Product Description

For sophomore/senior survey courses of Italian Renaissance painting, sculpture, and architecture. Long hailed as one of the most comprehensive and richly detailed chronologies of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Italy from c. 1200 AD to c. 1594 AD, this text focuses on the works of art, their creators, and the circumstances affecting their creation. This revision is designed to provide students with a more streamlined approach to understanding Italian Renaissance art without losing the enthusiasm and appreciation that Hartt demonstrated for this area and which earlier editions of this book conveyed so successfully to generations of students. The text is organized first of all chronologically, with individual chapters dedicated to developments in different areas or cities, such as Florence, Tuscany, Rome, Venice, and North Italy. There is a strong emphasis on understanding the works of individual artists as examples of their specific approach and style.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #206468 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 736 pages

From the Back Cover

Frederick Hartt's History of Italian Renaissance Art remains an unrivaled classic. As absorbing to read as it is authoritative in content, the book covers over four centuries of Italian painting, sculpture, and architecture. Its sumptuous color illustrations, fine writing, and in-depth scholarship bring into focus all the elements of this extraordinarily creative period and the amazing personalities who gave it life. Building on the book's more than thirty-year tradition, revising author David G. Wilkins skillfully blends new scholarly discoveries with Hartt's original emphasis on stylistic developments between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. Wilkins's approach retains the enthusiasm and appreciation that Hartt so successfully conveyed to generations of students and admirers of Italian Renaissance art.

The fifth edition has a striking new design with more than half the works of art now illustrated in color. A lavish color portfolio of the Italian Renaissance opens the book and launches the reader on a dazzling adventure across time. New views of frescoes and sculptures photographed in their original locations offer a dynamic insight into the way Renaissance men and women experienced their art. Since the release of the fourth edition, many more works have been restored, including Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel and Raphael's Stanze frescoes in the Vatican. Fresh views of renowned works are included with art commissioned or produced by women. Extended captions identify Renaissance patrons and provide details about historical context, emphasizing how art was created and why, while in-depth visual analysis clarifies the aesthetic developments that emerged in key artistic centers such as Florence, Rome, Venice, and Siena. New iconographic diagrams and computerized reconstructions add dimension to the meanings behind classical, secular, and sacred motifs. Architectural plans, maps in color, and an expanded glossary and bibliography complete this well-rounded picture of the Italian Renaissance.

Frederick Hartt and David Wilkins's History of Italian Renaissance Art invites us to experience a rich artistic legacy in painting, sculpture, and architecture. Through an engaging narrative complemented by a cascade of illustrations, Hartt and Wilkins connect us with the remarkable artists whose innovations and visions shaped the Renaissance.

About the Author

The late Frederick Hartt was one of the most distinguished art historians of the twentieth century. A student of Berenson, Schapiro, and Friedlaender, he taught for more than fifty years, influencing generations of Renaissance scholars. At the time of his death he was Paul Goodloe McIntire Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at the University of Virginia. He was a Knight of the Crown of Italy, a Knight Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, an honorary citizen of Florence, and an honorary member of the Academy of the Arts of Design, Florence, a society whose charter members included Michelangelo and the Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici.

Hartt authored, among other works, Florentine Art under Fire (1949); Botticelli (1952); Giulio Romano (1958); Love in Baroque Art (1964); The Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal (1964); three volumes on the painting, sculpture, and drawings of Michelangelo (1964, 1969, 1971); Donatello, Prophet of Modern Vision (1974); Michelangelo's Three Pietàs (1975); and the monumental Art: A History o f Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, now in its fourth edition (1993).

David G . Wilkins is professor of the history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh and chair of the department. He has also served on the faculties of the University of Michigan in Florence and the Semester at Sea Program. He is author of Donatello (1984, with Bonnie A. Bennett); Maso di Banco: A Florentine Artist of the Early Trecento (1985); The Illustrated Bartsch: "Pre-Rembrandt Etchers," vol. 53 (1985, with Kahren Arbitman); A History o f the Duquesne Club (1989, with Mark Brown and Lu Donnelly); Art Past/Art Present, a broad survey of the history of art (fourth edition, 2001, with Bernard Schultz and Katheryn M. Linduff); and The Art of the Duquesne Club (2001). He was the revising author for the fourth edition of History of Italian Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture (1994) and co-editor of The Search for a Patron in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (1996, with Rebecca L. Wilkins) and Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy (with Sheryl E. Reiss).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

When Frederick Hartt's History o f Italian Renaissance Art was first published, more than thirty years ago, it was an epoch-making achievement. This large volume with its dozens of color plates presented for the reader the story of Italian Renaissance art as it was loved, appreciated, and understood by one of the great scholars of the period. Before his death in 1991, Frederick Hartt was able to revise the book for two later editions. In 1994 a fourth edition offered minor revisions to Hartt's text and illustrations in the light of new discoveries and the restoration of the Sistine Chapel and other works. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, this new edition has been undertaken to update and enhance Hartt's original vision. I think he would have been especially pleased with our ability to offer color illustrations throughout the book, uniting the images with the text in a manner not possible before.

As I set about updating Hartt's vision, my intent was to maintain the integrity of the story that he had first told so enthusiastically many years ago. The organization of the text as he planned it has been retained, and many of the works illustrated are the same. The new works added here were chosen to expand and enhance Hartt's original vision.

