In The Painting Career ofPiero di Cosimo (1462-1522), I have sought to assemble a critical, monographic study of Piero's painting oeuvre that presently includes close to fifty works that are either extant or exist only in references and sources. The Florentine painter has historically proven to be among the most elusive artists of the Italian Renaissance and yet acted as a seminal figure in the artistic transitions occurring from the close of the fifteenth century to the beginnings of Mannerism in Florence. My thesis consists of close iconographic and stylistic analyses that have been balanced by archival work and technical examination. The latter involved numerous meetings with restorers in United States and European conservation laboratories. The resulting in-depth study of the physical states of Piero's paintings as objects involving painting technique, working methods and present condition produces some of the most revealing results. My research with original documents and other primary sources in Florence also introduces a number of new discoveries, particularly from the early and middle stages of the painter's life and career. The varied nature of Piero's art calls for a multidisciplinary approach. Combining iconographic, conservational and archival methods, I aim to contribute new insights into several specific areas. These include: a biographical grounding of Piero's life and those of his known patrons; Piero's advances in portraiture; the use of visual narrative forms and literary sources in Piero's mythologies; and the painter's large-scale devotional works. The questioning of past assumptions concerning Piero's work and biography also leads me to consider the larger scope of influence, legacy and modes of transmission between Piero and other contemporary artists. As one of the most important older innovators, living well into the sixteenth century, Piero was a major catalyst for the new generation of highly inventive artists such as Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo, both of whom passed through his studio. It was Piero, however, who proved to be perhaps the most groundbreaking practitioner in the domestic secular painting tradition before his pupils' ascendance.

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Review of The Mapping of Power in Renaissance Italy by Mark Rosen.

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This thesis comprises a study of the Venetian sculptured altarpieces during the period 1460 - 1530. During the course of research a surprisingly large number of examples were identified, many of which have so far received little attention. As well as providing an analysis of individual works, the thesis has the wider aim of examining the sculptured altarpiece as a genre, and hence also of contributing towards a greater understanding of the role of sculpture in Italian Renaissance art and society. The main objectives of study are a) a survey of the chronological and formal development of the altarpieces, b) an investigation of their material and the application of polychromy and gilding, as well as of their manufacture and cost, and c) an analysis of the patrons and their interest in sculpture. The thesis, which draws on various archival sources, further includes an appendix of documents, which illustrates in detail the making of a sculptured altar. A catalogue provides a corpus of the major sculptured altarpieces of the period between 1460 and 1530 which can still be identified. The discussion of the objects accompanied by an extensive photographic documentation. Several altars have been reconstructed through careful reading of the documents. Others, which have not hitherto been published, are reproduced and discussed here for the first time. Rather than providing attributions of individual works on the basis of style, the emphasis lies on the cultural-historical analysis of a genre, and on the assessment of the aesthetic and financial value of sculptured altarpieces and the appreciation of sculpture in Venice in general. Complementing previous studies of Venetian painted altarpieces, the results of research presented here aim to contribute to a fuller composite picture of the art market around 1500, and of the whole artistic environment in Venice of the period.

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The study of Florentine artistic patronage has attracted several approaches over the last three decades, including the exploration of patron-­‐client structures and how the use of art in private and public spheres contributed to shape families’s identity. Building on past research, this work focuses on the art patronage of a prominent, yet overlooked, family, the Vespucci, to whom Amerigo, the navigator who reached the coasts of America in the late fifteenth century, belonged. Although the family’s importance was achieved through a synergy of political, religious and intellectual forces, attention is given to the Vespucci’s engagement with the arts and their key contribution to Florence’s humanistic culture between the years 1470-­1500. The family’s houses and private chapels are analysed, and three artists, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Piero di Cosimo, considered. Combining history, art history, and archival resources, new evidence and interpretations are advanced to ascribe selected artworks -­ controversially believed to be Vespucci commissions - to the private patronage of this Florentine family. Examining the Vespucci’s artistic taste in private and public settings, whilst attempting a reconstruction of partially lost painted commissions, deepens comprehension on the role that domestic and social life played in the creation of art and culture; the family’s force in shaping spaces; and the practice of buying, commissioning, and displaying as a means of signifying wealth, increasing status, and establishing identity. Power seekers, the Vespucci entered the Medici intellectual circles through which they created chains of friendship with prominent families inside and outside of Florence. As questions about shared artistic tastes and the paradigmatic role of the Medici artistic patronage have been the focus of scholarly enquiry, this study of the Vespucci provides an insight into the family’s spreading of new ideas and its interaction with the development of the visual arts. Investigation into the Vespucci’s breadth of interests helps to reframe the current knowledge of Florentine cultural exchanges and to contextualise the family’s influence beyond the geographical discoveries it has been exclusively associated with.

The thirteen essays in this volume demonstrate the multiplicity of connections between learning and politics in Renaissance Italy. Some engage explicitly with Hans Baron's "civic humanism" thesis illustrating its continuing viability, but also stretching its application to prove the limitations of its original expression. Others move beyond Baron's thesis to examine the actual practice of various individuals and groups engaged in both political and learned activities in a variety of diverse settings. The collective impression of all the contributions is that of a complex, ever-shifting mosaic of learned enterprises in which the well-examined civic paradigm emerges as just one of several modes that explain the interaction between learning and politics in Italy between 1300 and 1650. The model that emerges rejects any single category of explanation in favour of one that emphasizes variety and multiplicity. It suggests that learning was indispensible to all politics in Renaissance Italy and that, in fact, at its heart the Renaissance was a political event as much as a cultural movement. "In moving past the constraints imposed by the so-called Baron thesis, the essays in this volume allow for an innovative focus on Renaissance humanism as a set of 'practices' determined more by social structures and networks than by specific historical events. In so doing, a number of these studies open up new areas of scholarly exploration." - Scott Blanchard, Misericordia University / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1149/thumbnail.jpg

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