Drawings by the great Italian Mannerist painter and poet Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572) are extremely rare. This important and beautiful publication brings together for the first time nearly all of the sixty drawings attributed to this leading draftsman of the 16th century. Each drawing is illustrated in color, discussed in detail, and shown with many comparative photographs. Bronzino's technical virtuosity as a draftsman and his mastery of anatomy and perspective are vividly apparent in each stroke of the chalk, pen, or brush. The younger generations of Florentine artists particularly admired Bronzino for his technical virtuosity as a painter, and Giorgio Vasari praised him for his powers as a disegnatore (designer and draftsman).

This catalogue traces the career of Agnolo di Cosimo known as Bronzino, a protagonist of sixteenth-century Florentine culture. It charts his life from his apprenticeship in the workshop of Jacopo da Pontormo and sojourn in the Marche region to his career

This volume investigates the many important artistic and art historical issues associated with the paintings and writings of the Florentine Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572). These include his artistic and poetical achievements, with an emphasis on his emblematic drawings and mythological painting. Specifically, his role in the development of new formal portraiture in Mannerism paintings as well as his influence in the foundation of the Florentine Academy.Bronzino was one of the most important cultural figures in Italy during the middle of the sixteenth-century, having achieved prominence as an art critic, poet, decorator and painter. Bronzino's accomplishment in all these capacities have long been the subject of study. It is only recently, however, that scholars have began to recognize the merits and influences of his paintings. Indeed, the focus of the scholarship of the last twenty-five years makes it clear that Bronzino was one of the most prominent court painters and decorators working in Florence and the Marches in the mid-sixteenth-century. In view of the celebrated position of Bronzino as a leading artist of his day, it is time to focus with some care on the most significant artistic, intellectual, cultural, and political forces which affected the origins and development of his mature iconography programs, decorative style, and history of art. This book initially concentrates on how Bronzino's humanist milieu influenced the formal qualities and iconography of his early works, as well as his written commentaries on the arts. Then on Bronzino's the artist and his intellectual strategies in portraiture and decorative paintings, particularly attractive to his demanding patrons and proved to be critical for his sustained influence as an artist and promoter of the arts academy. Finally, it elaborates on the dynamic interdependence of image and text in Bronzino's works as they were directly related to the fruitful maturity of his mythological paintings.

Pontormo's Halberdier has long been controversial. How did scholars come to identify the sitter as Duke Cosimo de' Medici and why is this open to doubt? Who was Francesco Guardi? What was the siege of Florence, and could Pontormo have made this compelling portrait during that time of deprivation and political tumult? In a fascinating piece of historical detective work, Elizabeth Cropper investigates these questions and uncovers new evidence for interpretation. She also analyzes the portrait's relationship to other works by Pontormo, explores the importance for Pontormo of Donatello, Michelangelo, and Andrea del Sarto, and looks into Bronzino's connection with the portrait.

Published in conjunction with an exhibition on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 12-Aug 15, 2010.

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.

Brimming with numerous illustrations and essays, this lavish book brings together the best in Mannerist art from the city of Florence, where the movement was born. Emerging in the early 16th century on the heels of the Renaissance, the mannerist style arose out of the art world's attempts to further the incredible achievements of Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael. Mannerist art comprises many facets: it is elegant, cultivated, and sophisticated but also artificial, extravagant, and sometimes even bizarre. Some called the art of Maniera "the stylish style." Spanning the period from the return of the Medici in 1512 and the first tentative steps of the new generation of artists to the definition of the Maniera in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists in 1568, more than 120 paintings, drawings, and sculptures from the world's leading museums are gathered in this book. It features works by Andrea del Sarto, Rosso Fiorentino, and Giorgio Vasari with a special focus on the work of Pontormo and Bronzino, the central figures of Florentine mannerism. The developments in art during the decades in question are closely related to the history of the city of Florence. Refined elegance and creative extravagance render the painters of the Maniera a particular phenomenon in the art of Italy. This beautifully produced and authoritative book presents the achievements and practitioners of one of the most intriguing and influential periods in the history of European art.

This monumental new book is the first to celebrate the greatest and most iconic paintings from the encyclopedic collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, one of the largest, most important, and most beloved museums in the world. This impressive volume's broad sweep of material, all from a single museum, makes it at once a universal history of painting and the ideal introduction to the iconic masterworks of this world-renowned institution. More than 1,000 lavish color illustrations and details of 500 masterpiece paintings, created over 5,000 years in cultures across the globe, are presented chronologically from the dawn of civilization to the present. These works represent a grand tour of painting from ancient Egypt and classical antiquity and prized Byzantine and medieval altarpieces, to paintings from Asia, India, Africa and the Americas, and and the greatest European and North American masters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art includes and introduction and illuminating texts about each artwork written specially for this volume by Kathryn Calley Galitz, whose experience as both curator and educator at the Met makes her uniquely qualified. European and American artists include Duccio, El Greco, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Bronzino, Caravaggio, Turner, Velázquez, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Brueghel, Vermeer, David, Renior, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Degas, Sargent, Homer, Matisse, Picasso, Pollock, Jasper Johns, and Warhol. The artworks are arranged in rough chronological order, without regard to geography or culture, offering a visual timeline of the history of painting, from the earliest examples on pottery jars made over five thousand years ago to canvases on which the paint has barely dried. Freed from the constraints imposed by the physical layout of the Museum, the paintings resonate anew; and this chronological framework reveals unexpected visual affinities among the works. For those wishing to experience the unparalleled breadth and depth of the Met's collection, or study masterpieces of painting from throughout history, this important volume is sure to become a classic cherished by art lovers around the world.

"The authors look closely at a variety of types of painting - including large altarpieces, small domestic, devotional images, diplomatic gifts, furniture, decorations and both intimate and full-length portraits - as well as frescoes, drawings and prints. They provide insights into the meanings of individual pictures and into the purposes they were originally intended to serve, and they explore the social position of the artist in the 1500s.

Eleonora di Toledo was a powerful and influential woman who, over the course of nearly a quarter century (1539-62), contributed profoundly to the cultural flowering of ducal Florence. Her patronage of some of the leading artists of the time, her support of newly arrived Jesuit preachers, her involvement in charitable activities, her unfailing devotion to her husband and his policies, not to mention her successful farming and business ventures are only some of the areas where her influence was unambiguously exercised and felt. She also provided the House of Medici with a full stable of children to re-invigorate the failing family line, ensure male succession even in the face of unexpected calamities, and provide enough females to establish marriage connections with a variety of noble and ruling houses in Italy. In spite of all these contributions, Eleonora has attracted little attention from scholars. This apparent disinterest may be a factor of Eleonora's personal style, or of the bad press that, as a Spanish noblewoman, she quickly received from her Florentine subjects, or of modern antipathy for some of the basic characteristics of ducal Florence. An examination of her impact on Tuscany is long overdue. In fact, a fuller, more nuanced understanding of the duchess can shed a more profound light not only on her as a person, or on her impact on Tuscan culture in the sixteenth century, but also on the contribution of female consorts to the vitality of a successful early-modern state. The essays collected here bring together a variety of scholars working in various disciplines. While many of the articles take their cue from art history (a natural reflection of the innovative research recent art historians have carried out on the duchess), they also reach out towards other disciplines - political history, literature, spectacle, and religion to mention just a few. In so doing, they expand our understanding of Eleonora's place in her society and reveal a very complex,