Italian

A comprehensive survey of the work of this most influential Florentine artist and teacher Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435-1488) was one of the most versatile and inventive artists of the Italian Renaissance. He created art across media, from his spectacular sculptures and paintings to his work in goldsmithing, architecture, and engineering. His expressive, confident drawings provide a key point of contact between sculpture and painting. He led a vibrant workshop where he taught young artists who later became some of the greatest painters of the period, including Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, and Domenico Ghirlandaio. This beautifully illustrated book presents a comprehensive survey of Verrocchio's art, spanning his entire career and featuring some fifty sculptures, paintings, and drawings, in addition to works he created with his students. Through incisive scholarly essays, in-depth catalog entries, and breathtaking illustrations, this volume draws on the latest research in art history to show why Verrocchio was one of the most innovative and influential of all Florentine artists. Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

The first collection and translation into English of the earliest biographical accounts of Galileo's life This unique critical edition presents key early biographical accounts of the life and work of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), written by his close contemporaries. Collected and translated into English for the first time and supplemented by an introduction and incisive annotations by Stefano Gattei, these documents paint an incomparable firsthand picture of Galileo and offer rare insights into the construction of his public image and the complex intertwining of science, religion, and politics in seventeenth-century Italy. Here in its entirety is Vincenzo Viviani's Historical Account, an extensive and influential biography of Galileo written in 1654 by his last and most devoted pupil. Viviani's text is accompanied by his "Letter to Prince Leopoldo de' Medici on the Application of Pendulum to Clocks" (1659), his 1674 description of Galileo's later works, and the long inscriptions on the façade of Viviani's Florentine palace (1702). The collection also includes the "Adulatio perniciosa," a Latin poem written in 1620 by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini--who, as Pope Urban VIII, would become Galileo's prosecutor--as well as descriptive accounts that emerged from the Roman court and contemporary European biographers. Featuring the original texts in Italian, Latin, and French with their English translations on facing pages, this invaluable book shows how Galileo's pupils, friends, and critics shaped the Galileo myth for centuries to come, and brings together in one volume the primary sources needed to understand the legendary scientist in his time.

Michelangelo: A Reference Guide to His Life and Works cover the life and works of Michelangelo Buonarroti. Michelangelo is considered to be one of the greatest masters in history and he produced some of the most notable icons of civilization, including the Sistine Ceiling frescoes, the Moses, and the Piet at St. Peter's. -Includes a detailed chronology of Michelangelo's life, family, and work. -The A to Z section includes the major events, places, and people in Michelangelo's life and the complete works of his sculptures, paintings, architectural designs, drawings, and poetry. -The bibliography includes a list of publications concerning his life and work. -The index thoroughly cross-references the chronological and encyclopedic entries.

To commemorate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death, world-renowned da Vinci expert Martin Kemp explores 100 of the master's milestones in art, science, engineering, architecture, anatomy, and more.   Leonardo da Vinci was born in the small Tuscan town of Vinci in April 1452. Over the centuries, he has become one of the most famous people in the history of visual culture. Spring 2019 marks the 500th anniversary of his death in May 1519, with exhibitions and events planned across Europe and the United States. This lavishly illustrated volume by Martin Kemp--one of the world's leading authorities on da Vinci--offers a fresh way of looking at the master's work. Kemp focuses on 100 key, broadly chronological milestones that cover an extraordinary range of topic across Leonardo's many fields of discipline: painting, where he brought new levels of formal and emotional grandeur to his works, including The Last Supper and Portrait of Lisa del Giocondo (the "Mona Lisa"); anatomical studies, which are extraordinary for their sense of form and function (Studies of the Optics of the Human Eye and Ventricles of the Brain); engineering marvels, noted for their range and extraordinary visual quality (Gearing for a Clockwork Mechanism and Wheels without Axles and Designs for a Flying Machine); and his progressive engagement with a range of sciences--anatomy, optics, dynamics, statics, geology, and mathematics.