Objects of Virtue: Art in Renaissance Italy Book

You are what you own. So believed many of the most magnificent men and women of Renaissance Italy. This notion that a person's belongings transmit something about their individual history, status and "character" was reappraised in the 15th and early 16th centuries. This book explores the multiple meanings and values of the objects with which families like the Medici, Este and Gonzaga surrounded themselves. It examines the complicated relationships between the so-called "fine arts" - paintings and sculpture - and artefacts of other kinds for which artistry might be as important as utility - furniture, jewellery and vessels made of gold, silver and bronze, precious and semi-precious stone, glass and ceramic. The works explored were designed and made by artists as famous as Pisanello, Mantegna, Giulio Romano and Michelangelo, as well as by lesser-known specialists - goldsmiths, gem-engravers, glassmakers and maiolica painters. Objects of all sorts may tell stories and transmit messages. The ways in which many Renaissance art objects were read were determined by an alliance of interests: on the one hand, members of a wealthy elite were attempting to distinguish themselves from more ordinary mortals through their buying, and on the other, the commentators (often in the pockets of the elite) were both moulding and reflecting their choices. It was not enough that these objects were expensive. Their interpretation was shaped by the study of the glories of ancient Greece and Rome, and scholars worked hard to present the buying of art objects in the best possible light. They could do so only if goods were of the right kind; they had to be magnificent or splendid, while leaving room for the appreciation of their aesthetic qualities and the talent and art of their makers.Read More