Art and Anatomy in Renaissance Italy: Images from a Scientific Revolution - Softcover

Laurenza, Domenico

Softcover

ISBN 10: 030017957X ISBN 13: 9780300179576

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012

Synopsis

Known as the "century of anatomy," the 16th century in Italy saw an explosion of studies and treatises on the discipline. Medical science advanced at an unprecedented rate, and physicians published on anatomy as never before. Simultaneously, many of the period's most prominent artists—including Leonardo and Michelangelo in Florence, Raphael in Rome, and Rubens working in Italy—turned to the study of anatomy to inform their own drawings and sculptures, some by working directly with anatomists and helping to illustrate their discoveries. The result was a rich corpus of art objects detailing the workings of the human body with an accuracy never before attained.

Art and Anatomy in Renaissance Italy examines this crossroads between art and science, showing how the attempt to depict bone structure, musculature, and our inner workings—both in drawings and in three dimensions—constituted an important step forward in how the body was represented in art. While already remarkable at the time of their original publication, the anatomical drawings by 16th-century masters have even foreshadowed developments in anatomic studies in modern times.

About this title

About the Author:

Domenico Laurenza resides in Rome, and is affiliated with the Museo Galileo-Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Florence.

Review:

"Laurenza, a science historian, accomplishes a summative work of the impulse and fascination held by artist-anatomists of the sixteenth-century....He writes in a consistent fashion of the visual language, an apt and fitting description for what was so innovative in that era."—A. Scott Pearson, Sixteenth Century Journal (A. Scott Pearson Sixteenth Century Journal)

About this edition

• Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 030017957X
• ISBN 13: 9780300179576
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 48