The Court Cities of Northern Italy: Milan, Parma, Piacenza, Mantua, Ferrara, Bologna, Urbino, Pesaro, and Rimini

Description

This volume examines the painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and architecture produced in nine important court cities of Italy during the course of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Although each chapter represents a separate study of a particular geographical locale, many common themes emerge. This volume gives a multifaceted consideration of the art created for princes, prelates, confraternities, and civic authorities - works displayed in public squares, private palaces, churches, and town halls. Including six essays specially commissioned that explore the interaction of artists and their civic and/or courtly patrons within the context of prevailing cultural, political, and religious circumstances, The Court Cities of Northern Italy provides a rich supplement to traditional accounts of the artistic heritage of the Italian Renaissance, which has traditionally focused on the Florentine, Venetian, and Roman traditions. The book includes 35 color plates and 221 black and white illustrations.

Charles Rosenberg is Professor of Art History at the University of Notre Dame. A recipient of an NEH Rome Prize Fellowship and an I Tatti NEH Fellowship, he is the author of The Este Monuments and Urban Development in Renaissance Ferrara and editor of Art and Politics in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Italy, 1250-1515.

"Charles Rosenberg's The Court Cities of Northern Italy makes a valuable contribution to both court studies and to Italian Renaissance art and architectural history more generally. . . Artistic production is defined broadly, and the book's vibrant and diverse array of objects, images, and monuments ranges from frescoes and illuminated manuscripts to tapestries and vessels, from palaces and villas to tomb sculpture and intarsia. . . An essential contribution." "Charles Rosenberg's volume has answered many questions, but it encourages countless more and will hopefully incite further scholarly inquiry into the court cities of the Italian Renaissance." -Timothy McCall,Villanova University