The history of Italian Renaissance art is a vast and complex subject that could be told in a number of ways. Frederick Harrt's view was a traditional one that had its roots in the first history of Renaissance art, written by Giorgio Vasari in the sixteenth century. Like Vasari, Hartt emphasized the art that was created in Florence, Rome, Siena, and Venice. While art historians have discovered much that is interesting and important in the art created in Naples, Milan, Ferrara, and other centers during the Renaissance, to include this material in extensive detail would have detracted from Hartt's thesis that Renaissance art evolved in Florence and had its most fulfilling later development in Rome, Siena, and Venice. His belief that each of these cities evolved a unique style was the basis for his organization; as such, chapters were devoted to the developments in each center. Such an approach remains appropriate, for the story of each city's art has an internal integrity that is based on its own independent political and social structure and development.

Hartt's model, Vasari's Lives of the Artists, was based on an interest in understanding each artist as a creative individual. While such a biographical and focused approach is still rewarding, it means that each artist is isolated and discussed independently. This organization provides readers with a strong sense of the personality and artistic development of each individual, while at the same time requiring that they re-create the original, overlapping chronology of events and works.

While choosing to maintain Harrt's traditional framework, I have at the same time introduced a number of changes. Illustrations have been deleted to make way for other works that enrich our understanding of the diversity of the period. While Hartt emphasized religious art, I have added a number of secular works. Also new is a series of portraits of significant patrons and personalities of the period. Extracts from Renaissance texts have been added to enhance the historical context. The emphasis throughout, however, remains as Hartt envisioned it—on the work of art and on the individual creator rather than on the broader social and historical context within which these works were created.

One of Harrt's goals was to help the reader see the works of art as he saw them through the use of evocative and poetic language. As an example of his descriptive powers, note how quickly he captured the effect of Parmigianino's Vision of St. Jerome (see fig. 18.54): "In the darkness that veils any possibility of establishing spatial relationships, rays of light flash from the Madonna's head and shoulders like shards of ice." Again and again his words send the reader back for another, closer look at the work of art.

My own love for this period was established when I first visited Florence in 1963 in preparation for a position at the University of New Hampshire. Although at the time I thought of myself as a medievalist in training, my job required that I teach a full semester course on Italian Renaissance art. As a result I devoted extra time to Italy and Renaissance art; when I left Florence that summer, I knew that I would be going back. I owe a special debt to all my teachers at the University of Michigan: Ludovico Borgo, Eleanor Collins, Marvin Eisenberg, Ilene Forsyth, Oleg Grabar, Victor Meisel, Clifton Olds, James Snyder, Harold Wethey, and Nathan Whitman.

In preparing this edition I want to thank a number of individuals for their assistance, including my family—Ann Thomas Wilkins, Rebecca Wilkins, Katherine Wilkins, Chris Colborn, Tyler Jennings—and past and present students and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh—Bonnie Apgar Bennett, Maria Carolina Carrasco, Jennifer Craven, Roger Crum, Holly Ginchereau, Ann Sutherland Harris, Ray Anne Lockard, Sarah Cameron Loyd, Erin Marr, Stacey Mitchell, Elizabeth Prince, Azar Rejaie, David Rigo, Jane Vadnal, and Jim Wilkinson. I profited, as always, from the thoughtful and enthusiastic assistance of the excellent staff at Harry N. Abrams, Inc., including Julia Moore, head of the textbooks division, my editor and project manager for this revision, Cynthia Henthorn, and Julia Chmaj, Holly Jennings, and Sabine Rogers for editorial; John Crowley for picture research; and former publisher Mark Magowan for his inspired support. Much appreciation also goes to Diana Gongora, Alia Mansoori, Doria Romero, and David Savage for picture research and permissions; John McKenna for illustration; Adrian Kitzinger for map design; and the staff of BTD, Inc., Beth Tondreau, Erica Harrison, Lorie Pagnozzi, and Mia Risberg for design. My hearty thanks to all. Errors and omissions are, as always, my responsibility alone.

DAVID G. WILKINS
Silver Lake, New Hampshire, December 2001

Customer Reviews

Simply One Of The Best Books Ever!
I don't give 5-star ratings very often. I reserve them for only the best, and this is indeed the best book on the Italian Renaissance. I received both my BA and MA in Art History and this was the text used for my Renaissance classes. The book does not read as a textbook for those looking for leisure reading. It reads like a novel and is written in easy to understand language. Chapters are broken down by time period. There are a TON of pictures! I would say 50% of the book is pictures and 95% of those are in color. There are a few B&W pictures but they are of obscure sculptures or paintings.

The book was originally written by Frederick Harrt who was one of the 'Monument Men' in World War II who went around Italy documenting art, missing, damaged, or otherwise. He has passed away but David Wilkins has kept up on the new editions with the current scholarship being done in Renaissance Art. Whether you get this as a textbook for a class, or leisure reading, a coffee table book perhaps, or even a Christmas book for a hard-to-but-for relative, it is well worth the money.

Complete Reference for Italian Renaissance Art
This a beautiful book. It is complete and definitive for reference to Italian Renaissance Art. The photographs are clear and the information is concise. I used this for my graduate Italian art history class. I am keeping this book and will not be selling it back!

A perfect book for a library and coffee table.
Fredrick Hartt is a man whose love of his subject is only equal to his willingness to expalin it in terms of the layman. He does not limit the purview of the book to merely the depiction of Italian life and piety, but brings in narrative and anecdotes to enliven the tome. He introduces us to the vocabulary of the arts, not consigning them to an inconvenient niche in the appendix, neither condescending incessantly or immersed in jagon. The resplendent illustrations, true eye candy, fill the book, making it a true bargain. Hartt truly deserves the copious awards given to him by the patrons of the arts. My only regret is that the usuerers of my school book store had not charged such a bloated price ($72) for this book.