13 April 2007 | Renaissance
From the Guardian: “After lying almost untouched in the vaults of an Italian university for 500 years, a book on the magic arts written by Leonardo da Vinci’s best friend and teacher has been translated into English for the first time. The world’s oldest magic text, De viribus quantitatis (On The Powers Of Numbers) was [...]
3 April 2007 | Renaissance
Maggie Reid writes in the Yale Daily News: “Ben Sweeney became interested in the idea that da Vinci may have had a misshapen left hand, a theory that he said has been overlooked for 500 years by the art world. Sweeney, a real estate broker in San Diego … developed the idea that the third [...]
29 March 2007 | Renaissance
Nature reports on a new interpretation of Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation: “Piero planned his paintings down to the last detail, and this meticulously executed scene contains several mysteries, particularly the identities of the three men on the right. Countless attempts have been made to name them … A leading historian of science now believes he [...]
22 February 2007 | Renaissance
From the AP: “A 450-year-old receipt provides proof Michelangelo kept a private room in St. Peter’s Basilica while he was the pope’s chief architect, Vatican experts said. While going through the basilica archives for an exhibit on the 500th anniversary of the church last year, researchers came across an entry for a key to a [...]
22 February 2007 | Books, Renaissance
David Landau reviews the first volume of Giovanni Agosti’s Su Mantegna in the Dec. 2006 Print Quarterly: “This is one of the greatest books I have ever read. For a long time we have felt the need for a reassessment of Mantegna … Agosti has done this and more: he has developed our understanding of [...]
15 February 2007 | Renaissance
From Chemistry World: “Forensic scrutiny of flecks of paint from an unattributed painting lends weight to the idea it was a mock-up for one of Raphael’s most famous Renaissance creations. An unattributed portrait of the Madonna and Child known as the de Brécy Tondo bears an unmistakable resemblance to the central figures in the Sistine [...]
15 February 2007 | Architecture, Conferences, News, Renaissance
Contributor Ross Finocchio writes: This year I had every reason to think that getting to CAA would be a breeze. After all, I live in New York. Although February can be brutal here, what could be worse than the deep freeze that covered Boston during the ’06 conference? The answer turned out to be stinging [...]
1 February 2007 | Conferences, Renaissance
In CAA Reviews, Diana Gisolfi discusses a recent symposium “Rediscovering Venetian Renaissance Painting was the closing event of several associated with the exhibition Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington … Nicholas Penny’s presentation was incisive and provocative, noting the several unsettled attributions and various [...]
23 January 2007 | Museums, Renaissance
From the Art Newspaper: “Spanish art historians have renamed one of Italy’s greatest painters. Specialists at the Prado have established that Tintoretto’s family name was Comin. This revelation will be presented at a major retrospective on Tintoretto (1519-94), which opens in Madrid on 29 January … the result of research following publication of an article [...]
16 January 2007 | Renaissance
From Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa: “Italian officials have approved a scientific exploration designed to solve one of the greatest mysteries in the history of art: the whereabouts of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Battle of Anghiari, a large mural depicting a 16th century battle between the Florentine Republic and the Milanese … [Conservationist Maurizio] Seracini, who has dedicated [...]
5 December 2006 | Books, Renaissance
Reviewing James R. Banker’s The Culture of San Sepolcro during the Youth of Piero della Francesca and Marilyn Aronberg Lavin’s Piero della Francesca, Frank Dabell writes: “Both these books are welcome; and for this reviewer, at least, there can never be enough material about Piero della Francesca if it helps draw us nearer to understanding [...]
23 October 2006 | Museums, Renaissance
Titian’s portraits of the powerful are up at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris (catalog from Skira). Titien, le pouvoir en face is “a magnificent introduction” to Titian’s work, in spite of its odd title, writes Gérard-Georges Lemaire. In one picture, Charles Quint, “no beauty,” is “literally sublimated by Titian.” Lemaire also praises the je-ne-sais-quoi [...]
3 October 2006 | Renaissance
Philippe Dagen reports in Le Monde on the recent Raphael exhibit: The Galleria Borghese, already full of grand marbles and bronzes from antiquity to the Renaissance, may be the least likely place in Rome to accommodate temporary exhibitions, but Anna Coliva, curator of “Raffaello da Firenze a Roma,” was not dissuaded. In the assembled 50+ [...]
2 October 2006 | Books, Renaissance
Roland H. Wiegenstein reviews Hans Körner’s Botticelli biography (discussed earlier here). The painter’s career is seen in the context of the new demand for and “mass production” of images of Mary owing to the Devotio Moderna (the Virgin being an important mediator between divine and human), and the status of the Medici as against the [...]
29 September 2006 | Museums, Renaissance
Giambologna, a star of Viennese collections, gets a thorough look-in at the Bargello (“Giambologna: Gods and Heroes”) and the Kunsthistorisches Museum (“Giambologna: Triumph of the Body”; see Markus Mittringer, Der Standard). In the catalog, Claudia Kryza-Gersch argues that you can reduce Italian Renaissance sculpture to three names: Donatello, Michelangelo, and Giambologna.
28 September 2006 | Museums, Renaissance
In La Stampa, Marco Vallora weighs in on the Gentile show in Fabriano (previously discussed here).
27 September 2006 | Renaissance
From ANSA: “A French art expert has found evidence for the idea that the Mona Lisa had just given birth – and hence her enigmatic smile. Bruno Mottin of the French Museums’ Center for Research and Restoration has examined 3D images of Leonardo Da Vinci’s iconic painting produced by laser and infrared scans … He [...]
31 August 2006 | Renaissance
From the UK Observer: “Peering from his scaffold, 12 metres above ground, Maurizio Seracini could make out the inscription in the detail of a Renaissance fresco: ‘Cerca Trova.’ For the Florentine art detective it was the beginning of a 30-year quest. Translated into English, the words mean: ‘He who searches shall find.’ Imagine the works [...]
21 August 2006 | Museums, Renaissance
In La Repubblica, Goffredo Silvestri has a long and detailed review of the Lorenzo Monaco from the Giottesque tradition to the Renaissance exhibition at the Florence Accademia. (English catalog and description.)
24 July 2006 | Renaissance
From ANSA: “New research into a work by Andrea Mantegna suggests that the Renaissance master was born earlier than art historians previously thought. The discovery came during preliminary studies for the restoration of one of the artist’s most famous pieces, the San Zeno altarpiece in Verona. These studies, carried out by Milan University using infrared [...]
