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A sweeping history of premodern architecture told through the material of stone Spanning almost five millennia, Painting in Stone tells a new history of premodern architecture through the material of precious stone. Lavishly illustrated examples include the synthetic gems used to simulate Sumerian and Egyptian heavens; the marble temples and mansions of Greece and Rome; the painted palaces and polychrome marble chapels of early modern Italy; and the multimedia revival in 19th-century England. Poetry, the lens for understanding costly marbles as an artistic medium, summoned a spectrum of imaginative associations and responses, from princes and patriarchs to the populace. Three salient themes sustained this “lithic imagination”: marbles as images of their own elemental substance according to premodern concepts of matter and geology; the perceived indwelling of astral light in earthly stones; and the enduring belief that colored marbles exhibited a form of natural—or divine—painting, thanks to their vivacious veining, rainbow palette, and chance images.
This volume provides readers interested in urban history with a collection of essays on the evolution of public space in that paradigmatic western city which is Rome. Scholars specialized in different historical periods contributed chapters, in order to find common themes which weave their way through one of the most complex urban histories of western civilization. Divided into five chronological sections (Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, Modern and Contemporary) the volume opens with the issue of how public space was defined in classical Roman law and how ancient city managers organized the maintenance of these spaces, before moving on to explore how this legacy was redefined a...
The Culture of Building describes how the built world, including the vast number of buildings that are the settings for peoples everyday lives, is the product of building cultures--complex systems of people, relationships, building types, techniques, and habits in which design and building are anchored. These cultures include builders, bankers, architects, developers, clients, contractors, craftspeople, building inspectors, planners, and many others. The product of these cultures, which operate building after building, is the built world of cities and settlements. In this book, Howard Davis uses historical, contemporary, and cross-cultural examples to describe the nature and influence of the...
Tracing the history of St. Antoninus' cult and burial from the time of his death in 1459 until his remains were moved to their final resting place in 1589, this interdisciplinary study demonstrates that the saint's relic cult was a key element of Florence's sacred cityscape. The works of art created in his honor, as well as the rituals practiced at his fifteenth- and sixteenth-century places of burial, advertised Antoninus' saintly power and persona to the people who depended upon his intercessory abilities to negotiate life's challenges. Drawing on a rich variety of contemporary visual, literary, and archival sources, this volume explores the ways in which shifting political, familial, and ...
This collection of reprinted essays takes the trends of the author's Music, Patronage and Printing in Late Renaissance Florence (also in the 'Variorum' series) in a somewhat different direction. If the focus there was primarily on archival documents, here it is on the actual music. The starting-point is similar - the rise of the 'new music' for solo voice and basso continuo in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Florence, in particular the songs of Giulio Caccini. But it moves on to broader aesthetic issues crystallized in contemporary theoretical debate and musical practice - not least the rise of aria-based styles - and concludes with a series of studies of Claudio Monteverdi's works for the theatre, including the operas Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (1640) and the ever-problematic L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643).
No detailed description available for "Writing from History".
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1995. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived
Animal Sightings challenges two common ideas about the depiction of animals in early modern European court art: first, that the human figure relegated animals to peripheral and often symbolic roles, both compositionally and conceptually, and second, that the representation of animals during this period was predominantly tied to a growing interest in naturalism derived from scientific study and discovery. Art historian Jodi Cranston considers the diversity of art representing animals common to that time and place, including dogs, stags, falcons, and even insects. She discusses how early modern European courts (primarily in northern Italy, Tyrol, Saxony, and southern Germany, where the prepond...