The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Italy

Cambridge University Press, 2/27/2020
EAN 9781108428842, ISBN10: 1108428843

Hardcover, 454 pages, 28.6 x 22.2 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English

Fifteenth-century Italy witnessed sweeping innovations in the art of sculpture. Sculptors rediscovered new types of images from classical antiquity and invented new ones, devised novel ways to finish surfaces, and pushed the limits of their materials to new expressive extremes. The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Italy surveys the sculptural production created by a range of artists throughout the peninsula. It offers a comprehensive overview of Italian sculpture during a century of intense creativity and development. Here, nineteen historians of Quattrocento Italian sculpture chart the many competing forces that led makers, patrons, and viewers to invest sculpture with such heightened importance in this time and place. Methodologically wide-ranging, the essays, specially commissioned for this volume, explore the vast range of techniques and media (stone, metal, wood, terracotta, and stucco) used to fashion works of sculpture. They also examine how viewers encountered those objects, discuss varying approaches to narrative, and ponder the increasing contemporary interest in the relationship between sculpture and history.

Introduction – making and unmaking sculpture in fifteenth-century Italy Amy R. Bloch and Daniel M. Zolli
Part I. Surface Effects
1. The color white in fifteenth-century Tuscan sculpture Una Roman D'Elia
2. The colors of monochrome sculpture Frank Fehrenbach
3. New light on Luca della Robbia's glazes Catherine Kupiec
Part II. Sculptural Bodies
4. Donatello, Alberti, and the free-standing statue in fifteenth-century Florence Peter Jonathan Bell
5. Francesco di Valdambrino's wood sculpture at the high altar of Siena Cathedral Ashley Elston
6. Sculptural transformations in Quattrocento Italy Megan Holmes
Part III. Sculptural Norms, Made and Unmade
7. The body, space, and narrative in Central and Northern Italian sculpture David J. Drogin
8. Rethinking style in fifteenth-century Italian sculpture Robert Glass
9. Bellano's invention at the Santo Sarah Blake McHam
Part IV. Sculpture as Performance
10. Sculpture and sacrifice Adrian Randolph
11. Illuminated sculpture and visionary experience at the Cardinal of Portugal Chapel in Florence Morgan Ng
12. Tullio Lombardo, Antonio Rizzo, and sculptural audacity in Renaissance Venice Lorenzo G. Buonanno
Part V. Sculpture in the Expanded Field
13. Stucco as substrate and surface in Quattrocento Florence (and Beyond) Yvonne Elet
14. The punch marks on Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise
an intersection of economy and ritual Lauren Jacobi
15. Relief effects in Donatello and Mantegna Henrike Lange
16. Candelabra-columns and the Lombard architecture of sculptural assemblage Michael J. Waters
Part VI. Sculpture and history
17. Jacopo della Quercia's Fonte Gaia Amy R. Bloch
18. Virgil's forge Daniel M. Zolli
19. Quattrocento perspectives on the historical value of sculpture Joost Keizer.