Painting in Renaissance Florence, 1500-1550
"This book overturns longstanding assumptions about the way art evolved in Renaissance Florence. David Franklin challenges the reliability and usefulness of the terms 'High Renaissance' and 'Mannerism', which have been used commonly to describe and define the extraordinary paintings of the Florentine Renaissance. Franklin offers instead a new perspective on the progress and development of art in Florence, structuring his discussion around the lives and works of twelve influential Italian painters of the era.". "The book provides a detailed account of the critical period from about 1500 when Leonardo returned to Florence, to the publication in 1550 of Vasari's first edition of the Lives of the Artists. With penetrating analyses of careers, influences and specific paintings, Franklin isolates two main strands in Renaissance Florentine painting. He brings to light the passionate rivalry between a deeply localized attitude towards art exemplified by Michelangelo and Leonardo and climaxing in the work of Pontormo, and a style influenced by the Roman art of Raphael which Vasari tried with some success to import into Florence. For the former group, life drawing and expressive human form were at the heart of their enterprise, while for the latter, it was superficial narrative arranged for decorative effect. Franklin's unprecedented examination of Vasari's work as a painter in relation to his vastly better-known writings fully illuminates these dual strands in Florentine art and offers us a clearer understanding of sixteenth-century painting in Florence than ever before.". "The volume focuses on twelve painters: Perugino, Leonardo de Vinci, Piero di Cosimo, Michelangelo, Fra Bartolomeo, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio, Rosso Fiorentino, Jacopo da Pontormo, Francesco Salviati and Giorgio Vasari."--BOOK JACKET.
Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.
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What the reading experience may hold
A fuller profile for choosing with more confidence—not just another copy of the preview.
Nonfiction
Use these as starting points rather than limits; the most memorable books often stretch beyond their catalog labels.
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Dark tone · Steady pace
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
A good fit if…
Readers who want a thoughtful experience and enjoy noticing the connections beneath a book’s surface story.
This book's DNA
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Spoiler-Free Emotional Arc
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A quick reading snapshot
Edition facts and catalog signals to help you decide whether this book fits what you want to read next.
- ISBN-13
- 978-0-3000-8399-6
- Language
- English
- Edition record
- OL9551728M
A more thoughtful way into this book
This guide uses the edition details and category signals above to help you choose deliberately. It does not replace the author's work or a full review.
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
Begin with its place in Nonfiction, then notice where the book resists that label.
Read for connection, not completion.
Mark one passage that sharpens the book's central concern and one that complicates it. That tension often reveals more than a quick summary.
Three questions to carry with you
- Whose perspective organizes the story, and whose perspective remains outside it?
- Which sources or lived experiences carry the author’s central argument?
- How does the book change the way you understand its larger subject?
Editorial framework by Wesley Bryan, BookenDeX Founder and Editor.
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