, including the city's founding, ideology, territorial expansion, social classes, governmental structure, economy, and religion. The twenty-six chapters have been organized to lead readers systematically through the major artistic developments within the three principal categories of art--governmental, ecclesiastic, and domestic--and have been arranged sequentially as follows: civic architecture and urbanism, churches, church decoration (ducal tombs and altarpieces), refectories and refectory decoration (section two only), confraternities (architecture and decoration), palaces, palace decoration (devotional works, portraits, secular painting, and halls of state), villas, and villa decoration. The conclusion offers an overview of the major types of Venetian art and architectural patronage and their funding sources"--Provided by publisher.

For Italian city builders more than a thousand years ago, the urban realm was the great theater where their best aspirations were played out, the place where society said the most substantial things about who they were and what they longed for. In this masterful blend of art and cultural history, architect David Mayernik reveals how the very different cities of Venice, Rome, Florence, Siena, and Pienza were all literally designed to be both models of the mind and images of heaven. Mayernik takes the reader on a journey into the past in Timeless Cities, but he also explains why these city-building ideas remain relevant today. For those travelling on vacation or appreciating the art and architecture of Italy from home, Mayernik helps bring the wonder and beauty of the Renaissance mind a little closer.

Jacopo de’ Barbari’s View of Venice, a woodcut first printed in the year 1500, presents a bird’s-eye portrait of Venice at its peak as an international hub of trade, art, and culture. An artistic and cartographic masterpiece of the Renaissance, the View depicts Venice as a vibrant, waterborne city interconnected by canals and bridges and filled with ornate buildings, elaborate gardens, and seafaring vessels. The contributors to A View of Venice: Portrait of a Renaissance City draw on a high-resolution digital scan of the over nine-foot-wide composite print to examine the complexities of this extraordinary woodcut and portrayal of early modern Venetian life. The essays show how the View constitutes an advanced material artifact of artistic, humanist, and scientific culture. They also outline the ways the print reveals information about the city’s economic and military power, religious and social infrastructures, and cosmopolitan residents. Featuring methodological advancements in the digital humanities, A View of Venice highlights the reality and myths of a topographically unique, mystical city and its place in the world. Contributors. Karen-edis Barzman, Andrea Bellieni, Patricia Fortini Brown, Valeria Cafà, Stanley Chojnacki, Tracy E. Cooper, Giada Damen, Julia A. DeLancey, Piero Falchetta, Ludovica Galeazzo, Maartje van Gelder, Jonathan Glixon, Richard Goy, Anna Christine Swartwood House, Kristin Love Huffman, Holly Hurlburt, Claire Judde de Larivière, Blake de Maria, Martina Massaro, Cosimo Monteleone, Monique O’Connell, Mary Pardo, Giorgio Tagliaferro, Saundra Weddle, Bronwen Wilson, Rangsook Yoon

Looks at the roles various world views have played in generating cultural policies at various times in Western history. Evan Alderson’s introduction places the work within its social, political and historical framework. Robin Blaser addresses the problem of how we can begin to locate a responsible cultural position at the present time. The volume’s historical progression begins with John Humphrey looking at the relation of arts and state in Imperial Rome. Haijo Westra focusses on the relation of language and culture in the medieval world. Jonathan Bordo examines the emergence of the individually framed picture in the Renaissance. Steven Cole examines the artistic autonomy of English Romanticism. Hazard Adams outlines a conception of cultural policy through William Blake. Cultural policy is brought closer to the Canadian context with Gordon Fearn’s discussion of communications policy in Canada. Anthony Welch takes up the process of re-comprehending culture within the revolution of communications by examining revolutionary and pre-revolutionary Iran. The two final essays take up the challenge of positing the hope of the post-modern. Barry Cooper begins his examination of the relevant part of post-modernism in the sixth century A.D. Robert Kroetsch sees only a longing for order that must be abandoned so that we may measure the depth of our uncertainties and learn to converse across them. Robin Blaser reminds us in his “Afterthoughts” that much of our current unease stems, not from too many differences, but from too few. This volume speaks in a single voice both to those interested in the pragmatics of current cultural policy and to those whose primary allegiance is to the life of the imagination. It is not just a scholarly exercise, but also a call for action — to a more comprehensive and informed engagement with our present cultural condition.

A study of Christ as Man of Sorrows in the Venetian world from the late Medieval through the Baroque era. Art and Faith in Venice is the first study of the Man of Sorrows in the art and culture of Venice and her dominions across three centuries. A subject imbued with deep spiritual and metaphorical significance, the image pervaded late-Medieval Europe but assumed in the Venetian world an unusually rich and long life. The book presents a biography, first tracing the transmission of the image as a vertical, half-length figure devoid of narrative from the Byzantine East c. 1275 and then exploring its gradual adaptation and diffusion across the Venetian state to a wide range of media, reaching from small manuscript illuminations to panel paintings, altarpieces, tombs and liturgical furnishings. Analyzing its nomenclature, visual form and layered meanings, the study demonstrates how this universal image played a prominent role responding to public and private devotions in the spiritual and cultural life of Venice and its larger political sphere of influence. Catherine Puglisi and William Barcham have written extensively on the Man of Sorrows and co-curated an exhibition on the subject in New York in 2011. Each also publishes separately, Puglisi on Caravaggio and Bolognese art, and Barcham on Venetian 18th-century painting.