Raffaello Borghini's Il Riposo (1584) is the most widely known Florentine document on the subject of the Counter-Reformation content of religious paintings. Despite its reputation as an art-historical text, this is the first English-language translation of Il Riposo to be published. A distillation of the art gossip that was a feature of the Medici Grand Ducal court, Borghini's treatise puts forth simple criteria for judging the quality of a work of art. Published sixteen years after the second edition of Giorgio Vasari's Vite, the text that set the standard for art-historical writing during the period, Il Riposo focuses on important issues that Vasari avoided, ignored, or was oblivious to. Picking up where Vasari left off, Borghini deals with artists who came after Michaelangelo and provides more comprehensive descriptions of artists who Vasari only touched upon such as Tintoretto, Veronese, Barocci, and the artists of Francesco I's Studiolo. This text is also invaluable as a description of the mid-sixteenth century reaction against the style of the 'maniera,' which stressed the representation of self-consciously convoluted figures in complicated works of art.The first art treatise specifically directed toward non-practitioners, Il Riposo gives unique insight into the early stages of art history as a discipline, late Renaissance art and theory, and the Counter-Reformation in Italy.

Raffaello Borghini's Il Riposo (1584) is the most widely known Florentine document on the subject of the Counter-Reformation content of religious paintings. Despite its reputation as an art-historical text, this is the first English-language translation of Il Riposo to be published. A distillation of the art gossip that was a feature of the Medici Grand Ducal court, Borghini's treatise puts forth simple criteria for judging the quality of a work of art. Published sixteen years after the second edition of Giorgio Vasari's Vite, the text that set the standard for art-historical writing during the period, Il Riposo focuses on important issues that Vasari avoided, ignored, or was oblivious to. Picking up where Vasari left off, Borghini deals with artists who came after Michaelangelo and provides more comprehensive descriptions of artists who Vasari only touched upon such as Tintoretto, Veronese, Barocci, and the artists of Francesco I's Studiolo. This text is also invaluable as a description of the mid-sixteenth century reaction against the style of the 'maniera,' which stressed the representation of self-consciously convoluted figures in complicated works of art. The first art treatise specifically directed toward non-practitioners, Il Riposo gives unique insight into the early stages of art history as a discipline, late Renaissance art and theory, and the Counter-Reformation in Italy.

Raffaello Borghini's Il Riposo (1584) is the most widely known Florentine document on the subject of the Counter-Reformation content of religious paintings. Despite its reputation as an art-historical text, this is the first English-language translation of Il Riposo to be published. A distillation of the art gossip that was a feature of the Medici Grand Ducal court, Borghini's treatise puts forth simple criteria for judging the quality of a work of art. Published sixteen years after the second edition of Giorgio Vasari's Vite, the text that set the standard for art-historical writing during the period, Il Riposo focuses on important issues that Vasari avoided, ignored, or was oblivious to. Picking up where Vasari left off, Borghini deals with artists who came after Michaelangelo and provides more comprehensive descriptions of artists who Vasari only touched upon such as Tintoretto, Veronese, Barocci, and the artists of Francesco I's Studiolo. This text is also invaluable as a description of the mid-sixteenth century reaction against the style of the 'maniera,' which stressed the representation of self-consciously convoluted figures in complicated works of art. The first art treatise specifically directed toward non-practitioners, Il Riposo gives unique insight into the early stages of art history as a discipline, late Renaissance art and theory, and the Counter-Reformation in Italy.

Raffaello Borghini's Il Riposo (1584) is the most widely known Florentine document on the subject of the Counter-Reformation content of religious paintings. Despite its reputation as an art-historical text, this is the first English-language translation of Il Riposo to be published. A distillation of the art gossip that was a feature of the Medici Grand Ducal court, Borghini's treatise puts forth simple criteria for judging the quality of a work of art. Published sixteen years after the second edition of Giorgio Vasari's Vite, the text that set the standard for art-historical writing during the period, Il Riposo focuses on important issues that Vasari avoided, ignored, or was oblivious to. Picking up where Vasari left off, Borghini deals with artists who came after Michaelangelo and provides more comprehensive descriptions of artists who Vasari only touched upon such as Tintoretto, Veronese, Barocci, and the artists of Francesco I's Studiolo. This text is also invaluable as a description of the mid-sixteenth century reaction against the style of the 'maniera,' which stressed the representation of self-consciously convoluted figures in complicated works of art. The first art treatise specifically directed toward non-practitioners, Il Riposo gives unique insight into the early stages of art history as a discipline, late Renaissance art and theory, and the Counter-Reformation in Italy.

The Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies is a two-volume reference book containing some 600 entries on all aspects of Italian literary culture. It includes analytical essays on authors and works, from the most important figures of Italian literature to little known authors and works that are influential to the field. The Encyclopedia is distinguished by substantial articles on critics, themes, genres, schools, historical surveys, and other topics related to the overall subject of Italian literary studies. The Encyclopedia also includes writers and subjects of contemporary interest, such as those relating to journalism, film, media, children's literature, food and vernacular literatures. Entries consist of an essay on the topic and a bibliographic portion listing works for further reading, and, in the case of entries on individuals, a brief biographical paragraph and list of works by the person. It will be useful to people without specialized knowledge of Italian literature as well as to scholars.

Drawing on recent research by established and emerging scholars of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century art, this volume reconsiders the art and architecture produced after 1563 across the conventional geographic borders. Rather than considering this period a degraded afterword to Renaissance classicism or an inchoate proto-Baroque, the book seeks to understand the art on its own terms. By considering artists such as Federico Barocci and Stefano Maderno in Italy, Hendrick Goltzius in the Netherlands, Antoine Caron in France, Francisco Ribalta in Spain, and Bartolomeo Bitti in Peru, the contributors highlight lesser known "reforms" of art from outside the conventional centers. As the first text to cover this formative period from an international perspective, this volume casts new light on the aftermath of the Renaissance and the beginnings of "Baroque."

This volume brings together the latest scholarship on the principal issues treated at the Council of Trent, including how the Roman Catholic Church formulated its teaching on topics such as the relationship between Scritpure and Tradition, original sin, justification, the sacraments, sacred images, sacred music, and the training of the clergy.

After an extensive introduction that takes stock of the relevant research literature on Old Age in the Middle Ages and the early modern age, the contributors discuss the phenomenon of old age in many different fields of late antique, medieval, and early modern literature, history, and art history. Both Beowulf and the Hildebrandslied, both Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and Titurel, both the figure of Merlin and the trans-European tradition of Perceval/Peredur/Parzival, then the figure of the vetula in a variety of medieval French, English, and Spanish texts, and of the Old Man in The Stricker's Daniel, both the treatment of old age in Langland's Piers the Plowman and in Jean Gerson's sermons are dealt with. Other aspects involve late-antique epistolary literature, early modern French farce in light of Disability Studies, the social role of old, impotent men in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlandish paintings, and the scientific discourse of old age and health since the 1500s. The discourse of Old Age proves to have been of central importance throughout the ages, so the critical examination of the issues involved sheds intriguing light on the cultural history from late antiquity to the seventeenth century.

Focusing on artists and architectural complexes which until now have eluded scholarly attention in English-language publications, Apostolic Iconography and Florentine Confraternities in the Age of Reform examines through their art programs three different confraternal organizations in Florence at a crucial moment in their histories. Each of the organizations that forms the basis for this study oversaw renovations that included decorative programs centered on the apostles. At the complex of Ges? Pellegrino a fresco cycle represents the apostles in their roles as Christ?s disciples and proselytizers. At the oratory of the company of Santissima Annunziata a series of frescoes shows their martyrdoms, the terrible price the apostles paid for their mission and their faith. At the oratory of San Giovanni Battista detta dello Scalzo a sculptural program of the apostles stood as an example to each confratello of how Christian piety had its roots in collective effort. Douglas Dow shows that the emphasis on the apostles within these corporate groups demonstrates how the organizations adapted existing iconography to their own purposes. He argues that their willful engagement with apostolic themes reveals the complex interaction between these organizations and the church?s program of reform.

In Literature and Artistic Practice in the Sixteenth Century Angela Cerasuolo, art historian and restorer, tracks the technical processes of painting through the cross-analysis of literary texts and works of art. Having traced the critical fortunes of the texts of the authors—Leonardo, Vasari, Armenini, Borghini, Lomazzo—she compares the information on drawing and painting, analysing the specific terminology, and identifying the materials and methods. Central themes of the theoretical debate—‘disegno’, ‘invenzione’, the contrast between ‘prestezza’ and ‘diligenza’, the ‘paragone’—are examined in the light of their relationship with the techniques. On the basis of scientific studies on the technical execution of paintings, works from the Capodimonte Museum, Naples are analysed as case studies.