Renaissance Society of America Knihy

During the Renaissance, there were two centres of art, culture and mercantile power in Italy: Florence, and Venice. This is a source book of primary materials, almost none previously available in English, for the history of the city-state of Venice. The time period covers the apogee of Venetian power and reputation to the beginnings of its decline in the 1630s. Sources used include diaries, chronicles, Inquisitorial records, literature, legislation, and contemporary descriptions, and are organized in sections by theme and accompanied by brief introductions. Originally published by Basil Blackwell, 1992.

Book

Ludovico Dolce's Dialogo della pittura first appeared in Venice in 1557. L'Aretino, by which the work is known today, consists of a three-part dialogue between two Venetians, Aretino and Fabrini, on the particular merits of works of art and artists, including Michaelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello. It is based largely on Aretino's letters. The edition is presented in the original Italian with English facing-page translation. This study of early art criticism serves to reveal something of how aesthetics were judged based on classical sources (especially Aristotle) and contemporary writers like Vasari.