The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence - Hardcover

Cristina Acidini Luchinat; Suzanne B. Butters; Marco Chiarini; Janet Cox-Rearick; Alan P. Darr; Larry J. Feinberg; Annamaria Giusti; Richard A. Goldthwaite; Lucia Meoni; Kirsten Aschengreen Piacenti; Claudio Pizzorusso; Anna Maria Testaverde

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300094957 ISBN 13: 9780300094954

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Successful merchants and Florence's most prominent patrons of the arts and sciences, the Medici family ruled the city from the fifteenth century until the mid-eighteenth century. This beautiful and authoritative book focuses on the glorious art produced during the height of the reign of the Medici dynasty.

Eminent authorities tell us that under the grand dukes Cosimo I, his sons Francesco I and Ferdinando I, and his grandson Cosimo II, Florence experienced a great flowering of the arts. The Medici dukes gave commissions to artists such as Pontormo, Bronzino, Vasari, Giambologna, and, in particular, Michelangelo, whose work overshadowed much of the city's cultural and artistic life at this time. The Medici used the buildings and works of art that resulted from their patronage as a means to promote and reflect their political and cultural aspirations within their native city and throughout Europe.

This handsome book will be the catalogue for the exhibition "Magnificenza!," opening in Florence at Palazzo Strozzi on June 6, 2002 that then moves to the Art Institute of Chicago (November 9, 2002 to February 2, 2003) and to the Detroit Institute of Arts (March 16, 2003 to June 8, 2003).

About this title

About the Author:

Alan P. Darr is Walter B. Ford II Family Curator of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Detroit Institute of Arts

From Booklist:

Florence, Michelangelo's beloved native city, became the capital of the Italian Renaissance thanks to the lavish arts and science patronage of the Medici dynasty. The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence, a beautifully produced volume based on a traveling exhibition, focuses on an especially fertile period, 1537-1631, during which the Medici grand dukes--Cosimo I, his sons Francesco I and Ferdinando I, and grandson Cosimo II--supported not only the seminal Michelangelo but also artists Pontormo, Vasari, Cellini, and Giambologna. Richly descriptive essays offer brisk but vivid portraits of the Medici and the artists they commissioned, consider the city's illustrious if politically volatile tradition of highly skilled craftsmanship, and assess the glory of Renaissance drawing, painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, particularly the remarkable pietre dure, or hard stone inlays, examples of which take the reader's breath away. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0300094957
• ISBN 13: 9780300094954
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 416