A354 - Art, Society and Religion in Siena, Florence and Padua, 1280-1400

New Publications:

Have you seen these publications which are all relevant to the course?

Francis Ames-Lewis, Tuscan Marble Carving, 1250-1350, Ashgate, Aldershot and Brookfield, Vermont, 1997 (discussion of the major projects of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century sculptors of marble in Tuscany).

Luciano Bellosi, Duccio: The Maestà, London, Thames and Hudson, 1998 (English translation of an extensively illustrated Italian text on this famous, double-sided altarpiece executed by Duccio for the high altar of Siena cathedral).

C. Jean Campbell, The Game of Courting and the Art of the Commune of San Gimignano, 1290-1320, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1997. In this book-length study, Jean Campbell explores in detail the sources and significance of the late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century frescoes in the council hall and private chamber of the Podestà in the town hall of San Gimignano. Her investigation addresses notions of nobility, personal display and public space, describing how the game of courting coloured urban life during this period.

Joanna Cannon and Beth Williamson, Art, Politics and Civic Religion in Central Italy 1261-1352, Courtauld Research Papers No. 1, Ashgate, Aldershot, and Brookfield, Vermont, 2000. This is a collection of essays by post-graduate students at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. Includes essays on the decoration of the west wall of the Sala del Mappamondo in Siena's Palazzo Pubblico; the sculpted programme of the tomb of Guido Tarlati, Bishop of Arezzo; and the reliquary of the Holy Corporal in the cathedral of Orvieto; it explores some of the ways in which art was used to express, to celebrate, and to promote the political and religious aspirations of those in power in the city-states of central Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Marco Ciatti and Max Seidel (eds), La Croce di Santa Maria Novella, Florence, EDIFIR, 2001 (English translation, Florence, EDIFIR, 2002). This publication marks the return of Giotto's monumental painted crucifix to Santa Maria Novella (the church for which it was made), after a campaign of extensive investigation and consolidation that began in 1987. Generously illustrated with numerous high quality photographs, the book includes reports on the conservation and structure of the paint surface and support, a full dossier of documentary references to the crucifix and an exploration of the religious context of Santa Maria Novella.

Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy. Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies and the Levant, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996 (the influence of the Franciscan Order on the development of narrative in art).

Elvio Lunghi, The Basilica of San Francesco at Assisi, London, Thames and Hudson, 1996. A detailed and well-illustrated survey of the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century painted decoration of both the Upper and Lower Churches of this important Franciscan church.

Hayden Maginnis, Painting in the Age of Giotto: a Historical Reevaluation, Penn State University Press, 1997 (a revisionist account of central Italian painting in the period 1260-1370 with a critical re-appraisal of Duccio's Rucellai Madonna and the powerful influence of the Giotto legacy fostered by Vasari).

Hayden Maginnis, The World of the Early Sienese Painter, Penn State University Press, 2001. A comprehensive account of the economic, social, religious and intellectual world of Sienese artists between c.1260 and 1360.

Anita Fiderer Moskowitz, Italian Gothic Sculpture, New York and Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001. A detailed examination of sculpture produced in a variety of genres and media throughout Italy from c.1260 to the end of the fourteenth century. The book also addresses broader themes of politics, patronage, and piety.

John Richards, Altichiero, Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000. A detailed study of the career and work of this north Italian painter, including his three major projects of fresco painting in Padua.

Marvin Trachtenberg, Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art and Power in Early Modern Florence, Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000. A detailed historical and spatial analysis of the major squares of Florence, all built in the fourteenth century, together with the city's principal buildings.

Jeryldene M. Wood, Women, Art and Spirituality: the Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996 (Franciscan tertiaries and their art).

Diane Finietto Zervas, Orsanmichele: Documents 1336-1452, Documenti 1336-1452, Modena, Panini, 1997 (the documentary evidence for the building and embellishment of Orsanmichele in Florence).

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